The sword of Damocles: autoethnographic considerations of child safeguarding policy in Aotearoa New Zealand

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to extend the small but growing body of global literature on the topic of child safeguarding (CSG) policy in sport and related educational contexts. The authors, all male coaches/educators, offer ‘snapshots’ of the moments in time they each realised their previously unquestioned practices must change in light of shifting societal attitudes to CSG and resulting legislation. Our contributions in this space are two-fold. Firstly, we present an autoethnographic methodology that provides a lens into the challenges confronting pedagogues in sport and related educational contexts. Through this methodology, we broaden the scope of discourse that we deem necessary for future CSG policy direction and operationalisation. Secondly, we explore and include an addition to the dominant ‘duality (dichotomy) of danger’ narrative discourse currently reflected in the literature. We do this by proposing a trichotomy of danger framework for leaders and managers of sport and related educational contexts to consider when plotting this future landscape. Research surrounding the possible implications of CSG policy on practice is critical if educators are to navigate the ‘risks’ of their professions. Although there is a small and emerging body of research on this topic, we, the authors seek to redress the scarcity of research observable in the Aotearoa New Zealand context.

KEYWORDS:

• Defensive pedagogy
• child safeguarding
• sport coaching
• physical education
• autoethnography
• danger

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by University of Auckland.