Framing pedagogic relations within the boundaries of Foundation Degree Sport and Coaching qualifications

ABSTRACT

Changes to the relations between sport-education and employment labour markets have resulted in the increasing diversity of how academic and vocational skills, knowledge and practices are valued within the micro-level of qualifications. The implications of this are particularly felt by further education (FE) sport-lecturers in the UK, who are required to select, transform and transmit messages from both vocational education policy and the sport-industry sectors. To illustrate the implications of these changing relations, the paper offers insight into the experiences of one FE sport-lecturer, Janet (all names are pseudonyms), who, as part of her professional development, engaged within a process of reflective practice that focused on her pedagogic interactions within a Foundation Degree in Sport Coaching (FdSC). Drawing upon a Bernsteinian informed analysis we illustrate how Janet attempted to use a range of pedagogical strategies to frame the selection, transmission and evaluation of academic skills. This process supported students to begin recognising the value of academic skills and assimilate these with the more established vocational skills within the FdSC qualification. The experiences of Janet are then used as a starting point from which to discuss how the possibilities of change to pedagogic relations within the FdSC may be encouraged, developed and enacted across the vocational sport-education sector. We suggest that institutions and stakeholders responsible for shaping higher education sport-qualifications should consider how lecturers are supported in the framing of pedagogical relations that enable academic skills and practices to be integrated and valued within FdSC curricula.

KEYWORDS:

• Vocational education
• Foundation Degree Sport Coaching (FdSC)
• Bernstein
• framing
• pedagogic relations

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank both reviewers for their purposeful and constructive comments regarding earlier drafts of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 As outlined by Edexcel (2009) the annual contribution of the sport sector to the UK economy is over £8 billion, employing more than 36,000 employers and creating work for more than 600,000 full-time and part-time employees.

2 Students entering the FdSC via the internal-progression pathway had completed BTEC national diplomas. While beyond the focus of the paper to discuss this qualification in detail, a major focus of these curricula were the emphasis placed on vocationally related assessment. As of 2010, the entry requirements of the FdSC, were 180 UCAS points.