‘Why am I putting myself through this?’ Women football coaches’ experiences of the Football Association's coach education process

ABSTRACT

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the provision of formal coach education. However, research has repeatedly demonstrated how coach education has had a limited impact on the learning and development of coach practitioners. To date however, these investigations have avoided female coach populations. Ten women football coaches who had recently completed various association football coach education courses participated in this study. Following the interpretive analysis of 10 semi-structured interviews the findings revealed high levels of gender discrimination and inappropriate cultural practice. The women's experiences are discussed in line with the Bourdieuian notions of social acceptance, symbolic language and power. The women coaches provided a number of recommendations for future coach education provision, which in turn, may help to improve the experiences for those women who participate in the coach education process.

KEYWORDS:

• Sports coaching
• formal learning
• gender inequality
• soccer
• CPD

Acknowledgements

The author(s) would like to acknowledge the women coaches who participated in this study, and for their willingness to speak openly and honestly about their experiences. Finally, the author(s) acknowledges the two anonymous reviewers for their comments and questions, which have undoubtedly enhanced the quality of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.