Curriculum for mountaineering, climbing and winter sports instructors in Spain. A critical approach according to key stakeholders

Abstract

ABSTRACT Outdoor physical activities and sports are growing in popularity: number of practitioners and professionals are increasing and number of active sport tourism businesses has multiplied. All these activities have become officialised, have grown into an emerging industry and play a powerful role as an economic driver. Qualified instructors are needed, as well as quality training for these professionals. This study focuses on climbing, mountaineering and winter sports instructor qualifications. Drawing on Bernstein’s framework of the pedagogic device and with a particular focus on marketisation of education and professionalisation of sport, the purpose of this research is to explore the following questions: (a) How do stakeholders perceive the current mountaineering, climbing and winter sports curriculum and what are the main lines of improvement of the curriculum? (b) Does the curriculum meet the knowledge required by instructors in their occupations? And (c) What is the logic and awareness underlying the construction of the curriculum? Following a social-constructivist paradigm, in-depth semi-structured interviews and focus groups were carried out, with a sample of 46 key involved stakeholders. The data coding approach and theme development were done both inductively and deductively and with a latent and semantic focus, following thematic analysis. Participants specify clear lines of improvement of qualifications: stakeholders involved in curricular updating, the general structure of qualifications, admission tests, assessment, internships, model of the teacher and also highlighted some training gaps to be resolved due to qualifications breakdown. It is noted that curriculum updating follows a ‘top-down’ policy demand, that there is a marketisation of the qualifications that is evident in admission tests, assessment and internships. This study provides a critical and in-depth analysis based on the views of a variety of stakeholders that should be taken into consideration for the improvement of the curriculum of climbing, mountaineering and winter sports instructors.