Power, discourse, and practice: exploring athlete development as an educational discursive practice in a Norwegian lower secondary sports school

Abstract

ABSTRACT Norwegian lower secondary sports schools offer athlete development programmes that have a dual focus, both on the sports development and the education of student-athletes. Critical analysis of these programmes is vital given that such offerings are shaped by multiple power relations that have both positive and problematic consequences. This qualitative study set within the context of a Norwegian lower secondary sports school seeks to offer novel insights related to how policy and coaching practices for athlete development are informed by broader discourses within a school setting. The study has two main objectives: (a) to explore the discourses that school coaches draw on in their construction of the ‘ideal’ student-athlete, and (b) to investigate the disciplinary potential of the individual-oriented practices utilised to regulate and enforce student-athletes’ adherence to the requisite norms. We have adopted a Foucauldian-inspired theoretical framework to examine the sociocultural construction of particular ‘types’ of student-athletes. The sports programme, we argue, seeks to educate responsible student-athletes who are capable of making rational decisions about their individual training and healthcare. However, this individualised responsibility can be a problematic ideal because it constitutes a form of institutional governance achieved through self-governance. As such, in a school setting, it operates as a way both to encourage and condition the ways in which student-athletes can develop and adapt in creative, meaningful, and appropriate ways.