Putting social theory to work: Developing agents-for-change in sport coaching

In recent years, the world of sport has become an increasingly valuable platform to expose and develop awareness in relation to issues of social injustice in society (Dart, 2024). Sport coaches, located at the heart of sports teams and organisations, are in a powerful position where they can become agents-for-change. Doing so requires coaches to develop a critical consciousness where they take issue with and change social justice issues, attitudes and practices (Harris et al., 2024). However, such work is yet to be fully achieved within the sport coaching field. Against this backdrop, in this chapter, we discuss and reflect upon the design and delivery of an undergraduate work-based learning module, which seeks to embrace such a challenge. Through a synthesis of social theoretical perspectives, the module aims to develop student-coaches’ ability to i) critically explore their contexts of work, in terms of challenging problematic norms/practices, with a particular focus on forms of social (in)justice and subsequently, ii) foster opportunities to act in informed ways, by developing inclusive and more morally astute forms of interaction. The chapter describes the module content and assessments and integrates a series of staff reflections to provide an insight into the challenges and successes of supporting student-coaches to become agents-for-change.