‘It’s an experiential thing’: the discursive construction of learning in high-performance coach education

The design and delivery of formal coach education learning opportunities appear to be permeated by taken-for-granted discourses. These discourses exercise a systemised influence on the social construction coaches’ professional knowledge, with potentially problematic consequences. Adopting discursive methodology using discourse analysis, this study explored ways in which facilitators coaches high-performance programme constructed learning. Data were collected over two-year period on-course participant observation (10 days), interviews course (n = 29), document analysis. Findings indicated dominant ‘learning’ as linear, mechanistic unproblematic process occurring independently context, experiential learners, positioned participants anti-intellectual uncritical adopters ‘what works’. functioned reproduce relations power between (the holders knowledge) recipients knowledge). impact these resources are discussed, alongside implications for elite subjectivity practice, order confront legitimate ‘truths’ education.