“Training, Teaching, Coaching”: Physical Education and Sports Training as a Forerunner of Coaching (1940-1960)

By Serge Vaucelle
English

If the inter-war period was marked in France by the slow development of empirical practices of sports coaching, educational institutions still continue to reserve competitive practice to their senior students (High School). Sport diversity is encouraged, the most intense physical activities are often criticized, scrupulously studied by doctors, while a sports medical control is developed. However, a “sport pedagogy” has gradually emerged within national institutions in charge of thinking about Physical Education (National institute of sports, national high schools, medical institutes…). In these years, theories on “specialized training” are developed: a “Doctrine of Sport Education” has spread (Baquet, 1942; National Institute of Sports, 1946). This doctrine will mark the sport federations and the entire French sports field until the 1970s. The new trend has attempted to bring together disparate conceptions, making possible the cohabitation of various themes: that of Teaching, Learning and Training. However, sometimes vigilances appear related to the accompanying of practitioners (Coaching), although the concept never appears. The context still ignores in part the distinctions between these different functions. The study of theoretical publications (articles in technical and educational journals) published in the years 1940-1950 is able to trace the emergence of this particular dimension of sports training – Coaching.

Keywords

  • training
  • coaching
  • magazines
  • France
  • content analysis
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