Despite the burgeoning interest in the pedagogical nature of sports coaching (e.g., Cushion, 2018; Nelson et al., 2014), there remains a limited amount of research to aid our understanding of both the act and process of coaching. Having said that, recent engagement with cultural-historical theorists such as Lev Vygotsky and Aleksei Leontiev (e.g. Vinson & Parker, 2019; Jones et al., 2018; Jones et al., 2016) has tentatively developed our understanding of how athletes participate and learn in practices in a more informed manner, rather than simply taking part in ‘implicit pedagogy’ (Bourdieu & Patterson, 1990). Although welcomed, the rich legacy of cultural-historical theory (CHT) remains to be fully interrogated in terms of its potential contribution to coaching research and practice.
The purpose of this special issue, therefore, is to invite contributions that will first; examine the significance of studying sports coaching through a cultural-historical theoretical lens demonstrating its relevance and implications. Second, it is to present these ideas against the backdrop of cultural-historical theory’s philosophical system, namely dialectical materialism. Within a dialectical materialist understanding of humans and the world, collective activity, material and ideational culture (e.g., symbols, language) are central to learning and development (Radford, 2020). By presenting a dialectical materialist view of knowledge, and moving beyond the prevalent objectivist and subjectivist paradigms (e.g., constructivism), the ideas of cultural-historical theorists will be explored as a potential way of enhancing understanding and offering coherent and cogent accounts of learning and development in sports coaching.
