Coaching ethnically diverse participants: ‘Race’, racism and anti-racist practice in community sport

This chapter explores some of the key considerations when coaching participants from diverse ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds. Sport is ideologically loaded with the notion of meritocracy. The emphasis on hard work, talent, and a ‘never give up attitude’ provides a convenient framework to help explain successes and failures – both on and off the playing field. One way to consider the ongoing influence of ideas of ‘race’ in sport coaching contexts is through the concept of whiteness, which has become an increasingly prominent area of analysis in sport research. The dominant position of whiteness can be seen in many sports across the world. In English football, for example, spaces of governance, management, and off-field roles are almost entirely populated by white people. Meso-level factors of sport – related to organisational structures, practices and networks – are also useful to comprehend the importance and power of whiteness.