Moral Panic in Physical Education and Coaching

Book excerpt: This book focuses on sports coaching and sports teaching and how touching young sports participants has been redefined as dubious and dangerous. Coaches are constrained by a framework of regulations and guidelines which create anxiety, and many coaches now question the risks and benefits of their continuing involvement. The book includes some data from a recently completed ESRC project: (‘Hands-off’ sports coaching: the politics of touch) and builds on previous ESRC research (Touchlines – the problematic of touching between children and professionals) which illuminated tensions in touching behaviours between professionals and children in education and care settings. It considers the negative effects of particular understandings of risk and moral panic around touching and related behaviours where adults, children and young people interact, and makes a significant contribution to critical discussions around related practice, pedagogy, politics, and policy. While focussed on sports coaching and teaching, it is germane to the situation of all those acting in loco parentis. This book was originally published as a special issue of Sport Education and Society.