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24Beyond life-Skills: Talented athletes, existential learning and (un)learning the life of an athleteQualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health 14. 2022.Youth sport is habitually promoted as an important context for learning that contributes to a person’s broader development beyond sport-specific skills. A growing body of research in this area has operated within a life skills discourse that focuses on useful, positive and decontextualised skills in the production of successful and adaptive citizens. In this paper, we argue that the ideological discourse of life skills, underpinned by ideas about sport-based positive youth development, has undul…Read more
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16Beyond life-skills: talented athletes, existential learning and (Un)learning the life of an athleteQualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health 15 (1). 2023.Following developments in educational discourse more broadly, learning discourses in youth sport have been shaped by outcome-based and instrumental goals of developing useful life-skills for ‘successful’ lives. There is, however, a need to expand such traditional understandings of sport-based youth development, which we undertook by exploring existential learning in sport through encountering discontinuity. We conducted in-depth qualitative research with 16 Finnish athletes (seven men/nine women…Read more
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14The thin line: A phenomenological study of mental toughness and decision-making in elite, high-altitude mountaineersJournal of Sport and Exercise Psychology 38 (6): 598-611. 2016.Mental toughness (MT) is a key psychological variable related to achievement in performance domains and perseverance in challenging circumstances. We sought to understand the lived experiences of mentally tough high-altitude mountaineers, focusing primarily upon decisions to persevere or abort summit attempts. Phenomenological interviews were conducted with 14 mountaineers including guides, expedition leaders, and doctors (Mage = 44 years). A content analysis was employed to identify key themes …Read more
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13Abstract The last two decades have witnessed a vast expansion in research and writing on the sociology of the body and on issues of embodiment. Indeed, both sociology in general and the sociology of sport specifically have well heeded the long-standing and vociferous calls ‘to bring the body back in’ to social theory. It seems particularly curious therefore that the sociology of sport has to-date addressed this primarily at a certain abstract, theoretical level, with relatively few accounts to…Read more
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12We have the time to listen’: community Health Trainers, identity work and boundariesQualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health 12 (4): 597-611. 2020.This article contributes empirical findings and sociological theoretical perspectives to discussions of the role of community lay health workers, including in improving the health of individuals and communities. We focus on the role of the Health Trainer (HT), at its inception described as one of the most innovative developments in UK Public Health policy. As lay health workers, HTs are tasked with reducing health inequalities in disadvantaged communities by supporting clients to engage in healt…Read more
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11Surviving the 2015 Mount Everest disaster: A phenomenological exploration into lived experience and the role of mental toughnessPsychology of Sport and Exercise 27 157-167. 2016.The 2015 Nepal earthquake and subsequent avalanche at Mount Everest Base Camp is the deadliest mountaineering disaster to date. This study is novel in exploring the lived experiences of survivors and the role of mental toughness in their psychological responses to the disaster. Design: Phenomenological study. Method: Ten mountaineers, who were on expeditions during the earthquake, participated in phenomenological interviews. Data were analysed inductively and thematically, while strategies to en…Read more
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10‘I guess I was surprised by an app telling an adult they had to go to bed before half ten’: A phenomenological exploration of behavioural ‘nudges’Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health 14. 2021.In recent years, the role of self-tracking technologies has been investigated, debated and critiqued within qualitative research circles. The principal means by which self-tracking technologies seek to promote health-related behaviours and behaviour change is through the use of ‘nudges’. Despite the increasing prevalence of nudge-style modes of body-mind governance, there remains little in-depth qualitative research on people’s embodied responses to this form of behavioural management. The curre…Read more
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Lincoln UniversityProfessor
University of South Wales
PhD, 2004
Areas of Specialization
2 more
Sociology |
Anthropology |
Feminist Phenomenology |
Cultural Feminism |
Analytic Feminism |
Varieties of Feminism, Misc |
Perception and Phenomenology |
Areas of Interest
2 more
Sociology |
Anthropology |
Cultural Feminism |
Feminist Phenomenology |
Materialist Feminism |
Varieties of Feminism, Misc |
Analytic Feminism |