Changing the field of practice: A reflexive pedagogy for student-athletes

This study explores the nature and structure of college student-athletes' experiences, their varied responses to the factors that shape these experiences, and the roles that a reflexive pedagogic practice can play in helping them understand and transform that experience to their benefit. A course, Education 98, designed and co-taught by the researcher and another instructor was the primary site for this study which also utilized conceptual frameworks from sociocultural theory, the sociology of education, and the sociology of sport. Qualitative data was collected and analyzed from written journal entries for the class, transcriptions of in-class discussions and individual interviews, and observations made in academic and athletic settings at the university where the study took place. The study illuminated both the complexities and possibilities of the experiences of student-athletes along with the array and disjuncture of conditions and expectations that they have (and that are placed on them). It further showed ways that these expectations and conditions are experienced differentially across and within race, class, and gender. Finally, it explored how a reflexive pedagogical process could help dissipate and ameliorate key tensions between academics and athletics for college student-athletes while providing them with a greater sense of agency inside of this experience.