ABSTRACT
The author explores some of the assumptions and methods employed in ethnography and examine its use in sport-related research and specifically in coaching-related studies. He aims to explain ethnography utility in researching coaching and offers a remedy to qualitative, but arguably thin, one-off cross-sectional interview research. The few coaching specific studies are referred to examine author perspectives and experiences of researching coaching within an ethnographic framework. Ethnographic sports research includes topics such as examining talent development, experiences in youth sport, the coaching process and social reproduction, and the coach athlete relationship. Fieldwork remains the central methodology in ethnography and involves some form of observation. Participant observation is an omnibus field strategy in that it simultaneously combines interviewing of respondents and informants, direct participation observation and introspection. It is impossible to stay detached from those under study, and it is from these issues that criticisms of ethnography chiefly stem.
