Part 3 GLOBAL ISSUES: HARASSMENT AND ABUSE RESEARCH

With regards to sexual relationships with athletes above the age of consent,
opinions ranged from “it would be totally inappropriate” to “it’s a question of civil
liberties.” In general, the coaches expressed holding themselves to a higher
standard of behaviour compared with how they would judge their fellow coaches.
Specifically, some coaches seemed willing to adapt to the pressures generated by
greater awareness of child sexual abuse and the emergence of child protection
policies in sport by reducing opportunities to develop close relationships with
athletes. Coaches also reported that the potential for false accusations, power
imbalances and negative performance consequences influenced their own beliefs
about whether or not a relationship would be appropriate. However, awareness of
career-damaging false accusations and attempts at maintaining civil liberties
contributed to the coaches’ stated reluctance to intervene with other coaches when
suspicions of inappropriate coach-athlete relationships arise.
Role conflict and role ambiguity
As we analysed the data from the focus groups, we became aware that the
problem most relevant to the research participants was not how they constructed
and distinguished appropriate from inappropriate sexual relationships but how child
protection initiatives were affecting their roles as swimming coaches. Following the
grounded theory methodology, 21, 25, 26 we started with a broad focus allowing the
area of concern most important to the coaches to emerge from the data. This core
category was labeled role conflict and role ambiguity to reflect how the coaches
were questioning their role as a coach after the development of child protection
guidelines and increased public scrutiny. The definitions of Kahn and his colleagues
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were used for role conflict and role ambiguity, with the former referring to
conflicting role expectations and the later referring to insufficient information about
role expectations. For example, in one of the focus groups, a coach stated,
There are going to be some athletes that could be very great athletes but
they will fail as athletes, because we will fail them as coaches. Because, we
will not be coaching them as to how they need to be coached with some of
these rules and regulations.
Role conflict and role ambiguity thus became the centre of our grounded
theory paradigm model 21 which provided the structure for reporting the findings from
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