AIESEP and ICCE (International Council for Coach Excellence) collaborated to organize two symposiums in their respective international conference/congress in 2017. On July 31, in Liverpool (UK), was held the ICCE-AIESEP symposium focusing on ‘Coaching in High School: Models from different countries’ and on November 8-9 was organized the AIESEP-ICCE symposium focusing on ‘Physical education and sport coaching: Links and gaps’. Prof Pierre Trudel (University of Ottawa, Canada) and Marc Cloes (University of Liège, Belgium) coordinated both symposiums. That initiative underlines the close relationships between the research topics of both international organizations and the need for more networking among the sport pedagogy community. During the first symposium, contributions from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Hungary, Portugal, and Singapore helped to develop a model that illustrates the diversity of school sport structures in the world. That model brings out three key variables: educators (from PE teachers to external school coaches), organizers (from schools to clubs, sometimes under the responsibility of school sport federations), and goals (education to sport to education through sport). These variables are related to the central element of the model: the young people who participate in the school sport programs (process of becoming a student-athlete or an athlete-student). The model can be used to guide and encourage the research on school sport. The second symposium provided an illustration of the current research on school sport. The authors discussed (a) the important role played by the culture of the organizations, (b) the potential of school sport to promote positive sportsmanship, citizenship, and the total development of student-athletes, (c) the risks to develop inappropriate behaviors (athletes, coaches, parents, or administrators), and (d) the need to develop better coach education programs. Following these symposiums, we are convinced, more than ever, that the fields of interest that are physical education (AIESEP) and sport (ICCE) can enrich each other.
The resources produced during the two symposiums are available on the AIESEP website (Members’ corner).
Marc Cloes, Marc.Cloes@uliege.be, http://orbi.ulg.ac.be/ph-search?uid=U012570
