Echoes of Entanglement: Whose Stories Shape Our Understanding(s) of Sport Coaching?
Join us for the 8th International Coaching Conference 2026 (#CRiC2026) at the University of Stirling from Monday 8th – Friday 12th June 2026. Conference Overview The Cluster for Research into Coaching (CRiC) invites submissions for its 2026 conference, Echoes of Entanglement: Whose Stories Shape Our Understanding(s) of Sport Coaching? This conference invites us to (re)think sport coaching as being shaped by the connections between people, place, history, and a series of (un)seen forces. Coaching—and our knowledge of it—is never simply the transmission of knowledge or ideas. Rather, it is developed through our relationships, shared experiences, and the environments in which we live, train, and work. Throughout the conference, we will explore questions such as:-
- Whose stories are these anyway?
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- Whose voices are heard and valued, and whose are overshadowed or overlooked?
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- How do our landscapes—social, cultural, technological, and ecological—shape the ways in which coaching is understood and practiced?
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- Landscapes of Learning and for Storytelling: How place, history, tradition, and culture shape coaching practice(s) and identities.
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- Voices from the Margins: Surfacing overlooked or silenced experiences in coaching, coach education, and coach development (including gender, disability, ethnicity, indigenous, global-south, and socio-economic perspectives).
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- Entanglement Practice(s): Examining the generative relations between human and non-human actors in the (re)production of coaching knowledge.
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- Power, Representation and Authorship: Interrogating who gets to tell stories of and about sport coaching, and their influence on practice, policy, coach education, and coach development.
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- Ethicality: Reflecting on the ethical implications for coaches and researchers working within complex systems of people, place, culture, and technology.
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- Quickfire Presentations: This session features a series of quickfire three-minute presentations, each accompanied by a single slide or image. Running simultaneously across three tracks, presentations will take place in an open-plan communal space with all conference delegates present. Each presentation is followed by up to three minutes of questions, creating a rapid share, move, and chat format designed to be both fun and inspiring. With around 40 presentations in total, this is an exciting and dynamic way to build and support critical sport coaching communities.
- Oral Presentation: 20 minute – Individual presentation of empirical, conceptual, or practice-based work, with the strong encouragement to also produce an accompanying poster or other poster sized (A1 size) visual representation to be displayed online and in-person throughout the conference. In addition, all presenters are invited to contribute to the ‘Quickfire’ sessions.
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- Symposium: 90 minutes (3 coordinated papers: 20-minutes per paper and panel discussion) – Thematically linked papers forming a cohesive session proposal.
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- Poster/infographic/other creative poster-sized (A1 landscape size) visual and quickfire (3mins) presentation: Displayed online and in-person throughout the conference and discussed during a facilitated forum hosted by CRiC facilitators. See example and template below.
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- Pre-conference Workshop: 2.5 hours – Aligned with the conference themes, these workshops provide a space for participants to explore specific questions collaboratively, guided by CRiC facilitators. Formats could include idea development sessions, data collection activities, World Café discussions, or critical analysis of data.
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- Abstracts should include a title, names and affiliations of all authors, and introduce the substance of your presentation (e.g., background, aim, methods, results, and conclusion).
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- Abstracts are restricted to 300 words (not including title, authors, or affiliations).
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- Abstracts should align with CRiC’s aspirations to critically understand sport coaching and its complexity through theoretically informed analyses.
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- The presenting author of the abstract should be the first author of the submission.
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- Abstracts may or may not include published work but should not include proposals for studies.
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- By submitting, you agree to present if accepted and scheduled.
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- Clarity of the focus of the research
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- Alignment to the call for abstracts (i.e., themes)
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- Originality of the research
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- Rigour and ethical conduct of the research
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- Significance of the research for sports coaching practice, policy, or theory
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- Overall, how well does the abstract directly address CRiC’s values and beliefs:
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- CRiC believes research must be informed by a theoretical perspective.
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- CRiC believes research must be communicated in such a way as to be accessible to the broad community of sport coaching scholars.
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- CRiC values interrogative research which engenders debate on issues related to sport coaching theory and practice (e.g., the power relations, the learning context[s], the psychological and social complexity, and the discourse, interactions and exchanges evident in coaching relations and networks).