The increasing importance of ‘learning’ by aspirant managers in elite professional football in The United Kingdom: a Bourdieusian perspective

Citation

Morrow S & Howieson B (2015) The increasing importance of ‘learning’ by aspirant managers in elite professional football in The United Kingdom: a Bourdieusian perspective. 15th Annual EURAM Conference, Warsaw, Poland, 17.06.2015-20.06.2015. http://2015.euramfullpaper.org/program/show-event.asp?pid=%7B45F544BA-E11B-4BC6-B203-851D6832A4F8%7D

Abstract
Using Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice, this paper seeks to explore the approaches adopted by aspirant football managers to acquiring the skills and training necessary to undertake a football managerial role. Our evidence suggests that aspirant managers have responded to changes in the field logic – these arising from the business transformation of professional football - by adopting strategies which place increased emphasis on cultural capital, i.e. on engagement with educational discourse. While there is evidence of instrumentality in attitudes to education, our study also emphasises the importance of habitus as an unconscious process, as educational culture is absorbed and embodied by the aspirant managers. This enlightens their actions and encourages them to adopt empowering strategies through which they seek to transform their place in the field. In turn this behaviour encourages greater value to be placed on cultural capital within the particular cultural habitus of the professional football field.

Keywords
Professional football management; Learning; Bourdieu's Theory of Practice