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What Happens in the Changing Room, Stays in the Changing Room." Unearthing Bullying, Banter, Teasing and Victimisation in Men's Professional Football

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What Happens in the Changing Room, Stays in the Changing Room. "What happens in the changing room, stays in the changing room." Unearthing bullying, banter, teasing and victimisation in men's professional football. By James Allen Newman A doctoral thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree of Doctor of Education University of East Anglia School of Education and Lifelong Learning October 2019 © J. A. Newman "This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived therefrom must be in accordance with current UK Copyright Law. In addition, any quotation or extract must include full attribution.” Abstract Abstract While positive relationships have received substantial focus within sport and exercise psychology literature, negative relational concepts such as bullying remain under explored. Bullying research continues to favour Olewus' (1993) classic definition, which is based on repetition, intentionality and negative actions based on power differentials, even though it may not be applicable to sport. The lack of an appropriate definition of bullying, coupled with the nature of professional football, where excessive forms of banter and teasing are often tolerated (A. Parker, 2006), suggested this would be an ideal context to further explore the confusion around these terms. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of how male professional footballers conceptualise bullying. In addition, this study sought to explore to what extent bullying in professional football differs from teasing, victimisation and banter. To address this purpose the study was designed and analysed according to the principles of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 professional footballers. Given the focus on bullying within professional football, a contextualist position was adopted, utilising psychological and sociological theories and research to interpret the findings. The findings from this study revealed the contextual theme of 'the football environment', three key superordinate themes in relation to the main research questions such as the 'bullying act', the 'bully and victim' and 'the dividing line', as well as the additional superordinate themes of 'banter and teasing'. Bullying was made up of repetitive, abusive elements, which were based upon power differentials. Despite divergence in the participants' accounts at times, bullying was also seen to be independent of banter and teasing. Overall the findings made a vital contribution to the psychological literature by demonstrating the individually nuanced, contextually dependent nature of bullying, while providing key recommendations for education and welfare programmes in football. ii Table of Contents Table of Contents TITLE PAGE ................................................................................................ i ABSTRACT ............................................................................................... ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................. iii LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................... vi LIST OF APPENDICES ............................................................................ vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................ viii KEYWORDS .............................................................................................. ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................. 1 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................... 5 2.1 Definitions of bullying ........................................................................... 5 2.2 Conceptualising bullying and teasing ................................................. 10 2.3 Conceptualising bullying in sport ........................................................ 16 2.4 The Nature and Outcomes of Bullying in Football .............................. 19 2.5 Research methods used to study bullying in sport ............................. 23 2.6 The Football Environment and Bullying .............................................. 25 2.7 Summary ........................................................................................... 29 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .............................................................. 32 3.1 Research Approach ............................................................................ 32 3.1.1 Phenomenology ........................................................................... 33 3.1.2 Qualitative Research .................................................................... 37 3.2 Participants and Sampling .................................................................. 37 3.2.1 Sampling ...................................................................................... 37 3.2.2 Multi Site Sampling ...................................................................... 40 3.2.3 Site and Sampling ....................................................................... 40 3.3 Methods of Data Collection ................................................................. 41 iii Table of Contents 3.3.1 Interviews ..................................................................................... 42 3.4 Interview Procedures .......................................................................... 45 3.4.1 Interview Guide ............................................................................ 45 3.4.2 Data Collection ............................................................................ 46 3.5 Data Analysis ...................................................................................... 46 3.5.1 Transcription................................................................................. 46 3.5.2 Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) .......................... 47 3.6 Ethical Considerations ........................................................................ 53 3.6.1 Informed Consent ......................................................................... 53 3.6.2 Confidentiality .............................................................................. 54 3.6.3 Anonymity ................................................................................... 55 3.7 Aspects of Trustworthiness ................................................................. 56 CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION ......................................... 60 4.1 Overview of the themes ...................................................................... 60 4.2 The Football Environment ................................................................... 62 4.2.1 Uniqueness of Football ................................................................. 62 4.2.2 Identity of a footballer .................................................................. 69 4.2.3 Institutionalised ............................................................................. 73 4.2.4 Forced Integration ........................................................................ 78 4.2.5 Competition .................................................................................. 80 4.2.6 Education and Welfare ................................................................. 82 4.3 The Bullying Act .................................................................................. 87 4.3.1 Repetitive ..................................................................................... 87 4.3.2 Power ........................................................................................... 90 4.3.3 Emotional Effect ........................................................................... 95 4.3.4 Abuse and Intimidation ................................................................. 98 4.3.5 Single Victim............................................................................... 103 4.3.6 Whistleblowing ........................................................................... 105 4.3.7 The Location of Bullying ............................................................. 112 4.4 The Bully and Victim ......................................................................... 115 4.4.1 Weakness .................................................................................. 115 4.4.2 Nonconformity ............................................................................ 121 4.4.3 Introverted .................................................................................. 122 iv Table of Contents 4.4.4 Extroverted ................................................................................. 124 4.4.5 Anyone ....................................................................................... 126 4.5 The Dividing Line .............................................................................. 130 4.5.1 Perception .................................................................................. 130 4.5.2 Detection (Line) ......................................................................... 134 4.5.3 Bantering .................................................................................... 137 4.5.4 Intentionality ............................................................................... 140 4.5.5 Masculinity ................................................................................. 144 4.5.6 Discrimination ............................................................................
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