The Mundanity of Excellence: An Ethnographic Report on Stratification and Olympic Swimmers

Chambliss, Daniel F.

doi:10.2307/202063

Cited by 162 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Auer (1921) believes that practice without such concentration is even detrimental to improvement of performance. On the basis of an extended study of Olympic swimmers, Chambliss (1988Chambliss ( , 1989 argued that the secret of attaining excellence is to always maintain close attention to every detail of performance "each one done correctly, time and again, until excellence in every detail becomes a firmly ingrained habit" (1989, p. 85).…”

Section: Effort Constraintmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance.

Ericsson

Krampe²,

Tesch-Römer³

1993

Psychological Review

6,798

187

5,168

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The theoretical framework presented in this article explains expert performance as the end result of individuals' prolonged efforts to improve performance while negotiating motivational and external constraints. In most domains of expertise, individuals begin in their childhood a regimen of effortful activities (deliberate practice) designed to optimize improvement. Individual differences, even among elite performers, are closely related to assessed amounts of deliberate practice. Many characteristics once believed to reflect innate talent are actually the result of intense practice extended for a minimum of 10 years. Analysis of expert performance provides unique evidence on the potential and limits of extreme environmental adaptation and learning.Our civilization has always recognized exceptional individuals, whose performance in sports, the arts, and science is vastly superior to that of the rest of the population. Speculations on the causes of these individuals' extraordinary abilities and performance are as old as the first records of their achievements. Early accounts commonly attribute these individuals' outstanding performance to divine intervention, such as the influence of the stars or organs in their bodies, or to special gifts (Murray, 1989). As science progressed, these explanations became less acceptable. Contemporary accounts assert that the characteristics responsible for exceptional performance are innate and are genetically transmitted.The simplicity of these accounts is attractive, but more is needed. A truly scientific account of exceptional performance must completely describe both the development leading to exceptional performance and the genetic and acquired characteristics that mediate it. This account must specify the critical differences between exceptional and ordinary performers. It must also show that any postulated genetic differences can be hereditary and are plausible from an evolutionary perspective. Theoreticians in behavioral genetics (Plomin, DeFries, & McClearn, 1990) We thank Peter Usinger and Stefanie Heizmann for their help in the data collection and Catherine Ashworth, Gregory Carey, Robert Crutcher, Janet Grassia, Reid Hastie, Stefanie Heizmann, Charles Judd, Ronald Kellogg, Robert Levin, Clayton Lewis, William Oliver, Peter Poison, Robert Rehder, Kurt Schlesinger, Vivian Schneider, and James Wilson for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article. Helpful suggestions and valuable criticism by Richard Shiffrin on previously submitted versions of this article are gratefully acknowledged.Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to K. Anders Ericsson, who is now at the Department of Psychology R-54, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306-1051. because observed behavior is the result of interactions between environmental factors and genes during the extended period of development. Therefore, to better understand expert and exceptional performance, we must require that the account specify the different environmental factors that cou...

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Section: Effort Constraintmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance.

Ericsson

Krampe²,

Tesch-Römer³

1993

Psychological Review

6,798

187

5,168

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…All of the academic studies of the careers of professional athletes offer engaging narratives which illuminate the worlds of these employees, but sociological readings of their work and lives, with all its reference to subjugation and self-alienation, have been treated with relative complacency -very few moralists of sport ever question athletes' working conditions irrespective of their implications and largely overlooked injustices of power in these athletic occupations: likewise, the effects of, and rationalisations associated with, 'success' and career 'gain' are rarely theorised (Chambliss, 1989). Professional athletes do not offer classic examples of life's underdogs, one concern being that, at least in relation to issues of employment, examinations of 'sport as work' offer very little insight beyond established forms of sociological knowledge.…”

Section: Final Thoughts and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From identification to dis-identification: case studies of job loss in professional football

Roderick

2013

Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health

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Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractTaken from a broader study of the careers of professional footballers, this article uses two player stories of job loss to offer contrasting experiences of cynical dis-identification. I examine how in research on the careers of sports workers athletes so often express discontent yet maintain an apparent dedication and commitment to their craft. In contrast to the overwhelming focus on the construction and shaping of workplace identity, this article introduces the notion of dis-identification to explain how athletes resist coach/managerial domination in an occupation in which high commitment is assumed by expressing cynical and instrumental attitudes to their jobs: cynical athletes dis-identify with dominant cultural prescriptions so as to distance themselves from ideological rhetoric, a process in which subjectivities are 'externalised'. Although cynical athletes may feel like autonomous agents, nevertheless they still perform managerial norms and rituals.

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“…Chambliss (1989) identifies discipline as a key difference between elite and non-elite swimmers. Well-disciplined athletes were a central focus in this study, with coaches noting the importance of athletes complying with their demands:…”

Section: Conformity Among Swimmersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Surveillance and conformity in competitive youth swimming

Lang

2010

Sport, Education and Society

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The Mundanity of Excellence: An Ethnographic Report on Stratification and Olympic Swimmers

Cited by 162 publications

References 7 publications

The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance.

The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance.

From identification to dis-identification: case studies of job loss in professional football

Surveillance and conformity in competitive youth swimming

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