African American Males and Learning: What Discourse in Sports Offers Schooling

This research investigates language use in a youth basketball program of a neighborhood‐based organization and compares it to features of classroom discourse. The central focus is on a key communicative event, the “coaches circle,” where significant verbal exchanges between children and adults occur. Coach‐player interactions are also contextualized in the mentoring perspective of the program's coaches council. Implications are drawn for extending the teacher‐as‐coach school‐reform model based on considerations of language development and learning in this community sports setting.