Creating sticky cultures: a pedagogical strategy

Jennings, George and Delamont, Sara ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5683-2311 2025. Creating sticky cultures: a pedagogical strategy. Ethnography and Education 10.1080/17457823.2025.2501607

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Abstract

The pedagogic strategies of successful teachers are an important focus for educational research. Successful instructors in martial arts and combat sports earn loyalty and commitment from their students, creating an attractive culture. The paper presents ethnographic data on pedagogical strategies in two educational sites, to demonstrate the empirical and theoretical relevance of the work of Gary Alan Fine. We conducted fieldwork on two groups in the United Kingdom: one learning Historical European martial arts (HEMA) and the other the African-Brazilian dance-fight-game capoeira. These two martial arts change the embodiment of their practitioners, teach tacit and explicit skills, provide a social group, develop safe usage of novel objects, and enable learners to acquire a form of ‘ringcraft’ for contests. Students also learn about the history of their discipline, because among the pedagogic strategies used by the lead instructors are narratives about heroic figures whose beliefs and customs practitioners should emulate.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education)
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, Start Date: 2025-05-08
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis Group
ISSN:	1745-7823
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	2 June 2025
Last Modified:	02 Jun 2025 11:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/178646

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