Beyond the Box: Toward an Ethic of Response-Ability in Coaching Science

The science of coaching has historically been studied through a foundationalist lens. However, considering the numerous contemporary challenges that impact coaching today, the development of alternative positionalities may be warranted. The purpose of this paper is to explore such an alternative by thinking with an ethic of response-ability. First, we provide an overview of the current landscape of coaching science, discussing and critiquing its dominant foundationalist roots. Second, we introduce an ethic of response-ability, showing how a relational ontology holds open possibility by rendering both ourselves and all others capable of expression. Potentiated through the practices and sensibilities of attentiveness and noticing, politeness and curiosity, rendering others capable, openness to encounter, and ongoingness, it functions to resist closures in everyday happenings. We round out by bring life to our theorizing in coaching science through the integration of various examples.