Dr Yoon Jin Kim MSc, PhD

Dr Yoon Jin Kim

School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences
Assistant Professor in Sport Pedagogy

Dr Yoon Jin Kim is an Assistant Professor in Sport Pedagogy at the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Birmingham. Before joining the School in 2022, Yoon Jin worked as a post-doctoral researcher, conducting two IOC-funded projects on abuse and safeguarding in sport, based at the Institute for Olympic Studies of Korea National Sport University for two years. Her research areas centre on coach/PE teacher socialisation and development, safeguarding in sports coaching and Safe Sport policies and practices in general. Yoon Jin was a secondary school Physical Education teacher for 11 years in Seoul and a competitive swimmer representing South Korea in her teens.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Sports Coaching and Pedagogy, University of Otago
  • MSc in Physical Education (Sport Medicine), Seoul National University
  • BSc in Physical Education, Seoul National University, Summa Cum Laude

Biography

Upon completion of her BSc in Physical Education with Summa Cum Laude at Seoul National University, Yoon Jin started her teaching career as a qualified secondary school PE teacher in Seoul, South Korea, in 2004.

During her teaching career, Yoon Jin was also involved in diverse external activities, such as coach/teacher education, (national) PE curriculum consultancies and government-authorised PE textbook writing. These activities led her to pursue her PhD study at the University of Otago, New Zealand. Her fully funded PhD project investigated high-performance coaches’ socialisation, identities and coaching practices from a micro-sociological lens.

After completing her PhD in 2020, she furthered her research interest in sport coaching and safeguarding and developed two post-doctoral projects funded by the International Olympic Committee’s research grant programmes. She undertook the two projects as a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for Olympic Studies of Korea National Sport University until taking up the post of Assistant Professor at the University of Birmingham.

Postgraduate supervision

Yoon Jin is interested in supervising doctoral research students in the following areas: 

  • Safeguarding in sport/PE settings
  • Coach development (recruitment, education, practices)
  • Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE)
  • PE teacher socialisation and identities 
If you are interested in studying any of these areas of research, please contact Yoon Jin at y.j.kim.1@bham.ac.uk, or for any general doctoral research enquiries, please email: dr@contacts.bham.ac.uk or call +44 (0)121 414 5005.

Research

Research interests

  • Safeguarding in sport
  • International coach migration
  • Coach development
  • Coach/PE teacher socialisation
  • Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE)
  •  Social identities and micro-sociology

Research projects and grants

  • Elite sport coaching and integrity: The fine line between excellence and abuse, PI (2020 IOC Early Career Academics Research Grants, Mar 2020 - Jun 2021)
  • Is Safe Sport incompatible with high performance? Contextualising safeguarding policies within the South Korean elite athlete development system, Co-I (with Dr Minhyeok Tak (PI) and Dr Daniel Rhind (Co-I) at Loughborough University) (2021/2022 Advanced Olympic Research Grants, Aug 2021 - Jul 2022)

Other activities

  • Consultancy for Safe Sport Guidance Development, Korea Sport and Olympic Committee (2022)
  • International level coaching certificate course lecturer, Korea Handball Federation
  • 2022 Revision of PE National Curriculum consultancy, Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluatio

Publications

Kim, Y. J., & Tak, M. (2021). PE teacher selection and employment examination: a reinventive institution within teacher education and socialisation. Sport, Education and Society. DOI: 10.1080/13573322.2021.1979953.

Kim, Y. J., & Dawson, M. C. (2021). Sports reforms, interaction (dis)order and stigma: coaching identities in context. Sport, Education and Society. DOI: 10.1080/13573322.2021.1932456

Kim, Y. J., Dawson, M. C., & Cassidy, T. (2020). Crafting a one-dimensional identity: exploring the nexus between totalisation and reinvention in an elite sports environment. Sport, Education and Society, 25(1), 84-97. DOI: 10.1080/13573322.2018.1555660

View all publications in research portal