Hayley Fitzgerald

Valuing the Voices of Young Disabled People: Exploring Experience of Physical Education and Sport

This article will report on the process of student‐led research as an innovative pedagogical technique for learning more about the physical education (PE) and sporting experiences of young disabled people. The article drawson work fromtwo school based curriculum projects thatsought to work with young people in an empowering manner. We argue that student‐led project work can place value on students voices, promote dialogue between students and teachers and enables students’ to enhance their awareness and reflective capacity.We propose that as researchers we needto rethink our understandingof the research process if we are to support research centralising the voices of young people.

‘Drawing’ on disabled students’ experiences of physical education and stakeholder responses

Within education generally and more specifically physical education inclusion has become a central concern of legislation, policy and programming. Set within an environment where there is much talk of inclusion this paper seeks to interrogate adult stakeholders’ understandings of inclusion by exploring their responses to the drawings and commentary of young disabled students’ experiences of mainstream physical education. By engaging in this research in this way I attempt to ‘connect’ these conversations about inclusion. Four main themes emerged from these data including: (1) ‘activity setting’; (2) ‘enjoying physical education’; (3) ‘challenging practice’; and (4) ‘stakeholder empathy’. In concluding, this paper highlights the contradictory and inconsistent views stakeholders express about inclusion. Furthermore, the utility of adopting a data generation strategy incorporating student drawings and stakeholder responses is reflected upon.

Identity work: young disabled people, family and sport

It has long been recognised that family is an important arena in which sporting tastes and interests are nurtured. Indeed, for many young people the family introduces them to and then provides ongoing support for engaging in sport. Research has also indicated that the family has a significant position in the lives of young disabled people. In this paper we explore the interrelationships between sport, family and disability. Like a number of writers within disability studies we see the benefits of moving beyond a structure/agency dichotomy that currently limits social and medical model understandings of disability. In particular, we draw on the work of Marcel Mauss and Pierre Bourdieu both of whom argued that social life can be better understood by considering the embodiment of individuals through their habitus. We draw on data generated in an interview‐based study with 10 young disabled people to explore the ways in which family contributes to, and mediates, sporting tastes and interests. We consider two key questions: How do young disabled people negotiate relations within the family and in what ways do these relations influence sporting tastes and interests? To what extent are young disabled people able to use sport to generate and convert (valued) capital within the family and other related arenas?

Stories about Physical Education from Young People with Disabilities

This article focuses on young people with disabilities and mainstream physical education in England. Within this context there have been unprecedented levels of funding and resources directed towards physical education in order to support more inclusive physical education experiences for all young people, including those with disabilities. Physical education holds a unique place within the school curriculum; it is a subject area where the physicality of students is publicly exposed to others (including teachers, classmates, and support staff). There are likely to be some tensions around physical education and its relationship with students with disabilities. In particular, it is claimed that physical education was conceived of, and continues to be practiced, in a normative way. By drawing on interview data from three young people with disabilities, non-fictional narratives are used to re-present their identities at the intersections of schooling, physical education and disability. These narratives offer insights about how physical education impacts on various aspects of social life including home, family, friends and other school subjects.

Paralympic Athletes and “Knowing Disability”

This article explores non-disabled young people’s understandings of Paralympic athletes and the disability sports they play. The article examines how society has come to know disability by discussing medical and social model views of disability. The conceptual tools offered by Pierre Bourdieu are utilised as a means of understanding the nature and value of capital afforded to Paralympic athletes and disability sports. Data were generated using interactive focus group discussions with four groups of non-disabled young people from one secondary school in England. The main themes emerging from these data include: different, impaired bodies (“Honestly my gut reaction is yuck, yuck”); legitimising and valuing disability sports (“It’s not a normal sport”); and experiencing (un)valued disability sports (“I’d love to do it”). In concluding, I argue that whilst the 2012 Paralympics offers one vehicle for sporting excellence to be publicly acknowledged and celebrated, sustained efforts beyond this mega-event are needed if athletes with disabilities are to secure parity of status with athletes without disabilities.

Narratives from the road to social justice in PETE: teacher educator perspectives

Developing teacher education programmes founded upon principles of critical pedagogy and social justice has become increasingly difficult in the current neoliberal climate of higher education. In this article, we adopt a narrative approach to illuminate some of the dilemmas which advocates of education for social justice face and to reflect upon how pedagogy for inclusion in the field of physical education (PE) teacher education (PETE) is defined and practiced. As a professional group, teacher educators seem largely hesitant to expose themselves to the researchers gaze, which is problematic if we expect preservice teachers to engage in messy, biographical reflexivity with regard to their own teaching practice. By engaging in self- and collective biographical story sharing about ‘our’ teacher educator struggles in England and Norway, we hope that the reader can identify ‘her/his’ struggles in the narratives about power and domination, and the spaces of opportunity in between.

Girls with learning disabilities and ‘football on the brain’

In this article, we explore the footballing experiences of girls with learning disabilities. We situate our article within an after‐school football initiative that sought to forge a partnership between Bryant Park Special School and Liberty High Specialist Sports College, both based in different suburbs within one city in the north of England. We ask the following question: How are after‐school football initiatives, designed to enhance football opportunities and links between special and mainstream schools, being experienced by a range of stakeholders? In seeking to explore this question, we offer a series of critical non‐fiction narratives that capture the different ways in which a number of girls with learning disabilities, a male football coach and the male head teacher of a special school experience the realities of the football initiative. These tales illustrate not only the practical challenges of attempting to enhance football opportunities but also the theoretical challenges of exploring intersectional discourses concerned with girls, learning disability and girlhood.

‘Last goal wins’: re/engaging women of a ‘forgotten’ age through football?

ABSTRACT This paper explores the physical activity experiences of a group of women based in England, and who are over the age of 30. This particular age group represent a ‘forgotten’ age, that is, they are largely ignored in academic scholarship, policy and physical activity provision. The paper explores how this group of women ‘re/engaged’ in physical activity after a sustained period of inactivity. The study is situated in a weekly football initiative (Monday Night Footy) based in the north of England, managed and organised by a group of women for women to train and play five-a-side football. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews and the use of photo-biographical boards with 11 women, all of whom are regular participants to the football sessions. We use a middle ground feminist lens and Archers notion of ‘fr/agility’ to help make sense of the womens experiences. From these womens stories three key findings emerge: (a) Biographies of (in)activity – the ways in which relationships with physical activity can be characterised by fractures and fissures despite seemingly positive early physical activity experiences; (b) Pathways of re/engagement – the motives and enablers to these women once again participating in physical activity after a sustained absence; and (c) Monday Night Footy as a space for re/engagement – the ways in which this context contributes to these womens continued involvement in football and broader physical activity. The paper concludes by offering policy makers and physical activity providers with some recommendations alongside considerations for future research.

Working towards inclusive physical education in a primary school: ‘some days I just don’t get it right’

ABSTRACT Background: In Aotearoa New Zealand, as it is internationally, there is a desire to ensure physical education is inclusive of all students regardless of their abilities. Yet, medical discourses associated with disability continue to position students who are perceived as not having the capacity to participate fully in traditional physical education programmes as the teacher’s ‘helper’, ‘helped’, or ‘helpless’. As a result, these students may have negative experiences of physical education and this can impact on future involvement in movement-related activities within school and community settings. Methodology: Drawing on the data from a larger critical participatory action research project, we explore how one primary school teacher, Joel, attempted to work more inclusively within physical education. Specifically, we draw from personal journaling, student work and records of dialogical conversations to shed light on Joel’s experiences. Conclusion: Joel’s experience demonstrates that there is not one singular solution to inclusion within physical education and it is a combination of actions that support this process. In Joel’s case, this included becoming a reflexive practitioner, getting to know his students, being receptive as opposed to respective to difference in positive ways rather than seeing this as limiting, working imaginatively to reconsider what constitutes learning in physical education, and sharing ownership for curriculum design and learning with his students. Working in this way illustrates how a multi-layered approach can make a difference to how all the students in a class experience inclusion, including students positioned as disabled.

Gender, physical education and active lifestyles: contemporary challenges and new directions

ABSTRACT The idea for this Special Issue, ‘Gender, Physical Education and Active Lifestyles: Contemporary Challenges and New Directions’ developed from the interest generated by a one day conference held at Leeds Beckett University in September 2017. The conference marked 25 years since the publication of Sheila Scraton’s ground breaking, feminist analysis of Physical Education. As a pivotal text that has contributed to the growth of gender research within the UK and more broadly, it seemed fitting to mark this occasion. The reach of Sheila’s work was perhaps realised through the delegate body. Early career researchers mingled with established scholars from America, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the UK. Building on this conference and a wider call for papers, we are delighted to offer two Special Issues of Sport, Education and Society. The first issue engages explicitly with the challenge of theorising and understanding gendered subjectivities and embodiment across a range of contexts. These papers reflect the diversity of theoretical approaches being employed with some drawing on feminist perspectives, and others using Bourdieu, intersectionality, critical whiteness studies, and masculinity studies. The collection of papers in the second issue seek to examine the different ways in which gender becomes implicated in pedagogical relations and practice. These range from accounts of teachers’ struggles to use critical pedagogies to address gender inequities in PE classes, to analyses of the wider pedagogical ‘work’ of the media in constructing understandings about gender, with several papers exploring these two aspects in combination. We hope you enjoy reading the papers across these two Special Issues as much as we have enjoyed the journey as the editorial team. Collectively the papers raise alternative questions and provide new insights into gender and active lifestyles, and importantly, all seek to make a difference in moving towards more equitable physical activity experiences.