Ableism-kritische Perspektiven auf sportliche Fähigkeiten und subjektive Inklusionserfahrungen – Eine qualitative Studie mit Menschen mit Sehbehinderung am Beispiel von Blindentennis und Ski alpin
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Background: Sport is widely regarded as a means of facilitating the inclusion of individuals with disabilities. This also applies to sport for individuals with visual impairments. In this particular context, abilities play an important role. On the one hand, they are a prerequisite for sporting activity. On the other hand, sport is regarded as a medium through which individuals with disabilities may exhibit their abilities and enable individuals without disabilities to perceive and recognize these abilities. This suggests an understanding of inclusion in which abilities play a central role. Given that abilities are frequently positioned in a binary relationship with disability and evaluated accordingly, it is imperative to understand the interaction between inclusion and abilities. However, the literature frequently lacks clarity regarding the specific abilities in question and the methods of their recording and evaluation. The notion of inclusion remains vague in most cases. In a sporting context, the term inclusion often refers to spaces in which athletes with disabilities are integrated. If the term refers to a space, it often remains unclear whether inclusive experiences occur within that space. However, this would be important in order to enable successful inclusion from the perspective of individuals with disabilities. This cumulative dissertation examines the questions mentioned from the perspective of athletes with visual impairments, using the examples of blind tennis and alpine skiing.
Methods: The experiences of individuals with visual impairments are crucial to answering these questions. Therefore, episodic interviews were conducted with six adult blind tennis players and six adult blind alpine skiers from Germany, which were evaluated using Kuckartz's content-structuring qualitative content analysis. An ableism-critical perspective was used to identify the aspects that promote and inhibit inclusion.
Findings: The study participants comprehend athletic abilities in a variety of ways that extend beyond physical fitness and coordination skills. Athletic abilities are recognized as a resource that is applied in everyday life, whether consciously or unconsciously. Furthermore, they used sport to demonstrate their abilities to themselves and their environment. This was perceived as a manifestation of competence and to refute other individuals' deficit ability assumptions. It is evident that abilities exist in a state of tension between the roles of resource and compensatory tool for ableist thinking patterns. Furthermore, the interviews facilitated the reconstruction of diverse individual interpretations of inclusion and to describe their influence on the perception of sporting spaces in a differentiated manner.
Conclusion: This work provides detailed insights into a very specific area of sport and the subjective experiences of individuals with visual impairments in terms of abilities and inclusion. These findings provide a foundation for the subsequent development of inclusive leisure and popular sports. The following five practical recommendations are proposed: a multidimensional evaluation of inclusive sports programmes, inclusive professionalization in sport, school sports as a starting point for inclusive sports activities, increasing the visibility of disability sports, and promoting joint exchanges about sport with individuals with visual impairments.
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Attribution 4.0 International