When sport enhances the life project. Biographies of disabled athletes read through the capability approach.

Author(s):

Simone Visentin(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

18. Research in Sports Pedagogy

Format:

Paper

Session Information

18 SES 07, Reaching the Learner through Meaningful Physical Education and Sport

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-03

17:15-18:45

Room:

B103 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Mark Griffiths

Contribution

It is well known that participation in sport and physical activity can promote positive experiences, well-being and health among children, adults and the elderly (Coakley 2007; Gould & Carson 2008; Lundqvist 2011; Bloodworth 2012).

This positive relation between sport and wellbeing is confirmed by literature on disabled athletes: participating in sport contest, disabled people discover opportunities to sustain different dimensions of personal wellbeing, such as physical and psychological domains, rather than relational empowerment (Jefferies et al. 2012, Bragaru 2011, Martin Ginis 2010).

Starting from this awareness, we approach sport experiences of disabled athletes through a different theoretical perspective, the Capability Approach (C.A.), as this framework, developed by Sen in economic context (1999), has currently found a great success in social and educational debate (Nussbaum 2006, Robeyns 2006, Walker 2006), but there is a lack of outcome about sport and physical activity as educational experience (Silva 2012).

Seeing sport in his educational dimension, we consider It as a mean through which people could enhance their critical thinking, their ability to choice and self-awareness (Biggeri and Santi 2012). In addition, sport as education experience represents a social and cultural process which facilitates the togetherness of peoples (Vaughan and Walker 2012; Stewart 2005).

If health care and educational services work systematically in order to offer disabled people opportunities to experience sports disciplines, they contribute to really expand their freedom to do and to be what have value for them and, simultaneously, they promote new experiences thank to which athletes could discover different capabilities, becoming able to build a life project (Barbuto et al. 2011), as essential base for personal flourishing (Walker 2005).

These conceptualisations need to be examine deeply, through an empirical work focused on this question: how sport experience could sustain an authentic life project, broadening the opportunities a person has to choice to do and to be what has value for him/her? Specifically, we are interested in understanding:

- when, why and thank to those who starts the sport life;

- how change the agonistic and life objectives of athletes;

if dimension of values evolves over time.

Method

We carried out a research following a qualitative approach (Cohen et al. 2011). Specifically, we used a semi-structured interview in order to promote the spontaneous stories of respondents. Before meeting the athletes, we built a thematic map useful to guide the interviewer in the setting. The topics inserted are: - the beginning of sport experience: when, why and how the agonistic practice started; - the aims of sport experience and how they changed over time; - the relation between athletes and trainer; - the relational mood inside the team; - the social and cultural life in the sport club. Twenty-four athletes with a physical impairment are involved: seven are paralimpic athletes, the others are all Comitato Paralimpico Italiano members; we have eight women and sixteen men; five have congenital disability and twenty acquired impairment. Qualitative analyses of data collected was conducted using the scientific software Atlas.ti, and data were codified and analyzed by considering the theoretical framework (C.A.) and the thematic map associated to it. We expected that athletes, at the beginning, had few opportunities to experience a sport. Furthermore, we thought that sport could promote an enrichment of capability set.

Expected Outcomes

Although the data analysis in not concluded, we can already underline some themes emerging by sport stories we met: - at the beginning of their experience, athletes had usually only one specific opportunity to try sports disciplines. This opportunity is represented by a person (that we detailed as “binding agent”), usually an athlete, or a trainer, who encouraged and persuaded them to know sport world making a training; - sport represents a choice to feel self-help experience (Ibrahim 2006), as a mean to enhance personal autonomy; - self-efficacy, in particular for better athletes, increases thank to agonistic successes, reinforcing personal identity as a whole; - as members of a sport club, many athletes commit on projects finalized to promote Paralympic sports and their values, for example at school, in order to disseminate an inclusive culture in the community they live. Even though more detailed data will be available next months, when we will complete interviews analysis, at this moment It seems that sport represents a really opportunity for a flourishing life but no suitable inclusive polices and organizational practices systematically sustain access to this context.

References

Barbuto, R., Biggeri, M., Griffo, G., (2011). Life Project, peer counselling and self-help group as tools to expand capabilities, agency and human rights. Alter, 5, 192-205. Biggeri, M. and Santi, M., (2012). The Missing Dimensions of Children's Well-being and Well-becoming in Education Systems: Capabilities and Philosophy for Children. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 13, 3, 373-395. Bloodworth, A., McNamee, M., Bailey, R., (2012). Sport, physical activity and well-being: an objectivist account. Sport, Education and Society, 17, 4, 497-514. Brady A., & Shambrook, C. (2003). Towards an understanding of elite athlete quality of life: a phenomelogical study. Journal of Sport Sciences, 21, 341-342. Bragaru, M., Dekker, R., Geertzen, J.H.B., Dijkstra, P.U., (2011). Amputees and Sports: A Systematic Review. Sport Medicine, 41, 9, 721-740. Coakley, J. (2007). Sport in society: Issues and controversies (9th ed.). Boston: McGraw Hill. Cohen, L.,Manion, L., Morrison K., (2011). Research methods in education. London: Routledge. Gould, D. & Carson, S. (2008). Life skills development through sport: current status and future directions. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 1, 58-78. Ibrahim, S.S., (2006). From Individual to Collective Capabilities: The Capability Approach as a Conceptual Framework for Self-Help. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 7, 3, 397-416. Jefferies, P., Gallagher, P., Dunne, S., (2012). The Paralympic athlete: a systematic review of the psychosocial literature. Prosthetics and Orthotics International, 36, 3, 278-289 Lundqvist, C. (2011). Well-being in competitive sports – The feel-good factor? A review of conceptual considerations of well-being. International review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2, 109-127. Martin Ginis, K.A., Jetha, A., Mack, D.E., Hetz, S., (2010). Physical activity and subjective well-being among people with spinal cord injury: a meta-analysis. Spinal Cord, 48, 65-72. Nussbaum, M. (2006). Education and Democratic Citizenship: Capabilities and Quality Education. Journal of Human Development, 7, 3, 385-396. Robeyns, I. (2006). Three models of education: Rights, Capabilities and Human Capital. Theory and Research in Education, 4, 1, 69-84. Silva, C.F., Howe, P.D., (2012). Difference, Adapted Physical Activity and Human Development: Potential Contribution of Capabilities Approach. Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, 29, 25-43. Stewart F., (2005). Groups and Capabilities. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities. 6 (2), 185-204. Walker, M., (2005). Amartya Sen's capability approach and education. Educational Action Research, 13, 1, 103-110. Walker, M. (2006). Towards a Capability Based Theory of Social Justice in Education. Journal of Education Policy, 21, 2, 163-185.

Author Information

Simone Visentin (presenting / submitting)

University of Padova, Italy

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