Reflexivity and Change in Adaptive Physical Activity

This provocative and challenging book argues for the vital importance of critical self-reflexion in the field of adaptive physical activity (APA).

It makes a powerful case for embracing discussions of the harm caused by ableist assumptions of the ideal body, maximizing capabilities and perfecting normative-based movement that dominate contemporary discourse in APA, and calls for more critical introspection about what APA is, how it is performed, and what might be needed to bring a collaborative relational ethic to this field. The book focuses on two key themes. Firstly, how ableism as a foundational belief system of APA is present in the undergraduate curriculum, professional preparation, professional practice, and organizational policies. Secondly, how to make the comfortable uncomfortable by openly debating the harm that results from non-reflexive (nondisabled) hubris in APA. The goal is to spark an exchange of ideas among scholars, practitioners, and organizational leaders and therefore to shift the paradigm from one of professional expertism to one that centres disability wisdom holders, bringing a fundamental change to how we perform adaptive physical activity.

This book is important, progressive reading for anybody with an interest in adaptive physical activity, adapted physical education, disability sport, inclusive education, the philosophy and ethics of disability and sport, or disability in wider society.

Donna Goodwin is Professor Emerita in the Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation at the University of Alberta, Canada. Her research focuses on bringing to light the literal and metaphorical lives of disabled people as they negotiate the social and cultural impediments to engagement in physical activity and community life. She grounds her teaching philosophy in the need for crucial self-reflexion on taken-for granted pedagogical practices in teacher education and professional service delivery.

Maureen Connolly is Professor of Physical Education and Kinesiology in the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences at Brock University, Canada. Maureen works with qualitative arts-based inquiry, narrative, poetic, and bodily expressive modalities and how these function across scholarly, pedagogic, and other creative outlets. She is a YWCA Woman of Distinction, a university teaching award winner and 3M National Teaching Fellow (2003), and a 2009 Erasmus Mundus scholar. Her teaching and research interests include curriculum, stressed embodiment, dance, and movement education.