Routledge Handbook of Qualitative Methods for Researching Disability in Physical Education

This is the first book to introduce qualitative research methods in the study of disability and physical education. It outlines key concepts and theories in disability and physical education, providing a platform for understanding, before exploring the full range of methodologies and techniques for research, data gathering, and data representation. Written by a team of leading researchers from around the world, every chapter introduces a research theory, approach, method, or tool; provides a critical discussion about how that theory, approach method, or tool has been used or might be used; and offers signposts to future directions for research in that area.

This book explores established research methods and cutting‑edge methods that are being applied to disability and physical education for the first time, from narrative inquiry, ethnography, and action research, to creative nonfiction, sensory methods, and participatory approaches. This book places an emphasis on approaches that consider disabled children and young people as active (rather than passive) agents involved in data gathering, and on ways in which researchers and research participants can utilise data to best represent views toward, and experiences of, disability and physical education.

This is an essential reference volume for any advanced student, researcher, pre-service educator, in‑service educator, or coach with an interest in disability and physical education.

Anthony J. Maher is the Director of Research and Professor of Special Educational Needs, Disability and Inclusion in the Carnegie School of Education at Leeds Beckett University, UK. His research is sociological, philosophical, and psychological in nature, using participatory, life history, (auto)ethnographical, and narrative approaches.

Justin A. Haegele is the Colgate Darden Endowed Professor and the Director of the Center for Movement, Health, & Disability in the Department of Human Movement Studies & Special Education at Old Dominion University, US. He is the Immediate Past President of the North American Federation of Adapted Physical Activity, and the Editor-in-Chief for the peer-reviewed publication Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly.

Janine Coates is a Reader in Equity and Inclusion in Physical Activity and Sport at Loughborough University, UK. She also serves as Associate Editor for the peer‑reviewed journal Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly.