Sport and leisure can be of significant importance for the well-being and social support of children and adolescents with physical disabilities. However, it has been established that organized sport sometimes has a social construction, in that those without disabilities are favoured at the expense of others. The aim of this study was, therefore, to describe conceptions of children and adolescents with physical disabilities about their participation in a sports programme. Using questions based on a holistic view of the human being, 20 children and adolescents were interviewed. The method of analysis used was inspired by phenomenography. Six categories emerged: getting new friends, learning, strengthening one’s physique, becoming someone, experiencing nature and having a good time. The findings show the great diversity of sports participation. Further, the conceptions mirror the difficulty of dividing people into groups and of delimiting important areas. The findings highlight the importance of programmes where actors from different sections of society cooperate. Even if the findings cannot be generalized, they nevertheless demonstrate that physical activity involves many positive factors both at the individual and at the society level.
Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, co-chair of the Senate Public Charter School Caucus in Washington, DC, hosted a forum for education policymakers. It centered on New Orleans-Style Education Reform: A Guide for Cities (Lessons Learned, 2004-2010), a report published by the charter school incubator New Schools for New Orleans (NSNO). Through human capital and charter school development, the report asserts, New Orleans has become a national leader in education reform. In this essay, members of Urban South Grassroots Research Collective, including education scholars and those affiliated with longstanding educational and cultural organizations in New Orleans, reveal that such reform has been destructive to African American students, teachers, and neighborhoods. Inspired by critical race theory and the role of experiential knowledge in challenging dominant narratives, authors draw heavily on testimony from community-based education groups, which have typically been ignored, regarding the inequitable effects of New Orleans' school reform. While the Guide for Cities is used as a sounding board for concerns and critiques, this essay challenges claims that have circulated nationally since 2005ones that laud New Orleans as a model to be followed. This essay also charts the elite policy network that has shaped the city's reform, with NSNO playing a central part, in order to reveal the accumulative interests of education entrepreneurs. A postscript illustrating parent and student resistance to charter school reform in New Orleans reminds urban communities elsewhere that current reforms are not a guide but a threat to those struggling for racial and educational justice.
The overall aim of this systematic meta-literature review was to (1) summarize the findings of review studies focusing on health determinants, (2) give an overview of intervention studies that have been used to facilitate health and lifestyle, and (3) provide recommendations for future studies in health promotion. A literature review, using a meta-method, was conducted to identify health and lifestyle research based on research articles related to health changes. The search yielded a total of 561 unique citations and finally 24 citations remained. Of those, 11 studies focused on health determinants, whereas 13 focused on interventions for health promotion. Results from this meta-synthesis led to four recommendations for the design of future intervention studies. (1) To increase the likelihood of capturing different biopsychosocial aspects of health, researchers from different scientific disciplines should collaborate in the design, implementation, and evaluation of the study. (2) It is recommended to use theoretical frameworks that focus on health determinants in longitudinal studies with a repeated measures design. (3) Studies should involve behavioral interventions. (4) Design face-to-face intervention studies where the participant can interact with other persons.
Parents of children and adolescents with physical disabilities have an important role in strengthening and supporting their children in everyday life. Children and adolescents with physical disabilities do not ordinarily have natural access to club activities, nor do they receive the same support for physical activities as their peers without disabilities. The aim of this Swedish study was to describe parents' conceptions of the influences of participation in a sports programme on their children and adolescents with physical disabilities. The data were collected from 20 parents of children and adolescents with disabilities in the 9-15 year age group through interviews based on a holistic view. The method of analysis used was inspired by phenomenography. Three descriptive categories emerged: achieving good health, being part of a social group and learning a sporting activity. The findings show that the parents regarded sport as a form of health education and as a means for their children to achieve increased participation in society. The findings also show that the learning process was important for empowering the children to influence their life situation.
The development of inclusive tools for Physical Education (PE) is often conducted without involving children as co-developers or viewing education as consisting of heterogeneous target groups, not as individuals with different needs, such as disability. This study forms part of a larger project on innovations from a norm-critical perspective on tools for PE with children and companies as co-producers. The particular focus of this study is to test and evaluate a prototype from a child's perspective, with the specific aim of investigating how participation, inclusion and learning are described in the use and development of a new sports tool in the subject of PE at three schools in Halland, Sweden. The study uses qualitative methods such as interviews, films and participant observations using an intervention approach. The results of the study show that participation and inclusion play an important role in developing and using tools in PE. The study also suggests that participation and inclusion may enhance learning in the development and creative use in classes in which it was necessary for the children to manage challenges and obstacles.
Many children with disabilities face the risk of illness by being excluded from physical education. The purpose of this article is to investigate an open collaborative innovation that can contribute to more inclusive elements in physical education, resulting in a better quality of education for children and youths with a disability. The question asked here is whether performative, bodily, geographical, norm critical and collaborative aspects involved in the use of an innovative aid called Swing Table Tennis (SwingPingis), has any impact on teachers' perception of inclusion and well-being for the children using the innovation. The methods used in this study are interviews of children with disabilities and their physical education teachers, combined with participant observations carried out during classes using the tool. The findings indicate children and teachers perceive the tool as a means to an embodied, creative part of collaboration and involvement during the lesson, as well as in the teaching of the subject Physical Education. Children perceived SwingPingis as an opportunity to get motor training and build bodily capacities to perform, which in turn were reported as a feeling of the joy in movement. Teachers emphasize SwingPingis usefulness and accessibility. It is an asset in teaching as well as enabling and complementing other motor training in teaching.
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