Inclusion and ParaSport

Social inclusion

basic term to understand who gets excluded or included

Exclusion

act of preventing, even temporarily, someone from participation in social relationships and the construction of society

Mainstream inclusion:

 making existing spaces accessible for everyone

Specialised inclusion

programs designed exclusively for disabled people

Reverse inclusion

creative spaces for disabled people that nondisabled people can enjoy

Key Phases of Paralympics

1. Developing the concept (1944–1959): How it all got started.

2. Refining the concept (1960–1975): The impact of an increased understanding of what people with disabilities were capable of within the arena of sport.

3. Broadening the concept (1976–1987): The addition and inclusion of other impairment groups into the Paralympic Games.

4. Institutionalising the concept (1988–date): Cementing the structure and organisation of the Games and the Movement.

Biggest year for paralympics

Barcelona 1992

Strengths of Specialised Inclusion

• Highly trained staff with shared commitment 

• Greater emphasis on environmental accessibility

• Caters to people who couldn’t participate otherwise

• relational/belonging (no one is the odd one out)

• Other traits emerge alongside master status

Weaknesses of Specialised Inclusion

• Little focus on integrating disabled and nondisabled populations

• Often driven by the Person fixing perspective with an emphasis on normalising participants

• Reinforces nondisabled/disabled binary (their sports and our sports)

• Can encourage fragmentation disabled populations (camp for 1 impairment)

• Often run by NonProfits and Charity organisations

Strengths of Reverse Inclusion

• Can succeed where previous mainstream inclusion efforts have failed because of lack of access, support, etc.

• Destigmatizes disabled spaces (not an us vs them)

• Encourages cross-ability friendships

• Better understanding of disability and accessibility

Weaknesses of Reverse Inclusion

• lingering/unspoken stigma can result in low attendance (or attendance by the already converted which defeats the purpose)

• Blurring of the line betweens attendees wanting to help being more support worker than participant

• Complexity of needs may still result in exclusion (appropriate programming for some is boring for others)

Classification System

→ people with different disabilities are put together because they have the same level of “impairment”

→ people who are “too able” can’t compete

→ determined by a panel of medical pros (person fixing perspective because athletes are defined by their impairments and grouped by things they CAN’T do)

Special Olympics Divisioning

• Requires a diagnosis

• Societal fixing perspective (considers how rules and groups can be adjusted to provide a fair and competitive experience)

• Players can move up and down divisions as their abilities improve with practice or decline with age

Variety Village

similar to a YMCA gym that was made in toronto 70 years ago

• started by a disability-support charity organization with disability in mind

• also with integration/inclusion of the whole community in mind.

Centre for Discovery

• Upstate new york 

• network of supportive spaces for living, working, learning and playing for people with intellectual and developmental impairments

• Goal to reduce segregation of people with intellectual disabilities  and have more social inclusion with local community

•  dance halls, walking paths, and a pool for their residents but which were also open to all community member