Start Date
18-6-2025 9:00 AM
End Date
18-6-2025 10:30 AM
Body Normativity and Inclusion in Physical Education: A Critical Reflection Through bell hooks' Lens
Abstract
Introduction Inclusive education is politically designed to challenge the oppression faced by disabled students worldwide. We propose an act of transgression that questions established norms in PE for disabled students, through the intersection of bell hooks' reflections and disability studies. This approach explores the similarities between forms of oppression and their legitimized manifestations across marginalized groups.
Methodology Using a post-structuralist approach, we conducted interviews with nine Brazilian teachers to examine the fundamental knowledge and practices of PE in the context of disabled students. The participants' narratives were analyzed interpretively by the lead author, using the theoretical framework of disability studies intersecting with bell hooks' feminist studies.
Results Teachers' discourses highlighted the beliefs and practices that legitimize normative PE, centered around the non-disabled body. Normative PE is socially structured to fit the design and functionality of non-disabled students' bodies, with inclusion often translating into the adaptation of disabled students to the oppressive system that surrounds them.
Conclusions Through bell hooks' lens, the similarities between oppressive mechanisms reveal how the positioning of the non-disabled body as normative in PE shapes discourse and practices that uphold power relations between non-disabled and disabled individuals, reinforcing ableism. In doing so, inclusion in PE has challenged segregation but not ableism. It’s time to question whether inclusion in PE has disrupted the hegemony of the normative body, or if it has adapted the disabled student to an oppressive system that marginalizes them, soothing our conscience while silencing their voices.
Recommended Citation
Tanure Alves, Maria Luiza; Haegele, Justin; Coates, Janine; Giese, Martin; Ruin, Sebastian; and Maher, Anthony J., "Body Normativity and Inclusion in Physical Education: A Critical Reflection Through bell hooks' Lens" (2025). International Symposium of Adapted Physical Activity and International Symposium on Physical Activity and Visual Impairment and Deafblindness. 2.
https://sword.cit.ie/isapa/2025/day3/2
Body Normativity and Inclusion in Physical Education: A Critical Reflection Through bell hooks' Lens
Introduction Inclusive education is politically designed to challenge the oppression faced by disabled students worldwide. We propose an act of transgression that questions established norms in PE for disabled students, through the intersection of bell hooks' reflections and disability studies. This approach explores the similarities between forms of oppression and their legitimized manifestations across marginalized groups.
Methodology Using a post-structuralist approach, we conducted interviews with nine Brazilian teachers to examine the fundamental knowledge and practices of PE in the context of disabled students. The participants' narratives were analyzed interpretively by the lead author, using the theoretical framework of disability studies intersecting with bell hooks' feminist studies.
Results Teachers' discourses highlighted the beliefs and practices that legitimize normative PE, centered around the non-disabled body. Normative PE is socially structured to fit the design and functionality of non-disabled students' bodies, with inclusion often translating into the adaptation of disabled students to the oppressive system that surrounds them.
Conclusions Through bell hooks' lens, the similarities between oppressive mechanisms reveal how the positioning of the non-disabled body as normative in PE shapes discourse and practices that uphold power relations between non-disabled and disabled individuals, reinforcing ableism. In doing so, inclusion in PE has challenged segregation but not ableism. It’s time to question whether inclusion in PE has disrupted the hegemony of the normative body, or if it has adapted the disabled student to an oppressive system that marginalizes them, soothing our conscience while silencing their voices.
