Equity

Individuals participate in sport for different reasons, including as part of a healthy and active lifestyle, to spend time with friends, to compete against themselves or others, to master new skills, and more. A small number of people will go on to represent their country at the elite level (e.g. professional sports, Paralympic Games, Deaflympics, Special Olympics, etc.). ¹⁰

The process from learning and understanding the foundational skills, through participating and competing at different levels, and potentially long-term mastery and success is often referred to as a development pathway or framework. ¹⁰

These types of frameworks can help organisations and individuals understand the process of achieving long-term success. ¹⁰

While traditionally focussed on athletes, development pathways and frameworks can also be applied to other roles in sport, including for coaches, officials, or administrators. ^{11, 12}

Current guidelines on physical activity as well as talent identification and development in sport often do not explicitly consider the different needs and experiences of people with disability. ^{13, 14, 15}

Lack of access to opportunities often starts at young ages, with fewer opportunities to participate in sporting events and activities, including:

• Limited opportunities to participate at school ^{16, 17, 18}
• Lack of accessible sport programs with physical activities that can be done alone often emphasised (e.g. walks, gym/fitness, or dance). ¹⁸
• Short-term programs and initiatives (e.g. non-ongoing grant funding or a research project) that don’t build sustainable pathways or opportunities. ^{18, 19}

Fewer opportunities to participate can lead to lower physical literacy and enjoyment of sport throughout life. By increasing opportunities for people with disability sports can help individuals to start and/or continue their development journeys and to reach their full potential – whether that is enjoying social sport or becoming an elite athlete. ^{18, 19, 20, 21}

To improve pathways and outcomes it is important to shift the perception that people with disability participating in clubs and competitions are odd or inspirational to an everyday, ordinary experience in sport. ^{18, 22}

Some suggestions for how this can be achieved include:

• Increasing disability sport-specific knowledge among physical education teachers, sports administrators, and coaches, including how to train individuals with a disability. ^{16, 22, 23}
• Considering legislative solutions to ongoing participation barriers (e.g. requiring inclusion of students with disabilities in school-based sports). ¹⁶
• Providing equitable financial support for athletes with disabilities to participate in both recreational and competitive sport. ¹⁶
• Challenging ‘ableism’ in clubs and society that frame opportunities for people with disability as ‘too difficult’, ‘not core business’, and likely to impact sustainability and competitive success. ^{22, 24, 25}
• Considering opportunities for reverse integration, where a sport or activity is designed to meet the needs of people with disability but allows participation of people with all abilities, e.g. wheelchair basketball or rugby. This may increase the number of sporting opportunities for people with disability and potentially reduce stigma and misconceptions about disability more generally. ^{26, 27, 28, 29}

The language and images used when talking about people with disability impacts how attractive an activity, organisation, or program is for people with disability. They can also perpetuate harmful stereotypes, and impact how individuals feel (about themselves and others), and how they interact with people and their communities. ^{5, 36, 37}

Improving the quality, quantity, and variety of people with disability represented in all aspects of the media can play an important role in reducing stigma and ensuring that people with disability engaging in all aspects of sport and life shifts from being perceived as odd to ordinary. This includes representations in broadcasting and news outlets, government and non-government reports and campaigns, and local club social media, newsletters, or promotional materials. ^{22, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42}

How the media, research, and other sources portrays and/or frames disability, especially in sport, has often been criticised for focussing on what individuals have overcome (i.e. ‘disability’) rather than who they are or their accomplishments. ^{30, 35, 43, 44}

Several terms have been coined to describe this phenomenon including ‘super-crip’ (i.e. the ‘super’ cripple) or 'inspiration porn'. Advocates argue that portrayals like these may be harmful to the athletes and the broader disability community. They may also fail to engage many people with disability who don’t feel that elite athletes with disability are representative of their own lives and lived experience. ^{45, 46, 47}

Individuals and organisations at all levels can help to improve the ways we talk about disability and help create a more inclusive sport sector and broader society. Some actions that can be taken include, increasing education and training for deliverers of sport and recreation, being accountable for delivering an inclusive environment – not just inclusive rhetoric, and increasing positive representations of people with disability in all aspects of sport. ^{5, 22, 35, 48}

The limited data available on sport or physical activity participation for people with disability has a significant impact on the quality of research or policy development that can be done, especially for specific groups. ^{13, 30, 31, 32}

• The United Nations ‘Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ (2006) Article 31 states that parties (i.e. governments) undertake to collect appropriate information, including statistical and research data, to enable them to formulate and implement policies giving effect to the rights of people with disability. ^{30, 33}
• In 2022, fourteen countries contributed to the first ‘Global Matrix of Para Report Cards on physical activity of children and adolescent with disabilities’. Even among those 14 motivated and engaged countries, only 11 (79%) could provide a grade for overall physical activity, and less than half (45%) of the Report Card indicators could be graded overall. ³⁴
• Between 1999 and 2019, less than 5% of all articles published in the five highest-impact medical journals focused on people with disability, and less than 7% of these addressed physical activity or health. ³⁰

When researching specific populations, it is important to remember the maxim of ‘nothing about us, without us’. Using partnership-based approaches to engage with the users who will benefit or apply the research throughout the process will help to produce findings that are relevant, useful, and useable. ^{30, 35}

There is enormous scope to improve the quality of data and research by, for, and about persons with disability, and therefore the impact and scope of research, policy and program development that can be done to improve participation, health, and wellbeing outcomes for people of all abilities. ^{16, 31, 35}