The Paralympic Movement is widely constructed as part of the global movement for empowering people with disabilities. This chapter critiques this claim by offering an historical overview of the relationships amongst disability and Deaf movements, disability sports movements, and the Paralympic Movement—across a range of global contexts—from the late nineteenth century until contemporary times. I argue that the Paralympic Movement has often acted in contradiction to the three basic principles shared by most disability and Deaf movements worldwide. These principles are centring disabled and Deaf people in decisions that most affect them (i.e., self-determination); reframing disability/Deafness as a social or political, rather than a biological, problem (i.e., politicisation); and actively challenging social structures that perpetuate inequality and oppression (i.e., activism).

Paralympic Games (PG), involving people with disabilities (PWD), are a manifestation of excellence in sport. They show that athletics performed by PWD counts as genuine sport. They also support a wider meaning of the term ‘health,’ understood not just like a utopian state of perfection, but like the ability to realize oneself in the projects and activities of one’s own choosing. Notwithstanding these virtues, PG—in their current form—may paradoxycally reinforce social prejudice against PWD. This is due to the fact that PG and Olympic Games (OG) are now two distinct events. In this article, I argue that PG should be integrated in the OG, just like women’s and ‘minor’ sports, because the separation of PG and OG indicates a morally arbitrary separation between people with and without disabilities. I also propose to remove the word ‘Para-lympic’ because it stigmatizes the sport performed by PWD as an appendix of ‘normal’ sport. Athletes with disabilities deserve special attention because they have special needs; but they also deserve an arena where their excellence is offered to the public, and this arena should not be different from that of normal-bodied athletes. KEYWORDS disabled people; sport; health; Paralympic Games

This paper examines the collaborative-intergenerational efforts, conflict resolution curricula, projects and training activities of non-profit organizations and NGOs— that reflect the values of Olympism—striving to eliminate racism and xenophobia as well as promote gender equity in sports. In this transitional stage of the postmodernist period, practices of social exclusion or underrepresentation due to gender, race, class, religion, sexual orientation, and so forth are socially problematic and theoretically inconsistent. The promotion of new role models and mentors in sports is vital in view of the systematic misinterpretation, or rather, misuse of Olympic values, such as obsessive competitiveness and the increase of violence and racism linked to sport events. Moreover, focusing on commercialization and consumerism are not incentives that reactivate Olympic values. A critical issue addressed, among others, is the democratization of the IOC structures. This paper argues that Peace Education—Olympism adapted into today’s globalized world—be incorporated into future reforms, educational policies and teaching practices in order to raise awareness concerning the core values of peace: pro-social attitudes, reducing ethnic prejudices, respect for diversity, promoting reconciliation, gender equality, non-violent conflict resolution and democratic decisionmaking.

Sir Ludwig Guttman—pioneer of the use of sport in the physical, psychological and social rehabilitation of people with spinal cord injuries—believed competition with able-bodied sportspeople would create a better understanding between the disabled and able-bodied and help the disabled in their social reintegration. Thus, from its earliest days disability sport has been credited with promoting the social inclusion of people with impairments into able-bodied society. Yet, the Paralympic movement (of which Guttman was a founding father), has ironically always been separate from, or at most parallel to, able-bodied sport. Thus sport is not necessarily socially inclusive – it can also be alienating, excluding and disabling. This is because sport is not just a physical activity but is also a powerful social institution. Sport(s) arise out of specific social and historical contexts, thus are often developed in accordance with the interests of dominant social groups and thereby reproduce broad social structures like gender, ethnicity, class and ableism. In the case of the Paralympics, this was primarily the medical profession, rather than the disability rights movement or disability athletes themselves. Though wartime politics and economics also played a defining role, the Paralympic Movement was profoundly shaped by its origins as a form of rehabilitation within the medical model of disability, with a long history of top-down, paternalistic rule, beginning with Guttman. Though sport ritually celebrates physical abilities (as well as male superiority) and thus is imbued with ableism, the sporting arena can also be the site of subversion, challenges or resistance to unequal power relations and even simultaneous reproduction and resistance, thus sports are deeply contradictory and also have the potential to transform culture. The broad question then, for sports sociologists and sports providers alike, is: In what ways does sport reproduce and/or challenge ableism? With this question in mind, and based on the premise that in many ways a sociological understanding of sport is far more powerful in the hands (or minds) of sports providers than that of sociologists, this chapter looks at the role of sport in the lives, not just of the minority of youth with impairments who play sport, but also the majority who do not. In the process it will briefly introduce some sociological concepts including: embodiment, governmentality, medical and social models of disability and hegemonic masculinity. The chapter is organised around several themes – social inclusion, gender and the body/empowerment – and concludes with a consideration of some of the implications for physical educators.

A common refrain in and outside academia is that prominent sports figures ought to engage more in the public discourse about political issues. This idea parallels the idea that athletes ought to be role models in general. This paper first examines and critiques the " athlete as role model " argument and then applies this critique to the " athlete as political activist " argument. Appealing to the empirical political psychological literature, the paper sketches an argument that athlete activism might actually do more harm than good.