Lessons learned from Paralympic School Day: Reflections from the students

Paralympic School Day programme

Disability awareness programmes offer an avenue for raising awareness and changing attitudes towards people with disabilities. Published disability awareness programmes focusing on disability sport are often designed for use in a single country and are not research-tested (e.g. Sport Ability: Australia; Ability vs. Ability: Britain; School Project: Belgium; Petro-Canada: Canada). One disability sport awareness programme, Paralympic School Day (PSD) (published by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC)), is designed for use internationally. Furthermore, to the knowledge of the authors, the PSD curriculum is the only published disability awareness programme on which field-based research has been conducted (Liu et al., 2010; McKay et al., 2015; Panagiotou et al., 2008; Xafopoulos et al., 2009). PSD is a multidimensional programme, created to raise awareness and provide a platform for attitude change through education about the Paralympics, individual differences, and acceptance (IPC, 2006).

The PSD curriculum is founded on the overall belief that youth not experiencing a disability will increase their awareness and understanding when they are informed about the lives and actions of persons with a disability, by experiencing a realistic and holistic portrayal of disability sport and athletes who participate in disability sport. In addition, participants are able to challenge and find meaning in their own beliefs and experiences (IPC, 2006). For more information about planning and executing the PSD curriculum, readers are encouraged to view the IPC website (http://www.paralympic.org/the-ipc/paralympic-school-day), as well as the McKay (2013) manuscript on planning and executing the PSD curriculum.

Published research on PSD, which investigates whether contact and exposure to an attitudinal referent has an effect on attitudes, is limited to a few quantitative studies which measure the attitudes of students without disabilities towards the inclusion of peers with disabilities in physical education. This research has focused on measuring attitude alone (McKay et al., 2015) or measuring attitude and gender combined (Liu et al., 2010; Panagiotou et al., 2008; Xafopoulos et al., 2009). Results of these studies are mixed, showing positive changes in attitude (Liu et al., 2010; McKay et al., 2015; Panagiotou et al., 2008; Xafopoulos et al., 2009) as a result of PSD, but not always at a significant level. The impact of gender on attitude change was also mixed, as Xafopoulos and colleagues (2009) found attitudes to be more positive in girls as a result of the PSD awareness intervention; however, other studies (Liu et al., 2010; Panagiotou et al., 2008) had conflicting findings.

Currently, however, research exploring the efficacy of PSD has not utilized qualitative methods. This research paradigm permits researchers to conduct in-depth explorations of the nature and extent to which participants experience a phenomenon (Brantlinger et al., 2005; Haegele and Sutherland, 2015). Utilizing this paradigm, researchers can gain further insight into the perspectives of students towards PSD programmes by conducting in-depth explorations of the ways in which they interacted with the curriculum (Brantlinger et al., 2005). In this way, the researchers are permitted to examine meaning ascribed to experiences as well as salient features that contribute to these feelings (Haegele and Sutherland, 2015). While this research paradigm has not been used in accordance with the PSD curriculum, a large diversity of studies have utilized qualitative methods in inclusive physical education and disability sport research (Bush et al., 2013; Goodwin, 2008; Grenier et al., 2014; Haegele et al., 2017). Utilizing qualitative methods will address a limitation and direction for future research in the most recent quantitative PSD publication (McKay et al., 2015), where the impact was significant but had very small effect sizes and mean differences. In this research, the scores started at a relatively positive position and moved to an even more positive position, and the authors indicated that future research should consider the detail and insight that qualitative research could bring to the analysis of the impact PSD has on student attitudes and perceptions (McKay et al., 2015).

The power of meaningful contact

This study and the PSD curriculum are situated in Allport’s (1954) contact theory. Allport’s contact theory proposes that social contact will improve relationships between members of majority and minority groups. More specifically, Allport asserted that as people come into contact with others who are different from themselves, their prejudiced ideas diminish as they come to understand other people. Contact is a common theme in awareness research in physical education settings, which supports a combination of contact and knowledge acquisition through awareness activities (Hutzler et al., 2007; Liu et al., 2010; Loovis and Loovis, 1997; McKay et al., 2015; Panagiotou et al., 2008; Reina et al., 2011; Xafopoulos et al., 2009).

Allport (1954) specified six categories of variables (quantitative, status, role, social atmosphere, personality, and area of contact) to be considered in prejudice reduction that maximize the probability that shared values and beliefs will be demonstrated and perceived, and will therefore provide the basis for interpersonal interaction. Allport (1954) asserted that meaningful contact is necessary, as personal situations provide the chance for participants to acquire more information about one another and to get to know one another as individuals. Guided by interpretations of contact theory by Fishbein (1996) and Slininger et al. (2000), the current study focused on four specific categories: (a) equal status; (b) community/authority support; (c) pursuing common cooperative goals; and (d) intimate (meaningful) interactions.

The PSD awareness intervention specifically calls for pleasant and meaningful interaction with a Paralympic athlete based on equal-status contact (IPC, 2006). The curriculum recommends that the athlete and the participants have equal and interactive discussions, and provide and receive assistance from one another (IPC, 2006). In addition, PSD activities are purposely created to be cooperative in nature, as students work alongside Paralympic athletes to achieve group goals at the various activity stations. Personal interactions are supported through PSD, as it is designed to include a variety of supported opportunities for personal interactions: (a) to hear an athlete’s story about life experiences; (b) to learn from the athlete about sport as a human right; and (c) to ask questions and gain exposure to the successes and failures of the athlete (IPC, 2006). In addition, if the athlete is able to lead small group cooperative learning activities, increased personal interactions will occur. Finally, school leaders committed to planning and executing the PSD awareness intervention are indicating a level of support for meaningful and purposeful contact with Paralympic athletes. If the school already has a commitment to diversity through programming, values, and expected behaviours, the norm of acceptance is likely already strong. In addition, active participation during PSD by school leaders and teachers helps to establish the expectation of inclusivity and contact, and shows direct support from authority.

The purpose of this study was to seek to understand and describe the experiences of sixth grade students, ages 11 and 12, taking part in the published PSD programme in relation to shaping attitudes and perceptions of disability and disability sport. An assertion paramount to this research was the belief that the impact of the PSD intervention would be articulated at the student level through written reflections with depth and intensity, offering profundities that can only be expressed in the qualitative realm. These profundities will address a limitation and direction for future research in the most recent quantitative PSD publication (McKay et al., 2015).

Research design

To explore how the participants made sense of their experiences in PSD, this qualitative study utilized a phenomenological approach. Phenomenological studies seek to understand and describe the essence of experiences (Moustakas, 1994). Phenomenology enables underlying themes and commonalities in meanings to be understood by offering a descriptive, reflective, interpretive, and engaged mode of inquiry. The phenomenological approach is often hermeneutic because, in order to understand the experiences from the perspective of those being studied, the researchers must interpret the data to seek common understandings (Moustakas, 1994). This concept was further explained by Morphy and Goodwin (2012: 136) who explained that phenomenological studies aim to bring a ‘deeper understanding of the nature and meaning of a phenomenon by describing it as closely as possible to the way in which it was experienced within the context in which it took place. Bringing a deeper understanding and meaning to the impact PSD has on sixth grade students will provide valuable insight and data related to the research question.

Participants and setting

Sixth grade students, ages 11 and 12, from an independent school in a northeastern state in the United States of America were purposively sampled for this study. An independent school is independent in its finance and governance from the local, state, and national government. Fifty-two students across four English classes were invited to participate in the study. English classes were selected as a recruitment site because of recommendations by the head of school for data collection. Gender and other specific demographic information pertaining to the student participants are unavailable due to the nature of the data collection and policies of the independent school. The school enrolled 440 students in total, including 147 students in the sixth grade. Students who attended this school lived in a geographically diverse area, spanning 150 different ZIP codes in three states, and 17% of the student body received financial aid. Less than 1% of the student population is identified as having a physical disability, and none of the participants included in this study had a disability. The treatment of participants was in accordance with the ethical standards of the American Psychological Association. The primary researcher had an established relationship with the independent school, and reached out directly to the head of school to discuss implementing the programme. Permission to conduct the study was granted by the institutional review board at the primary researcher’s university. With the research being conducted at an independent school, the head of school (who is the school’s legally authorized representative) approved the study and labelled it a school diversity programme. Information was sent to parents about the study, including the option to opt their child out of the study. Children who were opted out of the study still participated in the PSD experience as part of the school’s daily educational tasks; however, reflective writing responses were not collected from them.

Paralympic School Day experience

The PSD experience took place at the independent school during three consecutive class periods (periods one through three), and included five stations/activities. Each station was derived from the PSD curriculum (IPC, 2006). Stations included sitting volleyball (PSD activity card 4), wheelchair basketball (PSD activity card 5), class discussion about inclusion (PSD activity card 8), Paralympic games (PSD activity card 16), and athlete story (PSD activity card 18). Students gathered together as a large group for the first station, an athlete’s story, which took place in the school auditorium and featured two Paralympians. Next, students split into four groups of 18 students to rotate through stations two through five. Station one was 40 minutes long, and stations two through five were 18 minutes each. Stations two through five included a wheelchair basketball station led by two Paralympic athletes and members of a local wheelchair basketball team, a sitting volleyball station led by two Paralympic athletes, a Paralympic experience station led by a Paralympic athlete, and a reflection/discussion station led by two school staff members trained in facilitating conversations about diversity. The discussion station used a small group format to discuss inclusion, including discussing the notion of ‘normal’, bringing deeper meaning to the PSD experience. Stations were selected based on time, space, equipment, and the station’s ability to best support the components of contact theory. Station selection purposefully covered the four PSD values: respect for sporting achievement (activity cards 4 and 5), respect and acceptance of individual differences (activity card 8), sport as a human right (activity card 16), and empowerment and social support in sport (activity card 18). Paralympians were recruited to assume the role of lead instructors for all stations, with school faculty members taking part alongside the students or observing the activities. The selection of Paralympians was purposeful, as they were chosen based on their ability to lead and engage sixth grade students, their personal and professional background, and their sport specialty. A mix of male and female Paralympians was chosen, representing five different sport teams. Paralympians met with the lead researcher ahead of time to discuss the PSD activity stations and curriculum, modifications for lesson planning, student-centred developmentally appropriate instruction, and overall expectations.

Data collection

Data for this study were collected in the form of reflective writing responses. Writing is a tool that supports comprehension, where students evaluate understandings, confusions, and feelings about a topic (Bangert-Drowns et al., 2004). Writing responses, such as the reflective writing responses used in this study, help students clarify ideas and relationships between ideas, draw on relevant knowledge and experiences, and consolidate and review new experiences (Walshe, 1987). In short, utilizing reflective writing responses allowed students to make meaning of personal experiences (Bangert-Drowns et al., 2004). Reflective writing responses were collected from each participant during their English class period, one week after the entire sixth grade took part in the PSD programme at their school. One week was selected in order to provide participants with enough time to think about the meaning of their experiences at PSD, but not so much time as to burden them in remembering the characteristics of the event. Participants were asked to respond to the following prompt: ‘Reflect on your PSD experience, including what impacted you the most, what surprised you, and what was challenging for you’. Responses took approximately 20–30 minutes for students to complete and were approximately 150–200 words in length.

Data analysis

After data were collected, a three-step inductive thematic analysis was employed. First, the first author immersed herself into the original data by reading and re-reading the reflective writing responses to develop a deep understanding and familiarity with the content (Smith, 2017). While reading and re-reading, the author conducted a free textual analysis, where units of data of interest in relation to the purpose of the study were bracketed and descriptive and exploratory commentary were recorded on the documents (Boeije, 2010). For example, data units that communicated meaning to the experience (e.g. ‘because of this experience, I realized that disabled people are just like us’; Participant 1) were bracketed. Second, the author reduced each case into constructed themes that communicated the essence of each individual’s experiences. Being an interpretative endeavour, at this point in the analysis themes reflected both the participants’ words as well as the author’s interpretation of those words (Smith et al., 2009). For example, data units and commentary describing participants’ new-found relatedness to individuals with disabilities were reduced into a constructed theme titled ‘just like the rest of us’: participants’ new relatedness to those with disabilities. Lastly, after themes were constructed at the case level, the final step was to search for patterns and connections across participants through constant comparison (Boeije, 2010). Those themes that were identified across participants were presented as constructed themes to the research team, who reviewed the themes to ensure that they were in line with the purpose and framework of the study.

Trustworthiness is the extent to which phenomena represent experiences shared by the study participants (Brantlinger et al., 2005). To ensure trustworthiness, a number of techniques were utilized during data collection and analysis. Rigour (i.e. the completeness of the data collection) was supported by using reflective writing prompts that were inspired by the focus of the study and reviewed by the research team (Yardley, 2000). Particularizability, the extent to which findings can be applied to others in similar contexts or settings, was enhanced in this study by the researchers describing the school setting with thick detail so that readers can determine the degree of transferability to other situations (Brantlinger et al., 2005). Transparency, how clearly the stages of the research process are described, was achieved through explicitly describing the research processes (e.g. participant recruitment, analytic procedures) (Yardley, 2000). Critical friends (i.e. the process of critical dialogue between people) were used to encourage reflexivity in the data analysis process (Smith and McGannon, 2018). After themes were identified by the first author, the second and third authors discussed with the first author alternative explanations and interpretations of the themes based on the data (Smith and McGannon, 2018). Lastly, Yardley (2000) explains that the impact and importance of qualitative research lies in the ability of the authors to communicate the content as interesting and useful. In line with this assertion, the impact and importance of this work will ultimately be judged by those consuming this study.

‘Just like the rest of us’: participants’ new relatedness to those with disabilities

The first theme describes the meaning the participants ascribed to their involvement in PSD and its impact on their perceived relatedness to individuals with disabilities. As the participants interacted with and learned from athletes in a planned and purposeful manner, they came to understand that disability was not synonymous with difference or other-ness, and instead recalled experiencing first-hand the power of contact in learning about traits and characteristics that unite in a common manner. Feelings representing this theme were omnipresent among participant writing responses. For example:

PSD changed the way I thought about disabled people, so I no longer think disabled people are so different and now think they are just like us, with talents. (Participant 40)

Because of this experience, I realized that disabled people are just like us. (Participant 1)

People with disabilities are just as good at doing things as people without a disability. (Participant 3)

I learned that in the end, [individuals with disabilities] were not that different compared to us. (Participant 26)

Although most participants broadly discussed disability sport activities, several participants recalled their experiences with specific sports and activities. For these participants, these experiences allowed them to connect their realities to the realities of those with disabilities who engaged in similar sport skills. For example:

This experience impacted me hugely because all these people with disabilities could play sports like I do. (Participant 4)

I always thought that having a disability stopped you from doing sports, but with a few modifications they can play lots of sports just like us. (Participant 38)

What most surprised me was that one of the Paralympic swimmers actually competes on an able-bodied team. (Participant 35)

The terms ‘disadvantages’ and ‘some people’ highlight these participants’ belief that there were innate differences between themselves and the athletes. Finally, Participant 22 was ‘surprised at how happy they were because if I were disabled like them, I wouldn’t be as happy’. The phrase ‘disabled like them’ inherently draws a line between individuals who are able-bodied and individuals who are disabled.

‘What it means to be normal’: challenging the idealized notion of normal

The second theme refers to the participants’ new understanding, as a result of participating in PSD, of the use and meaning of the word ‘normal’. In essence, the PSD experience demonstrated to the participants that their previous understanding, meaning, and use of the word ‘normal’ needed to give way to a new, more inclusive understanding and use of the word. For example:

Now, when I think of being normal, I think of someone laughing and smiling and having fun; not just people like me, but everyone. (Participant 1)

When I got to interact with people with disabilities, it showed that they were normal people, unlike what our parents teach us. (Participant 5)

While many participants explained a new understanding of the meaning of ‘normal’, several participants indicated that they believed that ‘there is no normal’. This new conceptualization offers a different challenge to the idealized notion of normal that societal norms often project. For example, participants explained that:

Normal is a word that is described in 100 meanings, yet mostly there is no normal. (Participant 11)

It [PSD] really made you think about the fact that there is no normal. (Participant 17)

Additional equivalent quotes included:

I think there really isn’t a normal because everyone is unique in their own way. Because of this, there also is no weird because there is no normal. (Participant 41)

I also learned that there is no normal, everyone is different in their own ways. (Participant 39)

There really is no specific definition of normal, everyone is just different in their own unique way. Your physical features don’t define if you are normal or not. (Participant 15)

‘PSD changed my view of disabled people’: a shift in paradigm

The PSD curriculum was created to provide a platform for attitude change through education and awareness, and to provide participants with an avenue to challenge and find meaning in their own beliefs and experiences. The third constructed theme of this study encompassed the depth at which the PSD experience changed the participants’ attitudes and perceptions towards individuals with disabilities. In essence, these results support the notion that experiencing PSD encouraged a major paradigm shift in regard to their views. This shift was evidenced through numerous quotes from the participants. For example, Participant 34 wrote, ‘This entire day completely changed my view of disabled people’, and similarly, Participant 40 said, ‘Paralympic School Day changed my view of disabled people’. Further emphasizing a shift in perspective, participants noted:

It made me change my perspective towards disabled people for the better. (Participant 52)

This experience made me think of disabled people in a whole different way. (Participant 27)

Participants also wrote about aha moments related to ability, as noted by Participant 2: ‘Before I saw the Paralympians, I never thought that they would be able to partake in any of these sports’. Similarly, participants recalled that:

I learned that people who are disabled are much more capable than I first thought. (Participant 13)

I was surprised to see how people with disabilities can work so hard and be so good at something that people without disabilities can’t. (Participant 23)

Among participants, several experienced unique and meaningful paradigm shifts that were more individualized. PSD is founded on the belief that youth without disability will increase their understanding by experiencing a realistic and holistic portrayal of disability sport and athletes who participate in disability sport (IPC, 2006). Participant 48 shared a story about a best friend from an old school he attended who had cerebral palsy. PSD allowed him to experience shooting a basketball from a seated position, and in turn understand why his old friend could not pass a ball very far or make baskets. He wrote:

What was challenging for me was making a basket from a seated position. I kept on trying to use plenty of force, but I couldn’t do it. Now I know why one of my best friends from my old school couldn’t pass the ball very far or make a basket. She has cerebral palsy, and it affects her in her legs.