In China, students with disabilities in rural schools not only face disability-related barriers but also structural inequalities arising from the urban-rural divide caused by the household registration system and persistent gender norms. However, how these dimensions intersect remains largely unexplored. This interpretivist study examines how rural physical education teachers perceive students with disabilities, focusing particularly on how disability, gender, and urban-rural identity interact in their perceptions. The study conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 physical education teachers from rural schools in four Chinese provinces and analyzed the data using reflective thematic analysis guided by the theory of intersection. The study found that teachers perceive rural girls with disabilities as being in a uniquely marginalized position. These students are consistently described as becoming 'invisible,' facing a lack of expectations, withdrawal of family investment, and systemic neglect - fundamentally different from the experiences of boys with disabilities or urban students. This invisibility stems not from a simple accumulation of disadvantages but from the interaction between gender norms that exclude girls from physical activities, rural structural constraints limiting resources and training, and disability-related barriers that exacerbate these inequalities. Teachers' own positional awareness, including their gender and rural background, shapes how they perceive and interpret these intersecting dynamics. This study contributes to intersectionality research by demonstrating how urban-rural identity functions as a meaningful dimension of intersectionality and by placing the experiences of rural girls with disabilities at the center of the study. This group is often obscured in both educational practices and research. The findings emphasize that achieving meaningful inclusion requires addressing the structures that create this obscured intersectionality.
This study explores how Chinese adult men narrate their sport participation and how meaningfulness develops across participation trajectories. While school physical education (PE) is often positioned in policy and research as a key foundation for lifelong sport participation, less is known about how school-based experiences are remembered and connected to later engagement in sport. Drawing on an interpretivist qualitative framework, data were generated through semi-structured interviews and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings suggest that meaningful sport participation does not appear from a single moment or educational intervention. Instead, meaningfulness developed gradually through accumulated experience of competence, relational practices, and later interpretive reflection. Participants described badminton as becoming meaningful as it was integrated into everyday routines, social relationships, personal beliefs, and emerging identities. At the same time, secondary-school PE was rarely narrated as a direct source of meaningful sport experiences. Its value appeared more indirect, as an infrastructural condition that provided temporal and spatial opportunities for informal peer-based participation. This research highlights the importance of understanding sport participation as a relational and developmental process across the life course, and suggests that the value of PE may extend beyond formal pedagogical outcomes to include its role in enabling informal participation within everyday school environments.
Background and Problem: Although inclusive physical education (PE) policies have progressed, covert ableism continues to hinder the participation of students with disabilities. Students with disabilities remain marginalized even within ostensibly 'inclusive' settings. The Inclusion Spectrum, the most widely used practitioner framework for understanding such settings, has not been systematically examined through a critical theoretical lens. Without a critical theoretical examination, the Inclusion Spectrum risks perpetuating rather than challenging ableist structures it was designed to soften. This conceptual gap is what this manuscript is hoping to address. Theoretical Framework: This paper applies critical disability theory (CDT) as an analytical lens to examine normalized assumptions in PE. Furthermore, the analysis draws on the social relational model of disability and intersectionality perspectives. Thus, a reconceptualization of the Inclusion Spectrum is presented, with Universal Design for Learning (UDL) offered as a practical pathway for implementation. Conceptual Contribution: We propose three thematic reframings: (1) from individual adaptation to environmental transformation, (2) from ability-based hierarchies to diverse value recognition, and (3) from remedial separation to empowerment spaces. From these reframings, we derive prospective directions for future empirical research. Together, this analysis supports a shift from 'adapted' to 'universal' physical education. Implications: The analysis offers guidance for three audiences: for policy makers, it informs jurisdictions transitioning from medical through social to human rights models in disability sport policy; for practitioners, it positions UDL-informed curriculum design and CDT literacy as central to teacher professional development; and for researchers, it calls for participatory methodologies that center on the voices from students with disabilities. Genuine inclusion thus requires reconceptualizing what counts as ability and whose performance is valued.
This study explores the experiences of diverse Chinese people in community football in England, focusing on the factors that shape social inclusion and the perceived inequalities affecting their participation. While existing research with minorities has largely concentrated on South Asian communities in UK football, the everyday engagement of Chinese people in this context remains significantly under-researched. Addressing this limitation, the study draws on seven focus group interviews with 27 participants of Chinese heritage, aged 18 to 70, residing across Greater London, the South West, South East and the Midlands. Through the lens of Bourdieu's theory of capital, the analysis examines how these forms of capital are (re)produced within the field of community football and how they influence participants' experiences. Participants highlighted issues of accessibility, perceived inequalities and the impact of racialisation. The findings highlight football's dual role as a potential vehicle for social inclusion and as a site where structural inequalities persist within the wider UK sporting landscape. The paper offers research-informed recommendations designed to enhance Chinese community participation and representation in football, emphasising the strategic mobilisation and accumulation of social, cultural and symbolic capital within the sporting field. By addressing the structural barriers that limit access to these forms of capital, the recommendations seek to foster greater inclusion and equity for diverse Chinese participants across various roles in football.
A growing number of young people are attending alternative provision schools, with limited research considering how they, from their perspective, experience this and particularly the subject of physical education (PE). The aim of this unique paper is therefore to (i) spotlight the voices of pupils from alternative provision schools and illuminate their experiences of PE and, in doing so (ii) share the realities of conducting research in such settings. As part of a wider project, we engaged with 25 pupils aged 11-16 from four different alternative provision schools in England. Using a variety of arts-based methods, including (1) write, draw, show and tell, (2) character creation, (3) active mapping and (4) graffiti walls, alongside recorded group interviews, we sought to elicit pupils' experiences, thoughts and perspectives on PE in alternative provision schools. Drawing on narrative analysis, we adopted the position of 'story analyst' and 'storyteller' to (re)present the data in the form of an ethnodrama. This process involved scrutinising the data to identify themes before (re)creating stories through plot setting, characters and dialogue. The subsequent informative and evocative ethnodrama is split into two distinct scenes - 'first contact' and 'on their terms'. We believe the ethnodrama provides a first glimpse into the realities of pupils' experiences of PE in alternative provision settings and offers useful learnings for mainstream PE with respect to what, how and why PE is delivered in alternative provision schools. Similarly, it showcases the realities of conducting research in such settings and the need to be flexible, adaptive and patient when seeking to facilitate and listen to youth voice.
This research explores Chinese Physical Education teachers who have studied abroad, with a focus on their experiences within a globalizing world. The research focuses on their cultural and pedagogical adaptation process, as well as their changes in teaching practices. The research is conducted using a qualitative approach with a focus on meaning-making. Semi-structured interviews are conducted with seven Chinese PE teachers who had studied abroad. The findings from the thematic analysis show that there are four main themes focusing on motivations for studying, challenges faced, cultural adaptation, and impacts on teaching. The research shows that participants are highly motivated to study abroad due to academic as well as cultural exposure. However, they faced a lot of challenges, such as language, cultural and academic challenges. Despite all these challenges, they were still able to come up with a system of adaptation. Based on the findings, it is suggested to incorporate intercultural competence training into teacher preparation programs and providing more robust institutional support for Chinese teachers preparing to study abroad.
Learning has become a central organising principle across contemporary sport and health and physical education (HPE) contexts, where pedagogical reforms emphasise learner agency and reflection. Yet qualitative research reveals a persistent paradox: although learning-centred pedagogies are promoted, the epistemic conditions enabling meaningful participation remain tightly regulated within hierarchical environments. This article argues that this paradox reflects how pedagogical authority is structurally organised rather than a failure of implementation. Drawing on sociocultural learning theory and the sociology of knowledge, and employing a purposive conceptual synthesis approach, we introduce epistemic authority - the socially negotiated legitimacy to interpret and contribute to knowledge - as an analytic lens for examining learning. We propose a framework comprising five dimensions of epistemic possibility and argue that qualitative learning fails not because learners remain silent, but because pedagogical ecologies rarely render speaking epistemically legitimate and safe.
The COVID-19 pandemic forced sport coaches globally to embrace new coaching formats, where utilising digital technologies was considered a 'needs must' method in the absence of face-to-face coaching. These circumstances contributed towards the rise of online/remote approaches where coaching practice is delivered virtually via web-based platforms either synchronously or asynchronously, overcoming logistical, geographical, and financial boundaries. In endurance sports such as running, online/remote coaching existed prior to the pandemic, yet there remains limited understanding of what coaches do within a virtual environment. To address this lacuna, the aim of this research is to explore the experiences, practices, and development of online running coaches. Data were collected via online semi-structured interviews with eight running coaches (five male, three female) who provide online coaching delivery. Following a phronetic iterative approach to data analysis, three themes were constructed: (1) Limited value and instrumental intentions: Becoming a qualified online running coach; (2) Striving to build rapport: Perspectives towards effective running coaching in an online space; and (3) Prescribing training plans, data monitoring, and video feedback: Understanding the everyday practices of online running coaches. The findings reveal that formal coach education is perceived to lack value to online running coaches, with it being suggested that the online coaching space requires further regulation by national governing bodies. Online running coaches outlined the importance of open communication and acknowledged that although building rapport virtually can be problematic, online delivery enables an individualised and bespoke coaching approach. Finally, online running coaches' everyday practices centred on prescribing training programmes while balancing tensions between objective performance data and the subjective perspectives of their athletes. This research advances our understanding of the online coaching environment and lends weight to the recommendation that increased professional learning and development opportunities for coaches who provide online delivery are needed.
