The community inclusion of athletes with intellectual disability: a transnational study of the impact of participating in Special Olympics

Abstract

People with intellectual disability (ID) are often socially excluded from their local communities. Special Olympics aims to promote inclusion through their participation in sport and more recently through their Unified Sports Program. This transnational study, involving nearly 1000 athletes from 10 countries, examined their community participation through individual interviews using a specially developed questionnaire. Comparable data were also obtained from over 200 non-disabled partners in Unified Sports. Athletes involved with Special Olympics reported less inclusion in local communities than their non-disabled partners. However, there was no significant differences in the extent of inclusion experienced by athletes in Unified Sports or traditional Special Olympic activities. In both these settings, athletes and partners who felt more included when participating in sports were more likely to report greater inclusion in local communities. Future research needs to explore the processes through which sport promotes social inclusion and examine the social networks that are created.

KEYWORDS:

• Intellectual disability
• Special Olympics
• unified sports
• international
• community inclusion

Acknowledgements

We are indebted to our co-researchers in Europe for assistance with data gathering: notably Daniela Schwarz and Elke Langbein, Technical University of Munich, Germany; Aura Bota, National University of Physical Education and Sports, Bucharest, Romania; Maciej Wilski and Anna Nadolska, Poznan University of Physical Education, Poland; Amanda Dimech, Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology (MCAST), Malta and Liz Carlin, Ulster University, N. Ireland. Our thanks also to Ashlyn Smith, Special Olympics Inc, Washington DC, for coordinating data gathering in the USA.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.