Exploring activism type in social justice and disability sport: current status and future prospects of the disability social movement

The disability movement developed from an initial stage with emphasis on empowering discriminated people towards a stage with emphasis on enabling human rights. Accordingly, throughout history disabled people have participated in various forms of activism, including sports. Since the establishment of the Paralympic games, disability sport has become a potentially useful platform to raise public awareness on the disability right movement. That is because elite disabled athletes are given much attention in various public spaces (e.g., the media) in comparison to other disabled people. The current study aimed to expand the literature on disabled athlete activism by categorizing the forms of activism that disabled people engage in and identifying commonalities and differences across three sports status levels (elite athletes, retired athletes and non-athletes). Participants were 11 disabled elite athletes, 4 retired athletes, and 6 non-athletes in South Korea. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using narrative analysis with regards to: style and type of activism; consequences of activism; comparison of activism among the three different sports status levels. The results were categorized into ‘Social activism’ (e.g., motivational speech), ‘Scholar activism’ (e.g., research), ‘Political activism’ (e.g., candlelight protest), ‘Sport-based activism’ (e.g., athletes), and ‘Online activism’ (e.g., blog). Compared to non-athlete activism, which focused mainly on political activism, athlete activism focused mainly on social, scholar, and sport-based activism. These findings provide key knowledge of the current status of the sport disability activism movement and, furthermore, provide possible directions of its near-future development

Disabled athlete activism: motivators and barriers to participation in activism among athletes with disabilities in South Korea

Sport and exercise psychology has recently expanded into how it can be utilized to enable social missions, such as investigating athletes who engage social activism. Predominantly, researchers have investigated social activism among elite able-bodied athletes. Recently a small number of scholar have extended the research on athlete activism to a focus upon western disabled elite athletes. However, not only is research still rare on the latter topic, but there is a complete absence of empirical research on social activism among disabled athletes in non-western cultures. This research adopted a cultural sport psychology (CSP) approach to explore disabled athlete activism among South Korean athletes. A CSP lens was used because the Asian philosophy of Confucianism has a strong influence over how South Korean’s engage in social and political issues compare with previous studies based on Western culture. The purpose of this study was to provide insights from athletes who represent a broad continuum of orientations towards engaging in social activism. Thirty respondents of the Activism Orientation Scale were recruited using a maximum variation purposive sampling strategy. Participants were elite and recreational disabled athletes who represented a range of physical impairments and sports type. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews with an auto photography method. The data was analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. Results are discussed in relation to: the type of activism; adoption/rejection of various activist identities; contextually informed activist identities; and cultural sport psychology. Practical suggestions are also offered in relation to sport and social activism

Disabled athlete activism in South Korea: a mixed-method study

Background. Elite disabled athletes have the opportunity to increase awareness on social rights of disable people but, there is no data in non-Western culture on how elite disable athletes can be supported in their social mission. Aims. ① Describe difference between disabled elite athletes and non-athletes for activism orientation in South Korea ② Understand the reasons why/why not disabled elite athletes engage in activism, in comparison to disabled non-athletes in South Kore

Sport and social justice: international perspectives and new horizons in athlete activism research.

Recently, there has been a resurgence of scholarly interest into athlete activism. So far, predominantly, academics have employed a historical perspective to study how elite-level western non-disabled athletes engage in social activism. For example, studies investigating how elite athletes use their profiles to challenge social inequalities. The aim of this symposium is to bring international scholars together to discuss global trends in athlete activism research. Three studies will be presented to demonstrate the widening empirical, methodological, and conceptual scope of athlete activism research. Inhyang Choi will present an qualitative investigation of Koran disabled athlete’s experiences of social and political engagement. Inhyang’s study is underpinned by a cultural sport psychology paradigm with attention to the influence of the Asian philosophy of Confucianism on athlete activism. Then, underpinned by a critical disability studies paradigm, Damian Haslett will present an exploration of recreational and elite Irish Para athletes’ experiences of activism. Finally, Ted Butryn will present an investigation on American high school athletes’ perceptions of Colin Kaepernick and athlete activism within and beyond the NFL. It is our hope that this symposium provides an opportunity to discover new methods of analysis and to encourage inter-disciplinary and cross-cultural research on sport and social justice