THE ROLE OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND CORPOREALITY IN THE INCLUSION PROCESS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY WITH SPECIAL NEEDS TEACHERS IN TRAINING

Abstract

It was decided to carry out an exploratory study aimed at investigating the opinions of 100 teachers specializing in special educational needs at the University of Naples “Suor Orsola Benincasa”, in relation to the aspect of corporeality and motor education as an essential dimension in the inclusive process to be implemented in the school context. 100 semi-structured on-line interviews were held. It was decided to carry out an analysis of the content of the interviews (Krippendorff, 2013) adopting the Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) as the theoretical and methodological substrate, with specifc reference to the constructivist-epistemological paradigm (Charmaz, 2005). The qualitative analysis was supported by the use of Nvivo software (Richards, 1999). The corpus of the interviews was subjected to content analysis (Krippendorff, 2013). The qualitative analysis of the corpus of the interviews highlights the need for providing postgraduate teachers with more specifc training in the feld of physical education, particularly in its inclusive purpose. While recognizing the importance of physical education in the integral formation of the person, the teachers declared themselves not very competent and, above all, that they would not put into practice actions concerning the motor dimension in their teaching activity