Disability awareness through an integrated program of sport education and service-learning

Abstract

Achieving acceptance by peers is one of the successful strategies to stimulate the inclusion of students with special educational needs (SEN) within their class group. Physical Education is one of the areas that offers more opportunities of inclusion. The objectives of this paper are (1) present a didactic proposal that aims to raise awareness about disability through the integration of Service-Learning (S-L) in the Sport Education Model (SEM) using an adapted sport (sitting volleyball); (2) evaluate the perception of the participant teachers; (3) offer improvement proposals for future implementations. 181 students from the third year of Secondary Education (SE) (n = 80) and from the fifth year of Primary Education (PE) (n = 101) participated. The program consisted of the creation of two sports networks formed by two natural groups from SE and two from PE in each of the networks. All the students experienced a SE season at Physical Education in which three S-L actions during recesses were added, with SE students being the service providers. Network members affiliation was promoted through SE characteristics. Awareness was integrated through the simulation of physical disability. The results showed a positive perception of the teachers who highlighted, beside to other benefits, the development of awareness in PE students and of empathy in SE students. Barriers and facilitators are discussed, as well as key aspects to enhance pedagogical goals.