AUTHOR=Höger Brigitta , Meier Stefan , Giese Martin 

TITLE=“Actually, it's pretty much like normal PE”: reconstructing social hierarchies from the perspective of visually impaired students and their teachers in segregated PE

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Sports and Active Living

VOLUME=Volume 7 - 2025

YEAR=2025

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sports-and-active-living/articles/10.3389/fspor.2025.1582648

DOI=10.3389/fspor.2025.1582648

ISSN=2624-9367

ABSTRACT=PurposeBlind and visually impaired (BVI) students frequently report negative experiences in inclusive Physical Education (PE), often facing social exclusion. Many transfer to special schools, however, research on social inclusion and exclusion dynamics in segregated PE remains scarce. This study examines how BVI students and their sighted PE teachers navigate ability-related social hierarchies in a segregated school in Austria. The investigation is grounded in the concept of ableism and an intersubjective understanding of inclusion.Materials and methodsFollowing Clark's Mosaic Approach, participant-led school tours were conducted along with semi-structured guideline interviews with 19 BVI secondary school students and three sighted PE teachers. Data were analyzed using thematic content analysis.Results and conclusionThe analysis identified three key social hierarchies in segregated PE: (1) the differentiation between sighted students and BVI students, reinforcing the perceived necessity and benefits of segregated PE from both student and teacher perspectives; (2) the differentiation between visually impaired and blind students based on their level of vision, which is embedded in teaching practices and internalized by students; and (3) the differentiation between students' developmental stages as perceived by teachers vs. students' own self-perception, leading to tensions between necessary instructional adaptations and the risk of infantilization. The results illustrate that while feelings of inclusion can be fostered for BVI students in segregated PE by critically dismantling ableist norms of visual abilities, ableist notions can still persist in nuanced, subtle and implicit ways.