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Exploring how young women with visual impairments navigate their participation in recreational sport

Regular physical activity is important to improve overall quality of life (WHO, 2011). Improving the physical activity levels of persons with disabilities, however, has not received enough attention. Current global research has focused on identifying barriers that prevent persons with disabilities f...

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Main Author: De Vos, Dellicia
Other Authors: Peters, Liesl
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences 2022
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access_status_str Open Access
author De Vos, Dellicia
author2 Peters, Liesl
author_browse De Vos, Dellicia
Peters, Liesl
author_facet Peters, Liesl
De Vos, Dellicia
author_sort De Vos, Dellicia
collection Thesis
description Regular physical activity is important to improve overall quality of life (WHO, 2011). Improving the physical activity levels of persons with disabilities, however, has not received enough attention. Current global research has focused on identifying barriers that prevent persons with disabilities from participating in recreational sport, but few of these studies were conducted in Africa and even fewer focused on the experiences of women with vision impairments specifically. Further, none of them foregrounded a focus on how participation in recreational sports might be facilitated. This study therefore aimed to explore how women with vision impairments navigate their participation in recreational sports. Narrative inquiry was employed as the study design. Three young women with vision impairments from different communities in the Western Cape, South Africa, were purposely selected. Data was generated in the form of topical life stories and subjected to a rigorous, multi-layered analytic process. This involved ‘narrative analysis' and ‘analysis of narratives' to generate a single overarching theme: “Sport and life as interconnecting circles”. This theme revealed a reciprocal influence between sport and life. Here, ‘life' refers to participation across the broad spectrum of everyday life. The findings revealed that the socialisation of women with vision impairments in their early childhood influenced their ability to navigate their participation in recreational sports. The presence of people as social champions in these women's lives contributed to facilitating the participants' participation in sports and highlighted the importance of the social inclusion of women with vision impairments. The findings call for an embedded way of thinking about the social inclusion of women with vision impairments which allows for an organic evolution of participation in recreational sports. The implication is that sports participation for women with vision impairments would occur naturally and spontaneously if they were included in other spheres of life.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:45:05.713Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2022
publishDateRange 2022
publishDateSort 2022
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publisherStr Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences
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spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/35710 Exploring how young women with visual impairments navigate their participation in recreational sport De Vos, Dellicia Peters, Liesl Lorenzo, Theresa Disability Studies Regular physical activity is important to improve overall quality of life (WHO, 2011). Improving the physical activity levels of persons with disabilities, however, has not received enough attention. Current global research has focused on identifying barriers that prevent persons with disabilities from participating in recreational sport, but few of these studies were conducted in Africa and even fewer focused on the experiences of women with vision impairments specifically. Further, none of them foregrounded a focus on how participation in recreational sports might be facilitated. This study therefore aimed to explore how women with vision impairments navigate their participation in recreational sports. Narrative inquiry was employed as the study design. Three young women with vision impairments from different communities in the Western Cape, South Africa, were purposely selected. Data was generated in the form of topical life stories and subjected to a rigorous, multi-layered analytic process. This involved ‘narrative analysis' and ‘analysis of narratives' to generate a single overarching theme: “Sport and life as interconnecting circles”. This theme revealed a reciprocal influence between sport and life. Here, ‘life' refers to participation across the broad spectrum of everyday life. The findings revealed that the socialisation of women with vision impairments in their early childhood influenced their ability to navigate their participation in recreational sports. The presence of people as social champions in these women's lives contributed to facilitating the participants' participation in sports and highlighted the importance of the social inclusion of women with vision impairments. The findings call for an embedded way of thinking about the social inclusion of women with vision impairments which allows for an organic evolution of participation in recreational sports. The implication is that sports participation for women with vision impairments would occur naturally and spontaneously if they were included in other spheres of life. 2022-02-18T05:14:40Z 2022-02-18T05:14:40Z 2021 2022-02-10T08:33:34Z Master Thesis Masters MPhil http://hdl.handle.net/11427/35710 eng application/pdf Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences Faculty of Health Sciences
spellingShingle Disability Studies
De Vos, Dellicia
Exploring how young women with visual impairments navigate their participation in recreational sport
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Exploring how young women with visual impairments navigate their participation in recreational sport
title_full Exploring how young women with visual impairments navigate their participation in recreational sport
title_fullStr Exploring how young women with visual impairments navigate their participation in recreational sport
title_full_unstemmed Exploring how young women with visual impairments navigate their participation in recreational sport
title_short Exploring how young women with visual impairments navigate their participation in recreational sport
title_sort exploring how young women with visual impairments navigate their participation in recreational sport
topic Disability Studies
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/35710
work_keys_str_mv AT devosdellicia exploringhowyoungwomenwithvisualimpairmentsnavigatetheirparticipationinrecreationalsport