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

Abstract

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.