Critical pedagogies for community building: Challenging ableism in higher education physical education in the United States

Enacting critical pedagogies within physical education and health education (PE/HE) contexts has been found to increase critical consciousness and disrupt hegemonic taken-for-granted assumptions about ability and the body. The goal of these pedagogies is to come to an understanding of the diversity of humanity through a ‘differently-abled’ framework as well as to critique the construction of disability from a deficit perspective. To the best of our knowledge, no research has yet explored the ways and extent to which a critical pedagogical approach in PE/HE can disrupt normative ableist notions of disability. Therefore, the aim of our research was to explore the extent to which a critical pedagogical approach in PE and HE can disrupt normative ableist notions of disability through a disability-specific, critically orientated, tennis class. Data formed part of a broader research project, a digital ethnography exploring students’ experiences of alternate teaching practices and digital assessment methods in university PE activity courses. Six students from a large southeastern US university chose to participate and student video narratives and reflective essays were collated as data sources. Through inductive and deductive data analysis, the key themes constructed were: (1) ‘the learning journey in critical education,’ underpinned by the following subthemes: (i) ‘initial shock,’ (ii) ‘new experiences,’ and (iii) ‘humbling encounters.’; and (2) ‘consequences of critical pedagogy’, supported by (a) ‘building a community through meaningful relationships,’ and (b) ‘change in perspective.’ We conclude by discussing the pedagogical potential of our critical approach.