Inclusivity in Education: Exploring Adapted Physical Education

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Education has moved into an era of educators having no excuses for not teaching students no matter what the students’ background or initial capacity is (Mazzeo, 2001). Traditionally, students with special needs who were enrolled in physical education were not allowed to join physical activities. Instead, these students were pulled out from regular classrooms together with other students with special needs and grouped together as if all their needs are all alike. It was also a global practice to exclude from education anyone perceived to be different such as those with disabilities (Tsai & Lena, 2009) as they were judged to be either incapable of benefitting from such an education as or to be potentially disturbing (Engelbrecht et al., 1999). This paved way for the Adapted Physical Education (APE) program. APE is a physical education program that is modified to meet the unique needs (Wright & Wright, 1998) of students with special needs. However, these students with special needs separate from the regular students during their physical education classes. They are clustered and are placed altogether in one class. …show more content…

Since many students with disabilities are not identified, it follows that they are casually integrated in regular classes (Miles, 1985). Integration refers to educating students with disabilities in propinquity to students in regular classrooms (Arbeiter & Hartley, 2002), while inclusion refers to students with disabilities becoming part of the general education classroom, receiving a necessary support, and being taught with effective strategies (Smith, Polloway, Patton, & Dowdy, 2004). Hence, inclusion and integration will be used interchangeably in this

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