Introduction
The issue of disability is not only institutionally but also conceptually highly fragmented today. This is also confirmed by the large number of specialized terms, often purposefully defined for specific fields of interest. Perhaps the greatest variability concerns social work, reflecting the variety and complex organization of the social work system. Independent living is also a process of conscious self-improvement, increasing self-confidence, and emancipation for a person with a disability. This process enables many citizens to achieve equal opportunities and full participation in multiple areas of social life; on the other hand, citizens with disabilities must be able to control this process both individually and collectively, using democratic and humanistic principles and principles of equality.
In addition to meeting basic human needs, sport and regular training are an important challenge for them. We can state that there are still increasing numbers of citizens with disabilities who are actively engaged in sport (some cannot or do not want to). This activity grows out of an understanding and conviction about their individual and social conduct and is the result of both social work and the person’s own conscious activity. Because exclusion from society is always accompanied by depression, which disrupts life quality. Despite the common public assumption that people with disabilities cannot have a life of quality equivalent to able-bodied citizens, it has been shown that those who socialized and entered sports training demonstrate optimism, tolerance, and a sense of life (Bardiovský, Labudová, 2010).
Review of the issue
Already in 2003, within the European Year for People with Disabilities, among other priorities in care, the need to create an action plan for their full social integration was emphasized (Schieder, 2010). Such a political declaration was approved in Malaga and laid the foundations for the fight against discrimination on the basis of disability (Le Poittevin, 2003), and the development also included the creation of the European Social Charter. Social inclusion also receives sustained attention in the European Commission for Education and Culture, where inclusion in sport and through sport has become one of the priorities (Summary report, 2010).
Foldesi (1998) states that the process of socialization includes several factors such as primary socialization, desocialization, resocialization, and aversive socialization. Social work in sport starts from clients’ personal data (physical, psychological, and socio-psychological dimensions), their social relations (family, friends, school, community, mass media), and their socialization context (class, sports club, social support system, etc.).
Social work respects the principles of client self-expression, communication, critical analysis of reality, and directs clients toward developing a sense of responsibility for their own development, adopting a moral code, and social behavior that the client accepts voluntarily (Bunčák, 2006). Ethical codes stress what should be, but everyday practice also demonstrates other manifestations. Social behavior ranges widely, from exploiting a person to significant self-sacrificial behavior toward that person (Bujnová, 2006). Professional activity, which is at the core of social work, focuses on actively influencing and solving primary anti-social problems. Its goal is successful socialization leading to inclusion, achieving an acceptable relationship between the social environment and non-adapted persons (Labáth, 1995). Creating and demonstrating group cohesion is an invisible bond formed through the implementation of norms and values, the spirit of solidarity, and cooperation for the group’s work and for the group itself (Auger, Boucharlat, 2005). Individuals tend to seek those who are close to their own thinking and action (Plamínek, 2004). Conversely, fear in people takes three forms (Beck, 2004): social insecurity, threat to health and life, and loss of belief in progress and security.
If the goals of social work include identifying disadvantaged people, preventing social problems, and ensuring help, then sport meets these aspects. Therefore, a sports group can also be considered a specific social environment, i.e., the environment of ongoing sports training. Its ethical standards are an inseparable component of all sports activities, just as acceptance of sports ethics in upbringing and victory. Even though social work can be successfully implemented through sport, we must agree with Leška (2005) that at elite sports level ethical principles are often violated and social inequalities deepen. For recreational sport, and especially for physical education in schools, more rigorous observance of ethical principles is required. Therefore, for example, school-level guidance for teachers and students was prepared; among others, Jonášková (2006) mentions striving for mutual solutions to situations, consensus, and creating an environment that can contribute to rational discussion leading to general agreement among participants.
The Sport Ethics Code (2004) emphasizes support for fair play from both the athlete and society. Every culture has its own socio-ethical acceptability, while the moral phenomenon cannot be reduced to standards such as performance norms. At the same time, it is important to recognize that a minimal ethical code does not mean minimal morality (Žilínek, 2004). Friendship, respect for others, the spirit of sport, and morally grounded thinking and behavior supported by sporting activity are expressed in self-realization, self-knowledge, social interaction, and personal success. The sports training process supports tolerance-oriented performance, which is expressed in the development of relationships between coach and athlete and between athletes themselves; it should support the elimination of violence and lead to the upbringing of a morally refined person (Jonášková, 2004).
The White Paper on Sport (2007) emphasizes that sport should reserve space where the ethical code can be respected and supported, as well as solidarity—both necessary for preserving the social mission of sport. In work with athletes with disabilities, one often encounters the so-called disability paradox. Its essence can be captured by the indirect question: “How can people with long-term or permanent health conditions have good or even high quality of life if to an outside observer they live in unsuitable life conditions?” (Répková et al., 2003). The paradox manifests in that, despite the fact that people with disabilities have serious limitations in performing everyday activities and tasks and are often exposed to discrimination, they nonetheless report good quality of life. The second form of the disability paradox lies in experts’ and surrounding people’s lower expectations of quality of life compared with how people with disabilities perceive and evaluate their own lives.
In social work, the task is to address an individual’s primary social problems, and its interactive orientation is directly on the ground, that is, also within a sports organization. An athlete with a disability gradually adapts to managing training strain. If he or she accepts the existing reality, the person can be tolerant, adaptable, and at the same time reasonably self-confident, coping adequately with demands placed upon them (Hartl, Hartlová, 2004). Bujnová (2006) states that fairness is the most important moral virtue in social coexistence and accompanies freedom. Sport competition is usually fair, and its result is an expression of an honest and conscious training process. People with disabilities often cannot imagine the strength they can achieve by socializing (Gončová, 2006).
The moral dimension in contemporary life in relation to social work should shift from egocentrism to allocentrism, from egoistic to prosocial and altruistic behavior (Žilínek, 2006). A person opens to another person, giving up his or her own benefit in favor of good for another. This is how we could also characterize the work of a personal assistant, who can create suitable conditions for a wheelchair user not only in home life but also outside it in educational or sports contexts, supporting his or her position as a participant in social situations (Repková, 2002). These attributes are shown particularly when searching for meaningful activity, into which sport and sports training unquestionably fall.
Aim and methodology
The purpose of this presentation is to highlight selected aspects of social work in sport. We used some findings from a study whose task was to determine the subjective opinion of citizens with disabilities regarding motivation for sport, the role of social contact created in sport, and factors of their self-realization. We worked from the understanding that, under current social conditions, these tasks can be realized in sport and that the social aspect of sport and the opportunity for respondents’ self-realization would be dominant. From the selected questions of the anonymous questionnaire, we focused on:
- evaluating the primary motivation for respondents’ participation in sporting activity,
- assessing the aspects that led to the decision to engage in sport,
- presenting the people who contributed the most to their sporting activity,
- assessing the sporting activity they perform.
The research sample consisted of 77 responding participants, 50 men and 27 women, aged 10–46. Participants were mainly from social care homes, and regarding health impairment we found that 40 had a congenital physical disability (Fig. 1), 20 were injured, 6 had an illness, and 11 had other health impairments (visual, hearing, or mental).
Results and discussion
From prior professional experience, it is known that successful social work in relation to sporting activity requires, in addition to motor prerequisites, psychological and socio-psychological factors. From the assessment of the responses from the surveyed participants, we found that 49% cited the motive for entering sport as the fact that respondents considered sport appropriate given their health status. Even though the social aspect was not dominant (only 5% of respondents), sport was among interesting activities for them (38%) and was also chosen based on another person’s example (Fig. 2).
As we found, a key step toward sport is self-confidence and positive or objective information about one’s health status. Not unlike our own experience when, after an injury, we were personally confronted with a medical assessor’s approach—as an expert deciding about further education, professional growth, and self-realization. The words of an unnamed expert could certainly not be considered ethical: “...What do you want? You don’t even have cancer!” Such an approach does not move a person in a post-traumatic state into social participation but instead leads to psychological liquidation of the physically disabled person, up to social death. This approach reflects a generalized inability to see the person with a health disadvantage, yet it is necessary always to consider the profile and personality of each specific person with their knowledge, abilities, skills, will, efforts, and opportunities.
But people with disabilities perceive sporting activity as an opportunity for social and community contact, maintaining optimal health, but most importantly as meaningful use of free time. By overcoming several barriers, they assume roles as significant and successful para-athletes, experiencing new exceptional sporting spheres, but also domains of emotionality, health, competitiveness, and socialization. In response to the question, “Why did you decide on this sport?” we found that 35% answered for the opportunity for self-realization and 26% indicated the possibility of improving health condition (Fig. 3). Friendships, relaxation, and new inspiration were also stimuli for sporting activity. A person who has received information about their health problems and assessed consequences of injury often behaves irrationally. From personal experience, I can evaluate such feelings, and few people return happily to the post-injury part of their life in memory. A person in a wheelchair, if he or she wants to continue to exist and establish himself or herself, struggles with high societal demands. It has become evident that physical activity fulfills a significant function in this regard. The body moves, and so does the mind. Neglecting physical activity and insufficient loading leads to physical and psychological degeneration.
In connection with these motives, we also evaluated respondents’ views on perceptions of sporting activity (Fig. 4). The result of good social work in sports practice is the gradual change in the person-to-person relationship. Its expression is mutual understanding, help, and also sacrifice, social experience, and co-living. In a similar sense, athletes with physical disabilities perceive the function of sport. As many as 29% of respondents see sport as a meaningful use of free time, and another 25% see it as an opportunity for social and social contact; 20% see sport as a possibility of self-realization with a feeling of victory.
Although support for sporting activity was divided among various subjects, respondents stated that those closest to them were those who stood by them and still stand by them (Fig. 5). As a matter of humanity, ethics, morality, and professional responsibility, “it is the duty of the closest people to remain with the athlete even after injury.” Before and after trainings, matches, and competitions, in both wins and losses, coaches, personal assistants, and friends know their person—how they cope with pain, injury, defeat, stress, suffering, effort, victory, joy, fun, love, reward, money, pleasures. With an injured athlete, these people remain connected professionally, psychologically, and spiritually, as well as humanly. To a large degree, they can predict the reaction of the traumatized athlete. A severely traumatized person needs social support, hope, and stability. In a post-traumatic state, without doubt, the past is lost, the present is absent, and the future is uncertain. A person needs hope. Of course, after injury (serious injury), even close (able-bodied) people find it difficult to identify suitable words—the serious injury and its long-term consequences are not part of ordinary experience for a typical person or their family. A coach is certainly in an emotionally “easier” position than closest family or a partner/friend (because close people have strong emotions that influence rational thinking, behavior, and action). Interest in the individual also helps and is in fact desirable, important, necessary, indispensable. Even the mere presence beside an injured person (even in hospital) gives the disabled person a sense of coexistence, belonging, and cohesion.
This support is focused mainly on psychological support and joint presence at sports events (Fig. 6). We believe that thanks to our professional work, people will learn and to some extent be convinced that through their activity, diligence, will, motivation, education, and sport, a wheelchair person can live fully and meaningfully.
Conclusion
We recognize that the level of resocialization of citizens with disabilities depends on the level of relationships formed with able-bodied athletes, which should be shaped from early age in families, schools, and society as a whole. The degree of resocialization depends on how much society mediates and enables access to education, culture, scientific achievements, and human experience for all citizens with disabilities. Precisely through the (re)socialization process, wheelchair users can internalize and adopt as their own cultural norms and traditions, as well as everything that is valuable to both them and society. In this context, it is appropriate to use the social function of sport and especially the interest of people with disabilities in sport. In this way, their self-realization can be developed and opportunities can be created for expanding social and societal contacts.
The human organism was shaped by evolution for physical effort and for overcoming strain. The way of life in modern civilization is more comfortable and less physically demanding. People with physical disabilities in wheelchairs cannot allow themselves to become inactive and thereby weaken and undergo individual degeneration. Any physical activity is extremely beneficial, useful, and important for them.
Authors: PhDr. Miloslav BARDIOVSKÝ, prof. PhDr. Jela Labudová, PhD.
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______The lecture was presented at the international scientific conference Applied ethics in social work and other helping professions, held on 20 – 21 October 2010 in Piešťany, and was published in the proceedings of this conference: MÁTEL, A. – SCHAVEL, M. – MÜHLPACHR, P. – ROMAN, T. 2010. Aplikovaná etika v sociálne práci a ďalších pomáhajúcich profesiách. Zborník z medzinárodnej vedeckej konferencie. Bratislava : VŠZaSP sv. Alžbety. 413 s. ISBN 978-80-89271-89-4.
