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Integrating Able-Bodied Athletes in Disability Sport: Athletic Identity and Competitive/Elite Women Wheelchair Basketball Players
The purpose of this study was to investigate the perspectives of female wheelchair basketball players with a disability about the integration of able-bodied athletes. Specifically, this study examined the relationship between able-bodied participation and athletic identity from this perspective. Athletic identity is an individual’s identification with the role of athlete and is positively associated with developing a salient sense of self, improvements in sport performance and increased motivation to engage in sports. It is negatively associated with exclusivity of identity (Brewer, Van Raalte & Linder, 1993). Understanding if and how the integration of able-bodied participants in wheelchair basketball influences the athletic identity of female athletes with a disability, may provide direction for reverse integration that is congruent with the perspectives, needs and wants of these athletes.