Inclusive Physical Education
Physical education began as an exclusionary enterprise. For most of its history in North America, "PE" meant "PE for white, nondisabled, cisgender boys," with variants for girls that were usually softer, shorter, and structurally limited. The modern obligation of a PE teacher is different. Every learner — regardless of gender, ability, disability, body size, experience, or prior failure — is entitled to meaningful physical education. This skill lays out the historical arc, the pedagogical techniques, and the ethical commitments that make inclusive PE possible in practice.
Agent affinity: berenson (gender equity, women's sport tradition), siedentop (pedagogy and curriculum)
Concept IDs: pe-gender-equity, pe-adapted-physical-education, pe-universal-design
Historical Context — Women in Sport
In 1891, James Naismith invented basketball at the YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts. Within months, Senda Berenson, a physical educator at Smith College, saw the game and recognized its educational possibilities for women. The prevailing medical-cultural view of the time held that vigorous exercise was physically dangerous for women, would interfere with childbearing, and was socially inappropriate. Berenson did not reject basketball on those grounds. She adapted it.
Berenson's 1892 rules divided the court into three zones and restricted each player to her own zone. Dribbling was limited. Physical contact was reduced. The result was a less-exhausting game that deflected the medical objections of her era while still teaching team play, skill, fitness, and competition. She then organized the first women's collegiate basketball game in 1892 (Smith versus Smith, intramural) and the first intercollegiate women's game followed in 1896 (Stanford versus Berkeley). Berenson wrote the first edition of the official women's basketball rulebook in 1899 and served as editor through 1917.
The structural compromise in Berenson's rules is obvious in retrospect: the three-zone restriction limited what women could demonstrate they could do. The structural achievement is also obvious: it opened collegiate competition to women at a moment when the alternative was zero. History evaluates both truths simultaneously — the compromise was a constraint of its era, and the opening was a genuine expansion of who counted as an athlete. The women's rules were unified with the men's rules in 1971, the year before Title IX became federal law in the United States.
The lesson for inclusive PE is not that Berenson's rules are the right rules. The lesson is that exclusion is rarely defeated in a single step. Incremental adaptation that preserves participation while the culture catches up is often the only path available, and then the adaptation is reviewed and adjusted as conditions change. A modern PE teacher inherits this work and owes the next round of adjustments.
Gender Equity in Contemporary Physical Education
Title IX of the US Education Amendments of 1972 requires equal access to educational programs, including physical education and athletics, regardless of sex. Fifty years on, PE equity remains imperfect. Research documents persistent gaps in participation, confidence, and self-reported enjoyment.
| Equity dimension | Typical gap | Teaching response |
|---|
| Participation minutes | Girls participate fewer active minutes per class than boys in mixed units | Design drills with equal ball-contact opportunities |
| Skill confidence | Girls report lower self-efficacy in unfamiliar motor tasks | Progressive mastery, positive specific feedback, low-stakes first attempts |
| Activity preferences | Different preferred activities at middle and high school ages | Offer variety; do not default to boy-coded sports |
| Teacher attention | Boys receive more instructional talk time in mixed PE | Track attention deliberately; redistribute |
| Role assignment | Boys more often receive leadership roles | Rotate leadership; assign intentionally |
Practical techniques.
- Side-by-side practice before mixed scrimmage. New skills introduced in skill-homogeneous small groups so learners build confidence before encountering competitive pressure from more experienced classmates.
- Equal ball contacts by design. Drill structures that guarantee each learner touches the ball a specific minimum of times per session. Counts, not vibes.
- Redistributed leadership roles. Team captains, drill leaders, referees rotate systematically across gender.
- Activity selection. Dance, yoga, aerobic dance (Sørensen's contribution), martial arts, climbing, orienteering, and lifetime fitness activities alongside traditional team sports. Not as substitutes — as additions.
- Same-gender unit option. For adolescents, offering some units in same-gender groups can help learners in either gender participate without social-performance anxiety. Offered, not mandated.
Adapted Physical Education
Adapted Physical Education (APE) is the field that serves learners with disabilities, chronic illness, or significant developmental variation. In the United States, students with disabilities receiving special education services are entitled to physical education under IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 1975 as amended), and the PE program must be adapted to their needs.
The continuum of APE service delivery
| Model | Setting | Appropriate for |
|---|
| Full inclusion | Same class as peers, same activities | Mild-to-moderate impairment, high confidence |
| Inclusion with adaptation | Same class, modified equipment or rules for the learner | Moderate impairment |
| Reverse inclusion | Specialized APE class, non-disabled peers visit | Social skill development |
| Pull-out APE | Separate APE class with specialist | Significant impairment requiring specialized instruction |
| Hybrid | Mix of inclusion and pull-out | Varies by activity and goal |
The least-restrictive environment principle applies: the student is placed in the most integrated setting in which their PE goals can be meaningfully met.
Adaptation techniques
| Category | Examples |
|---|
| Equipment | Larger ball, softer ball, lighter bat, wider target, assistive grips |
| Rules | More bounces allowed, shorter distance, unlimited time, alternative scoring |
| Environment | Non-slip surface, reduced noise, visible markers, predictable structure |
| Instruction | Multiple modalities (verbal, visual, tactile), shorter cues, more repetition, peer partners |
| Participation | Alternate roles if activity is contraindicated (referee, statistician, strategist) |
| Goal | Individualized benchmarks on an IEP rather than class-standard outcomes |
Worked Example — Adapting a Volleyball Unit for a Learner with Cerebral Palsy
Student. 7th-grader with spastic diplegia, uses a wheelchair for distance ambulation, has good upper-body function.
Standard unit goals. Pass, set, serve, hit, rotate on court.
Adapted goals.
- Pass: underhand trapping of a slower, lighter ball. Successfully contact 70% of attempts.
- Set: overhead contact with a lighter ball at a partner. Successfully contact 60% of attempts.
- Serve: underhand serve from a fixed floor position with extra time; boundary line moved forward 2 meters.
- Hit: not applicable for this unit; replaced with a strategic goal of positioning teammates correctly.
- Rotation: participates in a fixed forward-court position; rotation occurs for other team members around the student's position.
Classroom structure. The student is on a team in the Sport Education volleyball season. The team knows the adaptations from the first day and plans around them. The student plays as a middle-front setter with reduced lateral movement expectation. In scored competition, the student's serves count with the adjusted boundary. The whole-class rubric has a student-specific row for the adapted goals.
Result. The student participates in every lesson, competes in the season, develops real skills, and the team's tactical work becomes richer because everyone has to think about positioning and support rather than relying on athletic individualism.
Universal Design for Learning in PE
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is the pedagogical principle that lessons should be designed from the start to accommodate the widest range of learners, rather than designed for a default learner and then patched for exceptions. In PE, UDL has three main dimensions.
Multiple means of engagement
Offer multiple ways to engage with the activity. Some learners engage through competition, others through cooperation, others through individual challenge. A well-designed PE lesson offers all three as legitimate paths.
Multiple means of representation
Present the skill or concept in multiple modalities. Verbal cue + demonstration + written rubric + video reference + tactile guidance. Some learners need one modality more than others, and no single presentation reaches everyone equally.
Multiple means of action and expression
Offer multiple ways for learners to demonstrate learning. One learner shows skill through performance in a game. Another through leading a drill. Another through analyzing a replay. Another through coaching a teammate. All are legitimate evidence of learning.
Body Size, Body Image, and PE
PE is one of the few school contexts in which every learner's body is publicly visible. For learners who struggle with body image or whose bodies fall outside athletic defaults, PE can be a site of shame. It should not be.
Protective practices.
- Private locker rooms with privacy options (curtains, separate stalls, changing tent if needed).
- Dress codes focused on function, not conformity. Learners wear what allows them to move, not what matches a uniform.
- Fitness assessments are private data. Cooper test results go to the learner, not to a class leaderboard.
- Language discipline. Avoid language that ties value to body size or athletic ability. "Effort" is a universal target; "natural talent" is not.
- Representation in examples. Show learners bodies of all sizes succeeding in PE contexts. The examples teach what counts as an athlete.
Worked Example — Addressing a Participation Gap
Situation. 9th-grade co-ed PE class. Fitness testing reveals that girls' Cooper distances average 400 m below boys' distances, and in observation girls participate less actively during the basketball unit. The principal asks the PE teacher to investigate.
Diagnostic observation (one week).
- Drill design: are girls and boys getting equal ball contacts? (Data: no — boys 2.3x more contacts per drill.)
- Teacher attention: is coaching time distributed equally? (Data: teacher addresses boys' names 3.1x more often than girls' names.)
- Self-report: do girls enjoy the unit? (Data: neutral-to-negative, citing "I don't know what I'm doing.")
Intervention.
- Redesign drills to force equal ball contacts (structured rotation, count minimums)
- Track name-usage during instruction; balance deliberately
- Add skill-focused stations for the first week so girls can build confidence before mixed scrimmage
- Co-create a class rubric for "good teammate" that includes pass quality, defensive positioning, and teammate support — not just scoring
Result. Participation minutes equalize within three weeks. Girls' self-reported confidence rises markedly. Girls' Cooper scores close the gap to 200 m. The unit is judged by the class as fairer, and boys' engagement does not decrease.
Routing Heuristics
| Query signal | Route to |
|---|
| "Adapt this lesson for a learner with X" | berenson + siedentop |
| "Gender gap in participation" | berenson |
| "IEP for PE" | berenson + naismith |
| "Universal design for PE" | siedentop + berenson |
| "History of women in sport" | berenson |
| "Body image and PE" | berenson |
Common Teacher Mistakes
| Mistake | Why it fails | Fix |
|---|
| "Same lesson for everyone" equity | Equal inputs yield unequal outcomes | Differentiated paths to shared goals |
| Public fitness testing | Shames the least fit, who need PE most | Private feedback, personal progress |
| Default-boy activities dominate curriculum | Signals who PE is for | Balanced activity selection |
| Token adaptation for disability | Student sits on the sideline in special clothes | Full participation with real adaptations |
| Assuming silence means acceptance | Learners who feel unwelcome may not complain | Ask directly, observe participation, redesign |
| "She's just not athletic" framing | Locks the learner out of improvement | Diagnose motor gap, prescribe progression |
References
- Berenson, S. (1899). Line Basket Ball, or Basket Ball for Women. American Sports Publishing.
- Berenson, S. (Ed.). (1901--1917). Official Basket Ball Guide for Women. Spalding Athletic Library.
- Melnick, R. D. (2007). Senda Berenson: The Unlikely Founder of Women's Basketball. University of Massachusetts Press.
- Block, M. E. (2016). A Teacher's Guide to Adapted Physical Education: Including Students with Disabilities in Sports and Recreation. 4th edition. Brookes Publishing.
- Kirk, D. (2010). Physical Education Futures. Routledge.
- CAST. (2018). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.2. Wakefield, MA.
- US Department of Education. (1975, reauth. 2004). Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
