Project description
The joint competition of people with and without disabilities is a rather rare phenomenon in Germany. Although there are approaches, they mostly involve the inclusion of people with disabilities in mainstream sporting contexts. As a rule, there is no orientation towards the goals of competitive sport. Special Olympics Germany (SOD) generally pursues the goal of enabling participation in sport for people with intellectual disabilities. SOD is increasingly focusing on the Special Olympics Unified Sports® program. In this context, people with and without intellectual disabilities take part in competitions that are both inclusive and competitive.
In the context of the research project , data on Unified Sports® competitions (and their participants) in handball, basketball and floorball will be collected in several field approaches. In terms of a benefit-focused evaluation, the constant exchange between the working group and the SOD practice partners is central to this. The exchange serves the option of influencing competition practice in a timely manner on the basis of research results. Specifically, the focus is initially on the Berlin 2022 National Games and the Berlin 2023 World Games (both summer sports). Here, the sports of basketball and handball will be examined. The timely implementation of the research results in competition practice is an important transfer achievement in the project, which is supported and researched by the scientists. This will take place in handball and basketball in 2024 as part of the recognition competitions for the 2026 National Games. The sport of floorball will also be examined. In this sport, which is one of the winter sports at SOD, recognition competitions will take place in 2022 and 2023, the National Games in 2024 and the World Winter Games in January 2025. In addition to collecting data at the aforementioned events, the plan is to accompany the respective unified national teams of the sports on their way to the World Games, i.e. the teams will be researched at training camps, for example
Project participants
- Süßenbach, Jessica (Scientific project management)
- Greve, Steffen (Scientific project management)
- Kiuppis, Florian (Scientific project manager)
- Göb, Tjorven Marie (Project assistant)
