„Wychodzenie z cienia” przez sport — analiza procesu ujawnienia i samoakceptacji własnej niepełnosprawności

Disabled people are a social category that is very often at the effect of the stereotypes and prejudices prevalent in society. Frequently such persons suffer marginalization or exclusion. A disability can be the source of a stigma that defines the life of a human being both in the individual and social dimension. Only a portion of disabled persons manage to counteract the social stigmatization effectively, and above all to overcome their own fears about appearing in public with a body that is not fully functional. The author presents the changes occurring in the lives of persons with physical disabilities after their engagement in sports activities. Using Fritz Schütze’s theory of process structures and Anselm Strauss’s work on identity, he tries to show that engaging in sports could make it possible for a disabled person to move from a trajectory of suffering as a stigmatized person toward a biographical plan of action involving specific turning points and a reconstruction of the person’s ego.