ABSTRACT
The organization and development of visually impaired (VI) sport across the globe is complex. The Paralympic Games feature only a select number of sporting events for visually impaired athletes (VIAs) and are just one event in a relatively invisible VI sport calendar of regional and international championships across a range of sports. VI sport also assumes a relatively marginal status within the academic fields of sport, disability studies, and vision science. Visually impaired people are among the most inactive of minority groups and access to sporting opportunities can be problematic, denying a range of health, social, and psychological benefits. As will be shown in this chapter, sport can have an important empowering role to play, but VI sport is also laced with challenges which can threaten the value of inclusion. This chapter provides brief context to VI sport, before summarizing pockets of multi-disciplinary research around several prominent themes: socialization experiences; barriers, facilitators, and equity issues; meaning and identity; sensory experiences; and classification. What emerges from the research is a diverse range of practical implications and considerable scope for further research which could have an important role in developing accessible, inclusive, and equitable sporting opportunities for people with visual impairment.
