ABSTRACT
Given the dominance of normative beliefs about the body, movement and performance, it is perhaps unsurprising that physically disabled students participate less frequently and in fewer activities than their nondisabled peers in physical education. The aim of this chapter is to critique the strategies that are often promoted to be used to plan for and teach physically disabled students in physical education. Specifically, the chapter uses creative nonfiction accounts to explore universal design for learning, differentiated instruction and reverse integration because they are often advocated by academics and used by practitioners for teaching physically disabled students and their age-peers together. While there is some published research literature supporting the use of reverse integration and differentiated instruction in physical education contexts, most of the literature relating to the utility of universal design for learning is published in practitioner texts and lacks a theoretically guided and empirically informed basis. The chapter ends by encouraging scholars to strengthen the research base supporting universal design for learning especially and cautions teachers against its uncritical acceptance.
