Global organizational change in sport and the shifting meaning of disability

There are 650 million people with disabilities worldwide and 450 million of them are in the global south. They are the largest minority, the poorest and the most marginalized. Sport has underlined the contradictions of prejudice and discrimination and the gap between low expectations and ability. The passage of the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities included Article 30, which defined rights in sport, physical activity and recreation, and shifted the meaning of disability globally. The historical framing of disability as a social welfare issue, charity-based and medically defined, was replaced by a rights-based approach to support inclusion. This Introduction outlines the issues related to disability in sport and physical activity in different cultural settings intersected by gender, race and ethnicity, class and age, and situates the articles that follow.