Questioning body-normativity dominance in inclusive physical education: a transgressive analysis through bell hooks’ perspectives

Grounded in Critical Disability Studies, this study examines how mechanisms of oppression are recurrently legitimized in relation to Disabled students in Physical Education (PE). Drawing on bell hooks’ perspective, this study explores recurring logics of domination, thereby deepening understandings of how oppression is produced and sustained in PE. Using a post-structuralist approach, we conducted qualitative interviews with nine PE teachers to examine the dominant beliefs and pedagogical practices that shape PE in relation to disability. Interview data were analyzed through interpretative discourse analysis, guided by Critical Disability Studies and informed by hooks’ critical insights on oppression. The findings suggest that teachers’ discourses reinforce a normative model of PE centered on the non-disabled body, reproducing power relations that privilege non-disabled bodies and marginalize others. Through bell hooks’ lens, we question how inclusion has addressed segregation without dismantling structural ableism. We argue that inclusion in PE has often served to assimilate Disabled students into oppressive systems rather than transform them. This study invites critical reflection on whether inclusion has truly disrupted ableist norms in PE or merely soothed institutional conscience while continuing to silence Disabled voices.