Career patterns of disabled sportsmen – An analysis of the phenomenon from the perspective of symbolic interactionism

The purpose of the article is to reconstruct the career patterns of disabled individuals practicing sport. Within the data interpretation, I refer to such notions as identity, work on a person’s biography or the processual dimension of changes that take place in the self-identification and self-definition of the disabled who practice sport. The research material applied in this study encompasses personal experiences of disabled people realizing their physical activity through participation in various forms of sport. Unstructured and narrative interviews were conducted with individuals from this category of people. Analysis of the research material was performed in accordance with grounded theory methodology. In addition, the biographic method was applied when interpreting the data. The use of the triangulation method to analyze the interviews made it possible to go beyond the analysis of single cases, and to reconstruct a typology of career patterns. The following career patterns were thus differentiated: “stabilized,” “defragmented” and “constructed.”