Towards inclusive physical education. A documentary analysis from a social justice perspective
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Abstract
Physical education in schools, viewed through a social justice lens, considers tensions between curriculum, inclusion, and teaching practice. Therefore, the objective of this study was to link perspectives on teaching in physical education with the principles of social justice to broaden its theoretical understanding. The methodology employed, a document review under the PRISMA protocol, allowed for the compilation of an intentional corpus of 20 studies published between 2020 and 2025 in indexed databases. Among these, the works of Obrusnikova and Block (2020), Demchenko et al. (2021), Wright et al. (2024), Sullivan et al. (2021), Blackshear and Culp (2021), and Boza and Arribas (2021) stand out. The results demonstrate that inclusion depends more on teacher training and critical engagement than on regulations or infrastructure, and that inequalities associated with disability, gender, and race persist. Furthermore, categories such as relational pedagogy, inclusive professionalization, and physical education as a sociopolitical practice emerge. It is concluded that the transformation of the area requires shifting the biomotor emphasis towards the recognition of the student as a bodily subject and citizen
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