People with intellectual disabilities (IDs) are considered to be one of the most marginalized, isolated and disenfranchised groups in society. However, recent social prescription intervention programmes are being introduced to enhance the physical and mental well-being of these individuals through participation in leisure activities, thus increasing academic interest in research within the area. This article introduces the theoretical and methodological tensions in applying mainstream scholarly thinking of leisure and well-being to people with IDs and argues that by failing to acknowledge and address such tensions scholars are at risk of demonstrating intellectual ableism. Layering Kleiber’s components of leisure over Seligman’s Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment concept of well-being, this article poses critical questions of how each contributing element of well-being could be reconceptualized for people with neurological diversities. The intersection of leisure, well-being and ID is ripe for research development; however, many studies in the domain are falling short of suitable theoretical discussion and methodological rigour. This article concludes with suggestions on how scholars can reduce intellectual ableism through inclusive design, methodological reporting, acknowledging bias and grappling theoretical dissonance.

A large body of research has established that sport intervention programs can have social, emotional and health benefits for at-risk youth. While research has focused on the positive outcomes associated with these programs, little attention has been given to program inputs. It is recognized that community partnerships can help intervention programs achieve their goals. Yet, how are such partnerships formed and what can help to promote the successful formation of partnerships? This paper provides a detailed account of the partnership implementation process undertaken to develop and deliver a health promotion physical activity program for at-risk youth through the medium of CrossFit in a low socioeconomic area in a rural community in the southeastern United States. Developing successful partnerships serves as a valuable component to help organizations obtain resources and skills needed to initiate and continue programs for underserved populations. The scholars identify and explain how critical success factors such as personal contact, partnership complementarity and fit and the promotion of high levels of commitment and trust, serve as important starting points for developing and maintaining strong community partnerships.

Individuals become activists to affirm both themselves and their vision of the world, often prompted to action by seeking out complementary individuals, groups or organisations that can help organise, research, and promote solutions to shared problems. A gap exists between research and practice within the field of disability sport and adaptive physical activity. In particular, the academy is failing to produce research that demonstrates what, how and why theory and practice can become misaligned and problematic. This novel and needed paper is a reflexive ethnography detailing my struggles to pilot a local adaptive CrossFit project to the disabled community due to unforeseen challenges with gatekeepers, stripping of agency and academic rhetoric. A narrative is included with the hope of revealing social processes outside and within the field of disability sport and adaptive physical activity and to provoke discussion regarding problems with choice, advocacy and agency.

This article presents the narrative accounts of six elite student-para-athletes attending higher education full time in the UK. Whilst literature concerning the student-athlete population in the UK is growing, there is no research at present that brings to the fore the voices of student-athletes who represent their country in Paralympic sports. In addition, research concerning the experiences of higher education students with disabilities in the UK is heavily concerned with the experience of learning as opposed to the more nuanced experiences of ‘being’ a university student. Accounts concerning the lived experience of higher education were gathered via semi-structured interviews and analysed through a process of interpretative phenomenological analysis producing an intricate, intimate and personal theme for each participant. Analysed and presented as individual case studies, the research demonstrates the uniqueness of experience despite the existence of common and shared life environments. The accounts explore three life-worlds – university, elite sport and disability – and expose the difference in meaning-making by each participant to the identities of ‘athlete’, ‘student’ and ‘disabled’, specifically within the context of higher education. The accounts are presented as three themes that illuminate the contrast in experience: (1) university as a normative and positive experience; (2) university as a disappointing and hindering experience; and (3) university as an experience of personal salvation and purpose. Findings are mapped to the social-relational model of disability to better understand the relationship between individual perception, impairment and environment.