The purpose of this narrative inquiry is two-fold: first, to illuminate the views and experiences of Brazilian female Paralympians that helped shape their narrative identities, and second, to develop a better understanding of the reasons behind the gender inequality in Paralympic sports. According to the International Paralympic Committee, 1671 female athletes competed in the Rio 2016 Paralympics, representing almost 40 percent of the participating Paralympians. In Rio, Brazil had the largest Paralympic delegation in its history, with 287 Paralympians, of which only 102 were women (about 35 percent). The reasons why there is a significant discrepancy between male and female Paralympic participation are highly complex and little researched, particularly in Latin American contexts. In examining the complexities of these women’s narrative identities and their relationship with social norms, I draw on the insights from disability feminism, identity theory, and disability sport to analyze and interpret the Paralympic sportswomen’s narrative accounts. Individual interviews with 20 Brazilian female Paralympians from nine different sports revealed the intricate relationships each has with social norms regarding gender, disability, sport, and the body.

This article examines the discourses about Sport for All (SFA) and their evolution over the past four decades in Brazil and analyzes the implications of those discourses for social inclusion of Brazilians with impairments in sport and leisure. It provides an overview of four political milestones in the development of sport participation in Brazil: the launch of the SFA program under the military dictatorship; the adoption of the 1988 Constitution; the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; and the Rio 2016 Paralympics. Foucault’s archaeological-genealogical approach has been used to explain how the principle of social inclusion has been practised and enacted through the SFA discourses in Brazil and to discuss the implications of sport and leisure policies for the population with impairments.

In this article, I draw on the personal narratives of 41 Brazilian Paralympic athletes who competed in the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games to explore their multiple identities shaped within and outside sport and how they negotiated those self-representations. Parathletes’ narratives gave a sense of who they are, how they live their lives, and what their struggles, hopes, and aspirations are within and outside sport. The available studies in disability sport and the representation of disabled athletes have largely failed to examine the stories of these individuals and address their unique realities and perspectives. Five major themes emerged from the interview analysis regarding the parathletes’ self-representation: athletic identity, gender identity, disability identity, national identity, and activist identity. These accounts also revealed how these individuals negotiated their multiple identities in different settings and the tensions they experienced in their social interactions. The Rio Paralympics presented such a new interaction setting for the Brazilian parathletes who competed on such a grand scale at home for the first time and provided multiple examples in the athletes’ accounts of their identities.

Communities around the world struggle with weakening social bonds and political, racial, ethnic, economic, and cultural divides. This article argues the arts can be a means of raising public consciousness regarding such concerns by catalyzing conscious, thoughtful dialogue among individuals and groups possessing diverse values and beliefs. Change can only occur when people become aware of and actively reflect on the ontological and epistemic-scale norms and values that so often underpin their divisions, and the arts can help them do precisely that. We examine the dynamics of participatory performing arts and mural-making in diverse contexts to contend that the dialogic character of community art-making can be valuable for practitioners and scholars in a variety of efforts in international community development. We conclude by sharing lessons that we believe will aid artists and practitioners in devising more inclusive and participatory approaches to their international community change or development projects.

Although disability rights advocacy in Brazil began in the early 1980s, it was not until that nation’s 2008 ratification of the 2006 United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that the Brazilian state assumed responsibility for guaranteeing the rights of its disabled citizens. This article explores the efforts of the nation’s disability nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and points to potential limitations of their initiatives to promote disability rights and democratic politics. I do so by examining the online materials of disability NGOs and through interviews with seven leaders of such organizations, conducted in 2011 in São Paulo, Brazil. The analysis draws on interview data and compares the disability rights literature with the claims of these organizations to consider how their advocacy strategies might be recast to help the nation’s heterogeneous disabled population attain both a common sense of identity and their rights as they seek full citizenship.

The promise of the Rio 2016 Games was to influence the entire population of Brazil, but the major impact was expected to be on children and the youth. The development of youth education programs promoting Olympic and Paralympic values was one of the main commitments that organizers made in 2009 to host the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This article draws on the available literature on Olympic and Paralympic education and youth engagement and examines several of such programs previously implemented in such host cities as Beijing, Vancouver, and London. The purpose was to explore the ways in which implementing such educational legacy programs by the Rio 2016 and other sporting mega-event organizers can inspire and sustain youth engagement. The inductive thematic analysis was applied in the close examination of the content, strategies, and outcomes of the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic education program. The results suggest that to leave an enduring youth legacy, policymakers, future mega-event organizers, and educators need to understand it as a continued endeavor beyond the hosting period and embed the related educational efforts into broader educational and youth-focused structures. This article also outlines lessons for youth engagement that can be drawn from Rio’s and other host cities’ Olympic and Paralympic education practices.