Health First: The Sustainable Development of Physical Education in Chinese Schools

Yalun An, Jing Yang, Shuanghong Jenny Niu and Jun Wang
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Yalun An: School of Education, Physical Education Teachers College, Beijing Sport University, Beijing 100084, China
Jing Yang: Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Shuanghong Jenny Niu: Faulty of Education Sciences, University of Helsinki, 000142 Helsinki, Finland
Jun Wang: Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 5, 1-14

Abstract: Strengthening school physical education (PE) is of great strategic significance in enhancing students’ all-round development, which mainly includes their morality, intelligence and physique development. School PE has upheld the guiding ideology of ‘health first’ and continuously enhanced PE development in China. The guiding ideology of ‘health first’ has involved three stages: (1) improving students’ physical conditions; (2) enhancing students’ physical health, mental health and ability to socially adapt; and (3) promoting students’ all-round human development. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the social and political contexts, aims, policies and practice of Chinese school PE, and goes on to analyze different sports views that reshape the value orientation of ‘health first’. Moreover, this paper shows that a regulated and institutionalized Chinese school PE system has gradually formed with the evolving ideology of ‘health first’ and policy changes, but it has a long way to accomplish the new mission of ‘foster virtue through education’ in students’ all-round development. For students’ all-round development, Chinese school PE needs to prioritize the value proposition of ‘foster virtue through education’, advance the theoretical research on PE curriculum and teaching materials, and further enhance the reform of the assessment and evaluation system of constitutional health. Eventually, a new national school PE core curriculum needs to be established to integrate the mission of ‘foster virtue through education’ and guiding ideology of ‘health first’ together.

Keywords: China; school physical education; guiding ideology; policies; sports outlooks; foster virtue through education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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