The nature and significance of beijing olympic education

Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 9-25-2015 12:00 AM A Notable Endeavor: The Nature and Significance of Olympic Education in the Pre-and Post-Period of Beijing's 2008 Olympic Games Wenshuai Mao, The University of Western Ontario Supervisor: Robert K. Barney, The University of Western Ontario A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Kinesiology © Wenshuai Mao 2015 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.ca/etd Recommended Citation Mao, Wenshuai, "A Notable Endeavor: The Nature and Significance of Olympic Education in the Pre-and Post-Period of Beijing's 2008 Olympic Games" (2015). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository.ca/etd/3294 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western.

For more information, please contact wlswadmin@uwo. A Notable Endeavor: The Nature and Significance of Olympic Education in the Pre-and Post-Period of Beijing’s 2008 Olympic Games (Thesis format: Monograph ) by Wenshuai Mao Graduate Program in Kinesiology A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Western University London, Ontario, Canada © Wenshuai Mao 2015 i ABSTRACT This study investigated the nature and significance of Beijing’s Olympic education initiative from its inception seven years before the 2008 Olympic Games to 2015, seven years after the conclusion of the great festival. As exploratory research, this study is the first to cover this academic topic. In 2001, commensurate with Beijing’s award of the 2008 Olympic Summer Games, a non-governmental “grassroots team” initiated an Olympic Education and Olympic Spirit initiative in a small sample of Beijing’s primary and secondary schools.

The team was led by a Canadian-trained professor, Dongguang Pei. In 2005, impressed with Pei’s and his team’s initiative, and following the International Olympic Committee’s guidelines for host cities mounting Olympic Education initiatives, the Chinese government endorsed and supported an Olympic Education Legacy initiative called the Olympic Action Plan. The Chinese government’s support of disseminating Olympic knowledge to 400 million Chinese youth nationwide presented Chinese schools, the IOC, and the world with a model for a comprehensive, vigorous, and what some have judged a highly successful public and private school Olympic education program. Compared with the unique Olympic education program presented throughout the seven year period before and during the 2008 Olympic Games, in the seven years following (2008-2015), the carefully and energetically-built program of Olympic Education deteriorated badly.

The Chinese government abandoned its leadership and enterprise in sustaining Olympic Education. Based on the investigation sample, “Olympic education activities” in the program’s “model schools” deteriorated abruptly after 2008. Funding, Olympic Education teacher training, and international school partner associations ceased. On-site observation and interviews resulted in the finding that Yangfangdian Central Primary school, the pioneer school of Beijing’s Olympic education, remained the only model school which retained Olympic education activity after the ii 2008 Games.

During the post-Games period, Beijing’s Olympic education was replaced by new government approaches to education. This study needs to be understood within China’s unique social, educational and political climate. On the one hand, a centralized political system ensured that Olympic education be implemented under extremely powerful organizational orders. These orders guaranteed not only financial and human resources support, but also the climate for Olympic education to expand extremely quickly through multiple administrative levels.

On the other hand, and correspondingly, the disappearance of Olympic education after the Games was, most certainly, due chiefly to the government’s withdrawal of initiative and support. It is a justifiable conclusion that the Chinese centralized system, though enabling the program at its outset and early development periods, in the end rapidly constrained the entire initiative. Keywords: 2008 Beijing Olympic Education, Post-Games operation of Beijing Olympic Education iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This study would have been impossible to finish without God’s blessing. I want to express my gratefulness to God for giving me the strength and inner peace to keep progressing forward.

You, dear God, blessed me more than I deserve. I am duly thankful to my family’s support and sacrifice for my PhD study since the very beginning of the doctoral program in Kinesiology at Western University in August 2010. Especially, I give grateful thanks to my mother. Without her brave, strong will, and hard work in caring for my baby daughter and our household, it would not have been possible for me to keep on-track with my studies after my daughter was born.

My mother is the greatest supporter for my five years of PhD work in Canada. I also want to express thanks to my husband, Yuchao Li. His strong emotional and financial support accompanied me all the time. I would never have culminated this great academic opportunity successfully if it was not for the strong support, love, and encouragement of my immediate family members.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Robert Knight Barney, for his continuous support of my PhD study and related research, and for his patience, motivation, and immense knowledge. His guidance helped me throughout the time of researching and writing, including, especially, my PhD dissertation. Because of my language deficiency, I brought to my supervisor much, much, much extra effort.

Barney’s student has been an inestimable privilege for me. I thank him for believing in me and encouraging me all the time. I think I have been the most problematic student in his long career. I can still remember clearly that first iv summer night in Canada that Dr.

Barney and his wife, Ashleigh, greeted me in their home; and, as well, for their thoughtful preparation at the time of my “second landing” in Canada with my mother and baby daughter. I want to express my deepest appreciation and admiration to you, Dr. Barney and Ashleigh. Thank you for your patience and support to me.

It is such a precious experience in my life to study under your guidance. I also want to express my deep, deep love and appreciation to my supervisor’s twin brother, Mr. I am deeply grateful for his always emotional support and encouragement in my life. I still can remember that I mixed up David and Dr.

Barney the first time I met them both at the Capital University of Physical Education in Beijing. Thank you for being in my life, David, my most dearest American grandfather. Besides my supervisor, I would like to thank my final PhD dissertation defense committee: Dr. Michael Heine, Dr.

Don Morrow, Dr. Scott Martyn, and Dr. Michael Murphy, for their insightful questions, suggestions, comments, encouragement, and patience. My sincere thanks is also extended to Dr.

Karen Danylchuk and Dr. Darwin Semotiuk, along with Dr. Morrow, who were my doctoral committee members and who provided me with continuous support, suggestions, and patience. I also want to express my greatest thanks to my Master’s supervisor in China, Professor Dongguang Pei.

Without his support and help there was no chance for me to conduct data collection for my dissertation. His optimistic personality and study experiences previously in v Canada with Dr. Barney encouraged me a lot during the hardest times of my PhD study overseas. I feel really privileged to have been Professor Pei’s student.

Also, I want to express thanks to the physical education teacher Chenguang Zhou at Yangfangdian Central Primary School, Professor Xiuying Ru, Professor Wenqian Chen at Capital University of Physical Education, and Professor Hai Ren at Beijing Sport University. I thank each of them for their support, help, and suggestions during the data collection for this study. My sincere appreciation as well goes to my friends Doiara, Nevada, Jordan, Jason, Evan, Erin, and Nicole. I was really lucky in having their friendship during my overseas study time.

I will always remember their trust, encouragement, kind support, and private-time donation, especially during my more difficult times. Finally, I would like to express my appreciation for the Kinesiology Graduate Program’s staff, Jenn Plaskett, Jacqui Saunders, and Lindsay Stark, all of whom at various times provided valuable advice and patient assistance. Thanks, too, to Drs. Charles Rice, John Kowalchuk, and Jim Dickey, at different times Chairs of the Kinesiology Graduate Program during my time in Canada.

I am grateful for their advice and counsel. And, finally too, thanks to Grace Kelly of Western’s Research Ethics Office and Krystyna Locke of Western’s Graduate Affairs Office for guiding me over some rough spots in completing my interview research and final dissertation submission. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .x LIST OF CHARTS.

xii LIST OF FIGURES. xiii LIST OF APPENDICES. xvi Chapter 1 Introduction. The Revival of Olympic Education.

Statement of the Problem and Importance of the Study. The Interviewee Pool. Role of the researcher. Organization of the remainder of the study .18 Chapter 2 Review of Literature.

Historical Retrospect of “Olympic Education”. Current Studies and Research on Post-Games Beijing Olympic Education .30 Chapter 3 Brief Overview of Sport Culture in China. Sports and Cultural Background. China and the Olympic Movement.

Chinese Educational Background .47 Chapter 4 Overview of Beijing’s Olympic Education from 2001 to 2008. The Political Background of China. The Genesis of Beijing’s Olympic Education Programs at the Grassroots Level. The Genesis of Beijing’s Olympic Education Programs at the Government Level.

The Funding for Beijing’s Olympic Education Programs from 2005-2008. Beijing’s Olympic Education Teacher Training Program. The Reading Materials for Beijing’s Olympic Education Program. Beijing’s Olympic Education Model Schools Program.

The Designation of the Olympic Education Model Schools. The Selection of the Olympic Education Model Schools. The Missions of Olympic Education Model Schools. The Heart to Heart Partner Program (HHPP).

The Genesis of the HHPP. The Characteristics of the HHPP. The Beijing’s Olympic Education Program Enters the Communities. Beijing’s Post-Games Olympic Education Program at the Government Level.

Beijing’s Olympic Education Program at the Olympic Education Model Schools and Heart- to-Heart Partnership Program (HHPP) during the Post-Games Period (2009-2015). Ordinary Primary and Secondary Schools.118 5-2-1-1 Shijingshan Gucheng No. Shunyi Niulanshan No. Beiluyuan Primary School.

Mentougou Dayu No. Yangfangdian Central Primary School. Changping Experimental Primary School. Beijing Shijia Hutong Primary School.

Beijing Dengshikou Primary School. Fangcaodi International School. Huangzhuang Professional School. Special Education Schools.

Dongcheng Special Education School. Huiwen Secondary School. Tibet Secondary School. Moslem Secondary School.

Migrant Children Schools. Beijing Jingyuchen School. The Sports Schools. Shichahai Sports School.

Students’ Experiences with the Post-Games Olympic Education in Schools. The Post-Games Operation of Beijing Olympic Education with Regard to the Community Program. The Post-Games Operation of Beijing Olympic Education Teacher Training Program .205 Chapter 6 Conclusions and Recommendations. What is the Present Situation of Beijing’s Olympic Education Endeavour?.

The Operation of Post-Games Olympic Education at the Government Level. The Operation of Post-Games Olympic Education at the Model Schools. The Operation of Post-Games Olympic Education in the Communities. The Operation of Post-Games Teacher Training Program.

How Successful as a Sustainability Consideration has Olympic Education in Beijing Been?. The First Batch of “Beijing Olympic Education Model Schools” in 2008. The Second Batch of “Beijing Olympic Education Model Schools” in 2008. Outline of Interview Questions.

Ethics Approval Letter .