Research On Sports Schools During The Republic Of China

Sports are both "niche" and “popular” in social life.Although there are merely a few talents who take sports as their career,sports can be a part of anyone’s life.Both competitive sports and mass sports are inseparable from the engagement and guidance of sports talents.The talents trained by sport schools are not only the foundation of sport industry,but also the leader of mass sports,which allows sport schools to be an ideal research target for cultural history research.The management and teaching of sport schools told the development of sport discipline and industry;the relationship between sport schools,the authorities and the public reflected the characteristics,development paths and social contexts for sports culture in the period of Republic of China.In order to further sort out the historical facts of sport schools during that time,show the specialization and modernization of China’s sport industry,and more precisely evaluate China’s sport schools,this dissertation studies the sport schools in the period of Republic of China within two parts consisting of five chapters.The first part includes the first,the second and the third chapters,showing the development of modern sport schools from the origin,management,and personnel training mechanism respectively.The two origins of sport schools in China were the sport schools run by Chinese people and the physical director training programs in China by Westerners.Both agreed that physical education shaped both physique and spirit,so they were eager to train a large number of physical education teachers.In the competition,those two types of schools jointly shaped the physical education mode based on natural physical education theory,the primary goal of which were physical education teachers training,the combination of theoretical courses and sport training,and the integration of Chinese traditional sports elements.Many problems that sport schools encountered during the whole Republican period had already emerged in that stage.The second chapter discusses the management of public sport schools and private sport schools.Before 1929,the development of public sport schools was relatively slow,while private sport schools,prompted by nationalism and popular education campaigns during the May 4th Movement,became the main cultivator of sport talents.Since 1929,the sport policies of Nanjing National Government turned proactive,and the public sport school system radiating the whole country took shape.At the same time,the government strengthened the restriction on private sport schools.However,after the outbreak of the all-round Japanese-Resistance War,private sport schools were severely hit,and public sport schools became the major part of sport schools.The third chapter explores the talent training mechanism of sport schools.Training physical education teachers was the primary goal,and the pursuit was to train sport talents with comprehensive knowledge base,sound physical education theory,excellent sports skills and outstanding practical ability.For this reason,sport schools explored a complete talent training mechanism covering enrollment,courses,extracurricular activities,graduation and employment,and took various means to maximize the effectiveness of the mechanism,but the outcome was not ideal.The emergence,management and personnel training mechanism of sport schools not only reflected the achievements of the discipline construction of modern sport,but also reflect the overall weakness of sport community in China by then.The second part,composed of the fourth and fifth chapter,explores the influence of modern sports on China ’s modernization,and analyzes the trend of social and cultural changes in modern China from the perspective of sports.Among them,the fourth chapter discusses the martial arts training in sport schools.Martial arts becoming an important part in modern sports was not only the result of measuring and reforming Chinese traditional sports with Western sport discipline,but also the confrontation with the West in nationalist context.Under the dual pursuit of "assimilation by modern Western sports" and "nationalization",martial arts in sport schools became an "independent discipline" with both techniques and theory.However,it alone failed to fully inherit and develop martial arts.The fifth chapter continues previous scholars’ discussion on female physical image transformation of women and the relationship between sports and women’s liberation.Modern women’s professional sport education on the one hand replaced the "weakness and powerlessness" delicacy in the traditional sense with the pursuit of fitness to "save the country by sports".On the other hand,it defined the "elegance" of suppleness and gentleness.Despite different expressions,their cores were consistent that women should be feminine and euphemistic,and women should be weaker than men.The reconstruction of gender stereotype admittedly stimulated and protected the initial development of women’s sports,so that an exclusive space for women in the sport industry was created.However,it also severely limited the career development of females in sport community.Nationalism in physical education seemed contrary to the mainstream natural physical education philosophy.But the goal of natural sports to improve physical quality is still consistent with "saving the country by sports",and the modern competitive sports introduced by natural sports not only provided a model for the transformation of traditional sports,but also became an important way to prove that Chinese people were not inferior to foreigners.Therefore,although there were differences between the notion of natural sports and "saving the country by sports",the two notions could still coexist.