Speakers
Description
This study aims to elucidate the relationship among the context, identity, and life experiences of Chinese student athletes of Tsinghua University, in which a number of Olympic gold medallists were developed in a way that is distinct from the talent development of the traditional Chinese elite sport system. Drawing on the Constructivist Grounded Theory, qualitative data, collected through 20 semi-structured interviews with different student athletes and administrators of the Tsinghua varsity team, is analysed via a two-phase process, embracing initial coding and focused coding. There emerges a substantive theory consisting of two paths that elaborate the relationship among three core categories, namely ‘Tsinghua context’, ‘the self-construction of student-athletes’ identities’ and ‘the campus life experiences’. More specifically, the first path reveals the recruitment approach and administration mode, which are identified as two contextual factors, significantly influence the identity construction and life experiences of student athletes. And the second clarifies how student athletes construe, maintain, and enhance their own identity through interpreting campus life in Tsinghua. Enlightened by the Bourdieusian framework of the field and habitus, it is further discussed the two-fold role of the Tsinghua context, which both constrains and facilitates the interplay between the self-construction of student-athletes’ identity and their perception of campus life. The study not only provides a heuristic for understanding the identity construction of Chinese student athletes, but also sparks a brief interrogation of the essence of their powerless position in both Chinese sport and education system.
