Abstract
With the drastic changes in the historical context, political and social reconstructions played a significant role in the formation of the contemporary education system in China as well as other countries around the world. Based on the chronicled outline of past revolutions in the Chinese society, this paper aims to provide a broad historical overview of the history and development of physical education (PE) in China since the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. The process of PE reform in China occurred in four distinct stages, including the Initial Establishment Stage (1949 to 1956), the Exploration Period (1956 to 1966), the Regression Era (1966 to 1976), and the Era of Renaissance and Transformation (1979 to present). This historical review describes the development of PE as a curriculum area across these four critical periods and includes an analysis of historical contexts, policies, faculty training, curriculum settings, and pedagogical content in PE. This paper focuses mainly on PE within elementary and secondary schools in China, accompanied by a brief introduction to college PE in China. Through an examination of the four distinct stages of PE reform in China, a comprehensive understanding of the overall development of PE within these historical periods is presented. Inspired by the development of the educational system in China, a touch on the physical education concepts in countries around the world will also be included. The systematic review on international PE establishments serves to provide a general idea of how future improvements can be adapted to the trend of globalization and other potential public transformations.
Highlights
In the late 20th century, physical education (PE) became an official subject in missionary schools and westernization schools, which were established by the government of the Qing Dynasty to teach young government official western language, culture, technologies, and conduct military training
The government borrowed the experience from Japan to set curriculums of PE because Japan had conducted successful educational reform to transform into the western educational system
Education was only provided for the offspring of the rich and powerful people of China since the fee was too high for civilians to afford (Huazhuo, 2005)
Summary
In the late 20th century, PE became an official subject in missionary schools and westernization schools, which were established by the government of the Qing Dynasty to teach young government official western language, culture, technologies, and conduct military training These PE classes mainly focused on the teaching of gymnastics. China went through two chronicle wars: The War of Resistance Against Japan (September 1931 to August 1945) where Chinese people fought against the Japanese invasion (Gordon, 2006) and the Chinese Civil War (August 1945 to September 1949) (Cheng, 2005; Pepper, 1999) where the Kuomintang (the Nationalist Party; KMT) and the Communist Party of China (CPC) competed for their right to rule (Shiquan, 2000) These two wars lasted for eighteen consecutive years in total, which destroyed much of the educational infrastructure across the country and hindered the development of PE. PE was in haphazard and hands-off management in schools in general during the war
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