“Nobody will be there to do the laundry for you”: A qualitative study of wellbeing in university athletes in two cultures

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study explores how British and Hong Kong (HK) university athletes make sense of their wellbeing through sports participation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 participants: six from British universities and six from HK universities. Interviews were conducted bilingually, enabling code-switching between Cantonese and English to preserve nuances between the cultures. Transcripts were analysed via Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Results indicated that: (1) British and HK participants experienced sport as drawing out strength of character and as a therapeutic agent; (2) British participants claimed that university is an energising environment, yet competing for their university brings emotional turmoil; and (3) HK participants claimed that sport helped maturation, yet HK’s culture is counterproductive to athletic development. Our findings offer a cross-cultural, lifeworld perspective of how being a university athlete may be a double-edged sword. We highlight ways this unique population requires support from policy makers and practitioners in sports and other relevant fields.