Crafting identity: how youth athletes navigate borders and find their place in China’s Sport-Education System (Part 1)

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Junyi Zhang ^*, Yingchun Wang ^* and Robert Schinke ^**

^(*) School of Psychology, Beijing Sport University, Beijing, China
^(**) School of Kinesiology and Health Sciences, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Canada

Citation

Zhang, J., Wang, Y., Schinke, R. (2026). Crafting identity: how youth athletes navigate borders and find their place in China’s Sport-Education System (Part 1). International Journal of Sport Psychology, 57(2), 160-174. doi:10.7352/IJSP.2026.57.160

Abstract

Crafting Identity: How Youth Athletes Navigate Borders and Find Their Place in China’s Sport-Education System (Part 1) Employing an Eastern adaptation of a constructivist grounded theory, our authors investigated identity construction during youth athletes’ specialization transition within China’s sport-education system, defined by an institutional sport-education divide where athletic and academic demands conflict. Data were derived from interviews with four school-team coaches, all graduates of professional sports universities, who provided institutional and developmental perspectives, six school team athletes (aged 11-13 years, M = 12.33) offering developmental insights as elite sports reserves, and two elite athletes (aged 18 and 26, competing at national and international levels) representing high-performance experiences. This article (Part 1) was conceived to elaborate on the theoretical and methodological foundations of our inquiry, proposing an Eastern relational framework that advances the understanding of identity construction in constrained systems. The empirical findings and culturally informed support strategies arising from this framework will be presented in a subsequent article (Part 2).

Keywords: Youth athletes, Identity construction, Sport-education system, Dual careers, China, Relational ontology, Constructivist grounded theory

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