DOI:https://doi.org/10.65281/709420

Xin Xiang^*1,Ji-Chen Zhang², Xin Zhang³,Tai-Kuei Yu⁴,Fengyun Lu^*1

¹Police Command College, China People’s Police University, Langfang 065000, Hebei, China

²Sports Department, Shenzhen Experimental School Mingli High School, Shenzhen 518118, Guangdong, China

³College of Humanities and Physical Education,Hebei Oriental University,Langfang 065000, Hebei, China

⁴Department of Business Administration, National Quemoy University, Kinmen 892, Taiwan , China

*Xin Xiang and Fengyun Lu are both the corresponding authors.

Corresponding Email: Xin Xiang([email protected]); Fengyun Lu([email protected])

Funding

This research was supported by the 2025 National Funded Research Project of  China People’s Police University (Project Number: JJPY202501).

Abstract: From the requirement of “form and spirit” as suggested by the combination of sport and education to “mind and body” as suggested by the Integration of sports and education. Such a change is the cornerstone of educational governance that will facilitate the transition from basic balance to quality balance in the new era of “educating for talent and educating for sport” in China. By using literature, logical reasoning, and qualitative research, this paper is based on the paradigm of “storyline – causal conditions – action/interaction strategies – outcome logic” of grounded theory. To explores the conceptual, methodological, and innovative aspects of 20 leading scholars in the field of the Integration of sports and education in China and provide an in-depth analysis. Research shows that: 1) In the policy system, due to the overlap of the old integration mechanisms, conceptual systems, synergistic pathways, and the conditions for the integration of sports and education, the current model of integration of sports and education is still trapped in a situation of imbalance in the space of free-form rules and systems. 2) In conceptualizing qualitative perspectives, the gap between sport and education, the lack of an institutional framework, the solidification of a sports-education mindset, and the integration of learning and training have all contributed to the marginalization and passivity of sports and education at this stage of the integration process. 3) In terms of scholarly research themes, at the present stage, scholars in the field of research on the integration of sports and education in China have focused their attention on seven main areas: “competitive sports reserve talents, the status of school sports disciplines, youth fitness levels, conceptual innovation, races systems, multi-disciplinary cooperation, and micro-exploration (model exploration only)”. This process not only focuses on the realistic relationship between sports education integration and sports governance but also grasps the direction and implementation design of sports education integration.

Keywords: New Era; School Physical Education; Integration of Sports and education; Development Model; Qualitative research

Introduction

A healthy body is the foundation of our lifelong learning and developing our morality and wisdom through sports. President Xi Jinping proposed in the report of the 19th Party Congress that “the process of socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era”. Deepening the reform of sports-education integration with Chinese characteristics in the new era and coordinating the symbiotic relationship between youth cultural learning and sports exercise is one of the concrete practices to accurately grasp the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping on the construction of a strong sports nation and the National Education Conference, as well as a fundamental guideline to fully implement the new concept, strategy, and initiatives of sports-education integration in the new era. In August 2020, the Central Committee for Comprehensively Deepening Reform adopted a proposal titled “Opinions on Deepening the Integration of Sports and Education for the Healthy Development of Youth”. The purpose of this “opinion” is to “take the concept of health first education as a guide and cultivate socialist builders and successors who are well-rounded in moral, intellectual, physical, and aesthetic development” [1]. According to Wang Dengfeng, “With education as the basis and sports as the foundation, the concept of integration of sports and education is a comprehensive deployment of education and sports in China in the new era” [2]. It has an important impact on the future development and reform of sports and education in China, and it plays a leading role in accelerating the synergistic process of sports-education integration and youth physical health. The essence of the integration of sports and education is “the return of the true nature of sports so that sports are governed by education so that sports become education” [3]. It is not only a new paradigm, a new field, and a new positioning to manifest the modernization level of national sports and education governance capacity, but also a basic education governance project to accelerate the high-quality development of the national education system and governance mechanism. It is also about the overall effect of the integration of the effectiveness of school sports in the areas of “home-school-society”, concepts, events, synergy, and strategies, which is the “national and party’s major plan”. To further analyze the implementation concept, method selection, and path innovation of the integration of sports and education in China, this paper tries to take the programmed version of the grounded theory as the main research method, and then explore the qualitative construction of the development model of integration of sports and education in the new era, to provide a new theoretical analysis perspective and basis for further optimizing the development model of integration of sports and education in the new era.

Literature Review

At present, China’s research on the integration of sports and education is mainly focused on the following three aspects: first, research on the background of the integration of sports and education. In the 1980s, the “integration of sports and education” was a kind of “co-construction, adjustment, and cooperation” between athletes and athletic learning and a balanced way of learning and training. Initially, it was combined to broaden avenues for athlete training and post-retirement employment methods to train more outstanding athletes for the country, yet after more than 30 years of development, professional athletes still carry the burden of competing for gold and silver in most events [4], which many scholars believe is a result of the current system in China limiting the development of competitive sports. Due to the ‘undesirable drive’ of the country’s predominant system and the gold medal philosophy, a lot of resources have been devoted to competitive sports, the sport has drifted away from young people, cooperation between the sports sector and the education sector has diminished and fragmentation has become more serious. In addition, after the resumption of the college entrance examination system, examination-based education has added to the burden of students, while the notion that schools and parents focus on their children’s performance at the expense of physical exercise has led to a weakening of the relationship between sport and young people. In response, the state put forward Opinions on Deepening the Integration of Sports and Education for the Healthy Development of Youth, marking a new era in training school sports and competitive sports reserve talents [5].

Second, the study on the concept of integration of sports and education. In the past, the policy of integration of sports and education was aimed at solving the employment problem of retired athletes and improving students’ competitive sports ability, but the reform that only focused on athletes and students did not properly solve the problems of training athletic reserve talents and retired athletes’ placement [6]. The reasons for this stem from the lack of good cooperation between the sports sector and the education sector, and the obstacles in terms of concepts, systems, and interests in the process of integration of sports and education. In addition, some scholars point out that conducting the integration of sports and education involves a painful point in the development of the country [7], on the one hand, because the division of labor between the sports sector and the education sector in China is too clear, and the sports sector and the education sector did not have a unified ideology and lacked experience in cooperation when conducting integration of sports and education in the early stage. At present, there is a tendency for our Sports Bureau and Education Bureau to merge to become the Education and Sports Bureau, which is not only a formal integration but also an integration of work content. The integration of sports and education in the new era should be led by the concept of “health first”, strengthening top-level design, integrating the functions of various departments, strengthening the main position of school sports, considering schools as the main place where young people receive education, with schools, families, and society working together to provide quality teaching resources for young people, while sports departments and education departments should also work together In addition to changing the concept of educating people, which emphasizes students’ performance and neglects physical exercise [8], the role of physical education in the education of young people should also be emphasized. The integration of sports and education in the new era should be led by the concept of “health first”, strengthening top-level design, integrating the functions of various departments, strengthening the main role of school sports, and making schools the main place for young people to receive education, while schools, families, and society should also work together to provide quality teaching resources for young people. At the same time, the sports and education sectors should also work together to shift the emphasis on student achievement to the neglect of physical activity [8]. On the other hand, it is also important to focus on the role of the physical education discipline in the education of young people. If we want young people to grow up healthily, it is not enough to rely on the physical education and education sectors alone; we need to involve more sectors in a collaborative way to form a pluralistic and open integration concept.

Thirdly, a study on the development model of integration of sports and education is due. Many developed countries have adopted different development models to nurture competitive sports reserve talents and promote healthy youth development. For example, the UK has adopted a policy of dual sports management, which is to build different levels of implementation mechanisms for competitive sports and mass sports [9]. Japan has adopted the school-Enterprise model; Germany has adopted the Club model; many EU member states have adopted the Integration of Sport and Education model. The model of sports-education integration development adopted by the above-developed countries is more oriented towards sports governance, which serves to detect in real-time whether there is a balance between competitive sports and mass sports. These models focus too much on the commercialization of sports and fail to highlight the relationship between the synergistic governance and integrated management of school sports and competitive sports. Zou Xiaojiang argues that to break the barriers to the integration of sports and education, it is necessary to optimize the policies for the training of reserve talents for competitive sports in China, strengthen the implementation of new policies for the integration of sports and education, and provide guarantees for the training of reserve talents for competitive sports in China by improving the implementation strategies for the integration of sports and education [10]. To improve the physical fitness of young people, Duryea suggests that the integration of sports and education requires the participation of multiple actors in the practice of educating students [11] and that the integration of sports and education is a project that requires the contribution of all sectors of society. Therefore, when reforming the integration of sports and education, it is important not to rely solely on school education but also to combine family and social education, to effectively integrate the strengths of the school, family, and society, forming a “trinity” concept of integration. Hao Dongfeng and others argue that the integration of physical education in the new era should also follow the logic of education, such as wholeness and comprehensiveness, equity and student differences, science and humanity, lifelong learning and stages of learning, and independence and openness [12]. In addition, the integration of sport and education is a complex and closed-loop system of reform and innovation, which enables the healthy development of young people and the training of socialist successors, as well as the integration and optimization of the management systems and operational mechanisms of the sport and education systems.

The development model of integration of sports and education in China in the new era can help guide the reform of school sports. Given the above, how to make use of and create positive factors for the integration of sports and education in the new era and avoid negative factors that are not conducive to the governance and reform development of sports and education has become a hot topic of current research. And the above research on the integration of sports and education in China provides new paths, identifies new problems, and proposes new countermeasures for the development of the integration of sports and education in China in the context of the new era. However, for a long time, there has been a lack of implementation of sports-education integration in China, insufficient integration, sports-education integration confined to forms, and negative slackness such as the bundling of sports and education interests. In addition, most of the studies focus on the macro “concept” of how to develop the integration of sports and education, which to a certain extent neglects the focus of the problem and the focus of attention on the construction of the development model of integration of sports and education in China. These problems and shortcomings are due both to the researcher’s difficulty in experiencing ‘issues related to the integration of sport and education and the researcher’s neglect of current scholarly attention to research on the integration of sport and education in China. In the process, it has failed to understand the concept of integration of sports and education and the development rules of sports disciplines, not to mention the attention of scholars in the process of integration of sports and education, and there is a lack of qualitative research on the development of integration of sports and education in the new era. In terms of theory and practice, the lack of qualitative research tends to make understanding the integration model more of an ‘over-rational’ study, making it difficult to develop clear theoretical issues of a humanistic. Based on this, the study uses logical reasoning, literature, and rooted theory as an entry point for the formulation of 20 authoritative experts in the field of physical education on the nature of the integration of sports and education, the ways of integration, the paths of integration and the difficulties that exist. And as a research note on the construction of the development model of integration of sports and education in China in the context of the new era, an in-depth analysis of the “focal and turning points” dilemma affecting the development of sport-education integration, as well as the motivations, values, and philosophies that underpin it. It is hoped that this will provide a theoretical and practical basis for the construction of a development model for the integration of sports and education in China in the context of the new era.

Research design

2.1 Research Methodology

This study focuses on grounded theory as the research method. There are currently three main schools of grounded theory, which mainly include the classical version, the procedural version, and the structuralist version [13]. The classical version focuses on the discovery of a social theory, the procedural version sees the aim of research as the interpretation of data and structure, and the structuralist version emphasizes the researcher interacting with the researched. Given that the procedural version is more concerned with the theory of “abstraction based on empirical facts” from “monads” to “plurals” of raw data [14], therefore this study only analyses the attention of authoritative experts in the field of physical education integration in China in the new era from the perspective of a programmed version of the grounded theory, to establish the category links between the various factors. And the programmed version of grounded theory is also a technique for the objective, systematic and quantitative description, and study of communication content with a clear identity. It is systematic, objective, and reproducible, and the theoretical framework is gradually developed through the continuous deepening and refinement of the material. The researcher does not make any assumptions about the study before entering the investigation but generalizes directly from the information. The textual material is coded through NVivo 11.0 software, using computer assistance, by creating projects, importing text, and creating nodes, and through these steps, coding, querying, establishing logical relationships and conceptual mapping work is completed. The coding is based on using a full statement or a full stop as a dividing line to refine the statements that reflect current social phenomena from the original research data, and then propose categories and build links between them to form the corresponding theory [15]. A procedural version of grounded theory can “avoid the theoretical involution that comes with theoretical presuppositions in a positivist perspective” [16], it focuses on exploring the information through 3 steps: open coding, spindle coding, and selective coding, conceptual and category analysis according to certain levels, and determining causal relationships between categories. Ultimately, the core categories and corresponding storylines are linked into conceptual categories, thus laying a theoretical foundation for the study of the construction of a model for the integration of sports and education development in China.

2.2 Source of data

The study uses the concept of physical education integration, expert statements, and distilled utterances as the main axes for coding integration in a linear pattern in grounded theory, thus forming a system of meaning characterized by structure, organization, and internal connections. The research materials were mainly derived from the presentation materials of 20 authoritative experts in the field of kinesiology who participated in relevant physical education integration forums or online conferences. A total of 360 minutes of the audio compilation of online presentations were collected and collated, resulting in 103,000 words of textual materials, and the basic information of the experts is shown in Table 1. In addition, to ensure the objectivity and validity of the primary data, this study used the triangulation correction method to cross-check the validity and consistency of the primary data on the integration of physical education [17], in which different researchers from the same research field were used to code the same question. Different researchers from the same research area were used in this test to code the same question for analysis. It is generally accepted that the text encoding reliability of NVivo software is mainly expressed using the K (Kappa coefficient) coefficient. The formula for percentage agreement is percentage agreement (confidence) = number of mutually agreed codes / (number of mutually agreed codes + number of mutually disagreed codes)” [18]. If the confidence level is higher than 70%, the accuracy of this text coding is considered valid. The K-coefficients for the text codes in this study were all calculated to be above 70%, indicating that the categorization reliability of the coders was high and that they were considered to have good coding reliability, then this code could be used for the study. Therefore, the study addresses the validity and reliability of the discourse analysis information in the study on the construction of the physical education integration model given the K coefficient.

Table 1 General information for specialists

Procedural coding for the construction of a model for the integration of sports and education development in China

3.1 Open coding

The first stage of open coding is to integrate and extract the initial research material, extracting themes or concepts from the research material, with the aim of re-synthesizing elements that are similar in nature and content. All conference audio material was progressively conceptualized and categorized, and secondly, the conceptual and attribute dimensions were explored with the help of data coding while maintaining the principle of category consistency, and the search for new category words provided further clues to the theory [19]. Furthermore, during the open coding process, continuous feedback was given on the textual data, which revealed deficiencies in the definition of categories in the data, which included issues such as the relationship between the data and the study, the type of categories to which the data belonged, and the characteristic dimensions, forming the process of interaction between the data and the coding [20]. In addition, the initial textual information was collated using manual and software assistance, and then conceptualized and coded to accurately summarize the concept formation categories [21]. The openness coding culminates in a category that is also a concept and is more inclusive than a concept. Given the length of the study, only the open coding part of the process has been selected for example. For instance,” As for the division with education, so there is no question of the integration of moral education and the integration of intellectual education. The reason why the integration of sport and education is proposed must be because of the phenomenon of the rift between sport and education, the fragmentation of.” Distillation of “A1:Sport and Education have a rift”; “Based on stakeholder theory and the study of the thinking concept integration barriers, the sports sector cultivates excellent athletes, strengthening athletic ability; gold medals first; the education sector cultivates high-scoring students; high school entrance exams set for life; score first; the family’s aspirations, he is to cultivate culturally meaningful children, and do not want their physical and mental hardship, all suffer.” Distillation of the “A2: the concept of barriers to integration”. “The sports system has put its main focus mainly on Olympic glory and improving technical levels, with little concern and support for youth health development, which has led to an increasing decline in youth physical health on the one hand,” Extracted from the “A3: focus on athletics at the expense of children”. To a certain extent, these concepts can reflect how the integration of physical education and sports is developed and the factors that influence it. In total, 102 conceptualized categories are extracted, as shown in Table 2.

Table 2 Openness coding for the development of physical education integration

3.2 Spindle code

The second phase in the rooting theory process, which involves shifting the primary coding of textual content from category to principal category, is principal axis coding. To divide the main categories/sub-categories and to confirm the relationships between categories and concepts, the processes of abstraction, categorization, and synthesis are carried out by the inference process of “causal conditions – action/interaction strategies – resultant logic” [22]. Sports and education fall under the two main departments of the General Administration of Sports and the Ministry of Education, respectively, and their main interests are configured and developed in different directions. The General Administration of Sports focuses on competitive sports and the interests of high-level athletes, and that is oriented towards gold medals.

Table3 The physical education integration spine coding technique and its outcomes

3.3 Selective coding

The method of narrowing down and choosing a core category from among all the conceptual groups that have been identified via methodical iteration and analysis is known as selective coding. To provide a comprehensive explanatory framework, this core category can link other categories and explain how they relate to one another [23]. Based on the selective coding method, this study will continue to investigate the categories, particularly the seven main categories of competitive sports reserve, youth fitness level, school sports discipline status, conceptual innovation, event system, multi-disciplinary cooperation, and micro-exploration. By comparing and retracing the data, the two-pronged model of “athletic-school sport” was eventually formed. This two-linear dependence model is distinct from other models in that it is based on an idealized conceptual model of doctrine that was drawn from the attention of 20 active researchers of somatic education integration. The study contends that the meaning behind it is based on the historical context of the integration of sports and education; it is a paradigm structure proposed to address the issues of retirement security for athletes, the integration of school training, and how school sports and competitive sport are interdependent under the new development stage. The present strategy of sports and education integration aims to increase young people’s physical fitness, but the early, unduly strict division of labor between the sports sector and the education sector has caused a significant breach in the integration of sports and education. In this context, the concept of rethinking how sports and education are combined has been put on the table. Various mechanisms and systems have been successfully used to break down the boundaries between sports and education in development so that education can be effectively linked with sports at all stages, and the status of the subject of sports has been continuously raised. In response to the previous phenomenon of serious division between sports and education, the concept of integration such as diversified integration and sectoral collaboration has been put forward. Based on the foregoing, this study uses open coding conceptualization analysis and spindle coding for the establishment of physical education integration to validate the link between the categories and ideas. Additionally, it provides an overview of several subjects, including youth fitness levels, the state of school sports, conceptual innovation, event systems, cross-disciplinary cooperation, and micro-exploration. The focus of 20 authoritative experts in the area of sports-education integration was then summarized, and the “two-line integration of athletics and school sports” model was formed as the development model of sports-education integration in China in the new age, as illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure1：The “Dual Dependency of Competitive-School Sports” Development Model of Sports-Education Integration

Exploring the construction of a model for the integration of sports and education development in China in the new era

“Everything is data,” according to grounded theory [24]. The research draws on the expertise of 20 leading experts in the field of sports education integration to identify seven key areas: competitive sports talent, the status of school sports, youth fitness levels, conceptual innovation, event systems, multidisciplinary cooperation, and micro-exploration. The following is the analysis:

(1) Reserve talent for competitive sports. Under the national system, the development of integration between sport and education has created barriers in terms of concepts, systems, resources, and pathways, which not only makes it difficult for young athletes to balance their studies and sport, but also has an impact on the group’s academic career and can even affect their future employment development. As a result of previous policies, many sports resources have been directed towards competitive sports, which has resulted in the physical and mental health of young people not being effectively addressed, while exam-oriented education has squeezed students’ contact time with sports. The evolution of sports and education integration in the future will be significantly influenced by the historical context of their integration. The idea of integrating sports and education has been developed for more than 30 years, and while many issues surfaced during the early stages of integration, the nation and society have gained a deeper understanding of the current issues and conundrums of sports and education integration through analysis of past failures and lessons learned. Therefore, overcoming these obstacles and achieving full integration in the future may be made possible by having a thorough awareness of the historical context of the integration of sports and education.

(2) The state of classroom physical education is marginalized, and young people’s physical health worsens because schools and parents place more value on intelligence than physical education due to exam-oriented schooling. In the past, there was a lack of agreement between the sports industry and the education sector when it came to reforming the integration of sports and education. Although the integration of sports and education gave the two sectors a direction, in the actual operation process, the two sectors appeared to be at odds, which not only used up a lot of resources (human, material, and financial) but also deepened the differences and contradictions between sports and education. This has, to some extent, had an influence on the system for educating school sports staff, which has led to the marginalization of the school sports discipline and, eventually, made it difficult for school sports to offer young athletes timely, efficient, scientific, and rational instruction. This eventually hinders school sports from providing young athletes with a timely, efficient, and scientifically sound athletic education. Due to the transmission of external policy pressure, the idea of the status of the school sport discipline has experienced an adaptive shift in the regulatory space in the context of the integration of sport and education. The fact that “sports and education” in the process of integrating sports and education are still in an awkward and passive situation, however, is due to the absence of an institutional framework, the mindset of the integration of sports and education, and the contradiction between learning and training.

(3) The level of physical fitness of young people. For example, in recent years, the Ministry of Education and its related departments have organized the 6th large-scale national study on students’ physical fitness and health. The results show that although the downward trend in student fitness is beginning to be halted, student fitness is still in a downward trend. Based on the findings of this study on youth physical fitness and health policy, the key point to reflect on remains the fragmentation of the integration of sport and education in our country. Given the current lack of a system for the integration of sports and education development in China, the issue of youth physical health has been a hot research topic in society and academia in recent years. A long-standing phenomenon of declining youth physical fitness levels must have been hampered by the ineffective system of integrating sports and education in the past, and more and more academics are starting to take this into account in conjunction with the historical issue of integration of sports and education. In addition, the integration of sports and education is initially a collaborative effort between the sports sector and the education sector to improve the competitive sports talent training system and enhance the core competitiveness of China’s competitive sports. However, because of the various strategies for integrating action in the sports and education sectors. This has resulted in young people being less interested in sports, which has ultimately led to a major decrease in our youth’s physical health. None of these outcomes could have been foreseen when the policy was being developed.

(4) Originality of thought. The idea of integrating sports and education has a significant influence on how it is implemented in the modern period. It is also one of the major categories of the model for how the integration of sports and education will evolve in the future. Sports and education are increasingly balancing each other out in terms of topic status thanks to the expanding development concept of integration, and the two are growing and boosting one another. The integration of sports and education has frequently stressed the need of adhering to the integrated promotion of the sports sector and the education sector in the process of developing a strong athletic country. There is an urgent need for the entire society to come together and there is an even larger need for tight cooperation amongst the sectors in fostering the healthy development of young people. However, there is frequently ongoing division and struggle between interest groups, and placing too much emphasis on one might impede the growth of the other. For this reason, an intensive collaboration between the sports and education sectors is frequently not feasible. Presented within the educational governance system in the form of a benign notion of the integration of sport and education, it forms the basis of a certain metacognitive school sport cognition.

(5) Tournament system. The study concluded that the integration of sports and education can be developed through the mode of “leading by famous schools + supporting by provincial key universities” and improving the competition system and system of universities to inject development force. Given that operating a university, as well as basic and secondary education, requires significant financial outlays, all educational institutions must be able to manage risks that may arise at any time or location. In addition to this, there is the possibility of using differentiated education and shifting the direction of the strategy of integration of sports and education appropriately, which can eliminate the conflict between the two to some extent. One of the main areas for researching the future development model of sports-education integration is the tournament system and multidisciplinary cooperation, which are the methods of development of the new era of sports-education integration. These methods should also adopt appropriate methods to further develop the new era of sports-education integration. According to the study’s findings, policies should also be loosened to support local reform and investigation to find integration barriers in the system of integrating sports and education so that the best path for implementation can be created. It is important to fully comprehend and apply the integration of sports and education using digital, analytical, and precise thinking.

(6) Diversified synergy and cooperation. With the deepening of the integration of sports and education, diversified development goals are presented between the sports sector and the education sector. The study concluded that to jointly advance the reform of sports and education integration, it is necessary to integrate resources, harmonize the growth direction of diverse sectors, and combine forces. Emotional blending can result in complementary strengths and the coordination of various subject developments, which optimizes and balances the educational environment. This can be done within the context of organizational integration and growth. Second, the integration of sports and education in the modern era necessitates not only the cooperation of the departments of sports and education but also the cooperation of other departments to create a pluralistic and open integration concept [26], allowing for the participation of more subjects in the reform of the integration of sports and education and fostering the healthy growth of both competitive sports and school sports. Second, the integration of sports and education in the modern era necessitates not only the cooperation of the departments of sports and education but also the cooperation of other departments to create a pluralistic and open integration concept [26], allowing for the participation of more subjects in the reform of the integration of sports and education and fostering the healthy growth of both competitive sports and school sports. Finally, greater funding must be allocated to school sports to integrate sports and education. Only via school sports can additional athletic reserve skills be developed, allowing for the selection of athletic sports and the resolution of the integration conundrum while providing significant momentum for the advancement of sports and education integration.

(7) Micro-exploration. According to the study, the current stage of the reform of the integration of sports and education can effectively carry out institutional innovation to let young athletes train their cultural strengths alongside their professional strengths and meet their varied training and learning needs. Because of this, the study concluded that schools need to keep innovating their educational philosophy to support the rapid development of students by expanding the teacher population as well as consistently developing and upgrading the pertinent curricula. The study concluded that, in the new era, the integration of sports and education also requires active exploration, planning out various reform pathways, intensifying the reform of school physical education, including school physical education in government performance assessment items, and having sports and education departments take the lead in working together to form an integration trend [27]. Due to their heightened sense of participation in the administration of sports-education integration, school physical education instructors, school administrators, and students report greater feelings of access and self-fulfillment. This effectively promotes the interactive transition in the development model of sports-education integration from a static to a live governance connection.

Conclusion

From the general design of the “Five-in-One” of Chinese characteristics in the new age to the promotion and execution of “accelerating the creation of a high-quality education governance system and modernization of governance capability,” since the 18th National Congress, building a modernized national governance system and governance ability in the context of the new age has become a serious job that involves investigating the development model of integration of sports and education in China. The study applied the grounded theory’s four-factor analysis paradigm of “storyline – causal conditions – action/interaction strategies – outcome logic” [28] and conducted an in-depth analysis of the implementation concepts, methodological decisions, and pathway innovations of 20 eminent scholars around physical education integration in China. It also discusses issues related to the integration of sports and education, and finally concludes with a selective coding of the “two-line integration model of competitive sports-school sports”. According to the study’s findings, Chinese academics researching the integration of sports and education currently mainly concentrate on seven topics: “competitive sports reserve talents, the status of school sports disciplines, youth fitness level, conceptual innovation, event system, multifaceted cooperation, and micro-exploration.” According to the study’s findings, Chinese academics researching the integration of sports and education currently mainly concentrate on seven topics: “competitive sports reserve talents, the status of school sports disciplines, youth fitness level, conceptual innovation, event system, multifaceted cooperation, and micro-exploration.” At this point, the integration of sports and education model is still constrained by an institutional imbalance, and the “sports and education” component of the process is stuck in an odd position of inactivity and marginality. We should continue to innovate the concept of integration, deeply strengthen the relationship between the foundations of multiple groups, seek progress stably as the general keynote of integration, and do a good job of “adding” and “subtracting” in the development of sports and education integration at this stage considering the governance challenges and policy opportunities arising from the integration of sports and education in the new era. By doing this, we can continue to construct a new sustainable development model that is “fairer, more balanced, more coordinated, more complete, more inventive, and better quality” [29] for the integration of sports and education in China.

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