From Skill Transmission to Health Promotion: The Transformation of Physical Education Goals in Western Contexts and Its Implications for Reform in China

Abstract

As concerns over physical inactivity and adolescent health intensify, physical education (PE) has been increasingly reframed from a focus on sport skills and performance toward health promotion and lifelong physical activity. While Western PE policy discourses position health as a primary educational purpose, China’s PE reform is shaped by a distinctive dual mandate that integrates the principle of “Health First” with curriculum ideology and moral education. Existing comparative research often remains descriptive and insufficiently theorizes how policy goals and values are translated into curriculum content, pedagogy, and assessment. Addressing this gap, this study employs a qualitative, interpretive comparative analysis of Western and Chinese PE policy and curriculum texts.

The analysis examines goal hierarchies, value assumptions about learners, and policy-to-curriculum translation logics. The findings suggest that Western frameworks more consistently operationalize health promotion through learner-centered pedagogies and formative processes, whereas in China, health-oriented intentions may be constrained by performance-oriented accountability traditions. Building on these insights, the study proposes an integrated reform pathway that reframes curriculum ideology and moral education as a culturally grounded resource for health-promoting PE under the Health China 2030 agenda.