This thesis examines the school-based Olympic education (OE) programs implemented in the Beijing Olympic Games from both top-down and bottom-up perspectives. The research employs a three-pronged methodology for data collection, using textual analysis, semi-structured interviews with five key informants, and storytelling with six student participants. Findings suggest that OE in China was primarily government-led, with BOCOG, academic experts and numerous volunteers providing expertise and assistance. The students’ narratives shed light on how OE was conceptualized and experienced by its recipients as well as the useful role it served in revitalizing the traditional education system. To strengthen OE during future Games, the thesis recommends that future organizers and host governments embed programs of OE in the ongoing state school systems, set clear learning objectives in advance and monitor and evaluate implementation continually. It also recommends that future researchers continue this students’ focus on the student voice.

This thesis examines the school-based Olympic education (OE) programs implemented in the Beijing Olympic Games from both top-down and bottom-up perspectives. The research employs a three-pronged methodology for data collection, using textual analysis, semi-structured interviews with five key informants, and storytelling with six student participants. Findings suggest that OE in China was primarily government-led, with BOCOG, academic experts and numerous volunteers providing expertise and assistance. The students’ narratives shed light on how OE was conceptualized and experienced by its recipients as well as the useful role it served in revitalizing the traditional education system. To strengthen OE during future Games, the thesis recommends that future organizers and host governments embed programs of OE in the ongoing state school systems, set clear learning objectives in advance and monitor and evaluate implementation continually. It also recommends that future researchers continue this students’ focus on the student voice.

This thesis has sought to examine the conceptualisation(s) of the field of Olympic education identified in the English language literature, and to evaluate the planning of Olympic education in practice, specifically in relation to the preparation of Olympic education programmes and systems for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics. When Pierre de Coubertin introduced the modern Olympic Games, one of the ideas for the revival of the Games was to educate young people through sport. Despite Coubertin s educational philosophy, the Olympic Games have long failed to represent ideals of fair play, equal opportunity, and international harmony but being replaced by bribery, corruption, commercialism, drug use and gender discrimination instead. The IOC has strengthened the roles and mission of the Olympic bodies in particular relation to the promotion of Olympic values and Olympism through the implementation of Olympic education. As a policy aim for the Olympic Movement, the development of Olympic education programmes has become a key goal for the IOC and thus host cities/nations. Providing a concept of Olympic and Paralympic education programmes in preparation for staging the Olympic Games is a compulsory requirement for host cities and nations. However, in spite of the IOC s recent explicit and intended commitment to the development of Olympic education policies in practice, explanation of Olympic education as a concept and a set of practices is imprecise and relatively underdeveloped in the Olympic related area. In addition, there is a lack of understanding of how universal values and concepts of Olympic education are perceived and communicated in culturally diverse contexts. The thesis is divided into two related parts, which seeks to provide two fundamental contributions to knowledge in this field. Part One is focused on a meta-narrative review of the English language literature on Olympic education. The methodology of a meta-narrative review is an extension of the systematic review process and facilitates the identification of the contribution of research traditions to the phenomena under review, in this case the conceptualisation and operationalisation of Olympic education. Through the process of meta-narrative review, six research traditions were identified: educational philosophy; critical sociology; curriculum development; education psychology; development of evaluation measures; and policy analysis and evaluation. II The results of the review identified how Olympic education has been conceptualised with various unfolding storylines in different research traditions, and this analysis subsequently provided the basis for the second key element of the study in the form of templates against which to evaluate the Olympic education programmes and systems associated with Tokyo 2020. Part Two employs a case study approach and is focused on the analysis of six cases using a realist evaluation methodology, employing analytic logic models and analysis of Context-Mechanism-Outcome (CMO) configurations. This facilitates the development of explicit and/or implicit causal claims about changes brought about by Japanese Olympic education programmes. The research has also contributed to developing a critical review of Olympic education programmes in a culturally specific, non-western context. Provision of Olympic education, within the context of national legislation requiring its introduction into the school curriculum developed by various stakeholders, represents a unique and culturally specific context for its study. Not only its education system, but also the cultural and historical values embedded within Japanese Olympic education programmes derive from the Japanese understanding of Olympism and universal Olympic values based on the Japanese values such as harmony, in particular applied in the effort in the recovery from national disasters, moral values learned from Judo and physical education, and Japanese ways of expressing hospitality. Thus, this case study of Tokyo 2020 acts as an exemplar in the diffusing of ways of developing and delivering the benefits of Olympic education programmes in culturally specific context.

As a physical education teacher educator and Olympic educator I have become conscious that many physical education teachers have heard of Olympism, but are confused about what it encompasses. Furthermore they are challenged to understand how to teach Olympism in their physical education programmes. The potential of the educative and social value of Olympism is, as yet, unfulfilled. My study is about the content knowledge teachers require for teaching Olympism, the successful pedagogies they use, and the meanings that students derive from putting Olympism into action within, and outside of, the gymnasium. My qualitative case study uses teacher and student interviews, and observations to gather data as it follows the teaching and learning of Olympism in the Year 9 physical education programme of a New Zealand secondary school. In my attempt to understand what teachers need to know and do to make Olympism a reality in physical education programmes I have drawn on aspects of Shulman‟s (1987) seminal framework of teacher knowledge, to understand the content knowledge needed for teaching Olympism, the pedagogical content knowledge required, and the knowledge of students and their characteristics as they learn about Olympism. My findings reveal that teachers require various forms of content knowledge to teach Olympism, such as knowledge of students and their needs, a clear definition of Olympism for the setting, Olympism as a personal life-stance, ethical situations in games, and a holistic physical education curriculum. Pedagogies that the teachers used were found to be the transformation of Olympism into manageable concepts for teaching, the use of experiential and social teaching models in games contexts, and the extensive use of questioning and discussion strategies to develop critical thinking. Evidence shows the range of the students‟ learning, and the development of deeper meanings of Olympism. The students regarded the teacher as a role model of Olympism, and varied in their ability to transfer Olympism understandings into their wider lives. My detailed account of how teachers understand and teach Olympism, and the extent to which students apply their knowledge in class and beyond, offers a practical example of what Olympic education can look like when it has Olympism at its core. Such teaching I have named Olympism education.

This study investigates nine youths' understanding of Olympic Ideals (Olympism) and their perceptions on whether these ideals have importance within the practice of sport. A qualitative case study is used in conjunction with a humanistic-critical theoretical framework to gather and analyse data. Using purposive sampling, nine students are selected from four schools in Christchurch, New Zealand to participate in one individual and one paired semi-structured interview. Currently there is a paucity of national and international research into youth's perceptions and understanding of Olympism through the practice of sport. The research that does exist tends to be quantitative in nature with a focus on Games knowledge, thus, this study provides a contribution to the current research domain regarding qualitative conversations about Olympism in youth sport.

Tyrimo objektas: Rizikos grupės vaikų požiūris į olimpinį judėjimą ir kilnų elgesį sporte olimpinio ugdymo kontekste; Tyrimo tikslas – išsiaiškinti rizikos grupės vaikų požiūrį į olimpinį judėjimą ir kilnų elgesį sporte olimpinio ugdymo kontekste. Siekinat atsakyti į tyrimo tikslą, buvo keliami šie uždaviniai: išnagrinėti olimpizmo idėjų sklaidą mokykloje olimpinio ugdymo kontekste; įvertinti rizikos grupės vaikų žinias apie olimpines žaidynes olimpinio ugdymo kontekste; nustatyti mokykloje vykdomos olimpinio ugdymo programos poveikį rizikos grupės vaikų požiūriui į olimpinį judėjimą ir kilnų elgesį sporte olimpinio ugdymo kontekste; Tyrimu tikrinama hipotezė, kad mokyklos, kurios vaikai dalyvauja olimpinio ugdymo projekte požiūris į olimpinį judėjimą ir kilnų elgesį sporte pozityvesnis nei mokyklos, kurios vaikai minėtame projekte nedalyvauja. Tyrimo metu, taikant netikimybinę tikslinę atranką bei apklausos raštu metodą buvo apklausta 120 rizikos grupei priklausančių vaikų (60 vaikų iš mokyklos, kuri dalyvauja olimpinio ugdymo programoje bei 60 vaikų iš mokyklos, nedalyvaujančios minėtoje programoje). Taikyta dalis Olimpinio klausimyno (Olympic Questionnaire, Telama et al., 2002). Apklausa parodė, kad mokyklos, kurios vaikai dalyvauja olimpinio ugdymo projekte požiūris į olimpinį judėjimą ir kilnų elgesį sporte pozityvesnis nei mokyklos, kurios vaikai minėtame projekte nedalyvauja. Nustatyta, kad žinių apie olimpines žaidynes rizikos grupės vaikai pirmiausia gauna... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Research object: Children‘s at risk attitude about Olympic Movement and noble behavior in sports in the context of Olympic education; Goal of research – to find out children‘s at risk attitude about Olympic Movement and noble behavior in sports in the context of Olympic education. On purpose to reach the goal of research, the following objectives have been raised: to analyze the dispersion of Olympism ideas in school in the context of Olympic education; to evaluate children‘s at risk knowledge about Olympics in the context of Olympic education; to determine the influence of Olympic education program in school for children‘s at risk attitude about Olympic Movement and noble behavior in sports in the context of Olympic education. The hypothesis, evaluating by research is, that the attitude about Olympic Movement and noble behavior in sports in school, in which children participate in the Olympic education project is more positive than in school, in which children don‘t participate in the earlier mentioned project. During the research, using non-stochastic objective selection and the method of written survey, 120 children from at-risk group (60 children from school, which participates in Olympic education program and 60 children from school, which is not participating in mentioned program) were interviewed. There was a part of Olympic Questionnaire used (Olympic Questionnaire, Telama et al., 2002). A survey showed, that the attitude about Olympic Movement and noble behavior in... [to full text]