Sport and school culture : a case study of a boys' secondary school in Hong Kong

Abstract

The competitive education system in Hong Kong makes students and parents tear between the philosophy of achieving academic excellence and the need to develop generic skills from participating in a wide range of activities. With the strong sports background, I, as the researcher, was intrigued by the sport excellence of the research school. In addition to the pursuit of academic excellence, the research school has outstanding sports achievement. The school has produced not merely just a few sports stars, but overall, her school teams are strong in each and every sporting event and thereby the school has been famed as the Sports Empire in the educational circle in Hong Kong. This study aimed to explore the extent of sport relates to school culture, and how this influences the school community and students. The central research question in this study is: How does sport nurture school culture?

This research was a case study of a boys’ secondary school in Hong Kong. This study was descriptive in nature and in order to gain an in-depth understanding of the context of the research site, qualitative research method was employed. As the prototype of this research could not be predetermined and full employment of human behaviours could not speculate about the outcomes, the actual chemistry of sport and school culture was discovered ethnographically. Data collection methods included unobtrusive observations, critical incidents, semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Subsequent triangulation of data was employed in order to validate different types of data from different perspectives.

Results have demonstrated several distinct features of the school, including all of her students are involved in sport, individual attributes are acquired through sports participation and coherent individual norms form the school culture. The data of this research have produced the analysis of powerful cohesive force, ethos of collectivism over individualism in sport, winning philosophy and school culture highlights sports achievement. These four dimensions of analysis were considered collectively to further explore the findings of sports and extracurricular activities extend the realm of education and perpetuate the school culture, in addition to competitions are crucial and all-embracing lifelong lessons. Therefore, this research study has illustrated that sport allows students to pursue their lifelong endeavours and it is as important as the knowledge they acquire in general education. Above all, sport is a special discourse to perpetuate school culture of the research school and a platform to extend the depth and breadth of an all-round education.

Ultimately, the analysis and findings of this research study have generated a new educational framework in order to broaden the scope of education and inculcate learning experience at three levels. This is a theory of never-ending quest for excellence, which aims at promoting the development of students’ excellence and their lifelong attitude of self-advancement.