Family sports planning in urban China: exploring parental sports ideology, parental sports management and family sports practices in adolescent sports participation

This study explores how parents shape adolescents’ participation in sport in urban China through a novel conceptual framework termed ‘family sports planning’. Moving beyond fragmented accounts of parental involvement, the study conceptualises family engagement with youth sport as a structured and negotiated process comprising three interrelated dimensions: family sports ideology, family sports management and family sports practices. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with eight parents from major Chinese cities, the findings reveal that parental engagement in adolescent sport is organised around three culturally situated themes: 1) parental sports ideology frames sport not only as a means of promoting physical health but also as a strategic resource for enhancing academic competitiveness and cultivating social capital within an exam-oriented educational system; 2) parental sports management is manifested in deliberate planning and scheduling, selective allocation of financial and institutional resources and continuous negotiation between sporting involvement and academic commitments; 3) family sports practices are embedded in everyday routines through both direct and indirect parental involvement. Family sports planning thus emerges as a culturally embedded strategy shaped by contemporary Chinese sociocultural and policy conditions, with intensified educational stratification, urban middle-class aspirations and recent national reforms promoting physical education. By highlighting the institutional and cultural structuring of parental decision-making, this study proposes a context-specific framework that bridges family sociology and sport participation research, offering new insight into how youth sport is strategically organised within families under competitive educational regimes.