Governing Olympic education: Technologies of policy announcements and outsourcing

Abstract

The Chinese government views the Olympic Games as a critical platform to present national pride on a global scale. Olympic education also has an important role to play for China, as it is a requirement for any Olympic host country. In the context or preparations for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, this original ethnographic research examines the governance of Olympic education, with a focus on how relationships between China's government and a range of stakeholders (e.g. private sectors, academics, and individual teachers) ‘worked’ to shape the implementation of Olympic education in two Beijing primary schools. Utilising Foucault's notion of governmentality, we demonstrate that Olympic education was a significant tactic for Chinese government to realise their ambition of the great rejuvenation of China. Here, the state employed two technologies of government: policy announcements and outsourcing. In tension with common assumptions about China – and Chinese education – being purely authoritarian, our research illuminates how hybrid socialist-neoliberal rationalities worked to shape Olympic education in schools.

Keywords

governmentality Olympic education policy outsourcing hybrid socialist-neoliberal rationality 2022 Winter Olympics

Introduction: The governance of Olympic education

On a particularly cold Friday morning in mid-December, Mountain School hosted an opening ceremony of winter sports. On the way to the school, I noticed the differences the area had with before, many decorations appeared. There were flags with the name of the activity and a few organisations hanged on both sides of the street near school. Once entered inside the school, the diverse decorations further shocked me. At the front of the field, there was a large poster with a list of organisations’ names on it, including Beijing Municipal Bureau of Sport, Beijing Sports Association, Beijing Skiing Association, Beijing Winter Sports Centre and others. Some organisations did not seem to have a relation with the Winter Olympics, such as the Social Sports Management Centre. In the centre of the field, a circle of white boards were decorated specifically for floor ice hockey competitions. The name of the related authorities and private sectors were also written on the boards. At the back of the field, there were ample billboards about the details of these organisations, such as the Olympic themed activities of the community, the introduction of the Social Sports Management Centre. I heard from the school principal, Xin, that the activity was dominated by the government, and did not expect that a bewildering array of actors – many with overlapping and unspecified roles – were involved in the delivery of Olympic education, including private bodies. I wrote down in my notes: what attracted these organisations in winter sports? How did they become involved? What kind of relationship do they have with each other? (First author's field notes, 17/12/2018)

This ethnographic moment reveals the complex involvement of a diverse array of organisations in Olympic education in China. As Kohe et al. (2021) remind us, the delivery of an Olympic education programme is complicated and requires connections between institutions at international, national and local levels. Despite these complexities, as a research topic, Olympic education, continues to be rather limited and constrained, both in terms of quantity of scholarly literature (Hwang and Henry, 2021; Lenskyj, 2012), and a tendency for researchers to mostly focus their attention on the ‘effectiveness’ of Olympic education programmes (Hwang and Henry, 2021) or outlining elements of different activities in schools (Chen and Henry, 2017). This paper aims to address the dearth of socio-critical Olympic education research by critically examining the politics and practices of Olympics education. This includes an examination of how relationships between China's government and a range of stakeholders ‘worked’ to shape the implementation of Olympic education in two Beijing primary schools.

We begin by introducing the importance of the Olympics for China and Chinese people, followed by a brief review of Olympic education in China. Then we introduce key stakeholders in Olympic education in China, including the assumption that the state government dominates its implementation. Here we indicate the need to examine the Chinese government's role in, and relationships with, private sector actors. We then explain how Foucault's notion of governmentality allowed us to analyse the state government's role in Olympic education, including policies (i.e. official plans) and practices (i.e. actual techniques). This helped us investigate the relationship between the Chinese government and a variety of stakeholders, including the state government, private companies, schools, teachers, and students. It is worthwhile to mention that although there has been a growth in governmentality studies in non-Western contexts - and China is one of the most productive sites of this scholarship – both the Olympic games and Olympic education programmes in schools have received limited scholarly attention (see also Kromidha et al., 2017). In this paper we analyse empirical evidence gathered from a four-month-long critical ethnography; one that focused on the experiences of students, teachers, and other adults when Olympic education was delivered in two primary schools in Beijing. Finally, we present a nuanced interrogation of how hybrid rationalities of government (i.e. neoliberal and authoritarian) assembled with two interrelated technologies of government: policy announcements and outsourcing.

The Olympics and Olympic education in China

The Chinese government, and Chinese people generally, consider the Olympics as a platform to present their national pride on a global scale (Luo and Huang, 2013). In early Chinese history, Chinese were called the ‘patient of East Asia’ because of the deluge of opium (see Brownell, 2011). The government aimed to use sport as a means to remove this title, something they achieved with some success through the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, which was perceived in China as a symbol of national rejuvenation (Zhang, 2021). Since the 1920s China has aimed to be more heavily involved with the Olympic Games, from participating and winning medals to, more recently, hosting the Olympics (Fan et al., 2005). China has bid twice for the Summer Olympics, has hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics, 2015 Youth Olympics, and the 2022 Winter Olympics. As noted by the state government, hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics is ‘an important landmark at the historical moment, is an important opportunity to present the national image, promote the development within China, and raise the national spirit’ (MoE et al., 2018: 1).

Olympic education has an important role to play for China as a host country. It first implemented Olympic education in schools in 2002 to support its bid for the 2008 Beijing Olympics (Brownell, 2009; Naul et al., 2017; Wang and Masumoto, 2009). The International Olympic Committee (IOC) requires bidding cities to organise and distribute ‘inspiring Olympic and Paralympic education programmes to schools and colleges throughout the Host Country’ (IOC, 2016: 46). Olympic education is the most commonly used term when describing these programmes and Olympism-based activities (Naul et al., 2017), while it is broadly defined as any educational activities that are hosted during the Olympic period in China (Liu, 2012). For the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government delivered numerous plans, such as the Olympic Education Action Plan for Beijing Schools (see Brownell, 2009; Wang and Masumoto, 2009), as well as a range of activities in schools, such as learning Olympic-related facts and hosting mini-Olympics (for a critique of these forms of Olympic education, see Lenskyj, 2012). These plans meshed well with China's Suzhi education (quality, all-round education), which believes humans should be cultivated by moral, intellectual, physical, and aesthetic education; and Olympic education is closely related to Suzhi education as it provides comprehensive content and practices for teachers (Brownell, 2009). Brownell (2009: 44) commented, in terms of the number of students participating in Olympic education, the 2008 Beijing Olympics was at the time ‘the largest’ Olympic education programme ever delivered. This was also a time when numerous authorities, such as sponsors (e.g. Johnson & Johnson), other businesses (local dairy company Mengniu), Olympic-related organisations, academics, and individuals began to be more involved with the design and implementation of Olympic education in schools (Brownell, 2009; Liu, 2012; Mao, 2015).

China's state government has continued to have a prominent role in ensuring that Olympic education is used as a significant tactic to realise their governmental ambitions. In 2018, the Chinese government launched their first policy to promote Olympic education for the 2022 Olympics across the country: The Olympic Education Plan for Primary and Secondary School Students in Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics (MoE et al., 2018). This policy stated: ‘Olympic education is an important part of the 2022 Olympics’ (para.1) and will help the great rejuvenation of China, Suzhi education reform, and students’ all-round development. To achieve this aim, the policy planned to have 700 Olympic education model schools¹ across the country, with 200 in Beijing, 200 in Heibei province, and 10 in other parts of China (MoE et al., 2018). In comparison to the 2008 Olympic education which encouraged schools to implement diverse Olympic-related activities, the most recent programme aims to promote winter sports, Olympic knowledge, and Olympic spirit, schools could implement these activities in PE lessons, math, Chinese, arts and other integrated subjects and extra activities (see BMBS, 2018; BMBS et al., 2018; MoE et al., 2018). This is the first-time winter sports have been considered as a part of Olympic education within an Olympic host city. This programme is governed by multiple government agencies, including Ministry of Education, sports centres, and Beijing Organising Committee for the 2022 Olympic Games. Local authorities also issued their own policies to further guide and support the delivery of the programme (see BMBS et al., 2018). Indeed, the prospect of entering schools to support the development of Olympic education programmes in schools in China has attracted an increasingly diverse range of players.

Stakeholders in Olympic education: A review of the literature

To promote the assumed educational value of the Olympics, the IOC has required biddings cities and Olympic organisations to deliver and promote Olympic education (Lenskyj, 2012). The IOC, alongside other Olympic organisations (e.g. National Olympic Committees (NOCs), National Olympic Academics) now invest in and support educational programmes (see IOC, 2020). The IOC specifically involves sponsors in Olympic education by stating that Olympic sponsors should contribute to ‘the success of the educational, environmental, cultural and youth-oriented initiatives of the Olympic Movement’ and ‘develop advertising and promotional activities that help to promote the Olympic ideals’ (IOC, 2019: 13) (for discussions on the IOC and sponsors in Olympism and Olympic education, see Coburn and McCafferty 2016; Lenskyj, 2012; Pringle, 2012; Zhang, 2021).

The array of stakeholders in Olympic education globally has been well-illustrated by researchers. Georgiadis (2010), for instance, surveyed 92 officials of National Olympic academics and NOCs from 70 countries. These diverse stakeholders included the state government, private companies, corporations, individuals, and Olympic system organisations. Meanwhile, scholars also showed the diverse stakeholders in Olympic education in different contexts, such as the UK (Postlethwaite et al., 2018) and Japan (Kohe et al., 2021). Similarly, in research focused on China, Brownell (2009) and Liu (2012) demonstrated that Olympic education activities were initiated by the state government, private sector, academics and individuals. Although these studies disclosed different organisations in Olympic education, there continues to be a lack of deep understanding about who plays key roles in the actual design and implementation of these programmes, how public, private and voluntary sector organisations form relationships with schools, and to what effect. In this way, broader research on neoliberal processes of corporatisation, privatisation, and outsourcing in education is critical for our analysis of school-based Olympic education.

Privatisation is a critical element of neoliberal education² (Ball, 2012), one that involves multi-sector stakeholders. Outsourcing, as a key form of privatisation, is increasingly evident in schools and in Olympic education. Although there is a developing corpus of literature that critiques outsourcing in health and physical education (see Evans and Davies, 2015; Powell, 2019; Sperka, 2020), the outsourcing of Olympic education is certainly less well-known or studied. Research about Olympic education in China mostly ignored the existence and impact of private sector actors and organisations and assumed that the Chinese government had sole control over Olympic education policy and practices. For example, a number of scholars have focused on Chinese Olympic education as being largely state-led (Brownell, 2009; Mao, 2015; Pei, 2009; Wang and Masumoto, 2009), though other stakeholders were also involved (such as a team of researchers from a university providing Olympic education activities in schools (see Pei, 2009). As Liu (2012: 79) contended, ‘Olympic education in China would never have reached such an extensive scale without multiple supports from the government’. Although in many ways this is true, it also belies how private sector organisations ‘played together’ to influence and implement Olympic education in schools. This paper closely examines how and why China's government brought together various organisations through Olympic education policies and in Olympic education practices.

The governmentality of Olympic education

To understand the governance of Olympic education at school, we employ Foucault's notion of governmentality as a theoretical and analytical framework. Foucault defined governmentality as ‘the conduct of conduct … a form of activity aiming to shape, guide or affect the conduct of some person or persons’ (Gordon, 1991: 2). In other words, governmentality combines ‘the idea of government, or the power to direct conduct, with the idea of a peculiar mentality with which the activity of government as been approached in modern times’ (Allen, 1998: 179).

Rationalities of government – ways of thinking about how to govern others – are therefore critical to this governmentality study. Rationalities of governing a society means critically examining certain mentalities of rule, ‘the ways in which we think about governing’ (Dean, 2007: 50). For instance, Olympism, as a rationality of government, has disciplined the ways we think about not just sport, but the body, self, morality, and life (Chatziefstathiou and Henry, 2012). Miller and Rose (2008) suggested the use of the phrase ‘rationalities’ instead of ‘rationality’ to emphasise the varieties of rationalities. Although Foucault (1982) did not specifically mention complex or hybrid rationalities, he suggested paying attention to specific, rather than general, rationalities when analysing practices of modern government. Indeed, some scholars have expressed how China has shifted from coercive administrative measures to more neoliberal ones (e.g. Harvey, 2007; Jeffreys and Sigley, 2009; Sigley, 2006). We draw on this scholarship to describe a hybrid socialist-neoliberal form of government: neoliberalism with Chinese characteristics (Jeffreys and Sigley, 2009; Sigley, 2006). This shift signifies the multiple rationalities that now shape the governmentality of contemporary China. Therefore, when examining Olympic education, instead of focusing on one rationality, we interrogate the multiple rationalities that assemble together in an attempt for different authorities to govern certain populations. For instance, unlike other scholars who have assumed the dominant role of state government (e.g. Liu, 2012), we demonstrate how two rationalities framed the Chinese government's policies and privatisation to deliver Olympic education. Moreover, we also examine the (in)compatibilities - including the tensions and contradictions – between neoliberal and authoritarian rationalities in Olympic education especially regarding what makes this coexistence (im)possible.

The critical examination of diverse governors (i.e. those authorities that attempt to govern self and others) is vital to our analysis. Modern governmentality requires a range of individuals, authorities, and programmes, as Chatziefstathiou and Henry (2012) demonstrated in their examination of individuals (e.g. Coubertin, Carl Diem) and groups (e.g. IOC) involved in the governance of the Olympics. Power relations are key to this analysis. Foucault’s (1980) understanding of power helps us understand the complex connections and relationships between disparate stakeholders in shaping the ‘conduct of conducts’ of particular people/groups in and through Olympic education. Moreover, when examining the rationalities of different authorities, we were cognisant of one key criticism of governmentality: that Foucault's explanations of power downplayed the influence of governing institutions and the central role of the state in shaping our daily lives (see Jessop, 2007). When power operates at a distance, people are not necessarily aware of how they are being conducted (Li, 2007). Taking this critique into consideration, we examine the role of the state and their interactions with other stakeholders in the governmentality of Olympic education in schools.

Technologies of government are another vital aspect of governmentality studies. Here we refer to technologies as a pragmatic rationality with certain aims (Foucault, 1984). They include ‘various complex of techniques, instruments, measures, and programs that endeavour to translate thought into practice and thus actualise political reason’ (Inda, 2005: 9), such as technologies that the IOC employed to achieve the success of certain Olympic sports and defeat other elements, such as women's sports movements (see Chatziefstathiou and Henry, 2012). It is through technologies that political rationalities become operable (e.g. policy). In this way, governmentality can provide a deeper understanding of how Olympic education is governed by multiple agencies within school communities and what kinds of rationalities underpinned these forms of government.

Conducting critical ethnography in Chinese schools

To understand the governmentality of Olympic education, we employed a critical ethnographic approach. In comparison to more traditional ethnography, critical ethnography is ‘conventional ethnography with a political purpose’ (Thomas, 1993: 4), where the critical ethnographer exposes power relationships through in-depth involvement in a research setting (Powell, 2021). Brady (2011) further asserted, critical ethnographic research also allows researchers to analyse responses related to rationalities (official ones and actualised ones) and technologies of government, highlighting the multiplicity of rationalities and technologies at different times and how power is exercised in everyday language. Critical ethnography enabled us to examine an assortment of power relations produced in Olympic education and through an array of related institutions, rationalities and technologies, an approach that helped us identify the different rationalities and technologies that were assembled together to make Olympic education ‘work’ in two Chinese primary schools (Year 1 to Year 6, 7 to 13 year-olds).

The choice of schools was guided by our desire to have participating schools that were comparable in size, location, staff-student ratios, socio-economic status, and demographic compositions. This allowed us to assess similarities and differences within the two sites and allow us more comprehensive interpretations than a single-site ethnography (see Powell, 2021). Through talking with key informants in the field, we identified two primary schools that met the criteria: Railway School, located in the central area of Beijing with approximately 1300 students and 36 classes; and Mountain School, located in a rural community, with 321 students and 35 teachers.

Specifically, the first author conducted research at each school twice a week over four months. The evidence in this article was gathered using a range of ethnographic methods: observations within and outside of the classrooms; note taking; talking with people (teachers, principal, students, Olympic education providers); and documentary evidence (such as policies, annual reports, organisation and school websites, resources, media releases, and children's homework) (for details, see Zhang, 2021). Both schools had comprehensive Olympic education activities throughout all subjects. The first author also attended numerous public events and set up exercise sessions outside of the two schools. All research procedures were approved by the University of Auckland Human Participant Ethics Committee.

These methods allowed us to collect data from an implementation level, that is, speaking and listening to students and teachers, rather than only relying on official documents and authorities. This helped us gain new insights into Olympic education ‘in action’. The involvement of private sector organisations was one such insight. The in-depth time that the first author spent in the two schools created multiple opportunities to observe for-profit companies and their complicated interactions with each school, teachers, and the government. For example, Cross-Roller (http://www.cross-roller.com/) and Swix & ONTO Snow (http://beijing.lps-china.com/partners/onto-snow/) were two winter sports equipment companies involved in delivering Olympic education-related activities in both schools. The first author developed research relationship with two coaches: Wen from Cross-Roller and Zara from Swix & ONTO Snow, and conversations with them contributed valuable empirical material to understand how they were involved in Olympic education. It also provided useful background information to understand school personnel's views towards these outsourced resources.

The ethnographic evidence was analysed using Markula and Silk’s (2011) six steps of discourse analysis. We firstly repeatedly read data and made descriptive notes in the margins of the transcripts. Then we followed the six steps to detect discourses: objects (e.g. documents, daily conversations); enunciations (e.g. policy); concepts (e.g. Olympic knowledge, winter sports); individualised groups of statements (e.g. developing winter sports is a key part of Olympic education); theories (e.g. schools have responsibility to deliver winter sports); power relations (e.g. nationalism, pride). Overall, this critical ethnographic approach – underpinned by Foucault's notion of governmentality – enabled us to discursively analyse what authorities officially planned to happen (their ‘blueprints’ of government’ and what actually happen when Olympic education programmes were brought (or bought) into schools (see also Powell, 2015a).

Discussion

In the following section, we explore the complex interplay between the diverse stakeholders involved in implementing Olympic education, including the rationalities they drew on and technologies of government employed to make Olympic education ‘work’ in schools. Specifically, we analyse two technologies that China's state government used to govern schools ‘at a distance’ (Miller and Rose, 2008: 16) to implement Olympic education: policy announcements and outsourcing.

Technology of policy announcements

One technology that China's government employed to govern schools to implement Olympic education was policy announcements. In China, all levels of authorities issue official announcements or statements with red headings. Although announcements are not laws or regulations, they do have binding effects on people and organisations, and are accepted without resistance or challenge (Xiao, 2018; Zhang, 2021). Most participants in this study (e.g. Qin, Zhu, and Xin) contested these governmental announcements as policy. In order to highlight the authoritative role of the governmental announcements in China and avoid confusion with the state-sanctioned policy, they are called ‘policy announcements’ in this paper.

During the first author's time in Beijing, there were eight policies that aimed to ‘encourage’ schools to implement Olympic education (see Table 1). Teacher Zhu from Railway School explained, ‘Schools would conduct certain activities because it was government policy.’ Teacher Qin at Mountain School shared the same view, although he was a little more candid when he commented that, ‘Most schools would kiss the government ass when there was a clear policy, and few would protest it.’ When being asked about the possibility of not implementing Olympic education, Mountain School principal Xin commented, ‘people at our time would strictly follow the government, unlike young people nowadays who love challenging the government's authority’. Olympic education policy announcements, as a technology underpinned by rationalities of authoritarianism, played an important role in centring both China's state government in the implementation of Olympic education, as well as producing subjects in schools that felt somewhat compelled to accept and follow policy announcements. However, assemblages of rationalities and technologies, along with other elements (i.e. subjects, institutions, experts) can be unpredictable, disorganised, incoherent, and incomplete. As we demonstrate later on in this article, the enactment of Olympic education policies in schools was not a simple, straightforward, or predictable process.

Table 1.

The related Olympic education policies in 2018.

Policy	Issued organisations	Title	Main content
No. 1	MoE, GAS, Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG)	The Olympic education plan for primary and secondary school students in Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics	Request schools across the country to deliver Olympic education, winter sports and Olympism.
No. 2	MoE	The evaluation of the excellent PE teaching syllabus	Encourage teachers in Beijing to submit teaching plans to select excellent ones.
No. 3	BMBS, BMEC, BOCOG	The Olympic education plan for primary and secondary school students in Beijing	Request schools in Beijing to deliver Olympic education, winter sports and Olympism.
No. 4	MoE, the temporary department for the management of Olympic Education	The call for the Olympic mascot	Encourage schools across China to design mascot.
No. 5	BMEC, Finance Bureau of Beijing	The way to support campus winter sports in Beijing	Encourage schools to deliver winter sports in different ways (e.g. collaborate with sports clubs).
No. 6	Haidian district educational commission	The competition of Winter Olympics knowledge	Encourage students in Haidian district to memorise Olympics facts and then compete.
No. 7	Haidian district educational commission	The third winter sports competition for primary and secondary schools in Beijing	Encourage schools in Haidian to compete in winter sports.
No. 8	BMBS	The first winter sports for Beijing residents	Encourage residents in Beijing to attend winter sports games.

Note. There are similar policies after 2018.

These policies were issued by multiple public institutions rather than a single one, with the majority of these public institutions related to education and sports bureaus. As shown in Table 1, these public institutions included Ministry of Education (MoE), Beijing Municipal Educational Commission (BMEC, branch of MoE in Beijing), district educational departments (branch of MoE in each district), the publicity department of Beijing (local department that enforces media censorship), Beijing Municipal Bureau of Sport (BMBS, state organisation that takes in charge of sports activities in Beijing), and the General Administration of Sport (GAS, the government agency responsible for sports in mainland China), amongst others. Rose (2000: 323) argued that modern government can only be achieved ‘through the actions of a whole range of other authorities, and through complex technologies, if they are to be able to intervene upon the conduct of persons.’ In the case of Olympic education in China, the conduct of schools, teachers and students were attempted to be governed via these multiple authorities alongside rationalities of authoritarianism and technologies of policy announcements. As teacher Lee from Railway School explained, being asked to introduce Olympic education by several state organisations ‘clearly shaped Olympic education implementation to be an administrative task for schools.’ In other words, the involvement of multiple government organisations helped convince schools to ‘choose’ Olympic education, which in turn bolstered the authoritarian rationalities of the state government.

Rationalities of authoritarianism shaped, and were further shaped by, three inter-related discourses produced in and through these policies: the great rejuvenation of China; Olympic spirit and knowledge; and winter sports development. For instance, on the first page of all policies, it states, the delivery of Olympic education helps ‘promote the Olympic spirit, the development of winter sports and school sports, people's quality, students’ overall statement, and then realising the great rejuvenation of China’ (see BMBS et al., 2018: 3; MoE et al., 2018: 2). Similar statements were also repeatedly evident in and through the whole policies. As noted in policy No. 3: ‘Olympic education is an important part of the 2022 … Olympic knowledge and spirit, and winter sports development need to be promoted among primary and secondary school students nationally…for a successfully Olympics, we make this plan’ (BMBS et al., 2018: 3). Foucault (1980) claimed that particular discourses constitute the regimes of truth in every society. In the case of this study, the identified discourses became regimes of truth that validated, prescribed, and governed what could be done in the name of Olympic education in schools. For schools, a supposed lack of Olympic knowledge, spirit, and winter sports, were problematized, while the promotion of these three ideals positioned as inherently beneficial to students and the Olympics alike. The policies were, therefore, technologies of government that translated political rationalities into material practices and thus served as mechanisms to govern schools, teachers and students ‘at a distance’ (Miller and Rose, 2008:16) and towards particular, albeit unpredictable ends (Dean, 2010).

However, this does not mean that it was solely the government that determined how schools should conduct Olympic education. On the contrary, the concept of governmentality is not about imposing heavy externalised control of individual behaviour from the ‘top-down’, even in an authoritarian state like China. Foucault (1982: 790) reminded us, modern government depends on the element of freedom, as ‘power is exercised only over free subjects, and only insofar as they are free’. It is impossible to force every individual to think and act in certain ways (Foucault, 1991). Rather, individuals and organisations become self-disciplined as their actions and beliefs become normalised by political rationalities, technologies, and discourses. Given this, it is important to reflect on what other discourses and rationalities were productive in governing the schools in this study. As discussed previously, China has a form of political rationality that promotes authoritarianism at the same time as individual autonomy, responsibility, and competition (Jeffreys and Sigley, 2009; Sigley, 2006). In other words, China's government drew on both neoliberal and socialist political rationalities to effectively govern schools to ‘teach’ Olympic education, particularly in respect to providing schools with some autonomy and freedom of choice.

For example, on the first page of all policies, it states ‘all departments in all places, please implement the policy based on your situation…’ (see BMBS et al., 2018: 1; MoE et al., 2018: 1). The statement, ‘based on your situation’ provides a sense of freedom, flexibility and autonomy, where organisations (e.g. schools) could judge how best to adapt the policy to their specific context. At the same time, however, there is still the expectation that the policy will be implemented. In other words, schools could choose, to a certain extent, how they would implement Olympic education, but not if they could.

Teachers and principals in schools clearly understood the ways such policies combined an expectation of compliance with some freedom of choice. As principal Xin at Mountain School explained, ‘The policy did not ask schools to immediately implement certain activities, while we [all schools] eventually have to do it. It is courageous enough to be against them [the government]. Based on my experience, most schools would probably do it two years before the 2022 Olympics.’ Teacher Zhu also provided a similar explanation. The first author noticed a policy focused on teaching ‘basic Olympic information about the Winter Olympics’ was lying on Zhu's table for two weeks. She asked Zhu about his plans for the policy. He replied that he would not mention it in his class because there was no urgent evaluation, but eventually, he would ‘have’ to teach students this basic Olympic content. In this way, schools were not obviously forced to conduct Olympic education immediately, but knew the necessity of doing it.

Another way China's government provided limited freedom for schools to conduct Olympic education was through the ambiguous descriptions in the Olympic education policies. As Miller and Rose (1990: 7) noted, language serves as a translation mechanism to establish ‘a kind of identity or mutuality between political rationalities and regulator aspirations.’ We argue that the use of ambiguous expressions in Olympic education policies produced a sense of individual freedom for teachers and schools. Policy No. 1 provides a useful example. Its text outlines some principles for schools to use to promote the Olympics and winter sports knowledge: ‘Position on local conditions, scientific planning, leadership and coordination, and extensive participation’³ (坚持因地制宜、科学布局、统筹协调、广泛参与) (MoE et al., 2018: 3). These terms rhyme in Chinese, which made it difficult for recipients to understand the point of the policy. Mountain School principal Xin shared similar feelings about the policies by commenting: ‘These policies are usually vague to avoid offending schools and parents.’ What Xin also implied was that the government produced ‘vague’ policy on purpose in order to provide some freedom and choice for schools, while at the same time making schools responsible for achieving the government's ambitions. The ambiguous descriptions in these policies allowed for individual interpretation of how each school could implement the policy, in accordance with their own norms and values, (re)reproducing notions of autonomy – a key tenet of neoliberal reforms in education (see Gobby, 2018). However, schools were also clear that they would inevitably follow the government's ‘advice’ to implement Olympic education; a reflection of how authoritarian rationalities assembled with neoliberalism to effectively govern schools, principals and teachers.

Technology of outsourcing

Another key technology of government was outsourcing the provision of winter sports to schools through external providers. Although the term outsourcing is somewhat contested, it is often used in education research that describes processes of privatisation, in particular the blurred boundaries between privatisation in education and of education (see, Powell, 2019). For instance, when schools outsource services (e.g. winter sports teaching) to private, external providers, they do not just employ a business strategy of the private sector (based on neoliberal notions of consumer choice and efficiency), but allow public education to be used as a tool for multi-sector organisations to strategically and financially ‘profit’ (see also Powell, 2014, 2018). In this article, we draw on Sperka’s (2020: 275) definition of outsourcing in education (one specifically developed from health and physical education contexts): ‘Outsourcing is a practice that involves establishing and maintaining some form of strategic and bilateral relationship with an external entity with the intention for that entity to either extend, substitute, or replace internal capabilities’. Here we demonstrate how technologies of outsourcing and policy announcements assembled together with hybrid authoritarian-neoliberal rationalities to produce particular relationships between multiple Olympic education ‘players’.

The outsourcing of winter sports in two primary schools provides a unique example of how hybrid socialist-neoliberal rationalities were ‘made thinkable’ (Miller and Rose, 2008: 59) and do-able. For example, Policy No. 1 and No. 3 encouraged schools to work with winter sports organisations - private equipment companies, winter sports associations (e.g. Chinese Ice Hockey Association, Beijing Ice Hockey Association), and other related organisations (e.g. sports clubs) – as part of the government official plan to provide students with further opportunities to participate in and learn about winter sports (BMBS et al., 2018; MoE et al., 2018).

One vital tactic used by the state to encourage schools to outsource their provision of winter sports was state funding mechanisms. For example, according to policy No. 5, there were three levels of winter sports model schools (i.e. schools focused on developing winter sports) and each level of them would receive 500,000 RMB (equivalent to 77,497 USD) for the first year, then would be eligible for one of three different levels of financial support, with 250,000 RMB, 500,000 RMB, and 750,000 RMB for each level (equivalent to 38,748 USD, 77,497 USD, 116,246 USD) after that (BMEC and Finance Bureau of Beijing, 2018). The policy further claimed that the selected schools could use these funds for various winter sports-related expenses, such as private lessons, facility hire, tickets to winter sports clubs, sports equipment, coaches, and lectures from winter sports and Olympic experts. Qin, a PE teacher at Mountain School, was surprised about the amount of the funding and checked the policy online again. He commented that, in comparison, a football model school would get only 200,000 RMB (equivalent to 3096 USD) at most Through the heavy financial support, schools were not only allowed, but were financially rewarded to work with related organisations for winter sports, making the technology of outsourcing a more efficient and economic practice for schools.

The practice of outsourcing is underpinned by neoliberalism – where education is positioned as a marketplace in which schools can purchase the services needed to provide Olympic education from a range of competing private providers (for further discussions on outsourcing to external providers in PE, see Powell, 2015b; Sperka, 2020). This, in part, acts in tension with China's socialist, state-funded public education system; one centrally managed by the MoE (He et al., 2007). To ensure schools enact the central planning of the government, government policy even expressly ‘forbids’ commercial information to appear in schools (MoE, 2018). Recently, China's government has banned many after-school training programmes, requiring schoolteachers to be responsible for students’ learning after school (The general office of CCPC and General Office of the State Council, 2021). This tension though, between socialist and neoliberal rationalities, was resolved by the state through providing special permission for certain private organisations to provide Olympic education to schools, and at the same time ‘motivating’ schools through funding and policies to employ these very organisations.

China's government would limit schools’ agency by providing information to show which private organisations were approved to be the ‘right’ ones for schools to work with. For instance, policy No. 8 was about a winter sports competition for Beijing residents, and it listed specific criteria for the equipment to be used in the competition, requiring all participants to use the proper equipment. At the end of the policy, it offered a list of the competition sponsors, most of which were equipment companies (BMBS, 2018). Similarly, policy No. 7 focused on a winter sports competition for primary and secondary school students. The policy also mentioned equipment requirements, such as in a note stating that ‘Sweep Curling Club could provide, rent or sell service [to schools]’ (Haidian District Educational Commission, 2018: 4). By limiting choices for schools, the government maintained some control over state schools, and simultaneously opened the door for private companies.

Schools were expected though to know who would be the ‘right’ and ‘approved’ provider. Xin, the school principal of Mountain School, commented, ‘I usually did not have much freedom to choose the equipment because district government departments would ‘recommend’ equipment to schools in the district.’ In one conversation with PE teacher Qin, he described how their school chose to work with a private martial arts school rather than others in order to highlight the limited choice of schools. At the end of our conversation, he commented, ‘Otherwise, what do you think about which schools dare to work with NHL⁴ (National Hockey League)’. Qin's comment also indicated that approved private organisations did not strictly have to be national and local ones, but could also be international ones, such as the American ‘non-profit’ corporation, the NHL.

The outsourced winter sports organisations also understood the importance of getting permission from the Chinese government. For instance, Wen, a coach from Cross-Roller (a floor skiing company), noted, ‘Our company is recognised by sports bureaus and officials, so we could have the chance to promote our equipment to more than 30 primary schools in Beijing.’ The Floor X Associations⁵ also understood the connection with the state government; they deliberately connected with the government through their naming strategy. As teacher Lee explained, ‘Most public state organisations were named with a prefix China (two Chinese characteristics 中国), while some companies registered themselves with some similar words, such as Republic of China and the World (中国民国 and 世界) with the intention of deliberately concealing their private ownership.’ Lee also claimed, that the Floor X Association also made themselves appear more official by collaborating with schoolteacher Zhu and university academics (see Zhang, 2021). Since schoolteachers and scholars are recognised by the government as educators, this helps to endorse the private company and create the appearance of having the government's ‘official’ permission.

This governmentality of Olympic education is underpinned by an authoritarian rationality, where scarce goods and opportunities are accessible to individuals who have informal relationships with the government in a communist system (Manion, 1991). By providing funding for schools to contract services while limiting the range of approved providers of those services, China's government maintains its power relations, while also strategically deploying neoliberal logic of privatisation to govern Olympic education in schools. In this way, China's government blended socialist rationalities (authoritarian/centralised) and neoliberal rationalities (i.e. privatisation, market forces, competition, consumption, choice) to enable and shape the development of Olympic education and winter sports in schools.

Conclusion

Applying Foucault's notion of governmentality, this paper illustrates how China's government governed schools to conduct a certain ‘brand’ of Olympic education in order to realise their ambition of ‘the great rejuvenation of China’ (MoE et al., 2018). By employing two key technologies of government – policy announcements and outsourcing – different authorities (e.g. the state, teachers, universities, private companies) actualised a hybrid socialist-neoliberal rationality; both ‘authoritarian in a familiar political and technocratic sense’ and neoliberal in the sense of governing certain subjects ‘through their own autonomy’ (Sigley, 2006: 504).

This critical research on Olympic education in contemporary China contributes to the field of governmentality studies in non-Western contexts as much of Foucault's work draws on the Western nation state as the primary site of analysis (Sigley, 2006). Although China has been a productive site of these governmentality studies, governmentality has not yet been widely applied as a theoretical framework in episodic mega-events (e.g. the Olympics) (Kromidha et al., 2017). Nor has it been used to critically examine the implementation of Olympic education programmes in schools. This paper provides a useful starting point for those applying governmentality to a range of Chinese contexts. Specifically, it illustrates two noteworthy transformations in contemporary governmentality of Olympic education in China.

First, this study demonstrates the successful rise of neoliberalism in school-based Olympic education in contemporary China. In contrast to common assumptions about the authoritarian Chinese socialist state that dominated 2008 Olympic education research and the focus on powerful organisational orders (Law, 2010; Liu, 2012; Mao, 2015), this study provides a more nuanced examination of governmentality by showing how power was exercised in more diffuse and subtle ways. For instance, the state government did not ‘force’ schools to implement Olympic education, but instead strongly encouraged and guided schools to make this decision through an array of policy statements, funding, and personnel arrangements. In other words, the Chinese government promotes authoritarianism at the same time as individual autonomy and responsibility (Jeffreys and Sigley, 2009; Sigley, 2006). In this respect, the Chinese education system has shifted from an authoritarian state to one built on hybrid socialist-neoliberal rationalities.

This duality of rationalities is an important development in contemporary Chinese politics. Modern governments maintain compliance from their citizens by drawing on a variety of rationalities, rather than a singular one, because it is impossible to force every individual to think and act in certain ways (Foucault, 1991). The socialist Chinese government is no different. In the case of China, both neoliberalism and authoritarianism converged to effectively govern schools conducting Olympic education. As observed in this study, the supposed ‘freedom to choose’ worked to direct schools to implement Olympic education and ‘own’ this decision, thus also constraining possible resistance. However, these different forms of government in China are not clear-cut. As Sigley (2006: 489) stated: ‘There is no single hand, invisible or otherwise, projecting its will upon the population, on the contrary, as the governmentality literature knows well, government is a much more decentred, ad hoc and contingent affair.’ Just as the liberal government contains some forms of authoritarian governmentality (Hindess, 2001), this paper demonstrates that non-liberal governmentality may also utilise liberal strategies. It would be fair to argue that liberal and authoritarian forms of rules are not always clearly distinguishable in modern government. This result raises the importance of understanding modern governmentality from the perspective of a variety of rationalities that assemble together (see also Powell, 2015a).

Second, this study exemplifies mechanisms of privatisation in Chinese public education. As demonstrated earlier, the privatisation of Olympic education was mostly hidden in the Chinese context. This paper provides an example of how the Chinese socialist government enabled, approved, and supported the participation of the ‘right’ for-profit commercial organisations in Olympic education in Chinese primary schools. It also makes visible the ‘hidden privatisation’ (Burch, 2009) of Olympic education in China and demonstrates that privatisations in Chinese public education continue to have some form of official approval from the state government. It is interesting to note that the mechanism of privatisation might be still changing as the Chinese government is beginning to restrict the activities of some private education providers (e.g. banning after-school tutoring) (see The General Office of CCPC and General Office of the State Council, 2021). As researchers, this raises further questions to investigate in the future, particularly in regards to how certain stakeholders are ‘afforded’ authority and legitimacy to provide Olympic education in schools (and by whom).

As further Olympics are bid for and hosted, and new iterations of Olympic education are developed and implemented, there is a continued need for critical examinations – and critical ethnographies - of Olympic education. Additional research is needed to develop better understandings of how Olympic education ‘works’. This includes explorations of the complex interplay between diverse stakeholders (for example, how private sector players form relationships with government agencies, schools and experts), as well as the more hidden strategies that enable multi-sector organisations to (re)shape public education in China and beyond. Critical ethnographic research is an important methodology here, a means to interrogate the official plans of those who govern, how these plans actually work in schools, and how the impact teachers and students.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the reviewers for their positive, detailed, and constructive comments which undoubtedly strengthened this paper.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Honglu Zhang

Notes

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