China’s Campus Football Policy: A Comprehensive Mixed-Methods Analysis Charts a Path Forward
In recent years, the development of campus football in China has captured both national enthusiasm and policy attention, aspiring to forge a robust grassroots foundation for the sport’s future in the country. A groundbreaking study published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications offers an unprecedented, multi-dimensional analysis of China’s evolving campus football policies from 2009 through 2025, employing a sophisticated mixed-methods framework that integrates content analysis, social network analysis (SNA), and advanced natural language processing with the LDA2vec model. This comprehensive research maps the intricate dynamics shaping campus football policy development, revealing important theoretical insights and pragmatic recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders.
At the core of the study is a refined three-dimensional analytical framework that dissects campus football policy along the axes of policy tools, policy actors, and policy themes. This innovative approach transcends traditional sector-specific analyses, providing a holistic lens to examine how diverse policy components interact and evolve within China’s unique socio-political terrain. The authors demonstrate that policy evolution is not linear but reflects complex systemic interactions that demand nuanced understanding and adaptive governance.
The research identifies that the choice and deployment of policy tools in campus football mirror the intrinsic nature of sports policymaking alongside strategic tendencies of policy actors. Within environmental policy tools, a notable overreliance on strategic measures offers swift enhancement of the macro-environment for school football but risks undermining long-term sustainability due to insufficient complementary supports. The central roles of target planning and regulatory control in defining development trajectories are underscored, yet their effectiveness is impeded by poor coordination and gaps between policy design and grassroots implementation.
Tax incentives emerge as a relatively underutilized yet critical mechanism, capable of attracting non-governmental actors and thus expanding the resource base beyond government funding. Interesting disparities appear within supply-oriented tools: talent development enjoys greater emphasis, while infrastructure—a bedrock for quality training, teaching, and cultural progression of campus football—occupies an unexpectedly minimal share. This imbalance highlights a crucial priority gap since infrastructure directly influences practical outcomes and policy efficacy.
Furthermore, the advent of artificial intelligence and cutting-edge technologies promises transformative potential for campus football, particularly through enhanced teacher development, training methodologies, and information management. However, policy frameworks thus far have inadequately leveraged such scientific and technological opportunities, signaling a pressing need for strategic realignment and increased investment in supply-side innovation.
On the demand-oriented front, this study illuminates significant underuse of tools like overseas exchange programs, outsourcing, and government procurement that can lubricate market involvement and global integration. These elements not only diversify the provision system but also introduce advanced pedagogies and broaden international perspectives, bringing fresh dynamism to campus football. The authors argue for a recalibration towards harnessing these demand-side tools more systematically to invigorate the sector.
Simultaneously, the investigation sheds light on the critical importance of policy actors in shaping implementation success. The burgeoning diversity of stakeholders—ranging from the Ministry of Education (MOE) to the Communist Youth League Central Committee (CYLCC)—has provided essential institutional capacity. Nonetheless, the frequency and depth of collaborative engagements among key actors remain limited. The study’s social network analysis reveals sporadic co-occurrence in policy documents, indicating fragmented inter-agency cooperation.
For instance, the CYLCC’s participation, largely symbolic and cultural in scope, appears minimal and disconnected from core educational policy dialogues. This lack of integrated collaboration exacerbates ambiguity in roles and responsibilities, contributing to overlapping mandates, interdepartmental frictions, and fractured vertical communication channels. The authors emphasize enhancing both the frequency and substance of inter-agency cooperation, promoting a “co-governance in practice” rather than mere “coordination on paper”, as fundamental to overcoming institutional challenges.
The thematic evolution of campus football policies embodies a strategy that shifts focus in alignment with broader educational reforms and emergent needs in the sport’s developmental trajectory. Among several policy themes, only “Special Program System Construction” reveals marked consistency and continuity across policy phases. Other thematic areas suffer from discontinuity and fragmentation, reflecting a paucity of coherent strategic planning and compromising potential synergistic effects that could amplify policy impact.
This thematic discontinuity reflects a broader phenomenon where policy agendas are molded not solely by problem definitions or stakeholder feedback but also critically shaped by their congruence with overarching national strategies. Such insights inject fresh understanding into policy process theory, particularly in state-centric or non-Western contexts where centralized agendas heavily influence policy design and deployment.
The study’s practical implications resonate with policymakers aiming to refine China’s campus football framework. It calls for optimizing the architecture of policy tools, urging tailored criteria that reflect regional disparities—advocating environmental and supply tools prioritization in underdeveloped areas while promoting demand tools in economically vibrant regions. Moreover, the coordination and interactive synergy among policy instruments should take precedence over mere quantitative tool usage, featuring an adaptive model informed by continual evaluation and grassroots feedback.
Clarifying the functional roles of policy actors forms another pivotal recommendation. Specifying mandates within policy texts can help obviate governance ambiguities, driving operational efficiencies and reducing conflict. Encouraging nominally involved agencies to assume substantial roles could accelerate collaborative governance, a shift that bears lessons beyond China’s borders for countries grappling with similar inter-agency fragmentation in sport policy domains.
Further, evolving policy themes from scattered experimentation to systematic governance is vital to assure long-term sustainability. A phased agenda-setting approach, where thematic priorities are progressively clarified and harmonized with relevant policy instruments, can bolster coherent advancement. Examples such as integrating cultural initiatives with information-tool deployment or embedding regulatory evaluations underscore promising pathways.
Theoretically, this work advances sports policy and governance scholarship by synthesizing policy instrument theory, governance theory, and policy process theory into an integrated analytical framework. The combined use of content analysis, social network analysis, and LDA2vec modeling represents a novel methodological contribution, broadening the capacity to systematically interrogate policy evolution in complex, dynamic fields. Beyond its specific focus, the framework holds potential applicability in other education and sport policy systems, especially within burgeoning, state-driven settings.
Significantly, the study enhances the comprehension of policy theme evolution as a dynamic, strategic dimension intertwined with state directives and feedback loops—a perspective often underexplored outside Western-centric policymaking discourse. By elucidating the interactions among policy tools, actors, and themes, this research provides a conceptual scaffold for understanding the multi-layered nature of policy development and implementation.
In sum, this research not only decodes the past and present of China’s campus football policies but also carves out strategic, evidence-based directions for the future. Its integrated framework and cross-disciplinary methods offer a blueprint for researchers and policymakers worldwide, advocating adaptive, collaborative, and coherent sport policy governance. As campus football continues to gain momentum, such insights are integral to fostering sustainable youth sport ecosystems capable of nurturing talent and enhancing social well-being.
Subject of Research:
Policy evolution and development in campus football in China between 2009 and 2025.
Article Title:
Policy evolution in China’s campus football: a mixed-methods analysis of policy documents (2009–2025).
Article References:
Chen, Y., Zhang, B., He, X. et al. Policy evolution in China’s campus football: a mixed-methods analysis of policy documents (2009–2025). Humanit Soc Sci Commun 12, 1842 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-06238-0
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