Introduction for Proceedings of a Panel Discussion on an Alternative Name of Physical Education in the East Asian Cultural Sphere

We are honoured to publish proceedings of a Panel Discussion on an Alternative Name of Physical Education in the East Asian Cultural Sphere in the Asian Journal of Kinesiology (Vol. 26 No. 1). And we would like to thank all speakers who have presented at this panel discussion at 2023 International Conference on Kinesiology in Conjunction with the 24th Annual Meeting of Kinesiologist, which was held in Chungnam University in Daejeon, Korea on 28-29 October 2023.

Physical education, which started as a field of education, has expanded over the past few decades to an academic field that encompasses all human movements. And the justification for a new academic name arises with the increased incidents that cannot be explained sufficiently by the frame of physical education.

Most of the academic names were determined based on the research object’s characteristics. As if to disprove this, in the United States, as interest in Kinesiology increases, AAHPERD (American Alliance for Health and Physical Education, Recreation and Dance) has become a Society of Health and Physical Education (SHAPE). While, in Europe, as interest in sports increases, Sports Science has become a general trend lead by the European College of Sport Science (ECSS).

However, the situation in East Asia is more complicated. In China, there are various subdivision-related to physical education and movement under the China Sports Science Society. “Sports” is not used in everyday life, and it translated into physical education, movement, or match.

In Korea, there is a Korean Alliance for Health (Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance, KAHPERD), and there are more than 500 academic names in the universities. Japan has the Japan Society of Physical Education, Health, and Sport Science (JSPEHSS), and terms such as physical education, health, sports science, and exercise exist as the department names of universities.

The naming of the sports-related fields is different between countries. This could be due to the differences in understanding of sports in the past and the lack of international efforts to define the terms precisely. This phenomenon obscured the identity of the study and resulted in undermining the professionalism in this field.

To resolve this issue, we need to have global discussions in the future. We are confident that discussing the name of our academic disciplines in East Asian cultures has been very useful to ensure the homogeneity of terms and to facilitate mutual communication.

In the future, we hope that the alternative names of Physical Education will become a global issue beyond East Asia so that we can develop a unified and unique academic name that is shared worldwide.

Thank You.