Student-Athletes: A Study on the Identity Recognition of High-Level Athletes in China's Universities under the Dual Career Context

The formation of identity recognition is a process that involves the construction of an individual’s or group’s image,values, and self, and it serves as a prerequisite for high-level athletes to actively assimilate into university life. Presently, high-level athletes in universities often grapple with identity conflicts such as “excellence versus mediocrity” “learner versus trainee” and “awakened versus compromised”. Delving into the psychological mechanisms underlying these identity conflicts reveals that the primary reasons for such conflicts among high-level university athletes include: 1) Diminished identity consciousness due to the impact of “the contradiction between academic learning and athletic training”; 2) the absence of identity emotions stemming from the prevalence of a “Buddha-like mentality”; 3) the deviation of identity behavior driven by “utilitarian education”. In the context of dual career, self-adjustment strategies such as activating intrinsic motivation, awakening individual cognition, reshaping self-value,correcting individual emotions, fostering rational self-discipline, and regulating individual behavior, along with external support strategies like reinforcing top-level design and strategic guidance, enhancing scientific governance and policy support, optimizing organizational and financial support, and innovating educational models and talent development environments, can facilitate the positive construction of identity recognition for high-level athletes in universities.