Background/Purpose It is believed that sports play an important role for human development as a whole person. In an ideal context, sport participations can lead to positive development amongst student athletes. But Korean student athletes had been trained only to win the game without any educational consideration and their human rights. The purpose of this study was to suggest educational discourses about Korean student athletes' human rights.
Method By the critical discourse analysis, this study explored the current human rights conditions among the Korean student athletes in the context of elite sport and nationalism. In addition, this study analyzed relationship of human rights and education, education and elite sports in school, and elite sports in school and human rights.
Analysis/Results Results showed that three themes were emerged. First theme was the rights of student athletes to be happy as “human beings”. Student athletes are human beings prior to athletes, so they should be protected from any kinds of violation of human rights. Second theme was the rights of student athletes to learn as “students”. Student athletes' educational rights must not be taken away because they are student prior to athletes. Third theme was the rights of student athletes to enjoy sports as “players”. Student athletes have rights to enjoy and participate in sports for the sake of sports, not for winning.
Conclusions It is suggested that alternative sport paradigms of educational discourses should be established about Korean student athletes on the basis of the human rights.
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