Despite growing scholarly interest in red sports as an educational resource, theoretically grounded research on how red-sports practice fosters ideological-political value internalization among rural young students remains limited. Grounded in embodied cognition, situated learning, experiential learning, this study develops an interdisciplinary, mechanism-based framework for integrating red sports into ideological-political education in rural primary and lower-secondary schools. We identify four developmentally appropriate dimensions of the red sports spirit—collective cooperation, perseverance and willpower, fair competition and rule-based morality, and national dedication and identity. A sequential mediation pathway in which red-sports practice promotes value internalization, learning engagement functions as the initial emotional-motivational entry point, while psychological resilience serves as the transformative mechanism that converts challenge-based embodied experiences into stable ideological commitments. A four-layer integrated model encompassing stratified goals, reconstructed content, innovative pedagogies, and sustainable school–community resource partnerships. The framework advances sport-based positive youth development and moral education research by bridging embodied experience with ideological learning and offers actionable guidance for rural educators and policymakers.
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