Balancing Skill Standardisation and Ethical Internalisation: Toward a Skill–Ethics Equilibrium Framework for Ecological Physical Education

In response to UNESCO’s call to integrate sustainability into curriculum design, this study examines the structure of ecological physical education (PE) objectives in China and South Korea and how these patterns reflect different approaches to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Using a dual-dimensional framework integrating Weber’s instrumental–value rationality distinction and Hauenstein’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, this study conducts a qualitative comparative analysis of ecological PE objectives from the 2022 national curricula of China and South Korea. The analysis focuses exhaustively on the ecological modules within these curricula rather than the full set of PE standards. The findings indicate that China’s curriculum exhibits a linear, standardisation-oriented progression, with objectives concentrated in the Acquisition and Performance levels (31.6% each) and no Accomplishment-level objectives, suggesting limited formal pathways for higher-order ecological enactment. In contrast, South Korea’s curriculum shows a value-oriented spiral progression, with objectives spanning Assimilation (23.5%), Adaptation (58.8%), and Accomplishment (11.8%) levels, suggesting alignment with national sustainability policies. The study proposes the Skill–Ethics Equilibrium framework as an integrative model that synthesises the complementary strengths of both systems, offering dual optimisation pathways: one to strengthen ethical enactment in China and another to enhance evaluative clarity in Korea. This framework provides a theoretically grounded heuristic for advancing ESD-aligned ecological PE in diverse educational contexts.