Students’ concepts and attitudes toward citizenship: the case of Hong Kong

This paper analyses the data obtained from the findings on Hong Kong, as a part of the IEA second civic study. Because the survey was conducted two years after Hong Kong's return to China, the findings reflect concepts and attitudes toward citizenship among Hong Kong students shortly after the change of sovereignty. The study shows that Hong Kong ranks highest in two aspects of citizenship: civic knowledge and attitudes toward immigrants. Hong Kong ranks lowest in attitudes toward the nation, support for women's political rights, confidence in participating at school, and open classroom climate. Moreover, Hong Kong students are most concerned about elections and freedom of expression, but are least interested in political parties. They are more interested in social-related citizenship issues, and try to avoid confrontational and activist politics. This suggests that Hong Kong students are concerned with citizenship issues and politics; are very knowledgeable, and while they are also concerned about society, do not favor confrontations. This partly reflects a Chinese culture and partly reflects that depolicitization perpetuates beyond 1997.     

比较全球化背景下香港和台湾的公民教育

全球化在政治、经济和文化等方面产生广泛的影响,由于与中华人民共和国特殊的关系,香港和台湾的公民教育更复杂。通过比较香港和台湾公民教育在全球化背景下如何强调本土化特色、改革公民教育的内容、目标以及指导思想等方面的异同,揭示只有独立主权国家的公民教育才能真正迎接全球化的挑战。     

香港电视广告语言的修辞特色

修辞离不开我们的生活,现在香港语文科里的修辞教学只用课文和文学为例而忽略了日常习见的例子,这难免给人枯燥死板的感觉。文章拟就香港电视广告进行实例探讨,以现代修辞学理论内的＂积极修辞＂为出发点,阐述电视广告里较常使用的五种修辞手法,包括夸张、双关、比拟、反复、对偶,并指出由于地缘环境与时代背景的关系,香港电视广告呈现粤方言与英语大量使用的现象,而且没有减少的趋势。     

Decolonization,Nationalism, and local identity: rethinking cosmopolitanism in educational practice in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

Cosmopolitanism and its application for education in western societies has been well examined. Yet cosmopolitanism in society and in education has not been systematically explored in many Asian societies. Facing a large number of people from diverse backgrounds, the society and its education system in Hong Kong are troubled by issues similar to those found in western postindustrial societies, related to cultural and national belonging and identity. Prejudice and racism towards ethnic minorities – particularly those from South Asia and Africa, is quite common. Additionally, animosity and hostility to mainland Chinese newcomers has increased and intensified in the context of Hong Kong’s “repoliticization” after its 1997 handover. This article aims to explore how cosmopolitanism is understood, valued, and approached in Hong Kong education. We start by exploring the role of decolonization and nationalization in political education in Hong Kong. We then discuss cosmopolitanism, and consider how it impacts particular social and educational issues in Hong Kong. We also provide an analysis of discourses on cosmopolitanism taken from Hong Kong General Studies and History textbooks, to identify challenges faced in facilitating cosmopolitan values, a balance of identities, and global citizenship in Hong Kong education.     

Being a ‘Purist’ in Hong Kong: To Use or Not to Use Mixed Code

This paper reports on my first‐hand experiences of being a ‘purist’ in Hong Kong, during which time I was not allowed to use mixed code, a common discursive practice among Hongkongers in Hong Kong. I shall discuss the difficulties in using ‘pure’ English and ‘pure’ Chinese in my daily life, as well as exploring the problems I encountered when I used ‘pure’ English in teaching English to a small group of ESL students at a primary school in Hong Kong. I argue that mixed code is very much characteristic of everyday language use by most Hongkongers and represents an important marker of their ethno‐linguistic identity. In relation to language teaching, I suggest that mixed code may be usefully adopted in teaching English in Hong Kong, rather than being shunned at all costs.     

Protection by,or from,the Government: Debating citizenship education policy in Hong Kong's Legislative Council

This article discusses citizenship education, education policy and discourse to explore their relations with the exercise of power in society. Taking the case of 1990 and 1997 legislative debates on citizenship education policy in Hong Kong, it briefly surveys the substantive arguments favouring or opposing the retention of government controls over politics in schools. It then examines in more detail the discourses used by legislators which constitute students, teachers and the government. This discussion shows that not only does citizenship education represent a power relation between the state and citizens, with policy representative of the power of the state over educational workers, but also that the targets of policy are empowered and disempowered through the strategic use of discourse.     

简析回归后香港公民教育的特点

香港回归是香港公民教育的重要转折点。十年来,香港的公民教育在特区政府的大力推动下,有了较为显著的变化和发展。本文拟就结合香港公民教育的理念、宗旨、内容和途径揭示香港公民教育的发展及其特点,以增进内地对香港公民教育的了解与借鉴。     

Under the Umbrella: Pedagogy,knowledge production,and video from the margins of the movement

Abstract

In September 2014, students and Hong Kong citizens took to the streets demanding universal suffrage. Cell phones and video cameras in hand, amateur student filmmakers were some of the first to capture the police tear-gassing young people that brought the city to its feet. Young people were positioning themselves as storytellers and knowledge producers on the streets. How has this restructured hierarchy of knowledge production often found in university education in Hong Kong? How too has being active participants and/or passive observers of the events of the Umbrella Movement translated into a pedagogy of experience in student’s daily lives, and how has this knowledge returned to the classroom? Specifically, I am interested in ways that young women who are not Cantonese first-language speakers understand their role in the movement and the kinds of knowledge they produced. Through interviews with these diverse students, and visual data from the footage they shot during the protests, we gain a rare glimpse into the multicultural world gathered beneath the umbrella of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, and how a new generation of young female filmmakers are using video to share their changing perspectives on democratic reform, education, and everyday life.     

Relations of blood? Racialization of civic identity in twenty-first century Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

This paper explores how notions of race, ethnicity, and blood are mobilized in educational texts in Hong Kong. It elaborates how civic identity is racialized as part of a nationalist education operating beneath the surface of expressed commitments to global citizenship, human rights, etc., in curriculum and textbooks. Many have commented on how cultural and ethnic ties are prioritized over political principles as bases for civic education in Asian societies. These cultural/ethnic bases should be critically examined, however, as they imply racial/ethnic exclusions. Examining how race, ethnicity, and blood are used to justify cultural framings of civic identity leads to questions about how education can be used to unify some, while alienating others from a sense of belonging and community. I argue that racialization of Hong Kong civic identity is not a happy solution for all members of society, and for more inclusive visions of identity in education.     

论香港南来作家的身份特征

与香港其他作家相比,“南来作家”身份特征明显：他们是一群生活在多元文化对话场中的双重边缘人,其身份是多重的。这就使“南来作家”具有更广阔的视角,他们一般不会以孤立的方式来看事情。在“南来作家”心中,边缘不再是一种流放,一种无奈的困境,而是一笔独异的文化财富。     

Hegemony and the politics of education in Hong Kong: from the post-war era to the post-handover era

ABSTRACT

The process of Chinese nation-building in education reveals the hegemonic strategies of the colonial power and the adaptation of indigenous forces when Hong Kong was undergoing decolonisation and the transfer of sovereignty. The return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty has been a crucial indicator for the potential re-unification of China, as it presents a model for the possible future reintegration of Taiwan. The idea of hegemony applies to different dominant groups in the two periods under review. In the first period, London attempted to influence the development of groups in Hong Kong and incorporate them into the colonial programme. In the second period, Beijing attempts to influence groups in Hong Kong facilitate the reintegration of Hong Kong into a larger Chinese identity. Yet, it is far too simple to picture a unilateral exercise of power by an identifiable centre and consider the periphery as mere objects of successful manipulation by the centre. Continued study of the evolution of nation-building in education, under the influence of a series of complex and shifting factors of the Hong Kong society, will be enlightening for the comprehension of the ever-changing and increasingly complicated political culture.     

Voting rights,anti-intersectionality,and citizenship as containment

ABSTRACT

This piece argues that dominant histories of U.S. suffrage have misremembered the history of voting rights legislation as one of steady social progress and multicultural inclusion. By contrast, I consider landmark legislation affecting voting rights such as the 19th Amendment and the Dawes and Magnuson Acts as strategies of containment that that expand but also continue to police the racialized gender norms of U.S. citizenship. These legal reforms, while providing potential channels for redistributions of power and resources, also perpetuate anti-intersectional (Brandzel) vocabularies that impose single-axis frameworks (Crenshaw) onto understandings of citizenship and civic inclusion. While acknowledging the partial and contingent gains made by suffrage movements, I offer a counternarrative of U.S. voting rights as means of managing and maintaining colonial dominance. I argue that the settler-colonial nation state continues to restrict the decision-making capacities of those marginalized by race, indigeneity, gender, sexuality, and/or disability through a vast network of administrative practices that must be analyzed in concert with voting rights.     

Citizenship education and the reparation of future teachers : A study

This study examines the views of future teachers of social studies regarding significant global trends, required citizen characteristics, and necessary educational strategies to develop the said characteristics. The study builds upon the landmark work of the nine-nation Citizenship Education Policy Study (CEPS I) carried out in the late 1990s that resulted in the model calledmultidimensional citizenship. The original work focused on the views of policy makers and scholars. The present research, CEPS II, is a follow-up study that seeks to determine the views of the next generation of those who will teach citizenship and civic education through social studies programs in seven participant societies: China, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, The Netherlands, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States of America. The results suggest that the future teachers, when compared with the policy experts and scholars in the original CEPS I study, are more optimistic about the future and are more oriented towards personal development and participatory behaviors that will positively impact the common good.     

When Christian education meets patriotism: Christian organisations’ response to the introduction of Moral and National Education in Hong Kong schools

Plans by the Hong Kong Government to introduce moral and national education (MNE) as a compulsory subject in primary and secondary schools in 2010 encountered strong opposition. The controversy over the plans has lasted for two years, with the government and its supporters claiming that the subject will help to instil a stronger sense of national identity in children and critics deriding it as biased and constituting a form of brainwashing. The subject is also seen as posing troubles or a considerable threat to local Christian schools because most of them have had their own religious education programmes for years. Most Christian school-sponsoring bodies and parachurch organisations oppose the subject’s introduction, urging the government to scrap its curricular guidelines, and many say they will boycott its implementation. To bring the issues surrounding MNE into sharper focus, this article traces the development of Christian education in Hong Kong and analyses how local Christian communities perceive and have responded to the official proposal. Three prominent themes commonly emphasised in the Christian discourse are plural identities, conditional patriotism and universal values. These themes could shed light on wider theoretical discussion about the positive roles of religion and religious education for citizenship education.     

Return of the ghost – to discipline or/and to teach?

This paper is a situated biographical reflection on the author's Hong Kong teaching experience written using a narrative inquiry approach, describing attempts to generate innovative pedagogical practices. The journey explores how autocratic, traditional Chinese cultural expectations in Hong Kong education have nurtured a commonsense belief in “discipline first and then teach”. This teacher/researcher adopted alternative approaches to authority through the use of developmental drama which made teacher image and teacher–student power relationships an object of talk and study. The aim of this paper is to bring together theories and pedagogical models based on the sociology of education, social psychology and drama pedagogy in an effort to change how we teach marginalized students in one distinctive Chinese cultural context.     

An analysis of conference interactions onTeleNex—A computer network for ESL teachers

“TeleNex” is a computer network set up to enhance the professional development of inservice English teachers in Hong Kong by allowing them to access and share curriculum materials and to communicate with teacher educators at The University of Hong Kong and fellow teachers in other schools. This paper reports a study on the characteristics of the interactions in the public conferences on “TeleNex” during its first 16 months of full operation and the possible factors contributing to these characteristics. In order to analyze the various aspects of conference interactions, including teacher participation, initiation and response, response patterns and message types, a framework of message analysis was developed, drawing on concepts in conversational and discourse analysis. To investigate the possible contributing factors, a questionnaire was designed and administered to all users at the end of the 16-month period. The interaction analysis results and the questionnaire results confirmed the findings in previous studies carried out by the authors that social and psychological factors were very important in shaping the network interactions. TeleNex (Teachers of English Language Education Nexus) is a computer network set up by TELEC with a generous donation from the Hong Kong Telecom Foundation. The Hong Kong Language Fund provided further funding for its third year of operation (1995-96). The research side ofTeleNex is funded by the Research Grants Council of The University Grants Committee of Hong Kong. The authors wish to thank the Hong Kong Telecommunications Foundation and the Hong Kong Language Fund for their generous support. They also wish to thank all colleagues at TELEC who have worked tirelessly to set up the network. In particular, they wish to thank Suzi Nicholson for her comments on the draft. Finally, they wish to thank the editor Steven Ross for his detailed comments and suggestions for revision.     

Teacher efficacy: A comparative study of Hong Kong and Shanghai Primary in-service teachers

Teachers beliefs about their ability to affect students’ performance is an important part of professionalism. This study compared 725 Hong Kong and 575 Shanghai primary in-service teachers on their teacher efficacy. Two Chinese versions of the 12-item Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale were used in this study since some wordings of the Hong Kong version of the Scale (HK-TSE) were different from the Shanghai version (STSE) as a result of cultural differences. Basically, the Shanghai teachers reported significantly higher efficacy than did the Hong Kong teachers. After reviewing these quantitative results, 86 follow-up questionnaires from Shanghai in-service teachers who also participated in the first part of this study were collected. Results of this qualitative part showed that the three most commonly cited factors for the contribution of teacher efficacy were: respect and confidence placed in them by students and parents, the training they received from universities and the experience they gained from daily teaching practice. Though Hong Kong in-service teachers had lower efficacy scores than the Shanghai counterparts.     

Locating Self in the World: Elementary school children in Japan,Macau and Hong Kong

In the so-called 'global age', the issue of how children learn to locate themselves in the world is an important one. Working from a foundation of theories related to globalisation, identity development and citizenship education, this paper describes the findings of a research project which explored elementary school children's geographical and affective location of the self in Japan, Macau and Hong Kong. Analysis and discussion of Japanese education policy is then presented in an attempt to explain the finding that Japanese children are far less likely than their counterparts in Hong Kong and Macau to locate themselves in an international sphere.     

Democracy,Citizenship and Extra-musical Learning in Two Chinese Communities: Hong Kong and Taiwan

This paper presents a comparative study of extra-musical learning in the music classes of the schools of Hong Kong and Taiwan, where education is geared towards democracy and citizenship at a time of unstable national identity for both communities. Taiwan has been undergoing a process of indigenisation since 1945, whilst Hong Kong's sovereignty was returned to the People's Republic of China after 1 July 1997. This paper argues that the transmission of extra-musical learning is essentially a response to the particular needs of these two Chinese historical-social contexts, which require their music curricula to be securely grounded in the ideology of a culturally based education for 'citizenship'. Despite different approaches to western-based musical knowledge in schools, Hong Kong and Taiwan attempt to promote a sense of national identity and an essentially Confucian set of moral values as a central goal of school music education. The promotion of ethno-cultural nationalism in Taiwan's music education is regarded as a democratic goal for the Taiwanese state, though in practice, the educational systems of both Taiwan and Hong Kong are coloured by the global context.     

An assessment of the role of Hong Kong schools in promoting civic learning

Hong Kong underwent tremendous changes after the transfer of its sovereignty to China in 1997. This study attempts to explore the changing role of schools in preparing students for future democratic citizenship in the post-colonial era. Different researchers have postulated that schools play a crucial role in the political socialization process in meeting the developmental needs of adolescents. A mixed-method sequential explanatory research design was adopted to assess the effectiveness of Hong Kong schools in promoting civic learning. The significance of the present study was to analyse the school context by using the assessment framework from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Civic Education Study (CivEd) to generate citizenship education studies. An extensive review of research related to the role of schools through formal and informal curricula was conducted. This process helped extend the current understanding of the effectiveness of the political socialization in secondary schools in Hong Kong and contributed to the further development of the research on political socialization in the Chinese context. The findings from this study would help educators or policy makers rethink the future role of schools in citizenship education.