Cultural literacy: How hidden is it in the Hong Kong Professional and Vocational Education (PVE) curriculum?

Cultural literacy: How hidden is it in the Hong Kong Professional and Vocational Education (PVE) curriculum?

• Hui, Sammy King Fai Dept. of Curriculum & Instruction, Hong Kong Institute of Education

Journal of Further and Higher Education, 38(5), 593-620, 2014

Taylor & Francis Ltd

2014

• D Curriculum
  • DG Vocational & Technical Education Programmes

Education--Higher Education Higher Education Lifelong Learning Culture Vocational Education Curricula Hong Kong

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Post-Secondary Education

In response to the early Education Reform Proposal's recommendation to provide more diverse opportunities for lifelong learning at the senior secondary level and beyond, there has been a considerable expansion in the post-secondary education sector -- Professional and Vocational Education (PVE) -- in Hong Kong over the past ten years. The curriculum intention underlying these PVE programmes is straightforward: to equip youth with the necessary knowledge and skills to face future work challenges and continue their studies. However, this ideal is being challenged with regard to the extent to which students are 'culturally literate'. This paper reports 214 Hong Kong PVE students' views about how important it is for people to possess the knowledge and skills for cultural literacy, and how well they think they are performing in relation to the corresponding indicators. Supported by qualitative interviews, the results indicated that the proposed eight constructs are critical to understanding cultural literacy in the Hong Kong PVE context. Also, while students agreed that these sets of knowledge and skills were important, they were not performing them well. A paired samples t-test suggested a significant difference between their perceptions and performance, and large values of Cohen's d confirmed the size of the effect was medium to large. Among the measured eight constructs, nurturing students for 'social and civic responsibility' was found to be critical. This paper will contribute to the discussion about how to better position the PVE curriculum in Hong Kong to nurture students' cultural literacy.
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• English

Journal Articles

• 0309877X

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/71d20c20

2014-10-28