Schooling, politics and the construction of identity in Hong Kong: The 2012 'Moral and National Education' crisis in historical context

Schooling, politics and the construction of identity in Hong Kong: The 2012 'Moral and National Education' crisis in historical context

• Morris, Paul Institute of Education, University College London, UK
• Vickers, Edward Department of Education, Kyushu University, Japan

Comparative Education, 51(3), 305-326, 2015

Routledge

2015

• P Social Context of Education
  • PE Law & Education ; Politics & Education

Future Taiwan Reform State Education & Educational Research

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Unknown or Unspecified

Since Hong Kong's retrocession, the government has endeavoured to strengthen local citizens' identification with the People's Republic of China - a project that acquired new impetus with the 2010 decision to introduce Moral and National Education' (MNE) as a compulsory school subject. In the face of strong local opposition, this policy was withdrawn in 2012, and implementation of MNE made optional. This article seeks to elucidate the background to the MNE controversy of 2012 by locating the emergence of a distinctive Hong Kong identity in its historical context, and analysing successive official attempts (before and after the 1997 retrocession) to use schooling for purposes of political socialisation. We argue that the school curriculum has projected and reflected a dual sense of identity: a Chineseness' located mainly in ethno-cultural qualities, and a Hongkongeseness' rooted in civic attributes. While reinforced by schooling, local civic consciousness has been intimately related to a tradition of public activism strongly evident since the 1970s, and further strengthened post-1997.
[Copyright of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2015.1033169]

• English

Journal Articles

• 03050068

• 10.1080/03050068.2015.1033169

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/en/bibs/aa350632

2015-10-16