Political trust provides the necessary legitimacy for political institutions and the actions they take on behalf of citizens. Political trust is especially important in democracies to sustain and build social cohesion but also to encourage citizens to work together for democratic principles. In this chapter we set out to investigate the role of schools and the contribution they can make to building political trust amongst young people. In addition, we want to focus on the use of multilevel modelling as an analytic technique that has the potential to tap results at different levels of education systems. The sample comprised 23,654 junior secondary students who had recently participated in the 2009 International Civics and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS2009). The students were selected from schools in five Asian societies, namely Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. The schools were chosen through proportional probability sampling and students within schools came from a single intact class. The a mean age of students was 13.5 years at the time of testing within each society. Results show that schools can play a role in the development of political trust in the five societies we have studied. Within societies schools utilizing generally democratic processes and structures for student are more likely to build political trust than those that are not. Nevertheless, there is substantial difference between societies in the mechanisms through which school exerts influence on students’ political trust. Further, nuances are observed across societies in gender and parental roles. The findings reported in this chapter have provided important insights for future research in the political socialization of adolescents.

This study investigates Hong Kong primary teachers’ perceptions of moral, civic and national education, which may have an impact on how they prepare students to become ‘good citizens’ through classroom instruction. Moral and Civic Education (MCE) has been an overall goal of Hong Kong’s education system since 2001, while Moral and National Education (MNE) was proposed as a new subject in an effort to introduce a patriotic agenda in 2011. Teachers play essential roles in nurturing students to become ‘good citizens’ because they are the key figures in implementing education and curriculum policies in schools. Therefore, gaining a greater understanding of teachers’ perceptions of MNE provides insights into the extent to which teachers are prepared to contribute to the patriotic agenda as part of a revamped civic education curriculum. While there are complex factors affecting teachers’ receptivity to curriculum change, an understanding of factors that influence teachers’ perceptions of patriotic education could be valuable for school stakeholders (such as policymakers, educators and researchers), not only in Hong Kong but in other places (such as the United States and the United Kingdom), when they consider what can be done to influence students’ attitudes towards citizenship. Utilizing pilot data, this study reports Hong Kong teachers’ attitudes towards patriotic education through the proposed new school subject of MNE. The findings indicate that ‘perceived others’ support’, ‘perceived concerns of MNE’ and ‘non-monetary cost-benefits’ were the significant predictors of teacher receptivity of MNE. The results suggest that when teachers had concerns about patriotic education, they were less likely to support its implementation, while if they had the support of others they were more likely to support implementation of MNE. More importantly, teachers who perceived that patriotic education can cultivate more well-rounded students were more likely to support the implementation

This article addresses the issue of preparing teachers as curriculum leaders to support the wide-ranging curriculum reforms that characterize societies in the Asian Pacific region. It draws on social cognitive theory and, in particular, on what has come to be called teachers’ sense of efficacy. The study sought to extend that research in a Chinese context.
[Copyright © 2006 Rowman & Littlefield Education.]

Psychologists have often been interested in the way individuals respond to and interact with the law. Socio-legal scholars have had a similar interest. This led to a stream of research that sought to identify the ‘legal consciousnesses’ of individuals as they experience legal ideas and situations. The study reported here sought to identify the ‘legal consciousnesses’ of a sample of Hong Kong adolescents in a unique socio-political context. The findings suggested that these young people possessed a ‘bounded’ legal consciousness indicated by their consistent support for obeying the law even when human rights were at stake. Nevertheless, they could envisage the possibility of questioning the law. Developmental and gender differences were identified in these attitudes.
[Copyright © 2009 Symposium Journals Ltd.]