This article discusses the influence of Confucianism on civic education, focusing on Hong Kong as a particular case of concern. The development of Hong Kong’s civic education is sketched, highlighting the competitions between the politicized and depoliticized versions of the civic education curriculum. The notion that a depoliticized civic education, supported by Confucian ideals, is necessarily a distinctive feature of Asian civic education, is then critiqued. Finally, the article argues that an eclectic version of civic education, comprising both political and moral components, is warranted. This is what Confucian tenets really mean. It is hoped that the discussion here will help reflect whether Confucian tenets justify depoliticization of education and civic education. This is important given the growing aspiration for democracy and citizens’ participation in civil societies, particularly those whose cultural roots are in the Confucian tradition. Moreover, the authors hope that the dialogues between Confucian traditions and the Western traditions discussed in the article can shed light on some thought-provoking issues of interest to an international readership, particularly as China is becoming more influential globally.
[Copyright © Symposium Journals Ltd 2012.]

Choosing two schools as a case study, the article reports how teaching approaches can differ and explains how teacher style, school ethos, and student expectation can shape pedagogical choice. Impact of the teaching and the difficulties teachers encountered are also reported. Whilst this article is probably one of the first to explore the issue of human rights and rule of law teaching in Hong Kong, the fact that it is a small case study needs to be noted when reviewing the outcomes and conclusions of the study. The writing of this article was supported by the findings obtained from a Quality Education Fund project which aimed at assisting Hong Kong teachers to teach human rights and rule of law as part of Liberal Studies, which is a new senior secondary subject.
[Copyright © Symposium Journals Ltd 2012.]

This article argues for reconstructing Hong Kong’s civic education in the post-national education era, and puts forward some rethinking on conceptual, curricular and pedagogical matters. This article starts with a brief critical review of the development of school civic education in Hong Kong to set the context. This is followed by a discussion of the MNE controversy. It points out that the shelving of the mandatory subject and reversion to depoliticized school-based civic education is inadequate to address the needs of civic education in Hong Kong. Finally, this article argues in favour of the type of civic education that aims at cultivating politically literate, critically thinking and actively participating citizens, with particular reference to the Civic Education Guidelines from Civil Society. This set of unofficial Guidelines proposes that Hong Kong’s civic education has to be reconstructed both in conceptual, curricular and pedagogical terms accordingly. Hopefully, this article will shed light on the development of civic education in societies that are facing similar challenges in the process of democratization and an upheaval of civic consciousness of the citizenry.
[Copyright © 2015 Intellect Ltd Article.]

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]

Since the return of sovereignty to China in 1997, national identification with China has been a priority in Hong Kong SAR government’s educational policy agenda. Hong Kong has seen an increase of national education activities which aim at cultivating a Chinese identity with emphasis on ethnic and cultural dimensions. By using case studies with in-depth interviews on selected samples of Hong Kong’s secondary school teachers, this study analyzes how do they perceive their national identity and how do they teach national education. The findings reveal that under the proclamation of Chinese national identity, there are differences in connotation emphases on their own national identity given by the respondents and they have different teaching strategies on national education. These findings have implications for understanding the meanings of national identity and national education in Hong Kong in a globalization era.

This first part of the paper briefly reviews the historical development of civic education in Hong Kong arguing that there had been three stages of development, namely Stage one: Depoliticizing by the State and the School (before 1984), Stage two: Politicization of the Intended Curriculum (1985-1996) and Stage three: Re-depoliticisation of Civic Education and Official Affirmation of Nationalistic Education (1997-2008). In stage two, civic education was considered to encompass five foci, namely, human rights education, education for democracy, education for rule of law, nationalistic education and global education. But in stage three, political content such as human rights and democracy were replaced by personal, interpersonal and moral issues. In addition, stage three is characterized by a strong promotion of nationalistic/patriotic education. In the second part of the paper, the author argues that as starting from 2009, civic education will be stepping into stage four, which can be called ‘Civic education through Liberal Studies’. A new, compulsory subject, Liberal Studies, will be introduced in 2009 containing modules related to rule of law, socio-political participation where democracy and human rights can be explored. The aims and content of the Liberal Studies will be discussed in details to explore whether and how it can serve as a vehicle for civic education for rule of law, democracy and human rights.

Empirical Research Background: Our analyses and report in this study were based on data from the IEA Civic Education Study conducted by the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) in 1999. The IEA Civic Education Study is the largest and most rigorous study of civic education ever conducted internationally. This research tested and surveyed nationally representative samples totalling 90,000 14-year-old students in 28 countries. In our study the analyses and report focuses on the Hong Kong sample: 4,996 students aged 14.00-14.11 from 150 schools in Hong Kong. Empirical Research Aims: Our study aims to construct benchmark estimates for scales to be used to measure changes in citizenship attitudes and knowledge in Hong Kong students since 1999. In that case it is necessary to reveal any extra scales and/or variations of dimensions within a scale from the Hong Kong sample that were not reported in the IEA Technical report published in 2004, where common scales were adopted for all country comparisons. Empirical Research Sample: An instrument containing attitudinal items towards citizenship, including sections A to N, was administered to students in 28 countries, including Hong Kong, during the Civic Education Study (CivEd) of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) in 1999. A two stage stratified cluster sample design was used in line with those adopted for other large scale assessments. This involved schools being selected within a stratified sampling frame as the first stage and single intact classes being selected in the second stage. Two explicit strata were used in the sampling frame: district and financial mode, with the number of schools selected within each stratum proportional to the total number of schools. 150 Hong Kong schools were included in the sample in order "to obtain sufficient data for reliable analysis at school and class levels". The population was made up of students who are from 14.00-14.11 (Form 3)