In the last ten years or so, the governments in many countries have paid more attention to citizenship education. In fact, citizenship education has become an important element in the primary and secondary schools curriculum of these countries. In Hong Kong the government has paid special attention to citizenship education since the mid-1980s when it was decided that China was to regain the sovereignty of Hong Kong from 1997. In addition, the promotion of citizenship education was also necessary as a result of the start of the process of democratization in the early 1980s. To facilitate the implementation of citizenship education in Hong Kong, two official documents were published to provide guidelines for schools principals and teachers. There are different views regarding the nature and the dimensions of citizenship education. According to Lawton (2000), there are at least two views concerning the definitions of citizenship education. They are (1) passive citizenship view of training for conformity and obedience and (2) educating the future citizenship for active participation in a democratic society. Heater (1990) suggests that citizenship education has three dimensions: elements (identity and loyalty, virtues, legal or civic status, political and social rights), geographical levels (local, nation-state, regional or world) and outcomes of education (knowledge, attitudes and skills). More recently, researchers such as Lee (2004) have also suggested to examine citizenship education from an Asian perspective. The aim of this paper is to examine the problems and controversies related to the implementation of citizenship education in Hong Kong from a comparative education perspective. Examples of these problems include the low status of the subject, the lack of training of teachers and the very crowded curriculum which restricts the inclusion of more subjects such as citizenship education. One further problem is that under the 'one country - two system' there are heated

Policy-making can be viewed as a process of social construction, with policy issues and solutions based on different policy-makers' definitions of, and the claims they make about, social problems. This process of "claims-making" can in turn be viewed as a process of persuasion, convincing others that a particular definition of a problem and a particular solution is valid. In this respect, the process of persuasion in policy-making can in turn be seen as containing the elements of argumentation and evidence. This paper attempts to account for Hong Kong citizenship education policy-makers' use of evidence, argument, and persuasion in promoting their version of policy solution for their definition of a social problem. Specifically, it compares arguments made by legislators and government officials in 1990 and 1997 Education (Amendment) Bill debates over the restriction and control over political education in Hong Kong's schools.

In the transitional period, there has been a general concern among Hong Kong people that out young citizens are not adequately prepared for the reunification of Hong Kong with China. They demanded a more effective civic education programme in both primary and secondary schools. There are different modes of implementation of civic education in the Hong Kong secondary schools. In the formal curriculum, civic education is mainly carried out through the subjects of Social Studies or Economics and Public Affairs. This paper identifies teachers' competence as a major factor which determines the effectiveness of the civic education programme and evaluates the competence of pre-service secondary Social Studies teachers in implementing civic education through the teaching of the subject of Social Studies. The research project mainly adopted a quantitative method. Through the instrument of questionnaires, student teachers were required to conduct self-evaluation of their competence in implementing civic education in secondary schools. At the same time, this instrument is supplemented by a semi-structured group interview on the student teachers' understanding and perception of civic education. The findings show that final year student teachers of Social Studies are, in general, not well equipped in both knowledge and skills in implementing civic education in secondary schools. The findings are thoroughly analyzed and their implications for teacher education discussed.