Although the development of Asia adolescents’ citizenship values has been widely discussed, limited attention has been paid for the role of religion in shaping those values. The possibility has been suggested that Asian religious contexts may be understood differently from those in the West and research findings in those contexts are not necessarily applicable to Asia. This study, therefore, sought to understand further the association between the religious engagement of Asian adolescents’ and democratic values. The results indicated that attitudes to equality were moderately influenced by an understanding of democracy while religious engagement showed small, negative or non-significant associations with equality. Students’ understanding of democracy did not mediate the effect of students’ religious engagement. These results provide further support for the view that in Asian contexts religious engagement may not necessarily provide a conductive environment for supporting traditional democratic values. Copyright © 2020 British Association for International and Comparative Education.

1. Objectives or purposes of the paper.The primary purpose of this paper is to analyze how religion is portrayed and explored within the Liberal Studies curriculum in Hong Kong schools. Liberal Studies is the main place for social studies and moral and civic education in Hong Kong today, as one of four required subjects (alongside math, English, and Chinese). Liberal Studies aims in part “to help students appreciate and respect diversity in cultures and views in a pluralistic society.” However, it is also a new part of curriculum which teachers can find hard to implement. This paper specifically analyzes how religion is discussed and described in Liberal Studies curriculum materials including major textbooks used, as textbooks are thus far often directing the course of classroom teaching in Liberal Studies.2. Main perspective or theoretical/conceptual framework used.A comparative multicultural framework undergirds this project. The researcher’s past experience in multicultural religious education in the United States informs the choice of topic. Though both the United States and Hong Kong are proudly diverse places with strong traditions of religious freedom, Hong Kong lacks the tradition of common schooling of many Western societies and its aim to help students understand and assimilate with one another. As a result, the multicultural content may not be as celebratory about diversity there. Additionally, in Hong Kong it is understood that individuals can participate in various religious traditions at the same time, while in Western societies people tend to be more exclusive in their religious belief or unbelief. Though comparisons of multiculturalism in education are a backdrop to this project, its ultimate aim remains to consider whether students are learning what they should learn to understand religiously diverse others from the Liberal Studies curriculum, from an intercultural-multicultural stance which values dialogue and initial respect and good faith in the midst

This chapter firstly provides a brief historical overview on the transformation of religious education in Hong Kong. Throughout the British colonial era to China's resumption of sovereignty, the role of religion has been largely overlooked in the making of Hong Kong society, with religious education being a marginal academic subject in the formal school curriculum. Nevertheless, this chapter highlights the importance of religious education in Hong Kong society. The importance of the subject matter has been increasingly recognized given its intrinsic value in empowering students' resilience in coping with life challenges and depressing social environments. These are not outcomes that can be provided by the core academic subjects. Lastly, by considering the case of an increasing demand for Islamic education externally and internally, this chapter concludes with a new scenario setting an alternative aspiration for spirituality and religious education in Hong Kong's future. Copyright © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Kerry J. Kennedy and John Chi-Kin Lee; individual chapters, the contributors.

The purpose to this paper is to explore the relationship between teachers' perceived spiritual leadership and organizational commitment. A survey was conducted to collect data from a sample of 2,094 teachers from 117 primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong. Questionnaire developed by Fry et al. (2005; Fry, 2003; Karadag, 2009) was used to measure teachers' perceived spiritual leadership and spiritual survival in their schools. Eighteen items were used to measure the three factors of teachers' organizational commitment: affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment (Meyer, Allen, & Smith, 1993). The analyses were conducted using multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (MLCFA) and multilevel structural equation modeling (MLSEM). The current study has illustrated how membership and meaning/calling play a mediating role between spiritual leadership and organizational outcomes. It has shown that the influence of spiritual leadership on membership is apparently stronger at the school level than is it at the teacher level. This reflects, to an extent, the observation that qualities operate at both individual and organizational levels. It also reflects the call for all members in an organization to engage in a spiritual journey – a journey of transformation to become a less ego-centered and more other-centered person (Fry and Altman, 2013, p. 69). Copyright © 2018 Leena and Luna International, Chikusei, Japan.

Purpose: National identification among young people and the issues about how national education should be conducted have been the significant topics when the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region was entering its third decade of the establishment. This paper was written based on data the authors obtained upon participation in a project organized by the Centre for Catholic Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The project was carried out after the official curriculum, known as the Moral and National Education Curriculum Guide, was shelved due to popular resentment. The project aimed at capturing the timely opportunity for substantial resources available for school-based operation of moral and national education and developing an alternative curriculum about teaching national issues and identification for Catholic Diocese and Convent primary schools to adopt. This paper aims to investigate the nature of this Catholic Project and examines the extent to which it is a counterhegemonic project or one for teaching to belong to a nation (Mathews, Ma and Lui, 2007). It assesses the project's possible contribution to citizenship and national education in Hong Kong, since the withdrawal of the Moral and National Education Curriculum Guide.Design/methodology/approach: The authors of this paper worked in an education university of Hong Kong and were invited to be team members of this Catholic Project. The role comprised proposing topics for teacher training, conducting seminars, giving comments to teaching resources, observing and giving feedback to schools that tried out the teaching and designing/implementing an evaluative survey and conducting follow-up interviews with involved parties such as teachers and key officials of the Catholic Centre. Given this, the research involved can be perceived as action research. This paper was written up with both the qualitative and quantitative data the authors collected when working the project.Findings: This paper reported a Catholic

The human development (HD) model for religious education (RE) emphasises how students benefit from studying religion. However, detailed teaching practices for ‘learning from religion’ are not fully understood. In this article, lesson observations, school documents and interview data were collected from two Christian primary schools in Hong Kong (HK) . Two lessons were analysed as paradigmatic examples of the teaching for student development in RE lessons. This study found that the teachers helped their students engage in religion by giving them opportunities to associate religion with their lives through religious and moral-related contents. The use of daily life and religious experiences with discussions was the pedagogical approach for moving RE from just ‘the teaching of religion’. Moreover, various opportunities for student reflections to enhance personal and moral development were observed. Future studies should consider examining the theory of the adopted model and its classroom practice, which can aid understanding regarding the role of RE for student development and its global identity. Copyright © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This paper reports the findings of a case study that attempted to identify school-related factors influencing the quality of implementation of the Tier 1 Program of the Project P.A.T.H.S. in Hong Kong. The case study method was utilized to investigate perceptions of the program implementers of program effectiveness, and to identify the crucial factors for program success in a school with a religious background that admits students with high academic achievement. Findings demonstrated that incorporation of the program into the formal curriculum, good administrative support, efficient management from school, and presence of dedicated teachers contributed to program success. The present findings provide insight for the implementation of the Project P.A.T.H.S. in schools with a religious background. Copyright © 2011 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston.

Plans by the Hong Kong Government to introduce moral and national education (MNE) as a compulsory subject in primary and secondary schools in 2010 encountered strong opposition. The controversy over the plans has lasted for two years, with the government and its supporters claiming that the subject will help to instil a stronger sense of national identity in children and critics deriding it as biased and constituting a form of brainwashing. The subject is also seen as posing troubles or a considerable threat to local Christian schools because most of them have had their own religious education programmes for years. Most Christian school-sponsoring bodies and parachurch organisations oppose the subject's introduction, urging the government to scrap its curricular guidelines, and many say they will boycott its implementation. To bring the issues surrounding MNE into sharper focus, this article traces the development of Christian education in Hong Kong and analyses how local Christian communities perceive and have responded to the official proposal. Three prominent themes commonly emphasised in the Christian discourse are plural identities, conditional patriotism and universal values. These themes could shed light on wider theoretical discussion about the positive roles of religion and religious education for citizenship education.
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This article examines the politics of school-based management (SBM) in Hong Kong, with a specific focus on the conflicts between the state and three Christian churches (Catholic, Anglican, and Methodist) running state-funded religious schools. Although the state based its advocacy for SBM on neoliberally driven ideas of participation, transparency, and accountability, religious groups expressed worry about the loss of control over schools as an institution of value transmission anchored in religious beliefs. This article uses the SBM controversy as a case study to advance geographical debates on religious schools and argues that neoliberalism forms a necessary lens through which to examine the state-religion relations concerning religious schools. It offers an analytical framework that emphasizes the mutually constitutive relationship between religious schools and state building. It lends evidence to this argument by situating religious schools in the context of neoliberalization of education policies and arguing that faith-based sensibilities create new vectors of resistance to neoliberalism as a distinctive secular formation. The empirical analyses address three questions. First, we develop a detailed analysis of the discourses and rationalities upheld by the Hong Kong government and the churches. Second, we consider interactions and exchanges between the state and the churches, focusing on the assertions, negotiations, and concessions that both needed to make in a prolonged struggle over the decision-making process. Third, we reflect briefly on the aftermath of the passing of SBM to situate the churches' concerns in a broader context of neoliberal education policy.
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