Internationally there have been serious efforts to identify effective modes of delivering civic education for preparing youth for the future challenges of citizenship. This article addresses the research question, 'why is an independent subject not preferred in civic education by Hong Kong civic education teachers?'. It starts with a brief review of international debates and of the development of civic education policy in Hong Kong. Then it moves on to discuss why teachers tend to reject civic education as an independent subject based on the findings from an interview informed research study. The findings reveal that teachers' misunderstandings of the nature of civic education are the major reasons. Treating civic education as comprising educational activities involving the nurturing of attitudes, values and skills of students with little content knowledge, the teachers consider that civic education is best accomplished through, for example, extra-curricular activities and not as a subject that demands time slots in the school timetable. It is argued that these misunderstandings will have negative impacts on the effectiveness of civic education, which is unfavourable to the nurturing of democratic cultures necessary for the development of the democratic system in Hong Kong and has to be rectified. Lastly, some recommendations for rectification that relate to civil society are discussed. Hopefully, this article can shed light on the understanding of the preferences towards the modes of implementation of front line practitioners in schools internationally, since this phenomenon is common in some other nations.
[Copyright © Symposium Journals Ltd.].

This qualitative multiple-case study research attempts to shed light on controversies associated with National Education in Hong Kong by exploring the perceptions of National Education of secondary school teachers. Since the resumption of Hong Kong's sovereignty by China in 1997, national identification with Chinese has been a policy priority. There has been an increase of National Education which aims at cultivating a Chinese national identity. This study used convenient sampling method on 10 purposively chosen sample of experienced Hong Kong citizenship education teachers, with in-depth interviews as data collection method. The findings reveal that teachers perceive National Education with different aims and teaching methods, and knowledge transmission is highlighted in National Education. There are patriotic, affective, critical thinking approaches, experiential learning and reflective teaching in National Education. Apart from arguing for different pedagogies and assessments in teaching National Education, this paper also calls for recognizing global identity and global citizenship education.
[Copyright © Comparative Education Society of Hong Kong].

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.

In this paper, human rights education is defined as ‘education that helps to shape a culture of respecting and protecting human rights, according to the international human rights standards. That is, to cultivate citizens who live in accordance with the principles of human rights and are willing to take actions to protect their own and other citizen’s human rights when the rights are being infringed’. Any discussion of human rights education in Hong Kong, should focus on both the school and community sectors. The Education and Manpower Bureau (EMB) and the Committee on the Promotion of Civic Education (CPCE) of the Home Affairs Bureau (HAB) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAP) are responsible for human rights education in schools and community respectively. In both sectors, human rights education is considered an aspect of civic education. In this paper I critically review the development of human rights education in the context of civic education and then explore some challenges and possibilities ahead in both sectors.
[Copyright © 2007 Asia-Pacific Human Rights Information Center.]