Learning about political issues through the new core subject of Liberal Studies (LS) in senior secondary education in Hong Kong has become ‘socially problematic' amid mounting concern of politicians and pundits who see a link between such learning and the recent waves of student protests. Using data from in-depth interviews with senior secondary students in Hong Kong, we explore how politically disengaged and engaged youth experienced their LS learning and how they perceived and made sense of the relationship between LS learning and political participation or its absence. Our findings indicate that while there appear to be circumstances that give rise to diversified learning experiences, LS has little bearing on youth political participation or otherwise.
[Copyright © 2017 Sage Publications and YOUNG Editorial Group.]

Purpose Political parties in Hong Kong are eager to recruit university students and internship programs are a major recruitment channel for them. However, studies on the influences of political internship programs on university students are few and have mainly been conducted in Western democracies. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore the roles of political party internship programs in encouraging university and community college students to join political parties in Hong Kong, a semi-democratic autonomous region of China. Design/methodology/approach This study is based on the insights gained from semi-structured interviews with a small sample of former party interns. Findings This paper found that party internship programs can play three major roles in encouraging students at higher education institutions to join a political party. They are: exposing students to the recruitment efforts of the party, helping students who have no political aspirations to generate a desire to join, and providing an opportunity for those already considering joining to ascertain if the party is really suitable for them. Originality/value This paper shows that political internships in semi-democratic regimes like Hong Kong can play similar roles as those in Western democracies to stimulate some university students to pursue a career in politics and help those already considering a political career to ascertain their goals. This paper also shows that these stimulating and confirming effects could also apply to the application for party membership.
[© Emerald Publishing Limited 2017]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the worldwide discussion of conceptualization, multiple functions and management of national education in an era of globalisation by proposing a new comprehensive framework for research, policy analysis and practical implementation. Design/methodology/approach Based on a review of the diversity in definitions of national education, the controversies in policy and implementation of national education are discussed. The different interpretations of national education stem from different assumptions and perspectives. Each of them seems too confining in globalisation. To overcome the controversies, this paper calls for a re-conceptualisation of national education from a broader perspective. Findings The conceptualisation of broad-based national education is premised on two fundamental principles. First, national education which is meant for development is a process by which humankind moves forward at multiple levels including the personal, local, national and global levels. Second, national education nowadays must be understood against a globalised context, in which there are multiple, complex and dynamic developments at play including technological, economic, social, political, cultural and learning developments of not only individuals and local communities within the nation but also the global world beyond the nation. In brief, broad-based education serves multiple functions at multiple levels. With national identity understood in a broader perspective, the multiplicity and complexity of national education may be better addressed. Identifying with one's own nation is a dynamic and complicated process in which interaction and integration between the different levels and different functions of civic identities are involved. The approaches to management, implementation and pedagogy of broad-based national education are also discussed. Research limitations/implications The new framework of conceptualisation and the comparison

This study aims at assessing the existing effort in civic education in Hong Kong secondary schools after the implementation of the 3-3-4 educational reforms from 2009 onwards. The assessment framework is based on the IEA civic education model (Torney-purta et al., 2001). Qualitative data were collected from focus group interviews from 18 Form 3 students of four schools. The findings support the previous research that adolescents engaged actively in the process of political socialization. Rather than political activities, the majority of interviewees preferred to engage in social activities. Moreover, interviewees held positive beliefs in civic efficacy in changing school policies though they might not be confident to change government policies when they became adults. Interviewees suggested having more "space" in the present civic curriculum by allowing more discussion / activities on current issues or news. Finally, students had positive comments about existing efforts in civic education during Liberal Studies lessons.
[Copyright © 2012 HKFYG.]

This book makes a timely contribution to understanding perceptions on national identity and National Education, with both of them have become controversial topics in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China. In a so-called globalization era, national identity and National Education, with the latter having an aim of fostering a Chinese national identity in education, have been significantly pushed ahead by the Hong Kong SAR government since the early 2000s as a response to the return of sovereignty to China in 1997. Teacher perception matters to what they select and how they teach in the schools. By incorporating fieldworks of teacher interviews, observation and documentary analysis, this book argues for a multi-layered conception of identity, different aims, contents and diversified methods of National Education should be recognized. This book is likely to become a useful account of teacher perception on national identity and National Education in citizenship education literature, and it will be relevant to policymakers, teachers, trainers and researchers.
[Copyright © 2017 Routledge.]

Hong Kong underwent tremendous changes after the transfer of its sovereignty to China in 1997. This study attempts to explore the changing role of schools in preparing students for future democratic citizenship in the post-colonial era. Different researchers have postulated that schools play a crucial role in the political socialization process in meeting the developmental needs of adolescents. A mixed-method sequential explanatory research design was adopted to assess the effectiveness of Hong Kong schools in promoting civic learning. The significance of the present study was to analyse the school context by using the assessment framework from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Civic Education Study (CivEd) to generate citizenship education studies. An extensive review of research related to the role of schools through formal and informal curricula was conducted. This process helped extend the current understanding of the effectiveness of the political socialization in secondary schools in Hong Kong and contributed to the further development of the research on political socialization in the Chinese context. The findings from this study would help educators or policy makers rethink the future role of schools in citizenship education.
[Copyright © 2017 National Institute of Education, Singapore.]

As classroom and schools are the “miniature political communities” that help incubate students’ civic experiences, they can influence their civic development and civic participation cognitively and behaviorally.Meanwhile, principals and teachers can act as school-site change agents for the development of civically responsive and responsible youngsters at the formative age. However, past studies have not extensively examined how participative classrooms lead to better civic learning and active civic lives in schools. Neither has any responded to the current political circumstances in Hong Kong by relating controversial issues such as students’ democratic values and civic attitudes to future civic engagement including illegal protest. To fill this research gap and provide policy directions, we propose and test amodel of how political socialization at school affects development of early adolescents’ democratic values, attitudes to civic institutions and the nation, and aspirations for conventional and unconventional civic action. As young people in Hong Kong are increasingly active and radical in recent years (e.g., Scholarism, Occupy Central Movement), we examine their possible roots. Specifically we testmultilevel structural equationmodels on a sample of 2902 Hong Kong secondary Form 2 students from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA)’s 2009 International Civics and Citizenship Education study (ICCS). These young adults were at the age when the survey was conducted. Their aspirations expressed thenmight have translated into actions now. The results can inform policies to help schools fulfill their civic mission and nurture “politically literate, participatory, and critically thinking” future citizens.