Generally speaking, after the Chinese Communist Party had gained political power, the colonial Hong Kong Government intended to resist the spread and influence of communism and to that end implemented Civic Education in Hong Kong. The present study disagrees with this simple description and analysis. The postwar Hong Kong was confronted with the complex Chinese civil war situation while the British maintained their colonial governance. Faced with the rising power of the Communist Party, the victory of the war and the outbreak of the Korean War, the entire geo-political transformation process influenced the administration and strategy of the Hong Kong Government. The question was that did Hong Kong conduct the Nationalist education as civic education before 1949 and under the cultural and educational influence of the Communist across the border? Hong Kong had to implement the embargo policy of the United Nations and the Cold War’s strategy between the capitalist world and the communist blocs. It was not necessary for Civic Education wholly revealing a responding problem but it can partly explain the real situation.
[Copyright © 2015 Scienceweb Publishing.]

This book demonstrates the value of approaching education from a sociological and philosophical perspective. Specifically, it addresses current and long-standing educational issues in the Asia-Pacific region, integrating sociological and philosophical insights with practical applications in four key areas: educational aims, moral education, educational policy, and the East-West dichotomy. It discusses educational aims in terms of rationality, philosophical thinking, and sustainable development and presents the literary, religious, and analytical approaches to moral education. Four educational policies are then considered: Hong Kong's language policy, Hong Kong's policy on the internationalization of education, East Asia's policies on English education, and Australia's policy on teacher education. Different aspects of the East-West dichotomy are analysed: Confucian rationalism versus Western rationalism, Confucian learning culture versus Western learning culture, and Asian research methodology versus Western research methodology. Taken as a whole, the book shows that issues in education are rarely simple, and looking at them from multiple perspectives allows for rich and informed debates. It presents a rare philosophical and sociological analysis of the cultures and experiences of education in the Asia-Pacific region, and promotes research that leads to more culturally rooted educational policies and practice.
[Copyright © 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore]

From 2009 to 2011, the authors launched the Basic Law Education Project: Education for Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Hong Kong. This article focuses on a subset of the overarching data-set and discusses the findings that resulted from a comparative analysis of two participating schools. A survey was deployed to assess the extent to which a human rights friendly ethos existed in several institutions. Randomly selected students and all teachers from both schools were invited to participate. The collected data revealed noteworthy trends in mean scores between teachers and students in areas such as equal and fair treatment; protection of and appeal for rights; and feelings of being loved, respected, and blessed. School mission and leadership style appeared to account for significant differences. Additionally, we offer recommendations for practices that may improve human rights ethos in schools.
[Copyright © 2015 Taylor & Francis.]

公民能力的教育是現時公民教學的教育重點，非正規課程的教育愈見重要。香港學校的公民教育隨著2001年《課程發展路向》報告書的發表，在公民教學的策略上，學校改變過往知識學習的路向，提倡 “學習者為中心” 和 “生活事件” 的教學。學校生活實踐的教育，如學生會的選舉參與和組織活動等，逐漸成為公民教育的重要媒介。我們透過對學生在學校學生會的活動參與情況的探討，嘗試檢視學校非正規課程學習的優點和局限。我們從訪問學生的個案中，發現公民學習在教學方法和施行方面，存在問題，影響學習成效。