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]

This study examines the interrelationships amongst and between news attention, education, and political tolerance. Based on the theoretical presumption that the mainstream news media tend to reflect the prejudices and ideologies of the dominant groups in a society, news portrayal of groups regarded as deviant and/or controversial can be expected to be negative in valence. Hence, news attention is expected to lead to more negative attitudes toward such groups, which in turn breeds intolerance toward them. Meanwhile, education may moderate the relationship between news attention and tolerance. Research questions and hypotheses are examined through analyzing the data from a representative survey conducted in Hong Kong. The findings confirm the negative, indirect effect of news attention on tolerance through attitude toward deviant groups. Education is also found to relate to tolerance in a complicated and contradictory manner: while education has a direct positive effect on tolerance, it also strengthens the negative impact that attitude toward deviant groups has on tolerance. The theoretical and social implications of the findings are discussed.
[Copyright of Chinese journal of communication is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17544750.2013.789427]

This study examines whether and how political party support shapes interpersonal political discussion. Drawing upon existing research, party support is hypothesized to lead to more frequent political discussion and lower levels of disagreement within discussion networks. Party support is also hypothesized to moderate the relationship between news consumption and discussion frequency and the relationship between discussion frequency and disagreement. The analysis further explores if the impact of party support varies according to the parties being supported. The hypotheses and research question were examined using data from representative surveys conducted in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The findings illustrate the importance of political party support in structuring citizens' interpersonal political discussions in the consolidated democracy of Taiwan and, though to a lesser extent, in the semi-democratic environment of Hong Kong. In Taiwan, the impact of discussion frequencies on disagreement in discussion network varies according to the party being supported. Implications of the findings are discussed..
[Copyright of Asian Journal of Communication is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2013.827731]

This article uses results from a cross-national analysis of the impact of varying approaches to civic education curriculum delivery on three learning outcomes, to draw conclusions about the value of a government-mandated compulsory, independent subject of civic education in the school curriculum. It starts from the context of Hong Kong, where there have been repeated calls for the government to reform civic education, and compares this context with that of England, where citizenship education was made a statutory subject in 2002. The article then examines from the cases of 25 societies whether a compulsory approach to and/or independent subject of civic education is associated with better learning of civic knowledge, knowledge of democracy, and patriotism. Finding that the impact of curricular approaches is somewhat negligible taking other factors into consideration, the article concludes that civic education reformers should consider the costs of limiting school autonomy in curriculum delivery.
[Copyright of Roeper Review is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2011.625000]

This paper explores two current issues in the educational policies and practices of Hong Kong that have been shaped by the emergence of the nation-state and the return of Hong Kong's sovereignty from the UK to the People's Republic of China on 1 July 1997. Since this time there have been two great challenges facing music education. The first concerns how to incorporate diverse cultures, including Chinese music, into a Western-orientated music curriculum; and the second is to find a way to cultivate national identity and democracy through music education. The data presented here were collected via in-depth, semi-structured individual interviews with music teachers, school heads and assistant school heads across 40 primary and secondary schools between 2006 and 2007. The findings can be explained by referring to the shortcomings of multicultural education and the underdevelopment of democracy in Hong Kong's education system.
[Copyright of Discourse is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01596300902809203]

Hong Kong has put forward a package of education reform proposals in 2000. The education reform is to set the blueprint for Hong Kong's development of education for the 21st century. An analysis of the values orientation of the reform proposals shows that the impact of globalization and the economic restructuring are the guiding forces. The main concern of the education reform is human investment - to produce the manpower demanded by a new economy of the era of information technology. At the same time, the proposals also promote democratization and equal opportunities and this implies a paradigm shift.
[Copyright of School Effectiveness and School Improvement is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1076/sesi.15.2.201.30431]