Schools have been considered crucial social contexts for character formation. Hong Kong’s recent education policy has put moral and character education on the agenda of early childhood education (ECE); it states that moral and character education should be integrated into the major kindergarten subjects. However, questions remain on how it should be integrated into the ECE subject areas. Music has been officially identified as part of kindergartens’ daily activities. Scholarship has established the inextricable interconnection between character development and music participation. This study aims to explore subject-based implementation of the moral education through the lens of musical instructions. Literature confirms school leaders’ impact on shaping the implementation of policy, hence, school leaders’ perceptions and challenges regarding the implementation of this newly emphasized policy was explored through semi-structured interviews with 12 purposively selected principals. The results reveal that the principals valued using music education to teach children about morals and ethics, but found that they faced hurdles in the implementation, e.g. teachers’ insufficient pedagogical content knowledge and parents’ attitude. This study identifies traditionalism as the most prevailing view in kindergarten principals’ conceptualizations of moral education. Musical activities for moral education that principals support are play-based but adult-guided. © 2023 The Author(s).

Ethics is concerned with individual character; it relates to morals and the treating of moral questions. Teaching ethics involves the study and evaluation of the moral consequences of reflective choices of actions among alternatives that are not clear, or that are in conflict with one another. Although it can be debated whether we should teach ethics, the question arises as to wheather accounting educators should take up the challenge and sensitize their students to the ethical issues they will face throughout their professional careers. As an integral part of the first undergraduate programme in accountancy in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Polytechnic developed a compulsory full-year subject, ethics in accountancy, for its final-year accountancy students. The Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Accountancy course, which was implemented in 1988, was accredited to replace the traditional professional diplomas under the UK model. In 1990 the subject ethics in accountancy was first taught to about 230 final-year students in Hong Kong. This paper reviews the process of developing the subject from its initial from to its present structure. Based on practical experience, the paper addresses the issue 'Can ethics be taught?' and the questions of why, what and how.
[Copyright of Accounting Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09639289400000003]

Based on the emerging experiences of the Committee on the Promotion of Civic Education, this paper advocates an effective model of values development for youths in their post-school stage, through encouraging companies and corporations to take on an advanced form of Corporate Social Responsibility called Corporate Citizenship that also has an internal values development role, apart from the usual external contributions role. Moral education inside and beyond schools for youth in Hong Kong is also presented as background to this development for the benefit of overseas readers.
基於香港公民教育委員會推廣公民教育與德育之經驗，本文提倡企業及公司採用一種有效的校外青少年價值觀發展模式。此模式名為「企業公民」，是「企業社會責任」的較高層次。此模式鼓勵企業及公司除慣常的對外捐助及義工服務之外，還須注意到對自身員工的價值觀培養。本文亦為外地讀者簡介香港青少年畢業前後的德育工作。
[Copyright of Journal of Youth Studies is the property of The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups at http://yrc.hkfyg.org.hk/]

Previous research on the development of children's concept of distributive justice has shed little light on the child's ability to consider the characteristics of the recipients when making judgement of fair sharing. Previous research has shown that preschool children generally apply principles of equality when making decisions for fair sharing of materials, regardless of the characteristics of the recipients. The idea of equality refers to equal sharing of each individual person. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether preschool children would share toys equally across situations or on the basis of the characteristics of the recipients. The study also observed whether each member in a group would be counted as one unit for allocation across situations. A crucial piece of evidence for understanding children's concept of distributive justice is demonstrated by children's ability to view situations differently based on the characteristics of the recipients. These findings serve as a starting point to support the hypothesis that preschool children do take contextual information into account when making distributive justice decisions.
[Copyright of Early Child Development and Care is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0300443022000022477]

A brief review of the social and educational context of Hong Kong shows that the publication of the General guidelines on moral education in schools in 1981, by the Hong Kong Education Department, marked a milestone in the development of moral education. The Guidelines explicitly asserted moral education as one function of schooling, whilst also formally recognizing the home and the community as two main influences. This paper narrates how three moral sources of influence - namely Confucian-parental, Christian-religious and liberal-civic - have shaped the development of moral education in Hong Kong from 1973 to 2003. It then examines in more detail: parental influence at home - the Confucian moral source in Chinese family; schooling influenced by religious sources - taking Christian schools as an example; and the Independent Commission Against Corruption as an official agency for moral education - a liberal source calling for civic morality. In conclusion, the post-colonial emergence of nationalistic influence in the recently constituted Chinese Special Administrative Region, advocating national identity as the new core value, is traced and the implications for future moral education in Hong Kong are considered.
[Copyright of Journal of Moral Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305724042000315626]