The relationship between history education and political education in Asian societies is an underexplored topic. Politics have deeply shaped the development of history education in Hong Kong, as in many other societies around the world. Hong Kong history education reforms have been criticized for providing a new form of national political education. This study examines how politic education can be found in the Hong Kong history curriculum as 'latent content'. To do so, it provides a qualitative content analysis of all textual data used in 'Chinese history' and 'history' textbooks in secondary schools in Hong Kong which discuss or portray political content, focusing particularly on the themes of identity shaping and assimilation. Before focusing on the Hong Kong situation, this paper first explores how history education is a political topic in general. Then Hong Kong's complicated political legacy is described in relation to one of the unique features of history education there: the concurrence of two subjects, 'history' and 'Chinese history'. Current debates about the reform of history education in Hong Kong and the limitations of current history education in Hong Kong are examined in the next part, using data from textbooks. Our analysis shows that 1) national identity is prioritized over local identity in the textbooks, and 2) the textbooks mainly reflect a Mainland-based majority perspective and justify assimilation in history, resulting in a lack of recognition of the many different minority groups of Mainland China, of which Hong Kong people may see themselves as part. Based on the analysis, we argue that history education in Hong Kong provides a narrow political education that can impede some crucial education goals in Hong Kong.
[Copyright of Educational Studies in Japan: International Yearbook is the property of Japanese Educational Research Association.]

This article examines how interest groups in Hong Kong have politicised national history, an unpopular school subject, for their own political ends and allied themselves with the PRC against the SAR government and its policy of not making it a single, independent, compulsory core subject in the school curriculum. The article argues that this has been made possible by the 'One country, two systems' administrative structure.
[Copyright of Curriculum Journal is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585176.2011.550764]

德育及公民教育是2001年香港課程改革中四個關鍵項目之一，學校推行德育及公民教育是否成功，對學生的身心發展，以至社會的整體安定繁榮也有著密不可分的關係。政府於2001年就四個學習階段訂下德育及公民教育的課程框架，並在2008年作出修訂。本文以課程決定為討論的切人點，嘗試從內在及外在情景的視角，引用不同學者提出的相關理論作初步探討，並提出對香港德育及公民教育發展的個人觀點。
The Moral and Civic Education is one of four key tasks in the Hong Kong curriculum reform 2001. Whether the implementation of school moral and civic education is successful or not, it will impact the development of the student's body and mind, and even the stability and prosperity of the society as a whole. The government subscribed the moral and civic education curriculum framework in 2001 on four learning phases, and made the revision in 2008. This article attempts to explore the issue in view of curriculum decision making and from internal and external context perspectives together with related theories. Author’s point of view on the future development of Hong Kong moral and civic education will also be made.
[Copyright of Hong Kong Teachers' Centre Journal is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Centre at http://www.edb.org.hk/hktc]

This study critically examines Hong Kong's environmental education initiatives beyond schooling in the last 5 years with reference to the engagement of environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in this process under an emerging sponsorship regime. It highlights that the manifested form and mode of environmen-talism in general and environmental education in particular are embedded within the socio-political context of colonial governance, the proliferation of green ideas and the local adaptation of ideas of environmental education. It is observed and argued that environmental education programmes in the last 5 years, promoted mainly in the mass media domain, have been partially successful in changing people's perception on environmental affairs, but environmental groups' autonomy is questioned under a sponsorship regime. The paper ends with remarks on the future of environmental education under a new political regime in 1997 and beyond.
[Copyright of Environmental Education Research is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1350462980040303]