Plans by the Hong Kong Government to introduce moral and national education (MNE) as a compulsory subject in primary and secondary schools in 2010 encountered strong opposition. The controversy over the plans has lasted for two years, with the government and its supporters claiming that the subject will help to instil a stronger sense of national identity in children and critics deriding it as biased and constituting a form of brainwashing. The subject is also seen as posing troubles or a considerable threat to local Christian schools because most of them have had their own religious education programmes for years. Most Christian school-sponsoring bodies and parachurch organisations oppose the subject's introduction, urging the government to scrap its curricular guidelines, and many say they will boycott its implementation. To bring the issues surrounding MNE into sharper focus, this article traces the development of Christian education in Hong Kong and analyses how local Christian communities perceive and have responded to the official proposal. Three prominent themes commonly emphasised in the Christian discourse are plural identities, conditional patriotism and universal values. These themes could shed light on wider theoretical discussion about the positive roles of religion and religious education for citizenship education.
[Copyright of British Journal of Religious Education is the property of Routledge.]

The Catholic Church, the largest school-sponsoring body in Hong Kong, is a major provider of religious schools and educational programmes. In 2006, the Catholic Diocese released its first centralised and comprehensive curricular document concerning religious and moral education (RME) in Catholic schools. Taking this programme as a reflection of the Church's response to the challenges of a changing social milieu, severed church–state relations and shortcomings in Catholic education in post-1997 Hong Kong, this article reviews the framework and principles of the new curriculum. While retaining strong religious elements in its curriculum, the Catholic Church has widened and re-oriented its programme, and re-designed the contents and pedagogical methods. The new programme is characterised by adjustment and differentiation, upholding Christian faith, and selective absorption of Chinese culture. This article also discusses problems in the implementation of the new programme, including organisational compartmentalisation and an underdeveloped political dimension in the content.
[Copyright of Journal of Beliefs & Values: Studies in Religion & Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13617672.2015.1099940]

This paper is the report of a study that uses qualitative methods to examine the religiosity of Hong Kong Buddhist adolescents. Twenty-two Buddhist adolescents aged from 13 to 17 studying in Buddhist secondary schools took part in semi-structured interviews. The interviews were voice-recorded and transcribed verbatim, first into Chinese and then partly into English for quotations. Content analysis was carried out to delineate the religiosity of the Buddhist adolescents: (1) the sources and resources of religiosity, (2) religious beliefs, (3) religious practices, (4) positive consequences of religiosity, and (5) predictions on the future development of religiosity. The results show that the religiosity of Buddhist adolescents in Hong Kong exhibits some special features that distinguish it from the more common understanding of religiosity in the West.
[Copyright of International Journal of Children's Spirituality is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13644360903565466]

Background: "Spirituality Education" of children has gained more concern in recent years, but there is a lack of consensus for its meaning. Some literatures regard Spirituality Education as Religious Education, while quite many literatures have shown a close relationship between Spirituality Education and Humanistic Education, which could be unrelated with Religious Education. What is the meaning of "Spirituality Education" being mentioned by the ECE reformers after all? Is it the former or the later? The Guide to the Pre-primary Curriculum (2006) proposed "Lifelong learning" and "Holistic Learning", affirming the need of child-centredness (Humanistic Education) in curriculum. If so, there is a likelihood that "Spirituality Education"has a closer connection with humanistic education than with religious education. It is therefore vital to clarify the meaning of "Spirituality Education"for fostering the current early childhood educational reform. This paper seeks to explore if Spirituality Education has been misunderstood by the early childhood education practitioners with a result that hindering the implementation of educational reform.
Focus of Discussion: Through literatures review and the author's interpretation, this paper attempts to demonstrate that Spirituality Education is actually closely related with Humanistic Education and Holistic Education. Spirituality Education shares similar elements with that of liberal studies, in which the concerned areas and aspects of knowledge are widespread. Hence, it is not limited in promoting Religious Education. And pedagogies adopted in Spirituality Education mainly emphasize diversified and critical thinking. The rationales behind Spirituality Education are closely related with that of Humanistic Education and Holistic Education. Spirituality Education has no direct relation with Religious Education which emphasizes direct transmission of religious dogma.
Suggestion: In view of the importance of the role of Spirituality