Citizenship responsibilities have been measured in different ways. Little attention has been paid to how adolescents as future citizens construct these responsibilities. This paper will report on a project concerned with adolescents in Hong Kong and how they understood the responsibilities of ‘good citizens’. Drawing on data from the IEA Civic Education Study, all items relating to student conceptions of the ‘good citizen’ were re-analyzed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. A 3 –factor model was identified showing adequate fit to the data. This model suggested that students identified obligations and duties as the main responsibilities of citizens.

The assumption of most western literature on civic education is that its purposes are largely linked to the democratic regimes and their maintenance. But as time goes on, global experience has witnessed the emergence and prosperous development of civic education in many non-democratic societies. It seems to suggest that civic education does not have to be identical with Western liberal democracy. Since non-democratic regimes view citizen preparation as important, what kind of citizen do they produce? In what ways is it different from democratic civic education? The purpose of the study is to explore how civic education is influenced by regime type though comparing the scholars’ representation of good citizen in three Chinese societies (Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland). The societies in which there are explicitly different regime types (democracy, hybrid regime, and authoritarianism) in order to highlight the significance of any possible variations. Document analysis of date related to civic education from three databases will provide us a clear understanding of ideal good citizen under democracy, hybrid regime, and authoritarianism.

Well aware of the growing importance of the public accountability movement, many governments in Asia have introduced different polices, strategies, and mechanisms to maintain quality in higher education. Along with the massification of higher education and the prominence of new public management among Asian nation states, evaluation, accreditation and audit have been frequently employed to determine whether educational services offered by universities have been up to certain level. In order to fulfill the responsibility of securing quality education within its jurisdiction, many Asian governments are beginning to impose relevant regulations and quality assurance measures. These moves have substantially reshaped and redefined the relationship and configuration between higher education sector and government. The emergence of quality assurance, as a regulatory instrument, are also concerned with the differentiated roles and responsibilities of all the players involved such as universities/colleges, national quality assurance systems, independent accreditation bodies, professional bodies, and regional international organizations. Moreover, the popularity of transnational higher education such as branch campuses and twining/dual program and the increasingly integrated higher education area in Asia with the facilitation of ASEAN, UMAP and AEARU not only create the needs of recognizing the qualification and degrees regionally but also pose serious governance challenges to each country domestically. It is against these wider contexts that this panel will pay special attention to the emerging issues of quality assurance in selected societies such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and China etc.. Also, it is imperative to examine the challenges that further regional integration and transnational collaboration may face in Asian countries with respect to quality assurance.

Gender equality has long been an issue for gender and language research from as early as the 1970s to the contemporary era in the 2010s, and gender stereotyping in textbooks is an issue in many different countries (Davis, 1995; see also Blumberg, 2007, 2008). While secondary English Language textbooks published in Hong Kong have already been investigated by Lee and Collins (2008), primary English Language textbooks have rarely been investigated (but see Au, 1992; Au, 2004). Therefore, the present study investigates gender representation in two widely-used primary English Language textbook series, Step Up and Primary Longman Express, by examining two subgenres that can be widely found in all language textbooks: reading passages and dialogues, and visuals. In other words, textual (lexis and grammar), discourse and visual representations of gender are analysed. A combination of different methods is used in this study. First, to answer the research question of how gender is represented in the reading passages in the Step Up and Primary Longman Express series in terms of lexis and grammar (Research Question A), content, linguistic and discourse analyses are conducted. Then, pragmatics and conversation analysis are used to analyse how the discourse of males and female speakers is represented in the dialogues in the two textbook series (Research Question B). Finally, to analyse the representation of gender in the visuals in the two textbook series (Research Question C), the method of visual analysis is used. To make sure that the quantitative results obtained are significant, the chi-square test is also used and log-likelihood values are calculated. The results of this study are encouraging in that males and females are represented similarly and fairly, and show in improvement over previous textbook studies in gender representation. In textual representation of gender, at the lexical level, though males were represented more often than females in terms of having a higher frequency

Since the retrocession of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, the Hong Kong SAR government and key curriculum developers have been determined to make use of the school curriculum (formal and informal) and in particular, the two history subjects, 'Chinese History' and 'History,' to promote a national identity among students. This study shows that a Chinese national identity in ethnic, cultural and historical terms has been promoted through 'Chinese History.' At the same time, through the other history subject, 'History,' a Hongkongese identity that includes both an international and a national dimension has also been made possible. However, it is argued that in promoting a sense of national identity through the school curriculum, the government has turned the curriculum to a form of nationalistic propaganda. In addition, the emphasis on national identity would create tension between Hong Kong students, students from China and ethnical minority students.
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