This article examines the intertwining and evolution of neoliberal and nationalist discourses in post-colonial Hong Kong and Macao, arguing that their combination reveals the dual layers of political rationality in the dynamics of higher education policymaking. It suggests a move towards governmentality with Chinese characteristics, marked by gradual and continuous shifts towards decolonisation and re-Sinicisation within the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ framework. This perspective contrasts with existing literature on Hong Kong that emphasises the maintenance of the colonial status quo and points out abrupt changes due to the 2019 protests and the 2020 National Security Law. By analysing the reconfiguration of governmentality in the higher education systems of these post-colonial Chinese societies amid changing political landscapes, the article sheds light on both the incremental changes and significant moments influencing the trajectory of higher education development in Hong Kong and Macao. Copyright ©2024 Routledge.

This article provides an overview of the politics of education as they affect regions and communities on the periphery of the People's Republic of China. Drawing on the articles in this special issue of Comparative Education, it analyses tensions related to the attempted imposition of Bejing's homogenising and totalising vision of Chineseness across Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and amongst the mainland's migrant underclass. Also considered here are the politics of comparative educational scholarship, as they relate to a widespread failure to engage critically with the diversity and complexity of Chinese societies. Attributable largely to the West's own 'culture wars', this failure betrays much-touted ethical commitments to social justice and anti-'hegemonic' resistance. It is thus a central purpose of this essay - and special issue - to urge educational scholars to interrogate the politics of oppression and injustice in China and elsewhere 'beyond the Western horizon'. Copyright ©2024 Routledge.

This study explores the narration of China as a nation in history education in two regions – mainland China and Hong Kong – that share cultural roots but different socio-political contexts. Inductive analysis of data from junior-secondary Chinese history textbooks used in the regions in the late 2010s revealed that whereas mainland China’s textbooks constructed China as a nation by stressing its constitutive territory and ethnic inclusiveness, Hong Kong’s highlighted its constitutive ethnicity and changing territory, more frequently and directly narrated interethnic conflicts, and more explicitly promoted Han superiority. The study proposes constructing the nation in history education as a contextualised and socio-political exercise of reinterpreting the past to reflect current contexts and needs. Copyright ©2024 Routledge.

Social capital accrued via cross-racial/ethnic networks plays an important role in the adjustment, persistence and success for minority groups of university students. Yet, few studies offered insight into how intercultural social capital impacts learning and socialising experiences among minority students in non-Western contexts. Drawing on interviews with minority university students in Hong Kong, this study canvassed their intercultural networking, its influences and institutional factors that conditioned its accessibility. Findings showed that participants garnered a full array of social capital in ethnic minority cliques, whereas their connections with institutional agents were more inclined to pastoral care rather than academic advising and mentor services. This study unearthed a campus environment wherein a monolithic Chinese/Cantonese culture and de facto racial/ethnic-segregation contributed to their restricted academic/social engagements with other counterparts and added to the manifestations of marginalisation in the literature that has been preoccupied with racial lines around the Black-White binary in Western contexts. Copyright © 2024 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This study captures the thoughts and perceptions of a group of Hong Kong principals on the transfer of sovereignty and its effects on education. The investigation addressed the following guiding research question: What, according to their perceptions, have been, and will be, the effects on education policy and on school-level management and curriculum, of the transfer of sovereignty? A qualitative approach was adopted, using naturalistic methods of inquiry. Nine principals of aided secondary schools were selected for interview according to procedures of purposive sampling. Findings indicate that, faced with uncertainty arising from the change of sovereignty, principals feel confident of managing and coping with situations at the school level in connection with curriculum and management. However, they express concern and greater uncertainty about their ability to manage changes emanating in the broader socio-political educational environment, especially in regard to values and norms and access and opportunity, all of which are likely to impact on their schools. Copyright © 1997 Carfax Publishing Ltd.

Interpreting modernisation and globalisation in East Asia as processes of Westernisation creates confusion and discomfort among some academics from the region. To illustrate why such discomfort occurs, this article explores the changes in the higher education systems of Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China in terms of their ‘Chineseness’ as a potentially unifying regional identity that can be counterposed to Westernisation. The recent and polyvalent theme of ‘Greater China’ is invoked in this article to describe and interpret the institutional frameworks, within which higher education is developing in this imaginary region, as well as to establish possible discursive linkages in the continuing transformation and strategic reorientation of higher education and its role in the recent economic, political and socio-cultural developments. In this regard, the interrelated discourses of Chineseness and Greater China have the following functions: they imply regionalism; they enable a break with their imperial and colonial past; and they provide the basis for different kinds of hybridisation between Chinese and Western intellectual, educational and cultural traditions and values.
[Copyright © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis.]

Several education hubs have emerged in Asia and the Middle East in recent years with a specific focus on cross-border higher education. Through considerable efforts in policy planning and generous funding, these hubs aim to transform a country or city into an eminent destination for education, research, and training. The inherent design of these hubs raises many questions about higher education's contribution to international relations as large numbers of local and foreign actors congregate. Specifically, some education hubs are leveraging cultural heritage and colonial legacy as an instrument of soft power by emphasising shared cultural identities and values. By engaging in cultural diplomacy, education hubs seek to exert influence on the international stage. However, assumptions about shared identities and values as well as the prevailing political climate of the local society present serious challenges for policy implementation. Alternatively, an education hub can also engage with international actors based on an enduring faith in the venture of science to propel the knowledge economy - another kind of norm that underpins soft power. This paper compares Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong as education hubs that engage in soft power and cultural diplomacy.
[Copyright of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2015.1037551]

Since Hong Kong's retrocession, the government has endeavoured to strengthen local citizens' identification with the People's Republic of China - a project that acquired new impetus with the 2010 decision to introduce Moral and National Education' (MNE) as a compulsory school subject. In the face of strong local opposition, this policy was withdrawn in 2012, and implementation of MNE made optional. This article seeks to elucidate the background to the MNE controversy of 2012 by locating the emergence of a distinctive Hong Kong identity in its historical context, and analysing successive official attempts (before and after the 1997 retrocession) to use schooling for purposes of political socialisation. We argue that the school curriculum has projected and reflected a dual sense of identity: a Chineseness' located mainly in ethno-cultural qualities, and a Hongkongeseness' rooted in civic attributes. While reinforced by schooling, local civic consciousness has been intimately related to a tradition of public activism strongly evident since the 1970s, and further strengthened post-1997.
[Copyright of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2015.1033169]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the role of basic education in recovery of post-conflict situations, evidences on the impact of National Qualifications Frameworks, and the differences in music curriculum in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
[Copyright of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2013.777508]

This paper addresses the influence of CHC on how the insider/outsider distinction is drawn and what consequences follow for the conduct of research. The paper outlines the methodological complexities faced by us whilst conducting our respective research projects in Hong Kong. In the studies reported in this paper we, the researchers, were insiders at one level as both of us have a degree of familiarity with Hong Kong being residents of the city. We were also insiders on a professional level in the contexts under study. However being ethnically non-Chinese positioned us as outsiders. Additionally, our Western-trained research selves accepted certain normative paradigms, whilst our own personal ethno-centricities tended to question these self-same paradigms. In sum, the research context for us assumed hues in accordance with the lens that we were using for viewing our data concurrently and concomitantly and this we argue has much to do with the research methodologies that we used in the studies.
[Copyright of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2011.586765]