The discussion of moral dilemmas has long been a teaching strategy for moral education. However, the questioning techniques teachers use to lead moral discussions are not fully understood. With reference to a collaborative teaching research project on a values education video-story, this study explored the authentic practice of teacher questioning in moral education classes. Data were collected in a Hong Kong primary school through lesson observations, interviews, document reviews and field notes. Teachers used three techniques when leading moral discussions: posing hypothetical questions, asking role-switching questions and playing devil’s advocate. Collectively, these three techniques helped to enhance students’ thinking. The study suggests that teachers’ questioning in moral discussions can be seen as a contextualised activity that involves the analysis of the key characters, plot points and moral values embedded in the story throughout the processes of curriculum planning and teaching. Teacher questioning strategies offer directions for future studies of moral discussions. Copyright © 2020 Journal of Moral Education Ltd.

This paper reviews the return of Hong Kong to China and considers the implications for Hong Kong civic education. It also describes the negligible attention given to civic education previously and discusses some of the reasons for this.

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]