Reconstructing Hong Kong’s civic education in the postnational education era: Rethinking about conceptual, curricular and pedagogical matters

Eric K.M. Chong, Timothy W.W. Yuen, Y. W. Leung

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

14 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This article argues for reconstructing Hong Kong’s civic education in the post-national education era, and puts forward some rethinking on conceptual, curricular and pedagogical matters. This article starts with a brief critical review of the development of school civic education in Hong Kong to set the context. This is followed by a discussion of the MNE controversy. It points out that the shelving of the mandatory subject and reversion to depoliticized school-based civic education is inadequate to address the needs of civic education in Hong Kong. Finally, this article argues in favour of the type of civic education that aims at cultivating politically literate, critically thinking and actively participating citizens, with particular reference to the Civic Education Guidelines from Civil Society. This set of unofficial Guidelines proposes that Hong Kong’s civic education has to be reconstructed both in conceptual, curricular and pedagogical terms accordingly. Hopefully, this article will shed light on the development of civic education in societies that are facing similar challenges in the process of democratization and an upheaval of civic consciousness of the citizenry.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)251-269
Number of pages19
JournalCitizenship Teaching and Learning
Volume10
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Sept 2015
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Civic education guidelines
  • Civil society
  • Critical patriot
  • Indoctrination
  • Multiple citizenship
  • National education
  • National identity
  • Political education

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