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Although research conducted worldwide has pinpointed the importance of the cultivation of worldviews in citizenship education, little is known of how worldviews are constructed in the civics curriculum. In this study, we adopted a comparative historical approach to examine how China's civics curriculum has interpreted the meaning of life for young citizens during the transformation of the country from an empire into a nation-state. The data were drawn from 210 school textbooks published between 1902 and 2020. Four historical periods were delineated: the late Qing and Republican era, the Maoist era, the Deng Xiaoping era, and the current Xi Jinping administration. The findings demonstrated the trends and changes that took place while the ideal of citizenship and citizenship education took root, driving the modernisation of Chinese society. Through this study, we contribute to the theoretical discussions on enriching civics curriculum development from a humanist perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored the mediating effect of civic interest in the relationship between adolescents' civic education and volunteering (organized and personal). Participants were 967 adolescents in northern China (435 girls, 520 boys, 12 who did not specify their gender; M age = 15.31 years), who completed the Civic Interest Scale, the Civic Education Scale, and the Volunteer Behavior Scale in a cross-sectional survey. Results indicated that personal volunteering was significantly more common than organized volunteering, and that civic interest partially mediated the relationships between civic education and organized volunteering, and between civic education and personal volunteering. School location (big city/small city vs. small town) moderated the mediating model, with larger mediating effects being present for respondents living in a small city compared to a big city, but no significant differences being found in the structural path between big-city and small-town settings or between small-city and small-town settings. In sum, during adolescence, personal volunteering was the main form of volunteer activity, and the partial mediating mechanism of civic interest was common to both organized and personal volunteering types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advent of the era of artificial intelligence, a technological revolution has begun in the field of education, which has injected new momentum into moral education. Today, civic education is developing rapidly in countries around the world, while civic education in China is still relatively lagging behind. In China, we need to optimize civic education by building a comprehensive civic education system, implementing the concept of people-oriented, gathering the joint efforts of the whole society, expanding diversified civic education methods, and selecting and enriching the contents of civic education. Artificial intelligence technology enables higher education institutions to carry out civic education, enrich teaching contents, broaden teaching methods, and optimize teaching evaluation. However, technology-related innovations are dualistic in nature, with essential, technical, and value risks that hinder their effectiveness in civic education. This paper proposes strategies for optimization in terms of improving digital core risk response capabilities, establishing reliable technology risk response mechanisms, and maintaining a foundation for civic education response costs. Thus, weakening the risk factors of AI in civic education facilitates the transformation of AI and technology to the advantage of knowledge-based civic education. This paper discusses strategies and methods for optimizing smart education using AI devices and establishes a corresponding smart education platform to help students with their ideological education. Based on the analysis of actual cases, the paper discusses the effectiveness and advantages of the program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intelligent sensor technology is a professional course of communication, electronics, information, computer, and other related majors and is a course of expansion and extension of computer network (Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, 2001). It is connected with the Internet by using information sensing device to realize the intercommunication of time and space, people, machines, and things. Intelligent sensor technology is an advanced subject; it contains a lot of ideological elements; in teaching, it should be according to the characteristics of the subject, set the goal of ideological education, to design the content of the ideological education, improve the ideological education, to carry on the course of the construction of the ideological practice and exploration, and guide students to set up the correct world outlook, the outlook on life, and values (The State Council of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, 2010). Integrating the elements of thinking and politics into the teaching of intelligent sensor technology and organically combining thinking and politics teaching with professional teaching is conducive to realizing the nurturing function of professional teaching and establishing an all-round curriculum system, so that professional and thinking and politics courses can go hand in hand and produce synergy. With the concept of "civic education as the soul, general education as the root, professional education as the foundation," the strategy of integrating civic education from "point to surface (Wei, 2015), from history to the present, from inside to outside" is summarized, and a system of assessment, evaluation, and continuous improvement is established. It also establishes a system of assessment, evaluation, and continuous improvement. The strategy has proved to be effective in combining ideological and political education with moral education, enabling students to develop theoretical, institutional, and cultural confidence on the road to socialism with Chinese characteristics (Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, 2004). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese Moral Education has been compared to civics or citizenship education. However, the Chinese Moral Education system has a unique approach and agenda to produce continuing generations of students who become Chinese Communist Party loyalists, reliable and compliant citizens and builders of an idealised Chinese socialism project. The ambitious and new Guidelines to Moral Education for Primary and Secondary Schools in China (2017) has prompted great interest among academics and social studies teachers in Chinese schools. This article has two objectives: to provide an overview of the newly implemented Chinese Guidelines to Moral Education and also to offer our critique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines China's civic education discourses from a historical and cross-cultural perspective. It unpacks observation as a political–cultural–spatial pedagogy, underpinning Confucius' educational envisioning, Mao's domination in the Cultural Revolution Movement, and Xi's China/ese Dream propaganda. Drawing upon Foucault's provocation of the Western gaze, this paper historicizes Confucius, Mao, and Xi's discourses to explicate a Chinese observation diagram. With Confucius, observation works as an onto-hermeneutic principle, grounding China's cosmology and sovereign-subject governance. With Mao, observation becomes a panoramic domination-surveillance mechanism, which, coupled with a Confucian punitive shame, empowers the proletarian mass in excluding-purging the bourgeois as class enemies. With Xi, observation turns into a symbolic governing technology of self, subjecting its citizenry to re-branded Confucian values toward realizing a participatory China/ese Dream. In so doing, this paper shows the parallels and contradistinctions between the Chinese observation and the Western gaze in historically and structurally ordering knowledge production and social-educational governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that, while David Z. T. Yui coined the term "Character, China's Salvation," the prototype of this concept already existed within the discourse of the members of the Chinese YMCA and Sherwood Eddy between 1908 and 1917 prior to Yui's articulation. The Association members advocated that Christian morality was the panacea of China's self-strengthening and took the lead in politicizing, and thereby indigenizing, the mission of the YMCA. In the 1910s, Eddy took the turn to enrich these discourses and succeeded in popularizing this conception. It was not until 1917 that Yui began to adopt the concept of "Character, China's Salvation" at his work and subsequently launched the Civic Education Campaign. Therefore, the advocate for a politicized Christian character within the YMCA originated from its members and was sustained by its leaders; its indigenization in early twentieth-century China was, therefore, first a bottom-up and then top-down process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The German federal government has published a China strategy in which Chinese language proficiency plays only a minor role. The proposal to establish an independent Federal Academy for non-European foreign languages was not taken into account. However, the strategy encourages the further development of China competence in civil society and the exchange between German and Chinese youth, students, and scientists. The Federal Agency for Civic Education and the International Office of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research support projects to strengthen China competence at German universities. Further information can be found on the websites of both organizations. [Extracted from the article]

Hong Kong underwent tremendous changes after the transfer of its sovereignty to China in 1997. This study attempts to explore the changing role of schools in preparing students for future democratic citizenship in the post-colonial era. Different researchers have postulated that schools play a crucial role in the political socialization process in meeting the developmental needs of adolescents. A mixed-method sequential explanatory research design was adopted to assess the effectiveness of Hong Kong schools in promoting civic learning. The significance of the present study was to analyse the school context by using the assessment framework from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Civic Education Study (CivEd) to generate citizenship education studies. An extensive review of research related to the role of schools through formal and informal curricula was conducted. This process helped extend the current understanding of the effectiveness of the political socialization in secondary schools in Hong Kong and contributed to the further development of the research on political socialization in the Chinese context. The findings from this study would help educators or policy makers rethink the future role of schools in citizenship education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Conceptions of the ‘good citizen’ have implications for defining the goals of civic education and formulating civic education programs. In Mainland China, the concept of ‘good citizen’ is clearly defined by the authorities in the official curriculum guidelines. Teachers’ perceptions of a ‘good citizen’, however, may differ from any official definition and will influence their approaches to the implementation of civic education in schools. The research reported here used qualitative methods to explore some Chinese junior high school teachers’ perceptions of a ‘good citizen’, drawing on Westheimer and Kahne’s identification of three ‘visions of citizenship’ used in the US as a baseline. We argue that an effective civic education curriculum must consider teachers’ actual perceptions of a ‘good citizen’ in practice and that Chinese teachers’ awareness and understanding of citizenship needs to improve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptions of 'good citizen' have implications for defining the goals of civic education and formulating civic education programmes. In Mainland China, the concept of 'good citizen' is clearly defined by the authorities in official curriculum guidelines. Teachers' perceptions of 'good citizen', however, may differ from any official definition and these perceptions may actually influence teachers' approaches to the implementation of civic education in schools. The study reported here employs qualitative methods to compare how 'good citizen' is defined in the China's official civics curriculum and junior high school teachers' perceptions of 'good citizen'. The purpose of the study is to investigate the extent of congruence between these two levels and to identify strategies for designing an effective civic education curriculum in China. This article argues that an effective civic education curriculum must consider teachers' conceptions of 'good citizen' and teachers' awareness of citizenship alongside 'official' statements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration’s influences on citizenship education were widely discussed in the literature. However, most studies were based on international migration that drew experience from, for example, North America and Europe. Less attention was paid to internal migration or developing areas. This article takes China as an example, which is a country that has experienced and will experience extensive internal migration, to analyze the relationship between internal migration and citizenship education. This article selects Shenzhen as a study site, for it reflects China’s population movements and city development in the last three decades. Interviews with 38 teachers in six schools and relevant university scholars, education bureau officers in 2008 were analyzed for this article. The article reports Shenzhen citizenship education’s responses to three challenges brought by internal migration. The analyses of the findings reveal that different from assimilation and multiculturalism approaches in citizenship education, Shenzhen’s citizenship education paid less efforts to diminish/reconcile migrants’ ethnic, cultural differences. Instead, it inclined to address the general problems caused by the migration phenomenon. Similarly, it also laid efforts on migrant integration and social cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay addresses a research vacuum in comparative political studies by comparing the evolution and current status of citizenship education in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Each of the three Chinese-speaking societies represents a different stage of development and democratization in global politics. What do middle-school students socialized in these societies think about democracy, citizenship, and minority rights in the early part of the twenty-first century? What elements separate and unite them? After providing an overview of the major shifts in the paradigms of contemporary citizenship education in the respective societies, the essay employs both primary and secondary survey data associated with a leading survey on international civic and citizenship education to provide empirical answers to the research questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates Hong Kong primary teachers' perceptions of moral, civic and national education, which may have an impact on how they prepare students to become 'good citizens' through classroom instruction. Moral and Civic Education (MCE) has been an overall goal of Hong Kong's education system since 2001, while Moral and National Education (MNE) was proposed as a new subject in an effort to introduce a patriotic agenda in 2011. Teachers play essential roles in nurturing students to become 'good citizens' because they are the key figures in implementing education and curriculum policies in schools. Therefore, gaining a greater understanding of teachers' perceptions of MNE provides insights into the extent to which teachers are prepared to contribute to the patriotic agenda as part of a revamped civic education curriculum. While there are complex factors affecting teachers' receptivity to curriculum change, an understanding of factors that influence teachers' perceptions of patriotic education could be valuable for school stakeholders (such as policymakers, educators and researchers), not only in Hong Kong but in other places (such as the United States and the United Kingdom), when they consider what can be done to influence students' attitudes towards citizenship. Utilizing pilot data, this study reports Hong Kong teachers' attitudes towards patriotic education through the proposed new school subject of MNE. The findings indicate that 'perceived others' support', 'perceived concerns of MNE' and 'non-monetary cost-benefits' were the significant predictors of teacher receptivity of MNE. The results suggest that when teachers had concerns about patriotic education, they were less likely to support its implementation, while if they had the support of others they were more likely to support implementation of MNE. More importantly, teachers who perceived that patriotic education can cultivate more well-rounded students were more likely to support the implementation of MNE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 1-country, 2-systems approach of “self-governance” for Hong Kong much depends on the quality and wisdom of its citizens. The teachers' view on important qualities of a good citizen were collected by questionnaire, focus groups, and interviews in this study. Primary schools were selected randomly from 2 areas not located adjacent to each other. The study found that teachers from faith-based schools held stronger agreement with both the importance of teaching citizenship and the various qualities of “good citizen” as compared with teachers from schools operated by government. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article starts off with a discussion of Westheimer and Kahne's typologies of citizens followed by brief discussions of civic education in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia with reference to the typologies. Then it moves on to an analysis of the development of the civic education in Hong Kong by comparing the six official policy documents in civic education, with reference to the typologies. It points out that the conceptions of 'good citizen' portrayed in the official documents, as in many countries, are just hovering between the Personal Responsible Citizen and Participatory Citizen and seldom attain the Justice-Oriented Citizen. It also argues that, in addressing the political demands of the society, the cultivation of Personal Responsible Citizen and Participatory Citizen is the result of conservative politicization of civic education, either through depoliticizing the teaching content or teaching politics in a conservative tone in the civic education curriculum. However, civic education deprived of Justice-Oriented Citizen may not be adequate in equipping youths to address the pressing social and political issues and concerns triggered by the global Jasmine Revolutions, Occupy Movements, and struggles against the rapid widening of gaps between rich and poor and the demand for a genuine democratization for the society. Therefore we contest that cultivating Justice-Oriented Citizen should be seriously explored with immediate urgency and propose that liberal civic education programmes aiming at cultivating Justice-Oriented Citizen should be included in school for an all round development of citizenship in the youths. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports the findings the researchers obtained from a study of prominent civic education teachers in Hong Kong with regard to how they perceived national identification and the nurturing of national identification through civic education in Hong Kong schools. A qualitative method of data collection by in-depth semi-structured interviews was engaged. Original quotes are given whenever necessary so that readers can understand how the arguments in the article were derived and can arrive at their own conclusions. The teachers in general believed that national identity is ethnicity-based. But they agreed that national identity should coexist with other local and global civic identities. All of the teachers agreed that their schools worked assiduously in nurturing national identity. However, they also pointed out that a top-down compulsory national education programme, aimed at glorifying the nation, would not work in Hong Kong. Alternatively, students would accept civic education with a fair representation of the nation that allowed for critical judgment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study cross-culturally explored the way that East Asian lower-secondary school students perceive the peculiar matters of Asian civic values specific to Korea, Chinese Taipei, and Hong Kong using the Asian Regional Module data of the 2009 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study. Methodologically, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were employed to explore the factor model that successfully fits the three East Asian societies. Latent mean analysis was then conducted to measure between-nation mean differences. Overall, East Asian students tended to be negative against an undemocratic government and unfairness based on guanxi and moderately critical of the issues related to the independence of the judiciary. Asian identity and democratic values for a civil society were both accepted as valuable with moderate respect for the morality of politicians and the preservation of traditional culture. As perceiving collectivist and Confucian contexts positively, these societies have also developed some aspects assimilated from Western democratic contexts. However, the degree to which the students perceive was similar for some civic values but different for some others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The acquisition of citizenship is the goal of the transformation of contemporary Chinese people; citizenship education has thus become an inevitable trend in contemporary educational transformation. Citizens are the inter-subjects of public life, and therefore, inter-subjectivity, as a core quality of citizenship, embodies their existence as Both individuals and social beings. The development of contemporary society enables citizens to acquire multiple identities. Citizenship education, aiming at producing high quality citizens, must rise above the narrow moral significance and pursue a multiple citizenship identity. The cultivation of citizens cannot merely rely on citizenship education, but has to be carried out in line with the construction of a democratic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By comparison with other jurisdictions, for a long time Macau has had an atypical education system and an absence of an official curriculum. Significant socio-political changes from the mid-1980s onwards caused moral and civic education to become an official goal of education reform. In 1995, the government published official syllabuses for moral and civic education at both primary and secondary level for the first time. This article analyses these syllabuses with a special reference to the domains of morality and citizenship. Moral and civic education initially develops students' traditional moral concepts and good habits, and gradually proceeds to understanding the relationships between individuals and groups in different settings. The civic outlook promoted converges with the tradition of 'communitarianism' in the West. Using Macau, one special Chinese society, as a case study, this article illustrates a fusion of Chinese morality and western citizenship, as well as the tensions involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delineates the characteristics and transformations of the identities of Hong Kong residents. Various telephone surveys and investigations indicate the dual, hybrid, and flowing identities of the majority of Hong Kong residents despite the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities' effort to promote a national Chinese identity through the so-called civic education. To explore the issue and the reason why there have been dual, hybrid and/or flowing identities of Hong Kong residents, the author formulates research questions, reviews the research literature and telephone surveys on the national identity of Hong Kong, and examines the effects of education policy and measures of national identity since the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims at assessing the existing effort in civic education in Hong Kong secondary schools after the implementation of the 3-3-4 educational reforms from 2009 onwards. The assessment framework is based on the IEA civic education model (Torney-purta et al., 2001). Qualitative data were collected from focus group interviews from 18 Form 3 students of four schools. The findings support the previous research that adolescents engaged actively in the process of political socialization. Rather than political activities, the majority of interviewees preferred to engage in social activities. Moreover, interviewees held positive beliefs in civic efficacy in changing school policies though they might not be confident to change government policies when they became adults. Interviewees suggested having more "space" in the present civic curriculum by allowing more discussion / activities on current issues or news. Finally, students had positive comments about existing efforts in civic education during Liberal Studies lessons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses results from a cross-national analysis of the impact of varying approaches to civic education curriculum delivery on three learning outcomes, to draw conclusions about the value of a government-mandated compulsory, independent subject of civic education in the school curriculum. It starts from the context of Hong Kong, where there have been repeated calls for the government to reform civic education, and compares this context with that of England, where citizenship education was made a statutory subject in 2002. The article then examines from the cases of 25 societies whether a compulsory approach to and/or independent subject of civic education is associated with better learning of civic knowledge, knowledge of democracy, and patriotism. Finding that the impact of curricular approaches is somewhat negligible taking other factors into consideration, the article concludes that civic education reformers should consider the costs of limiting school autonomy in curriculum delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Prior to the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, the civic education were characterized by denationalization and depoliticization. After the Joint Declaration, many of the conflicts emerged between the national interests advocated by the nationalistic camp and the Hong Kong interests promoted by the Liberal camp in the newly politicized Hong Kong not only unfolded that citizenship and national identity conceptually compartmentalized into unrelated ideas but also redefined civic education in such a way as to juxtapose and include both citizenship education and national education.. The teachers' paradigms of the "China Today" module were explored because the module is directly related to both citizenship education and national education. Aim: This study is to examine teachers' paradigms of the 'China Today" module through their national attitude and their implementation in informal and nonformal education. Sample: One secondary teacher taught the module of "China Today" a year ago and three secondary teachers are teaching the same module. As for methods, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to assess the teachers' perception and practices. Results: Data revealed that the national attitude of the CSS1 teacher can be described as a cultural patriot; the CSS2 teacher, critical patriot; the CSS3, teacher, cultural nationalist or cultural patriot, the CSS4, critically cultural patriot. Conclusion: The critical and cultural stances are not unrelated. "Critical" implies something about the evaluative framework of the teachers, while "cultural" understood in Confucian, World citizenship, Democracy or their combination terms, could be the philosophical foundation of an evaluative framework. In other words, the CSS1 teacher predominantly adopted the Confucianism as his evaluative framework in patriotism and world citizenship in nationalism; the CSS2 teacher, the concept of world citizenship in both patriotism and nationalism; the CSS3 teacher and the CSS4 teacher, Confucianism in both patriotism and nationalism. Only the CSS2 and CSS3 teachers carried out the informal and nonformal education. Thus, motivational and behavioral components of citizenship as volition are not yet part of the CSS1 and CSS4 teachers' (cognitive) evaluative frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the authors express their views on the status of civic education and transition governance in China as of 2010. They cite that the process of modernization has a significance to the development of civic education in the country. The subservience of civic education may be attributed to the dominance of the role of authoritarian education in the country for approximately 2,000 years. There are two conditions related to the process of modernization, namely, political civilization and material growth.

Based on the emerging experiences of the Committee on the Promotion of Civic Education, this paper advocates an effective model of values development for youths in their post-school stage, through encouraging companies and corporations to take on an advanced form of Corporate Social Responsibility called Corporate Citizenship that also has an internal values development role, apart from the usual external contributions role. Moral education inside and beyond schools for youth in Hong Kong is also presented as background to this development for the benefit of overseas readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A current concern in youth services is the factors causing a low rate of youth social participation. Up to now, most studies have reduced this problem to a question of youth disaffection and have simply advocated an increase in civic education. But this increase has not ameliorated the problem but instead has made things worse. This paper explores this problem using Foucault's concept of technologies of the self. It argues that youth (un)participation has become habituated through the creation of technologies of the self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: During the period of British colonial rule, the nature of civic education in Hong Kong was characterized as denationalized, depoliticized and decontextualized. The 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration substantially altered the nature of civic education. The "China Today" module of Liberal Studies (LS) was one of the results of the re-engineering the civic education. The teachers' paradigms of the "China Today" module were explored because the module used national themes as materials to inculcate values in students and is directly related to both citizenship education and national education. Aim: The aim of this study is to examine teachers' paradigms of the 'China Today" module through their conceptualization of citizenship and their perspective on teaching. Samples: Four secondary teachers of the "China Today" module were invited to participate. Methods: Questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and non-participant observation were used to assess the teachers' perception and practices. Results: Data from the questionnaire and interviews revealed that the four teachers highly valued moral, socially concerned citizens and democratic citizens. In terms of aims and approaches to citizenship education, the four teachers embraced the notion of citizenship as competence as aim and reflective-inquiry approach, but only two teachers were able to carry them out in the classroom setting. Another two teachers used transmission approach. Conclusion: Framed by the notion of citizenship as competence as their aim and equipped in issue-enquiry or reflectiveinquiry approach, and experienced in developmental perspective on teaching, the CSS2 and CSS3 teachers were able to cultivate in students' dispositions and skills. Teachers unaware of the citizenship framework and unfamiliar with the developmental perspective on teaching found it difficult to cultivate rational aspects of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the data collected from focus groups and individual interviews with secondary school students and civic education teachers, this article explores how young people are transformed to become active and participatory citizens. The findings show that the roles and personal beliefs of civic education teachers are of critical significance at the very first stage whereas their teaching methods help enable students to construct the notion of active and participatory citizenship at the second stage. Eventually students gradually develop a strong sense of civic responsibility and competence through social inquiry and political action in the transformation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article first discusses the successive phases of Hong Kong's civic education in schools, to provide a historical context. It proceeds to critically examine the future development of Hong Kong's civic education in schools with regard to political, national and human rights education, by analyzing the intended curriculum conveyed by the curriculum document of the mandatory subject, Liberal Studies, to be launched in September, 2009. For the first time, the subject provides all senior secondary students with the opportunity to study political topics. However, the limited scope of such political education and the conservative tone may limit its usefulness in assisting youth to reflect on political matters in a critical and informed way. In terms of national education, the issue of de-politicized and uncritical patriotism is better addressed than previously while the issue of inclusion and exclusion is not addressed. In addition, the action-poor nature of human rights education within the subject is hardly adequate for cultivating a human rights culture in Hong Kong. This article concludes with the plea that more empirical studies of the implementation are urgently needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Context: For centuries, the notions of citizenship and citizenship education have been associated with the nation-state and civic elements. However, since the late 20th century, these traditional notions have been challenged by globalization. In the discourse of globalization, citizenship, and citizenship education, some scholars suggest a simplistic replacement or shift from national citizenship to global citizenship, regional citizenship, or local and group identities. Against these simplistic, single-leveled approaches is the argument for both the continuing importance of nation-specific characteristics of citizenship and the strong need to diversify the nation-state-oriented and civic-specific framework to form multileveled and multidimensional ones. They accommodate individuals' engagement in the various domains of human activities and their memberships at various levels, ranging from individual to community, local, national, and international or global ones. Some scholars have advocated a multidimensional model of citizenship education by regrouping human relationships and activities into four major dimensions--personal, social, spatial, and temporal--which can intersect with various levels in the multilevel polity. However, these general, static frameworks are not backed by strong empirical evidence and do not explain the complexity of interplay among different actors at the same level and/or between levels. Purpose: The purpose of the article is twofold. First, it aims to provide empirical evidence for the general framework of multileveled and multidimensional citizenship education by assessing students' views of citizenship in a multileveled polity with reference to Hong Kong and Shanghai in China. Second, with the help of the comparative study, the article is intended to supplement the general framework by proposing a theoretical framework that explains the complex interplay of different actors in their choices of citizenship elements from a multileveled polity. Setting: The study took place in three public junior secondary schools in Shanghai and three aided secondary schools in Hong Kong and assessed their students' views of the global, national, local, and personal-social domains of multiple identities in a multileveled polity. Research Design: The study adopted a mixed methodology of observations, questionnaires, and interview surveys to collect data. Data Collection and Analysis: Data are drawn from questionnaires completed by 1, 402 students attending Grades 7-9, and 38 interviews with principals, teachers, and students from both societies between 2002 and 2003. Conclusions/Recommendations: The study shows that although students of Hong Kong and Shanghai were aware of having multiple citizenships, some of their views of the relative importance of and the interrelationships among, four dimensions of citizenship differed. The patterns of their perceptions of multiple citizenships reflect similarities and differences in the organization of citizenship education between schools in Hong Kong and Shanghai, the nation-state's influences on local citizenship curricula, and local governments' development considerations in remaking collective identity. With the help of the comparative study, the article supplements the general framework by proposing a theoretical framework for interpreting citizenship and citizenship education as dynamic, context-bounded, and multileveled social constructions reinvented through the intertwined interactions of different actors in response to social changes, including globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although media education is a comparatively new area of studies in Hong Kong, it is already flourishing. Why? This contribution identifies the education reform as an important factor in encouraging the development of media education in the last decade, and the three major driving forces of this reform have been: the emphasis on civic education since Hong Kong's return to China sovereignty, the introduction of information technology (ICT), and the recent review of the curriculum. The author also aims to find out whether the patterns used in media education development are their own Asian models or, on the contrary, they follow Western patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on students in Hong Kong and mainland China and their reactions to state hegemony and education. Civic and political education in the two areas differ in ideas of sovereignty, legitimacy, and national themes. The article discusses how educational ideologies have changed between the 1990s and 2008 and how the connection between education and state has shifted as well. The article also describes a study of two student cohorts in 2000 and 2005 to examine changing perceptions of political socializations and critical thinking. Information is provided on the relationship between students and teachers as well.

In Hong Kong, human rights education (HRE) is considered an aspect of civic education. For decades, HRE has been poorly attended. In 2009, a new compulsory subject, Liberal Studies, where HRE can be infused, will be introduced to senior secondary students (15-18 years old). This article reviews the development of HRE within civic education, followed by the analysis of Liberal Studies documents with reference to international human rights documents. It is concluded that Liberal Studies can be used as a vehicle for HRE. The aims and pedagogy proposed are similar to those adopted by HRE. International standards of human rights can be incorporated in the content. However, the HRE derived from Liberal Studies is a form of 'action-poor HRE'. Whether this 'action- poor HRE' can adequately cultivate a universal human rights culture is an issue for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines concepts of citizenship among students in Australia, Hong Kong, and the U.S. and what their notions of a good citizen are. Ideas of citizenship vary from rights-based concerns and passivism to expectations of participation and performance. These notions vary depending on democratic ideals, multiculturalism in societies, and social inclusion. Students in the study were directly asked questions related to their views and attitudes and, while the study yielded data, it was determined that concepts of citizenship cannot be simplified due to their complexity and unpredictability. The article also discusses the differences between the cultures of the student groups, their civic education and voting habits, and the methods of the study and analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the Hong Kong (HK) school curriculum, especially the general curriculum for civic education and other social subjects, in relation to the political events of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, the 1989 Tiananmen Square Incident, and the return of HK's sovereignty from the United Kingdom (UK) to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1997. This paper will argue that since 1984, the school curriculum of HK has been marked by tensions brought about by political cultures shaped by the UK and the PRC, the bureaucratic mechanisms of which are used to make sure that those curriculum contents that are judged to be politically correct are taught in school. Over the last two decades the school curriculum has been depicted as being shaped by the emergence of the nation-state and the transfer of sovereignty. Granted that political and national education forms part of the school culture, the question of how to shape students to be patriotic through the curriculum will continue to be contentious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After reunification with the People's Republic of China in 1997, Hong Kong was turned into a special administrative region. The new government has repeatedly emphasised the development of national identity and patriotism. One of the locations where these issues might be expected to appear is in the teaching of Government and Public Affairs (GPA), an optional subject offered to secondary students aged 15-18. The aim of this paper is to study the perceptions of GPA teachers in order to address two issues. First, how do GPA teachers who teach politics in schools construe 'national identity' and 'patriotism'? Second, do the teachers believe studying politics through the subject GPA can enhance national identity and patriotism among the students? The findings show that the teachers understand national identity and patriotism critically. They insist politics should be taught in a rational way. At the same time, they think teaching politics in a rational way, with no appeal to the emotions as is the current practice, will enhance neither the students' sense of national identity nor their patriotism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizenship and citizenship education change during periods of social transition, such as globalization. As globalists have argued, while globalization undermines the state, local institutions, values, cultures, and identities, it also facilitates liberal democracy and a common consumer culture. Citizenship education is urged to respond to globalization and its impact on both global and local communities. In reality, virtually no nation state adopts merely global citizenship; rather, they adopt frameworks of multileveled/multidimensional citizenship. With particular reference to citizenship education in the People's Republic of China (PRC), this paper challenges globalists' views for over‐exaggerating the domination of global forces over domestic ones. In particular, the paper examines the complicated struggles associated with the reconfiguration of the PRC's socialist citizenship and citizenship education that have occurred in response to social changes, including globalization. The paper explains the role of the PRC's state in such reconfiguration and offers a new framework that regards citizenship education as being based on different players' sociopolitical selections from a multileveled polity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the past 150 years, the government of Hong Kong had no clear-cut policy on the implementation of civic education in schools. The Education Department has issued two Guidelines for schools' reference: the 1985 Guidelines and the 199 6 Guidelines on Civic Education in School. The 199 6 Guidelines seek to prepare young people to be responsible and participating citizens. To understand how civic education is implemented in Hong Kong schools, a working group of the Hong Kong Institute of Education carried out a study on this issue in the year 1999-2000. Data was collected through a survey and structured interview. Our study reveals that some progress has been made in the promotion of civic education as compared with the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper starts with a broad historical overview of educational reforms and then focuses on those specific to civic education. Lastly we look at the implementation of policy, and examine the effect of the current political climate in the Special Administrative Region (SAR) on civic education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article cites a case study of pre-service civic education teachers in Hong Kong, China. The Citizenship Education Policy Study (CEPS) study identified seven challenges that require attention over the next 25 years. The CEPS recommended that educational policy must be based upon a vision of multidimensional citizenship. The study found that to meet the challenges a comprehensive vision of citizenship, namely multidimensional citizenship is required.

Internationally there have been serious efforts to identify effective modes of delivering civic education for preparing youth for the future challenges of citizenship. This article addresses the research question, 'why is an independent subject not preferred in civic education by Hong Kong civic education teachers?'. It starts with a brief review of international debates and of the development of civic education policy in Hong Kong. Then it moves on to discuss why teachers tend to reject civic education as an independent subject based on the findings from an interview informed research study. The findings reveal that teachers' misunderstandings of the nature of civic education are the major reasons. Treating civic education as comprising educational activities involving the nurturing of attitudes, values and skills of students with little content knowledge, the teachers consider that civic education is best accomplished through, for example, extra-curricular activities and not as a subject that demands time slots in the school timetable. It is argued that these misunderstandings will have negative impacts on the effectiveness of civic education, which is unfavourable to the nurturing of democratic cultures necessary for the development of the democratic system in Hong Kong and has to be rectified. Lastly, some recommendations for rectification that relate to civil society are discussed. Hopefully, this article can shed light on the understanding of the preferences towards the modes of implementation of front line practitioners in schools internationally, since this phenomenon is common in some other nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accompanied with the rapid development of China's socialist market economy, our ideological/ political education has to be integrated with civic education, and it is the only rational choice or approach to the enhancement and improvement of what we are doing in current ideological/political education. Discussing the current necessity and objectivity of integrating the ideological/political education with civic education, the way to launch the integration is set out with some measures suggested to take, such as putting the civic education into the ideological/political education as an integral part; drawing support from the concepts and methodology of civic education; absorbing foreign experiences in civic education and morality education; training teachers for civic consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on teaching civics in public schools in China. It emphasizes the need to instruct children in the duties and responsibilities of citizenship in a republic. "Ta-Yah," a book written by Confucius which discusses the duties of citizenship, is the secret behind the loyalty and strong attachment of Chinese to their governments. It also calls for the introduction of civics into common schools in the U.S.