While 'national education' has regularly been invoked by post-1997 Hong Kong administrations, its pursuit has acquired new force and urgency since the introduction in 2020 of a National Security Law. Investigating the role of schooling in this reinvigorated project of thought reform, this article asks how far recent initiatives have merely…

The purpose of civic education is to prepare students to become 'good citizens' aligned with the policies and political purposes of the regime to which they belong. This exploratory study employed a mixed methods design to construct a typology of 'good citizens' to understand university students' perceptions of citizenship in Taiwan, Hong Kong,…

This study investigated the concepts of nation among university students in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau. The findings revealed a lack of consistent patterns among university students' perceptions of patriotism and nationalism across these regions. Ideological differences were observed, with students in Mainland China and Hong Kong…

Patriotism is an important and well-accepted value in educational institutions. As a civic virtue, it has always been included in education/training programs. This study aims to compare research articles on teaching of patriotism that were conducted in the last 20 years. The document analysis method was employed in the study for this purpose. The…

This study applies CDA and story grammar analysis to investigate how Chinese language textbooks for primary schools foster Chinese national identity through their depiction of Chinese people struggling against foreign invaders. The analysis was conducted on 12 textbooks and the findings were based on stories featuring a range of ages, from…

This edited volume broadens the understanding of the media arts at a global scale bringing together practices and ideas from artists and art educators from around the world. Authors explore issues of cultural and social diversity in fields of education, media theory, and critical theories of education and pedagogy with particular attention to…

Plans by the Hong Kong Government to introduce moral and national education (MNE) as a compulsory subject in primary and secondary schools in 2010 encountered strong opposition. The controversy over the plans has lasted for two years, with the government and its supporters claiming that the subject will help to instil a stronger sense of national…

This article reports the findings of a five-year longitudinal study investigating the introduction of Liberal Studies in the context of Hong Kong's new senior secondary educational reforms. The aim of this empirical research, which adopted diachronic analysis to allow comparisons over time, was to compare teachers' and students' perceptions of the…

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…

Drawing on a recent collaborative and interdisciplinary study of East Asian Images of Japan, this article discusses contemporary Chinese portrayals of Japan, their political context, and their significance for Sino-Japanese relations. It questions some widely-held assumptions concerning the extent of "thought control" in an authoritarian…

An extraordinary large-scale student movement in Hong Kong successfully forced the government to withdraw a patriotic education proposal in 2012. The student group has attracted serious scrutiny from the pro-government camp because of the students' unusually young age and remarkable mobilising power. This study aims to explore the community…

There are multiple ways of understanding citizenship: as a status conferred by a nation state, a personal identity constructed in response to particular circumstances or a social identity developed out of group membership. These are not mutually exclusive categories: an individual may experience "citizenships" that integrate these legal,…

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…

Although macro-level analysis helps to identify patterns of development, the shortcoming of this macro-level overview is that marginal and alternative education systems and practices do not receive appropriate attention. The purpose of the present study is to demonstrate an alternative to the macro system. It examines the use of patriotic…

The year 2008 marked the 11th anniversary of Hong Kong's return from the UK to the People's Republic of China. In this decade, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government has repeatedly emphasised the importance of the development of national identity and patriotism in school education, and has at the same time introduced diverse…