The Journal of Social Studies Education in Asia, Vol.7, pp.47-63, 2018

Developments and Challenges of Civic Educationin Hong Kong SAR, China (1997-2017)
Eric King-man Chong

The Educational University of Hong Kong, China
Abstract
This paper reviews the developments and challenges of civic education in Hong Kong SAR, China, from 1997
to 2017. Civic education started to introduce rights and responsibilities in the mid-1980s, when the Britishcolonial era entered a transition period. Just before the resumption of Chinese sovereignty over Hong Kong in
1997, nationalistic calls were made for civic education to prepare Hong Kong students to participate in national
life after 1997 and to introduce them to rights awareness and democratic ideals to involve them in a democratic
return to China. However, entering the 2000s, the need for a holistic educational reform surfaced with newimperatives, such as enhancing students’ ability to use information technology and to read to learn, and moral
and civic education was considered a key learning task. Civic education themes, such as national identity andglobal citizenship, emerged in this educational reform era in the early 2000s, against a background of a series of
educational reforms covering school governance, educational management, curriculum and pedagogy. With
increasing official pressure on nationalistic needs to enhance students’ understanding of China, the Hong Kong
SAR government started to arrange study tours to China for both senior and junior secondary school students,
as well as for upper primary school students. School-based civic and moral education programmes oncommunity exploration, Chinese national identity, moral and value education, environmental education also
flourished in this period. Meanwhile, social discontent with the governance of the Hong Kong SAR increased,
which had implications for Hong Kong people’s identity and the endeavours towards political reform anddemocratic development. Civil society’s anti-national education movement in 2012 and the Occupy andUmbrella Movement in 2014 further demonstrated a strong desire to protect local values, assert Hong Kong’s
identity and push for democratic development, which were at odds with embracing a Chinese national identity.
This indicates the failure of the mandatory implementation of national education in 2012, which aimed primarily
to develop Chinese national identity. The movement also led to a stalemate since 2014, as there was nowhere
to go for civic education after the clash of Hong Kong society with both the Hong Kong SAR government andthe Central People’s Government in Beijing.
Keywords: civic education, national education, developments, Hong Kong SAR, China.

Introduction
This paper reviews the developments and challenges of civic education in Hong Kong SAR, China,
from 1997 to 2017. Civic education started to introduce rights and responsibilities in Hong Kong’s school

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education in the mid-1980s, when the British colonial era entered a transition period of preparing the resumptionof Chinese sovereignty. Just before the resumption of Chinese sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997,
nationalistic calls were made for civic education to prepare Hong Kong students to participate in national life
after 1997 and to introduce them to rights awareness and democratic ideals to involve them in a democratic
return to China. However, entering the 2000s, the need for a holistic educational reform surfaced with newimperatives, such as enhancing students’ ability to use information technology and to read to learn, and moral
and civic education was considered a key learning task. Civic education themes, such as national identity andglobal citizenship, emerged in this educational reform era in the early 2000s, against a background of a series of
educational reforms covering school governance, educational management, curriculum and pedagogy. With
increasing official pressure on nationalistic needs to enhance students’ understanding of China, the Hong Kong
SAR government started to arrange study tours to China for both senior and junior secondary school students,
as well as for upper primary school students. School-based civic and moral education programmes oncommunity exploration, Chinese national identity, moral and value education, environmental education also
flourished in this period, and in particular teaching moral and value education is quite common since most
schools have religious sponsoring background or they are run by charities or organizations that give emphasis
on moral and value education on students. Values education allows one to internalise societal norms which help
shape the behaviour of members of a given society (Marcus and Fisher, 1999). Meanwhile, social discontents
with the governance of the Hong Kong SAR increased under materialistic values of wanting to have more say
in the government (Inglehart, 1990), which had implications for Hong Kong people’s identity and theendeavours towards political reform and democratic development. Civil society’s anti-national education
movement in 2012 and the Occupy and Umbrella Movement in 2014 further demonstrated a strong desire toprotect local values, assert Hong Kong’s identity and push for democratic development, which were at odds
with embracing a Chinese national identity. This indicates the failure of the mandatory implementation ofnational education in 2012, which aimed primarily to develop Chinese national identity according to the official
lines. The movement also led to a stalemate since 2014, as there was nowhere to go for civic education after the
clash of Hong Kong society with both the Hong Kong SAR government and the Central People’s Government
in Beijing.

Civic education in British colonial Hong Kong before the handover of sovereignty (mid1980s to 1997)
The British started colonial rule of this tiny southern point of China in 1842, after the first Opium War.
With 100 years of urban and industrial development, the British transformed Hong Kong into a modern liberalsociety committed to laissez-faire economics, with the help of local Chinese entrepreneurs and elites and anabundant supply of cheap labour (i.e., refugees from adjacent Chinese provinces and from even farther away inShanghai and Fukien). After its industrial boom in the 1960s, Hong Kong gained global attention for its ‘Madein Hong Kong’ products of textiles and garments, electronics, wigs, watches and plastic products, etc. It has
been a major international financial centre since the 1980s. The future of colonial Hong Kong came into questionin the late 1970s. Following a series of talks between China and the British, and that in1984 the British Foreign
Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe made it clear that the British government did not intend to extend its administration

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beyond the end of the lease of Hong Kong in 1997, it was agreed in the Sino-British Joint Declaration that Hong
Kong would return to China after 1997, with principles, such as ‘One Country, Two Systems,’ ‘Hong Kong
People Rule Hong Kong’ and ‘50 Years Unchanged,’ and a high degree of autonomy promised to Hong Kongby China. For school’s education, the Basic Law Article 136 promises that Hong Kong can formulate its own
policies on development and improvement of education (Basic Law Promotion Steering Committee, 2017).
In school’s education, civic education is always an important component of the school curriculum inmost countries. It could be offered in as a single subject, as cross curriculum theme or as extra curricula activities,
and it could be either compulsory or optional and being offered at different learning stages. One of the important
ingredients of civic education is citizenship. Ku and Pun (2004) argued that the formation of citizenship in Hong
Kong embodied a distinctive colonial history of more than one hundred and fifty years under British rule. In the
different stages of the colonial years, the formation of Hong Kong citizenship were marked by continual tensions
and struggles between the state and civil society over the questions of rights, belonging, and participation (Ku& Pun, 2004). The British, nevertheless, had an official reluctance to embrace Hong Kong people with fullcitizenship (Ku & Pun, 2004). The 1960s and the 1970s saw the British colonial Hong Kong government‘nurturing a civic sense of Hong Kong identity, while continuing to delimit political development, by stressing
law and order, local belonging, economic rationality, governing effectiveness and material welfare’(Kun & Pun,
2004, p. 4)
Colonial Hong Kong’s transition period started in the mid-1980s when it was decided that there would
be a resumption of sovereignty by China in 1997. The 1980s brought significant changes in citizenshipdevelopment in several areas such as a localized sense of residence rights and belonging was inscribed in lawof “Hong Kong permanent Resident” and that of emerging intense conflicts and competing discourses overdemocratic reform, civic liberties, and political identity about the handover issue (Lo, 2001). The British Hong
Kong government also started to decolonise education in Hong Kong, with civic education in this transitional
period focusing on teaching rights, duties and responsibilities, which were introduced to the school curriculumin the mandatory official civic education curriculum guideline (Hong Kong Education Department, 1985) for
students from kindergarten to sixth form in secondary schools. A moralised version of the school curriculum
was preferred, in which the morality of students was emphasised in teaching, and this period can becharacterized with the development of personally responsible citizens (Westheimer and Kahne, 2004), in whicha ‘soft’ model of citizenship of expecting people to obey laws and pay taxes. The 1985 civic education
curriculum guidelines more explicitly discuss the role of the informal and hidden curricula, with specificchapters addressing this question. Furthermore, in its introduction, it also discusses the differences between‘political education’ and ‘political indoctrination’ (Hong Kong Education Department, 1985, p. 7) to justify theneed for civic education in schools. This politicisation of the school curriculum by introducing civic educationreflected a need to prepare the Hong Kong people in terms of understanding their rights and responsibilities inthis British colonial city, allowing them to become their own masters under the principles of ‘One Country, Two
Systems’, in which ‘One Country’ refers to China and ‘Two Systems’ refers to socialism/communism in China
and capitalism in Hong Kong after 1997. However, the June 4 student movement in China and the subsequent
crackdown by the Chinese military made Hong Kong’s people fearful of the Chinese Communist Party. The
last governor, Chris Patten, introduced political reform in the composition of the Legislative Council, which
triggered protest by China. A bill of human rights was also introduced in Hong Kong in this late transition period.

49Eric King-man Chong

In education, a series of reform initiatives have been introduced under the ideologies of market efficiency andnew managerialism since the late 1980s (Ku & Pun, 2004). Civic education in Hong Kong then started to focus
on teaching students about human rights, freedom, the rule of law and democracy to familiarise them with such
civic values.
When it came to the final stage of transition just before 1997, civic education in Hong Kong schools
faced two major needs: to develop students’ understanding of China and to equip students with more
understanding about rights, responsibilities and democracy so that they could participate in future civic life. The
promulgation of the 1996 Guidelines on Civic Education in Schools (CDC, 1996) just before the resumption ofChinese sovereignty testified to the need for both the nationalistic and democratic development of Hong Kong’s
future generations. In the 1996 Guidelines on Civic Education in Schools (CDC, 1996), the notion of ‘civic
values’ (p. 12) is defined and a section in the appendixes is included in which the use of ‘controversial issues’
as teaching and learning strategies is discussed and recommended to teachers. It should also be noted that thefocus of these guidelines is on both formal and informal curricula, and the discussion of informal and hidden
curricula is less emphasised than that of the 1985 guidelines. In particular, students were often required to learn
concepts and values related to family life.
Comparing the 1985 and 1996 civic education guidelines shows that they follow a similar structure,
which includes the aims of the civic education curriculum, the content for each learning stage, the proposed
methods and strategies for teaching, learning and assessment and implementation processes. The civic education
guidelines were also written for teachers to clarify civic, political, social and educational concepts. Bothguidelines before 1997 also encourage secondary school students (from 13 to 18 years old) to acquire an‘awareness of the need to develop good family relationship among members’ and to learn to be ready to ‘accept
responsibility before entering into marriage’ (CDC, 1985, p. 33). This family importance is often justified inview of Hong Kong or Chinese traditions and lifestyles. Hong Kong in the context of citizenship is emphasisedin the 1985 guidelines, with no mention of China. In the 1996 guidelines, there is no clear emphasis on either,
but there is coverage of individuals, the communities and the world. References to China and Hong Kong are
similar in relevance in both the 1985 and 1996 civic education guidelines. As for the domains of civic education,
both the 1985 and 1996 guidelines recommend the following:
In summary, the 1996 civic education guidelines, which were promulgated just before the Chinese
resumption of Hong Kong’s sovereignty in 1997, politicised civic education by expanding and including theunderstanding of politics and the government, the learning of democracy, national identity, human rights andrule of law and the promotion of global perspectives (Leung & Ng, 2004), with the latter a response to thecoming era of globalisation.

Domains ofcitizenship1985 Guidelines on Civic Education in
Schools
Communities associated to citizenshipincluding family, Hong Kong, China and theworld, with more emphasis on Hong Kong

1996 Guidelines on Civic Education in
Schools
Family; Hong Kong; China, and the world,with relative same emphasis between them

Table 1. Domains of civic education in 1985 and 1996 guidelines

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After the handover of sovereignty:
a need to Develop Nationalistic Education (1997 to 2008)
In Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) after the resumption of sovereignty by China,
continual cross-border migration from the Mainland China just complicates the citizenship issue. Local Hong
Kong residents are now entitled to a ‘distinctive set of nominal and legal rights which is tantamount to a formof local or quasi-city state citizenship’ (Ku & Pun, 2004, p. 7). The Basic Law, which is the mini-constitutionfor Hong Kong SAR came into effect on 1st July, 1997, guarantees the right of abode to all persons, among
others, of Chinese nationality born to Hong Kong residents, regardless of their place of birth. According to Ghai
(2001), this local status of permanent residence is “both more inclusive and more exclusive than citizenship, as
it allows the accommodation of non-nationals at the same time as it excludes categories of nationals” (p. 144).
Such legal status written in the Basic Law acknowledges the cosmopolitan nature of Hong Kong’s society while
marking Hong Kong from the Mainland, but on the one hand creating hierarchies among the residents, on theother (Ku & Pun, 2004).
In the educational reform that started in the early 2000s which was built on the ideologies of market
efficiency and new managerialism, the Hong Kong SAR government’s appeals to life-long learning, all-roundeducation, and the Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS) which gives school more administrative and financial
autonomy, as well as choice of curriculum, for those schools opting for this scheme other those traditional
majority of government and aided schools. According to Kun & Pun (2004), this reflects a process of quasiprivatization of education that works more favorably for the elite schools and the wealthier class. The document
Learning to Learn: The Way Forward in Curriculum Development (CDC, 2000) was produced that encourages
Hong Kong schools to provide students with moral and civic education as one of the key learning tasks. This
propelled schools to organise civic education activities. Entering the 2000s, the emergence of a competitive,knowledge-based economy arising from globalisation brought challenges (Leung, et al., 2016) and civic
education was thought to be able to equip students with the necessary knowledge, skills, values and attitudes forthe new era of globalisation. Indeed, the impact of globalisation made the discussion of global citizenshipeducation significant (Davies & Pike, 2009) in education, with some scholars have made a distinction between‘soft’ and ‘critical’ global citizenship education (Andreotti, 2006) in which the former is based on humanitarian
normative principles of helping powerless others and framed around values of harmony and tolerance, while
the latter is based on political normative principles of social justice and challenging injustice structures andpower imbalances. But all these global citizenship discussions should be taken against a background ofmainstream schools in Hong Kong which are, broadly speaking, adopting the ‘traditional’ approach focuses on
the transmission of taken-for-granted dominant values, customs and traditions of a society by direct teaching(Solomon et al., 2001).
With China’s resumption of sovereignty settling by the start of the 2000s, the need to enhance Hong
Kong students’ understanding of China arose. It came from the need to build up the Chinese national identityof the Hong Kong people, who had been separated from China for 155 years. Therefore, with the Learning to
Learn (CDC, 2000) document, the Hong Kong SAR government injected a huge amount of public expenditureand learning resources to subsidise the costs of Hong Kong SAR students joining study tours to China, organise
events (e.g., guest talks on different topics about China and training on how to raise the Chinese national flag)

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Eric King-man Chongand allow students to meet important Chines figures in politics, athletics and aerospace. There is indeed a priority
attached by the Hong Kong SAR administration to promote National Education (Vickers, 2005). All of theseendeavours aimed to again politicise civic education in terms of a Chinese nationalistic education and facilitate
an official affirmation of national education for all Hong Kong students. However, schools in Hong Kong atthat time focused more on moral education and which have been described as moralised and depoliticised(Morris & Morris, 1999).
After Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Hong Kong SAR on its 10th anniversary celebration in July
2007 and his call for providing national education for Hong Kong youths, the Education Bureau started to injecta huge amount of government budget for schools to join in study tours to China, which aims at enhancing
students’ Chinese national identification. The Education Bureau further advised the schools in renewing theirschool’s civic education curriculum by publishing The Revised Moral and Civic Education Curriculum
Framework (EDB, 2008). This recommends the schools to make use of life-event in order to enable students
connect what they have experienced in their family, school, community and society life with moral and civics
to be learnt. In particular, this framework has spent some coverage on how students can connect themselveswith national life with examples. This has represented an official curriculum framework mandatory asking forHong Kong schools to build up their students’ connection with China in civic and moral education with
examples such as personal life, study life and working life.

Liberal Studies in Developing political and social knowledge for civic education (2009)
Another watershed of civic education came when the Hong Kong SAR government introduced LiberalStudies in 2009 as the fourth compulsory subject, alongside Chinese Language, English Language andMathematics, for all secondary school students in Hong Kong. Due to its mandatory status, Liberal Studies was
also made one of the compulsory subjects of university admission examinations. Dating back to the early 2000s,
the education authority in Hong Kong SAR already sought to catch up Hong Kong’s education with theglobalisation era (CDC, 2000), aiming to shape future generations to be competitive in global competition(which fits with the liberal ideology) and have a holistic understanding about their lives. Therefore, the aims andobjectives of the Liberal Studies curriculum were to widen students’ perspectives and enhance their knowledge(CDC & HKEAA, 2007) on areas of study such as self and personal development, society and culture, science,technology and environment, with an independent enquiry study added on them. Some keywords in the teaching
and learning of Liberal Studies include issue inquiry, multiple perspectives, critical thinking and informed
judgement (CDC & HKEAA, 2007).
Students are expected to develop informed judgement and are required to apply their analytical power
when studying different issues from multiple perspectives. The learning outcome is thus informed judgement
based on the evidence and arguments that they identify while analysing issues. As an academic subject, LiberalStudies only intends to develop students’ knowledge, skills, values and attitudes, with no mention of motivating
students to participate in society. At least, Hong Kong students have been better equipped with knowledge andconcepts related to Hong Kong, China and the world, and these are important for teachers engaging them incivic education.

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Controversy over the anti-national education campaign (2012)
National identity is promoted by the Hong Kong SAR government in the Moral and National Education
Curriculum Guide (Primary 1 to Secondary 6) (CDC, 2012) of 2012, which was preceded by a consultation
document in 2011. Although the 2012 guide is considerably longer in content than the previous two civic
education guidelines from 1985 and 1996, it only provides information for primary and secondary levels, but
not for kindergarten. It also starts with individual levels, similar to the two previous civic education guidelines
from 1985 and 1996. In the 2012 Moral and National Education Curriculum Guide (Primary 1 to Secondary6) (CDC, 2012), ‘the individual’ is identified as the domain of citizenship. The individual domain is defined in
the 2012 guidelines as follows:
The overall learning objective for this domain is to help students develop the personal qualities ofautonomy, self-love, self-discipline, self-confidence, etc, as well as positive attitudes and a healthy
lifestyle so that they are able to distinguish right from wrong, make reasonable judgements and put theminto practice when facing adversities, doubts and challenges (CDC, 2012, PP. 18-19).
Yet, the national domain of this 2012 guide clearly indicates the official reunification needs of foster
Hong Kong students’ sense of Chinese national identity. In the 2012 guidelines, in contrast to the previous two
civic education guidelines, the emphasis is more on China. There is a shift in focus from Hong Kong to China,
particularly in terms of the aims of the citizenship education curriculum.
The Chinese government’s sponsorship of national education teaching resources caused huge
controversy. It also alerted the educational sector to possible problems with the 2012 guide. In early 2012, there
was major concern regarding the possible indoctrination effect of national education on students, with only onesided representations of China found in the government’s sponsored teaching materials. Some students
organised themselves into a pressure group called Scholarism and exerted significant pressure against suchbiased representations of China.
Wider civil society responded by organising protests throughout the summer of 2012. This represented
a serious challenge to the government’s authority and in particular demonstrated a strong social desire to reject
Chinese national citizenship. The protests centred on the potentially biased national education curriculum beingtaught in schools. The school sector remained calm, maintaining professional neutrality and keeping politics
away from students. The situation went as far as some protestors staging demonstrations outside of schoolsfound to be offering national education, and Internet images being circulated in which parents were advised tobe careful when choosing these schools for their children. This put some schools directly under political pressure.
Ultimately, these civil society groups successfully made the government withdraw the mandatory
implementation of moral and national education.
The anti-national education movement left the Beijing authorities disappointed by Hong Kong civilsociety’s rejection of Chinese national identity. The Beijing authorities responded by saying that China hadoverall jurisdiction, which means complete governance in legal authority, on all matters of Hong Kong SAR
since the ‘high degree of autonomy’ is originated from the Central People’s Government. This in turn raised
significant discontent in Hong Kong SAR society, given that the Hong Kong people were used to living under‘One Country, Two Systems,’ ‘Hong Kong people rule Hong Kong’ and believed that the Hong Kong SAR
should enjoy a ‘high degree of autonomy’ with only national defence and diplomacy rests with Beijing

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Eric King-man Chongauthorities. This tends to suggest a narrowing of the political space guaranteed by ‘One Country, Two Systems.’
The patriotic and nationalistic ideologies of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) were imposed on Hong Kong
through public propaganda and patriotic education, which aimed to increase the integration of Hong Kong withthe mainland and the influences of Chinese ideologies and lifestyles on Hong Kong civic values (such as
freedom, rule of law, human rights, and aspirations for democracy) and liberal lifestyles. These trends also
represented hurdles to the democratic return of Hong Kong under the PRC and may have intensified the fightfor self-determination or even the independence of Hong Kong in the coming decades.

Emergence and aftermath of the 2014 Occupy and Umbrella Movement:
maintain neutrality in civic education between nationalistic and localist debates
On 31 August 2014, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC) ruled that the
new Chief Executive would be chosen from a pre-selected pool of candidates by a 1,200-member Selection
Committee, a mostly self-nominated body in which the pan-democratic camp would get approximately 300
seats. This angered many pro-democratic Hong Kong citizens. Before the NPC’s ruling on the HKSAR Chief
Executive’s selection method, Hong Kong society was already calling for the use of a peaceful and large-scale
occupation to demonstrate the desire for a truly democratic selection method and universal suffrage of the Hong
Kong SAR Chief Executive election in 2017. In late September 2004, protestors staged a protest for truly
universal suffrage in the 2017 election. People gathered around the government headquarters in Admiralty. On
the afternoon of 28 September 2014, the Hong Kong SAR police fired tear gas bombs on the protestors todisperse them, but the young protestors did not retreat even though police continue fired many tear gas bombson them. The co-founders of the Occupy Movement, Reverend Chu Yiu-ming, academic Chan Kin-man and
Benny Tai, soon found themselves losing control of what had become a large-scale occupy and protest
movement in which ordinary people and students took to the streets on their own, occupying major roads andstreets at busy points of Admiralty, Wanchai, Causeway Bay and Mong Kok, and confronting and clashing withthe police. Of course, on the other side, some pro-stability and pro-social order groups came out in criticizing
such acts of occupy movements, and it was suspected that even triad societies took part in antagonizing andfighting the protestors during the occupy at Mong Kok. The pro-Beijing government political parties in theLegislature have also played an active role in mobilizing more voices in protesting against this Occupy
campaign and its supporters (Kan, 2013).
Prominent figures of Scholarism and the Hong Kong Federation of Students participated in themobilisation and campaign, and students and young people used umbrellas and facemasks to demonstrate
resistance to a political unjust selection and nomination framework of Chief Executive of Hong Kong SAR. In
the name of civil disobedience, the occupation later spread to other areas, leading to clashes with the police andunrest in both Admiralty and Mong Kok. The Occupy Movement spun out of the control of the co-founders
and young activists. The movement eventually ended after 79 days without successfully pressuring the Hong
Kong SAR government and central Beijing government into making any concessions on the proposed
nomination and election methods of the Chief Executive in 2017. The student leaders of the Umbrella
movement of 2014, who demanded that China uphold its promises for genuine democracy in the territory(Wong, 2017), retreated themselves and urged the protestors to leave. Civil society expressed deep sorrow for

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failing to secure any of their demands from the Hong Kong SAR government, not to mention the Central
People’s Government.
In late 2014, Hong Kong’s civil society continued to press for universal suffrage in the aftermath of the
Occupy and Umbrella Movement. The pro-establishment camp dramatically withdrew from the Legislative
Council’s Chamber during the vote on the government’s proposal for the Chief Executive’s nomination andselection method, but failed to interrupt the vote. The pro-democratic camp in the legislature vetoed the results,
thus ending the controversial chapter of the Occupy and Umbrella Movement and the government’s
introduction of universal suffrage. While the pro-democratic legislators still insisted for restarting the five step
procedures to achieve political reform according to the Basic Law, Scholarism and the student leaders, however,insisted that for the democratic development of Hong Kong, the social movements should include referendum,
shadow government and even self-determination, which are all very sensitive to Hong Kong SAR government
and Central People’s Government.
In education, schools responded by maintaining their professional neutrality. Hong Kong teachers
continued to teach their subjects professionally, although some schools saw students strike in support of the
Occupy Movement. An estimated 100 schools had students supporting the Occupy Movement (Anonymous,2014). Overall, Hong Kong SAR schools proceeded with teaching as usual throughout all the turbulent times
since the handover of sovereignty in 1997. There was a common consensus that Hong Kong teachers should
adopt teaching issues based on balanced viewpoints and that teachers should maintain professional neutrality
by not showing preference for either the pro-Occupy and Umbrella Movement or the pro-establishment side.
Furthermore, Hong Kong teachers shoulder the ethical responsibility to teach from multiple perspectives and,in particular, to emphasise particular forms of reasoning within their disciplines and cite examples of how these
forms of reasoning can be applied (Jones, 2004; Pithers & Soden, 2000). Yet, it must also be noted that the lackof space for civic education in school curriculum timetable, teachers’ deficits in professional knowledge and thecontroversial and sensitive nature of the subject can make some schools and teachers hesitant to teach civic
education (Leung & Ng, 2014), even though teaching controversial issues in an open classroom ethos
contributes to civic learning (Hess, 2001). Stanley (2010) argues that one important tension in any social studies
education is between engaging students in activities that “transmit” the social order (preparing students for theworld as it is) and those that “transform” (preparing students for the society that ought to be). This tension isevident when teachers engage students in discussions about politics and controversial issues and this is also
applicable in Hong Kong’s civic education context.
There was more controversy over Liberal Studies after the Occupy and Umbrella Movement in 2014.
Some critics argued that Liberal Studies unintentionally affected students by raising their civic awareness andthus contributed to their participation in protests and demonstrations without reasoning. These critics worried
that such a development might negatively affect students’ studies and development into responsible citizens ofa territory governed by ‘One Country, Two Systems’. In particular, some politicians accused Liberal Studies ofaffecting student behaviour. For example, Legislator Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee criticised Liberal Studies formainly discussing topical events. She argued that Liberal Studies lacked theoretical support as the over-archingtheme of the curriculum. Therefore, she called for a reversion of this mandatory subject back to an elective
subject as in the previous Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination syllabus (Lp, 2014). Another legislator,
Priscilla Leung Mei-fun, also criticised Liberal Studies for its emphasis on political events and for creating an

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Eric King-man Chonganti-Chinese mind-set among secondary school students. She called for the replacement of this subject with
Chinese History (Yeung, 2014). These political figures come from the pro-establishment camp, which is proHong Kong SAR government in policy setting and legislature voting decisions.
Although the effects of Liberal Studies on students’ civic participation became a focus of debate insociety, and in literature, a ‘participatory citizen’ is well accorded with Westheimer and Kahne (2004)’s modelof ‘participatory citizen’ which encourages active citizenship, such as social participation and organising events
to help others. To those progressives in any society, it could postulate that future citizens must actively construct
the future and that the best way to do this is by active participation in the political and social life of society. In
Hong Kong SAR’s civil society, the core members of the youth group Scholarism stated that what theyexperienced in Liberal Studies about political knowledge could both enhance and impede political participation(Lee & Chiu, 2017). By learning the meanings of ‘political participation’ and discussing the rationales for
specific protests, members of Scholarism started to understand the legitimacy of protest demands. This
heightening of political knowledge led to personal empathy towards the protestors’ grievances in general (Lee& Chiu, 2017). However, it failed to directly motivate them to participate in the protests. Instead, Liberal Studies
learning made them more likely to be circumspect about taking part in overt political activities. Lee and Chiu
(2017) found that some students perceived protest politics as ‘useless’ and were rather cynical about politicalparticipation. Of course, such political cynicism may work to both reduce and reinforce participatory politicalaction depending on whether or not it is aligned with perceived unfairness (Klandermans et al., 2008). Lee andChiu (2017) also found that some core Scholarism members acquired more political knowledge through LiberalStudies learning and mass media, and the Internet tended to increase their sense of political inefficacy andcynicism, making them ‘hesitant to turn what they learned into political actions’ (Lee & Chiu, 2017, p. 12).
Indeed, a much more balanced approach to perceive Liberal Studies would include examining the natureof social issues under spotlights and their social media coverage, with the latter of which would actually be much
more powerful in mobilising students to take the initiative to join any social movement. This would in turnchallenge civic educators in that they would be unable to predict when and what students would do. Yet, LiberalStudies as civic education serves to equip students with the analytical framework to analyse the social issues
that they face. Then, by applying multiple perspectives in analysis, it can contribute to civic attributes, such as
critical thinking and students’ treasure of universal values. At least, whether students take part in social
movements and in what form should depend on their own deliberation and moral judgement.

Localism and controversial demands since 2016:
what are the possible roles of civic education in discussing controversial issues?
Hong Kong society has witnessed an increase in localism in response to national identity. Hong Kongas a city-state theory has been put forward (Fong, 2017). This is an assertion of local identity by protecting local
values and ways of life, which have been threatened by increasing influences from China. Some youth sectors
in society in this localist movement have even openly called for referendum for self-determination andindependence for Hong Kong. When taking such callings and the Occupy and Umbrella Movement together,
they suggest a new generation of Hong Kong Chinese youth who may have quite different views about their

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roles as citizens living under China. In particular, they dare to say no to the establishment, including the Hong
Kong SAR government and the Central People’s Government in Beijing.
In the political scene, the disqualification of several legislative councillors in 2017 has led Hong Kong
people to start to feel that nothing much can be done to challenge Beijing’s complete authority over Hong Kong.
Chan Kin-man, both a university sociologist professor and one of the co-founders of the Love and Peace Occupy
Movement in 2014 (Lam, 2017), argues that Hong Kong’s youth have finally realised the difficulties of pushinga separatist agenda, although their feelings against mainland China have grown stronger amidst more instancesof oppression. According to Chan, Hongkongers now see the limits of violent protest and pro-independence
advocacy, a realisation that may provide room for dialogue in this once heavily divided city.
However, in the post-2014 Occupy and Umbrella Movement era, many secondary school students haveretreated into their own digital lives and immersed themselves in social media. This has presented a challenge
to civic education teachers. Teachers nowadays have found that students do not know much about society or
have any interest in understanding social and civic issues. Teachers can hardly raise students’ awareness, as they
just have too little basic knowledge about society. What is more discouraging to civic education teachers inHong Kong is that with the complexities and controversies of the disqualification of several elected legislative
councillors, the jailing of three prominent student leaders and other activists involved in the Occupy andUmbrella Movement and the recent co-location arrangement of the newly built high-speed railway connecting
Hong Kong and China, many Hong Kong school teachers now do not know what or how to teach their students.
Thus, school teachers have no easily comprehensible topics to teach their students.
In civic education, Hong Kong school teachers must prepare students to face controversial issues. The
call to teach controversial issues arises from an urgent need to prepare students to face the increasing number ofcontroversial issues in society, such as the disqualification of several directly elected legislative councillors due
to unacceptable and political oath taking messages in their swearing as Legislative Councillor of Hong Kong
SAR to China and the arguments over the co-location arrangements of the high-speed railway connecting Hong
Kong with China. Furthermore, civic education in this post-Occupy and Umbrella Movement era should enable
students to think independently and to discern what to do after an informed judgement. The need to enable
students to form their own informed and independent judgements has become more important, as Hong Kong
has been split into establishment and opposition camps. People have been polarised. The opposition camp can
be classified as a pro-democracy camp, within which can be found traditional liberal democrats, radicals andnew youth groups calling for self-determination and independence. The pro-government establishment camp isconservative and supports the Hong Kong SAR government and even the communist domination of Hong
Kong affairs. In recent years, towards the pro-democracy camp, the liberal democrats or radical democrats havebeen accused of colluding with foreign external forces over intervention in China’s internal affairs. However,this opposition camp has consistently captured approximately 60% of the votes for directly elected seats.
Therefore, against this kind of political background, there is a particular need for civic education in Hong Kongto create a platform and provide opportunities for students to listen to different views and make their analyses
and evaluations of them.
Leung et al. (2016), meanwhile, argue that the core of civic education is political education and thus
schools should allow students to take part in school affairs. Some examples include student participation inschool governance and student union elections, though Leung et al. (2016) also found that Hong Kong schools

57Eric King-man Chongshared limited powers with their student councils and that student councils have power only in a school’s
operational matters. Student participation in governance and student union elections run counter away fromcivic education as de-politicisation and moralised orientation, and contribute to student positive participation inschool affairs. These can also tackle the hesitation that schools and teachers usually have on teaching
controversial and sensitive nature of civic education (Leung & Ng, 2014) because students shall learn how tomodify their views in light of informed and rational decision making in school governance and elections,
supported by hearing different perspectives and deliberating on collective standpoints.
Yuen and Chong (2017) argue that there are three main principles in engaging students to discuss
controversial issues. First, teaching must be rational and balanced, and conducted in a team. Thus, teachers mustteach issues based on facts and must not be biased by their own opinions. Teachers must maintain neutrality andanalyse the facts and reasons from multiple perspectives to provide students with a holistic view. Team teaching
can also minimise any chance of biased teaching. Second, learning methods, such as group discussions andavoidance of one-way indoctrination, can also create room for student thinking, analysis and decision making.
The setting of questions should cater to students’ ages, maturity and knowledge base. Teachers must also
provide relevant concepts, knowledge and an all-round understanding using as many different sources as
possible, and must include the processes of conceptual clarification and the mastery of major concepts (e.g.,peace, caring, participation, equality and making changes) as starting points instead of presenting students witha complicated picture. Third, teachers must remain neutral and ensure healthy discussion, so that the different
opinions of students can be represented. Teacher neutrality in the holding of classroom discussion is thus called
for, where the core of the ‘neutral chair’ approach is that the teacher enhances procedural fairness andencourages students to express their own views and listen to those of others (Yuen & Leung, 2009). Teachers
must also remind students to exercise modesty, open-mindedness and respect when listening to each other.
Indeed, thinking and reasoning abilities are attained when these cognitive activities are taught not as subsequent
add-ons to what is learned, but rather are explicitly developed in the process of acquiring the knowledge andskills considered to be the objectives of education and training (Glaser, 1984).
Regarding the controversy over the promotion of Chinese national identity in the school curriculum,
Cheng and Yuen (2017) argue for broad-based rather than narrow-based national education. They argued thatthe conceptualisation of broad-based national education is premised on two fundamental principles. First,
national education, which aims to develop, is a process by which humankind moves forward on multiple levels,
including the personal, local, national and global levels. Second, national education nowadays must be
understood within a globalised context, in which there are multiple, complex and dynamic developments at play,including the technological, economic, social, political, cultural and learning development of not only
individuals and local communities within a nation, but also the global world beyond the nation. In short, Cheng
and Yuen (2017) argue that broad-based education serves multiple functions at multiple levels.

Plausible suggestions
Educational implications: education for multiple citizenships and deliberative civic education
In the globalised era, multiple citizenship identities are a much better alternative than a single citizenshipidentity, whether it is a local identity or national identity. A single civic identity has only one loyalty, which

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tends to be exclusive and suppressive of other identities, and may easily lead to populist politics (e.g., Donald
Trump, the rise of the extreme right in both Western and Eastern Europe and populism in South America).
The implications for schools is first that they should provide education for multiple citizenship identities,
which means an in-depth understanding of the inclusive and exclusive nature of identity politics, and arecognition of the equal existence of local identity, national identity (critical patriots) and global identity, which
recognises human rights as global ethics and is the most inclusive one. Second, there must be education for
tolerance in schools, which requires the recognition of diversity of viewpoints and attributes, the promotion ofequality and a determination for peace. Third, there must be education for a willingness to compromise. Thismeans nurturing the democratic personality with a willingness to compromise in terms of form and strategy
without giving up core principles and values cherished by the society. Fourth, a culture of deliberative civic
education should be developed based on different perspectives and values and the putting aside of those that are
logically or factually wrong. A deliberative classroom is that teachers create a class culture that encourages
students to share competing viewpoints and to disagree respectfully with their teachers and fellow students. Thisis commonly identified in the literature as an “open classroom climate” (McAvoy & Hess, 2013). Thisdeliberative civic education also calls for comparison of the values of the remaining arguments by reference touniversal values, such as international human rights, with particular attention to the tension between universality
and particularity. Teachers must then put aside arguments that are clearly against universal values. With theremaining arguments that are all logically sound and are based on values compatible with human rights
standards, teachers and students can deliberate together to generate an ‘overlapping consensus’, which could
contribute to the common good of their communities and society. Together with all these new emphasis, theyshall supplement the ‘traditional’ approach of value education which usually focuses on the transmission of
taken-for-granted dominant values, customs and traditions of a society by direct teaching (Solomon, et al., 2001).
Indeed, the success of deliberative civic education depends very much on the attributes of tolerance andwillingness to compromise. The implication for Hong Kong school teachers is that they should prepare to teachstudents how to deliberate from different views and to be able to find common ground for the long-term survivalof their community and society. Schools should also create active and informed citizens who know, who think,
who act, who reflect and who care. Civic qualities are needed to build up democratic systems and representative
governments throughout the world (Kennedy, 2016). Finally, teachers and those holding powers should also
recognize that youths usually feel that they should participate in the civic affairs that affect their lives (Haste &Hogan, 2006).

Conclusion
This paper outlines the developments and challenges of civic education in Hong Kong in the 20 years
since the resumption of sovereignty by China. While there has been a constant need for personal development
through education throughout all these years, and in Hong Kong SAR after 1997 this contributes to national
goals, whether in terms of reproducing national identity or promoting economic growth for both Hong Kong
SAR and China. Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s civil society and local identity has faced nationalistic Chinesepressure and the expectation of society members becoming patriotic Chinese citizens, especially through theHong Kong government’s introduction of the moral and national education curriculum (CDC, 2012) in 2012,59

Eric King-man Chongwhich can be described as reflecting political tendencies, government interests, morality, religious beliefs,
societal norms and ideologies of respective society (Cairns, et al., 2013). A strong protest against the potential
indoctrinatory and nationalistic orientation of national education forced the government to shelve thiscurriculum. Next came the 2014 Occupy and Umbrella Movement, in which a strong desire for democratic
nomination and universal suffrage led to societal rejection of the method for nominating the Chief Executive set
by the Chinese NPC. Following Liberal Studies integration into civic education, it was unreasonably andunfortunately blamed as one of the main causes of the Occupy and Umbrella Movement. Localists demandedthat Hong Kong people’s interests be put first and asserted local Hong Kong identity. These localists createdorganised political groups and gained support from Hong Kong’s younger generations during the District Board
election in 2015 and the Legislative Council election in 2016. However, localist demands, such as selfdetermination and independence for Hong Kong’s future, were met with severe repression from the Hong Kong
SAR government in 2017. Elected Legislative Councillors were thrust into an oath-taking controversy and losttheir seats, and three young student movement leaders and several young protestors were sent to prison forbreaking the law. Faced with such complicated and highly controversial issues, many Hong Kong school
teachers do not know what and how to teach their students, even though they have been pressured by thegovernment to develop students’ Chinese national identity and their understanding about Hong Kong SAR’s
constitution of Basic Law. The extent to which Chinese patriotic expectations of Hong Kong society will change
in the light of such localist resistance is a major issue. Hong Kong’s civic education should embrace its importantrole in dealing with the dual forces of patriotic and nationalistic education against a backdrop of strong local
identity and localism. This is a major issue for the future of the Hong Kong SAR, and one that is confronting
both young Hong Kong citizens and young citizens in the global community who face the challenges of multiple
identities. The post-Occupy and Umbrella Movement era, the rise of autonomous thinking among youths andthe oath-swearing controversy and the subsequent dismissal of legislative councillors by the NPC have all raised
concerns about the bottom line of ‘One Country, Two Systems.’ What should the civic education sector do toprepare Hong Kong students for the future? Are the current civic education practices equipping them with theknowledge, skills, values and attitudes to be future citizens? These are perplexing but important questions to be
explored and answered. Further research on this topic could use mixed methods to enable large groups of young
Hong Kong citizens or civic education teachers to be surveyed in addition to smaller groups for follow-up
interviews. This would provide some valuable insights into how young citizens develop their civic knowledge
and attributes in an increasingly nationalistic Chinese social context. It would also allow for the influences offactors other than such the nationalistic Chinese context, such as localism and democratic ideals, to be assessed.

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