A Search for Rational Nationalistic Education in Hong Kong.

Overview & Synopsis

Many Asian countries have strong elements of nationalistic education in their civic education. In 1996, a year before the return of sovereignty of Hong Kong to China, a new official "Guidelines on Civic Education in Schools" was issued by the Education Department. This document proposes a curriculum framework with equal emphasis on human rights education, education for democracy, education for rule of law, nationalistic education, global education, and education for critical thinking. After July 1997, there has been very strong public pressure for more nationalistic education, and more schools were taking the initiative to implement nationalistic education. This paper attempts to construct a framework to study the understanding of nationalism of teachers implementing nationalistic education in Hong Kong secondary schools and to construct a framework to study whether the practice of nationalistic education in schools is guided by good practice of civic education. The framework consists of a set of questions based on the three promising pedagogies of citizenship: civic participation, an issues-based approach, and critical thinking. (Contains 123 references.) (SLD)