Songs and Beliefs of the Youth: Anthems, Mottos, and Histories of Primary and Secondary Schools in Hong Kong 年少如歌——香港中小學校歌、校訓與校史研究

Hong Kong’s unique blend of Eastern and Western cultures is reflected in the diverse school cultures of primary and secondary schools. For instance, in the context of biliteracy and trilingualism, school mottos and anthems, which are concentrated essence and intangible cultural heritage assets of schools, varied in languages and expressions. Our project will collect data on the anthems, mottos, and histories of primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong. We will then conduct qualitative and quantitative analyses, providing a cross-interdisciplinary overview from linguistic, music, historical, and cultural perspectives. As primary and secondary schools play a crucial role in the development of young citizens, this project aims to highlight the positive stories and features of Hong Kong’s school cultures, which will promote a deeper understanding and appreciation of Hong Kong’s unique cultural heritage. Some preparation work for this project has been conducted actually. We have collected a list of 538 primary schools and 452 secondary schools in Hong Kong from publicly-accessible websites, with basic information of their areas, religion backgrounds (Christian/Catholic/Buddhist/…/No religion), founding years (e.g., Ying Wa College is founded in 1818), school websites, mediums of instruction, mottos, anthems (including language, lyrics and melodies), etc. Further research work to be carried out in this project include investigations into the tone-melody interaction (Zhang, 2015; 張凌 2017) of the anthems and the motto-education interaction (施仲謀 2019), correlation analyses of anthems, mottos and school histories as well as other demographic factors, and interview studies among representative schools with students and teachers. The above research work will be summarized and disseminated to the academia as well as the public community at the later stage of the project, including a monograph, a journal article with open-access, a publicly-accessible project webpage, a conference report, and a public seminar.

Funding Source: HKSAR Govt Related Organizations - Lord Wilson Heritage Trust