A comparative study on teachers and principals’ perceptions of citizenship education in time of stress: Hong Kong case

Socio-political changes and curriculum reforms in Hong Kong pose new challenges to civic education. These challenges can influence “principals’ reorientation and development of practices” (Szeto, 2020, p. 2), teacher autonomy and self-efficacy (*Wong et al., 2020) in different ways across schools. The National Security Law (NSL) in Hong Kong (implemented in July 2020) increases social uncertainty over academic autonomy and could influence teacher attitudes toward civic education. Hence, this study examines principals’ and teachers’ perceptions of citizenship education and how their schools support civic teaching in times of stress. Principals influence the civic environments of their schools (Author et al., 2020), and teachers affect the civic environments of their classrooms (Author et al., 2018b). Understanding principals’ and teachers’ perceptions of citizenship education could provide insights for nurturing students to live in a complex world. The findings revealed principals were more positive than teachers in regard to their schools and citizenship education, and attempted to provide teachers with the autonomy to facilitate civic teaching. Teachers perceived more strongly than principals that the Chinese national government has influenced their schools’ attitude to citizenship education and they showed less confidence than principals in the possibility of nurturing students’ patriotism. Copyright © 2022 CitEdEV.