A study of the development of civic education in Hong Kong: The social and political perspectives

The development of civic education in Hong Kong can be categorized into three phases: before 1985, after 1985 and post 1997. Despite the fact that civic education has quite a long history in Hong Kong, it is criticized that it has never been successfully implemented. Civic education is described as a sort of subject political education before 1985. Since the Sino-British Joint Declaration was signed in 1984, education has become a bit politicized and two guidelines on civic education were introduced in 1985 and 1996 respectively. This paper intends to study the social and political factors that affect the development of civic education in Hong Kong and point out that emphasis on developing citizenship identity should be the main focus of civic education beyond 1997. It is also anticipated that the result of the study will bring some insights to the development of civic education as well as to the teacher education. Copyright © 1999 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.