Personal responsible, participatory or justice-oriented citizen: The struggles of Hong Kong civic education

Yan Wing LEUNG

Research output: Contribution to conferencePapers

Abstract

This presentation starts off with a discussion of Westheimer and Kahne’s typologies of ‘citizens’ followed by brief discussions of civic education in USA, Canada, UK and Australia with reference to the typologies. Then it moves on to an analysis of the development of school civic education in Hong Kong by comparing the six official policy documents in civic education, with reference to the typologies. It points out that the conceptions of ‘good citizen’ portrayed in the official documents, as in many countries, are just wondering to and fro between the Personal Responsible Citizen and Participatory Citizen and seldom attain the Justice Oriented Citizen. It also argues that, in addressing the political demands of the society, the cultivation of Personal Responsible Citizen and Participatory Citizen is the result of conservative politicization of civic education, either through depoliticizing the teaching content or teaching politics in a conservative tone in the civic education curriculum. However, civic education deprived of Justice Oriented Citizen may not be adequate in equipping youth to address the pressing social and political issues and concerns triggered by the global Jasmine Revolutions, Occupy Movements, and struggles against the rapid widening of gaps between rich and poor and the demand for a genuine democratization for the society. Therefore we contest that the cultivating Justice Oriented Citizen should be seriously explored with immediate urgency and propose that liberal civic education programmes aiming at cultivating Just Oriented Citizen should be included in school for an all around development of citizenship in the youth. Copyright © 2013 Symposium on Citizenship Education.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2013
EventSymposium on Citizenship Education - The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Duration: 08 Apr 201308 Apr 2013

Seminar

SeminarSymposium on Citizenship Education
Country/TerritoryHong Kong
Period08/04/1308/04/13

Citation

Leung, Y.-W. (2013, April). Personal responsible, participatory or justice-oriented citizen: The struggles of Hong Kong civic education. Paper presented at the Symposium on Citizenship Education, Hong Kong, China.

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