Abstract
This study investigates Hong Kong primary teachers’ perceptions of civic education (known locally as moral, civic and national education (MCNE)) which may have an impact on how they prepare students to be “good citizens. MCNE is constructed, in particular, from social and political contexts which are reflected in the governments’ political agenda. Especially, at the political change stage, citizens are expressing the wish to elect the Chief Executive (CE) in 2017 and Legislative Council (LegCo) in 2020 by universal suffrage (Leung, 2014, in press). It has highlighted the importance of the educational system as the primary societal system through which youth learn to engage in the larger community and political arenas. For that reason, education, particularly MCNE, plays a critical role for equipping students with civic capacity for universal suffrage. Rather serving as “political socialization” which socialized students with certain values and attitudes to uphold sociopolitical order, helping students to be active agent in learning, organizing and selecting and making meaning of information and experiences to be active citizens (Haste & Bermudez, 2014). A mixed methods sequential explanatory design was used, and involved collecting qualitative data after a quantitative phase to explain and follow up on the quantitative data in more depth. The quantitative study was carried out with 131 primary schools with 1,089 teachers. Twenty nine teachers from twelve schools were chosen for the qualitative interviews. The findings of this study indicated that teachers’ perceptions of “good citizens” were beyond Knowledge Characteristics, Conservative Characteristics and Social Concern Characteristics (such as knowledge of current events, take part in activities to protect the environment, abiding laws and participate in community services), but also possessed Critical Active Characteristics (such as concern for social issues by voicing out their views, CTS, participate in political affairs). While, teachers’ perceptions of “good citizens” have changed, teachers still held reservations on participation in protest as an important characteristic of “good citizens”. In additional to personal factors, contextual factors played an important role in teachers’ concepts “good citizens”.
Original language | English |
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Publication status | Published - Jun 2015 |
Event | Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference 2015: Leaders, Values and Citizenship in the 21st Century Education - Singapore, Singapore Duration: 02 Jun 2015 → 04 Jun 2015 |
Conference
Conference | Redesigning Pedagogy International Conference 2015: Leaders, Values and Citizenship in the 21st Century Education |
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Abbreviated title | RPIC 2015 |
Country/Territory | Singapore |
City | Singapore |
Period | 02/06/15 → 04/06/15 |