Is Liberal Studies a political instrument in the secondary school curriculum? Lessons from the Umbrella Movement in post-colonial Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

This paper examines whether Hong Kong teachers and students perceived Liberal Studies and its ongoing curriculum review as politically driven during and after the Umbrella Movement, a large-scale civil disobedience campaign that took place in September 2014. The findings presented herein show that both groups disagreed with the claim that Liberal Studies was used as a political instrument to instigate students’ participation in the protest movement. Moreover, they also reveal that teachers have maintained their neutrality towards controversial issues related to politics during Liberal Studies lessons. Whilst the participating teachers and students considered the government's proposed reform of Liberal Studies to be politically motivated, they held differing attitudes towards the addition of more China-related elements to the subject. On the basis of these results, this paper analyses the potential role of Liberal Studies in the democratisation of local society. It also provides an indication of the curriculum's dynamic nature, explanation of students’ resistance to the review policy and suggestions for the subject's future development.

KEYWORDS:

• Curriculum reform
• Hong Kong
• Liberal Studies
• political instrument
• umbrella movement

Acknowledgments

We thank Mr Liang Wei-Jun for his participation in this research project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Those means include the promotion of more China-focused exhibitions in museums and visits by mainland Chinese astronauts and Olympic medalists to Hong Kong. Refer to Vickers and Kan (2005) and Vickers (2011, p. 97) for further details.

2. What has become known as the Tiananmen Square Incident refers to student-led demonstrations in Beijing, centred largely on Tiananmen Square, calling for democracy. The democracy movement was finally suppressed by the government in a crackdown on 4 June 1989.

3. Liberal Studies remained unpopular amongst secondary school students, with only 5.3% choosing it and attempting the public examination in 2007 (HKEAA 2008).

4. Scholarism is a Hong Kong student activist group formed by secondary school students. It started life as a pressure group against the introduction of Moral and National Education.

5. These politicians included Mr Robert Chow Yung, one of the conveners of the Silent Majority for Hong Kong.

6. The EDB recommended deleting the discussion of adolescents’ motivations to participate in community affairs and the point on ‘feelings and responses towards … major events related to them’.

7. For further information, refer to the questionnaire-based survey items (Items A1 and A5-A7) related to the proposed trimming of and additions to the Liberal Studies curriculum.

8. The proposed changes were based on the completion of the Short-term Review in April 2013 and the announcement of the first batch of recommendations of the Medium-term Review in April 2014 conducted by the EDB, CDC and HKEAA (see Table 1 for further information).

9. Some parts of the results of the teachers’ responses in the survey (i.e. A1–A8 and H1–H2) are also reported in Fung, Lui, Liang, & Su (under review).

10. Some parts of the students’ responses were reported in Fung & Su (2016).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dennis Chun-Lok Fung

Dr Dennis Chun-Lok Fung is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong. He is specialized in physics education and collaborative group work. He published some international journals related to medium of instruction and science education (e.g. ‘The effects of the medium of instruction in certificate‐level physics on achievement and motivation to learn. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51(10), 1219-1245.’, ‘Group work and the learning of critical thinking in the Hong Kong secondary liberal studies curriculum. Cambridge Journal of Education, 44(2), 245-270.’ and ‘Promoting critical thinking through effective group work: A teaching intervention for Hong Kong primary school students. International Journal of Educational Research, 66, 45-62’). He is a co-investigator of the project funded by UGC-ESRC titled ‘Bilateral (Hong Kong) the effects of social pedagogic contexts in the teaching of primary mathematics: facilitating learning in two cultures’, in collaboration with the University of Cambridge. He got Doris Zimmern HKU-Cambridge Hughes Hall Fellowship in 2012 and 2015, and was a visiting scholar in the Faculty of Education, the University of Cambridge. He is currently an editorial board member of Cogent Education.

Wai-Mei Lui

Wai-Mei Lui joined The Faculty of Education in 2015 and has since then participated in education policy and pedagogical research on cognitive development, critical thinking, and joint construction of knowledge. She is the co-author of the book Education Policy Analysis: Liberal Studies and National Education in Hong Kong.