Teacher self-efficacy in cultivating students to become ‘good citizens’: a Hong Kong case

ABSTRACT

Civic education is a contested subject in Hong Kong, and there is no agreement in society on what form civic education should take, which leaves each school to choose its own approach. Under these circumstances, each teacher needs greater capability and self-efficacy to develop school-based civic education. This study examined the factors that influenced Hong Kong primary school teacher confidence in teaching citizenship education with the ultimate goal of nurturing students to become ‘good citizens.’ The results of this study indicated that teacher self-efficacy was influenced by beliefs about the subject (Moral, Civic and National Education) and beliefs about teachers’ roles in the curriculum but not beliefs about teaching. Teachers felt more confident teaching social topics than political topics. While this study was conducted in the Hong Kong context, the findings could be valuable for policy makers and educators elsewhere who seek to strengthen teacher self-efficacy.

KEYWORDS:

• Teachers’ self-efficacy
• teaching social topics
• teaching political topics
• civic education

Acknowledgements

The source of this article is from the first author’s PhD thesis (‘Hong Kong Primary Teachers’ Perceptions of Moral, Civic, and National Education in Preparing Students to Become ‘Good Citizens’: A Mixed Methods Study’). Some other articles (‘Constructions of Civic Education: Hong Kong Teachers’ Perceptions of Moral, Civic and National Education’ (Wong et al. 2017a)); ‘Hong Kong Teachers’ Receptivity toward Civic Education’ (Wong et al. 2015), and ‘The Model of Teacher’s Perceptions of “Good Citizens”: Aligning with Changing Conceptions of “Good Citizens”’ (Wong et al. 2017b) are also from this thesis. These articles are focused on teachers’ constructions of civic education, teachers’ receptivity to civic education as a school-based curriculum innovation and teachers’ perceptions of ‘good citizens,’ while this article is concerned with teacher self-efficacy in teaching citizenship education.

The authors are grateful to the editors and reviewers for their critical and constructive comments on improving this article. They would like to thank the Department of Education Policy and Leadership and the Centre for Religious and Spirituality Education, The Education University of Hong Kong for supporting the preparation of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interests was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Koon Lin Wong

Wong Koon Lin Linnie is Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Policy and Leadership, The Education University of Hong Kong. She has developed a two-level conceptual model of the effects of school leadership on civic teaching. Linnie has participated in various research projects over the past 10 years (such as participatory citizenship, applied learning, curriculum reform, work-based learning, Hong Kong refugees, teachers’ perceptions of citizenship education, school leadership for civic learning) and has been involved in international projects such as research undertaken on a UNESCO project on out-of-school children, comparison of higher education study for Asia-Pacific region students, and teacher preparation programs in Mainland China.

Chi Kin John Lee

John Chi-Kin Lee is Vice President (Academic), Chair Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and the Director of the Centre for Religious and Spirituality Education at the Education University of Hong Kong. He was Dean of Education and Professor of Department of Curriculum and Instruction at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He has served as Changjiang Scholar Chair Professor, the Regional Editor (Asia-Pacific) of Educational Research and Evaluation and Executive Editor of Teachers and Teaching as well as editorial board member or advisory editor of many local, regional and international journals.

Kin Sang Jacqueline Chan

Chan, Kin-sang Jacqueline is currently an adjunct associate professor of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, The Education University of Hong Kong. She has been actively involved in a number of grant projects in areas of curriculum policy and implementation, assessment policy and implementation, students’ learning, and teachers’ development in various reforms such as the integrated curriculum in various forms, service learning, and the new senior secondary curriculum reform in Hong Kong. Her research areas include curriculum studies, curriculum policy and implementation, and teachers’ development in school contexts.

Kerry John Kennedy

Kerry J. Kennedy is currently Advisor (Academic Development) and Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Governance and Citizenship at The Education University of Hong Kong. He is also a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Curriculum Studies in the Faculty of Education at the University of Johannesburg. He is the Series Editor of Routledge’s Schools and Schooling in Asia Series, the Asia-Europe Education Dialogue Series and the newly established Perspectives on Education in Africa Series. He is also Co-Series Editor of Springer’s Governance and Citizenship in Asia Series. His most recent book is the co-edited Young People and Active Citizenship in Post-Soviet Times – A Challenge for Citizenship Education (Routledge, 2018). His most recent publication, co-edited with Professor John C. K. Lee, is Routledge’s International Handbook of Schools and Schooling in Asia, released in May 2018.