Yan Wing Leung

School-Based Human Rights Education: Case Studies in Hong Kong Secondary Schools.

In an era of rapid globalization, space and time are seriously compressed. People from different nations, cultures, religions and other backgrounds have become much more interconnected and interdependent. Since people are rapidly intermingling, what values should be considered as standards and norms in regulating this situation, so that people of different backgrounds can relate peacefully to each other with mutual respect? United Nations (UN) human rights standards could be considered as sets of shared global norms and values in a search for global ethics. As a consequence, the UN has been eager to promote human rights education (HRE), aiming at the cultivation of a human rights culture. This paper reports on two case studies of school‐based curriculum development of HRE in two Hong Kong secondary schools. We also recommend some research directions important for the implementation of HRE in schools. It is hoped that the paper can provide some insight into the development of quality HRE in schools.

Liberal Studies’ role in civic education: an exploratory study

Purpose – Liberal Studies (LS), as a compulsory subject for senior secondary students (S4-6) who sit for the Diploma of Secondary Education, was introduced in 2007. There has been increased discussion about merits of the subject. This paper was written based on a study the researchers conducted with LS teachers and students to probe the role LS may play in relation to civic education. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – The study employed a qualitative methodology and a series of in-depth interviews were carried out with real LS teachers and students to tap their views about LS from their lived experience. Findings – Findings suggest that LS, if conducted appropriately, can be one of vehicles of civic education particularly in such matters related to enhancing social awareness and the ability to partake in public affair debates. It can also be of potential use to nurturing civic virtues in support of democratic discussion. On the other hand, its relationship with real soc...

Construction and Validation of an Instrument Measuring Attitudes towards Human Rights of Liberal Studies Teachers in Hong Kong.

In 2009, Liberal Studies, which can be used as a platform for human rights education, was newly introduced as a compulsory subject for the senior secondary students in Hong Kong. As teacher’s attitudes impact students’ learning largely, a survey was conducted in 2010 to measure Liberal Studies teachers’ attitudes towards human rights. This article focuses on the development and validation of the questionnaire instrument measuring Liberal Studies teachers’ human rights attitudes, which is one of the pioneers in Asian societies. The dimensions of the instrument were first explored by exploratory factor analysis, and were confirmed to include Social Welfare, Civilian Constraints, Personal Liberties, Equality, Privacy – School Management and Privacy –Others. Then, the six-dimensional instrument was validated by confirmatory factor analysis and Rasch analysis. It is expected that it will serve as a base to build a potential tool for comparative study of human rights attitudes in Asian societies.

How an Advocacy NGO Can Contribute to Political Socialization: a case study in Hong Kong

This article is based on a case study done on a Hong Kong advocacy non-government organization (NGO) that has worked as a civic educator. Civic education programmes of the NGO were observed. In-depth interviews were carried out with the personnel of the NGO. The participants in the programmes were also interviewed and questionnaires were conducted to study the impact of the programmes. This article discusses the changing nature of political socialization and explores, with the help of the case study in Hong Kong, how an advocacy NGO may contribute to political socialization by serving as a civic educator. It is hoped that this work can contribute to the literature about the possible role of advocacy NGOs in political socialization, particularly in augmenting other social institutions that are also active in this realm, such as schools and churches.

Exploring school ethos: an investigation of children’s human rights in two secondary institutions in Hong Kong

From 2009 to 2011, the authors launched the Basic Law Education Project: Education for Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Hong Kong. This article focuses on a subset of the overarching data-set and discusses the findings that resulted from a comparative analysis of two participating schools. A survey was deployed to assess the extent to which a human rights friendly ethos existed in several institutions. Randomly selected students and all teachers from both schools were invited to participate. The collected data revealed noteworthy trends in mean scores between teachers and students in areas such as equal and fair treatment; protection of and appeal for rights; and feelings of being loved, respected, and blessed. School mission and leadership style appeared to account for significant differences. Additionally, we offer recommendations for practices that may improve human rights ethos in schools.