Values and the new civics curriculum in Hong Kong: ethnic minority students negotiate identities

Under Chinese sovereignty since 1997, Hong Kong has a history of encouraging the development of Chinese values and national identity both in schools and among the local population generally. Anti-China protests in 2019 indicated that this goal remained problematic. Subsequently the school curriculum was revamped to make the foci of Chinese values and national identity more explicit. At the school level a compulsory senior secondary subject, Citizenship and Social Development (CSD), was introduced for this purpose. Yet there is a question about the relevance of this enhanced approach to national identity building for the city’s ethnic minorities who comprise some 3% of the school population. This study, therefore, explored how a group of ethnic minority students, who are among the first and second batch of students in the new CSD subject, responded to its focus and values. Data was drawn from two sources: the CSD curriculum documents and interviews with a sample of 20 ethnic minority students from different backgrounds. Our findings revealed that the students’ personal citizenship and cultural values exerted an influence in understanding themselves in Chinese contexts. The study concludes with an assessment of the implications of the results for the ongoing curriculum development of CSD.