Invitational education : a qualitative study on the borrowing of values education through the perspectives of educational leaders in Hong Kong

Abstract

One of the main priorities of post-colonial Hong Kong’s 2001 educational curriculum reform has been the development of civic and moral education. Amidst Hong Kong’s reputation as an international city, its citizens’ fluctuating national identity, and globalization’s demands, citizenship education in Hong Kong calls for a thorough discernment from its educational leaders. Accordingly, globalization has triggered an acceleration of “uncritical” policy-borrowing amongst policy leaders in fear of being “left behind” global agendas or for a policy’s “symbolic qualities”. This research examines Invitational Education as a non-coerced policy in shaping Hong Kong’s citizenship education. It compares perspectives of eight educational leaders. Semi-structured interview was utilized in order to gauge firsthand the attraction, processes and challenges in implementing Invitational Education as an imported policy into local Hong Kong schools. It finds that personal values of leaders have a remarkable influence in policy importation and that Invitational Education as an imported policy is appropriate and relevant in transforming values education in Hong Kong. This study is significant in that it draws on the importance of context and the transformative approach of globalization in redefining and reshaping Hong Kong citizens into “new ethnicities”.