Critical pedagogy and ethnic minority students in Hong Kong: Possibilities for empowerment

Abstract

This chapter reports on the author’s use of critical ethnography over the course of four years to develop a critical pedagogy praxis, based on humanizing educational practices, meant to empower ethnic minority students at two low-prestige government subsided secondary school in Hong Kong. Within a Hong Kong educational system orienting individuals and institutions towards local and global market competition, ethnic minority students from families of low socio-economic status face persistent inequities. The chapter highlights critical pedagogy as an intervention, via Bollywood and Nepalese films as vehicles for engaging students, building critical consciousness, and moving students towards transformative forms of resistance. It concludes with a call for critical hope and suggestions for building a greater movement for critical pedagogy in Hong Kong by increasing theoretical critical deconstruction of society and education and generating critical construction of practices grounded in the local context.