Page 71 - ALR2017 Handbook

Leading for Civic Learning:
Challenges for Hong Kong School Leaders 1

Kerry J Kennedy and Li Lijuan

Recent research has shown that schools and their leaders can exert a direct effect on
students??civic learning (Kennedy, Li & Chan, 2014; Li & Kennedy, 2015). These results
are context bound so that any prescriptions for actions by schools need to take
account of local issues confronting schools and their leaders. This is particularly
important in Hong Kong where protest mobilization among Hong Kong young adults
has become widespread (Ortman, 2014). The issue for schools is to have a clear
understanding of students??potential for future civic engagement and to develop
programmes to enable future citizens to make wise choices about how they exercise
their civic engagement options.
To provide an evidence based approach to this issue, Hong Kong young adolescents??civic beliefs and aspirations for civic engagement over ten years from 1999 to 2009
were examined using secondary data from two successive IEA studies. Conscious of the
problems of variable-centred analysis, this study used person-centred analysis to
maximize the identification of the full range of diverse views among students in two
cohorts. This methodology allowed for vertical analyses at the two separate time
points and horizontal analysis across time. The outcome was the identification of
students??civic values and aspirations as young adolescents. This provided the basis for
articulating ways that school leaders can support the civic development of young
people as they progress through adolescence and prepare for adulthood.

1 The research reported here is part of a Hong Kong SAR Central Policy Unit Public Policy Research project, Youth
radicalism in Hong Kong: Exploring changes in adolescents??civic consciousness and attitudes to the nation [PPR EdUHK
842211]. The views expressed here are those of the authors.

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