Multiculturalism in General Studies in Hong Kong: Towards a Global Cooperation Approach

• In Event: Interculturalism worldwide

Proposal

In our globalized and multicultural world, many people are thinking through ways to bring people together to solve serious global challenges raised by conflicts, hostility, inequality, isolation, and indifference to the plight of others. Multiculturalism that responds to social diversity in a just and effective way is increasingly deemed essential across societies, as populations shift and change in relation to globalization (Banks, 2016; Ben-Porath, 2009; Jackson, 2017). Though historically significant in the United States, multiculturalism is a relatively new field in East Asia (Jackson, 2014a, 2014b). This research chooses a typical Asian society with multiple cultures which is neglected in the literature—Hong Kong—to provide an Asian perspective on multiculturalism. In particular, we examine how curricula reflects multicultural themes in Hong Kong General Studies.
In Hong Kong, textbooks play a key role in shaping students’ basic knowledge and values, such as normalizing some things while “othering” others. In primary education, General Studies is a required subject that aims to enable students “to recognize the diversified background of Hong Kong residents” and “to respect people from different backgrounds” (CDC, 2011, pp. 31-32). This curriculum has notably come under attack in the last few years, however, as a handful of General Studies textbook pages were splashed across local and international news sites which were interpreted to support negative stereotypes of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong (Al Jazeera, 2014; Zhao, 2014). Until now, no systematic scholarly analysis of the multicultural content of resources for General Studies, which are regulated (examined and approved before they can be used) by the Education Bureau Textbook Committee, has been undertaken. The paper aims to fill this gap by employing qualitative content analysis of content that discusses or portrays ethnic minorities and majorities in Hong Kong in General Studies textbooks since 1997, when Hong Kong was handed over to China. An initial analysis of textbooks was conducted in parallel by the principal researcher and research assistant for validity. For the analysis, we translated relevant sections of texts written in Chinese. In cases where textbooks were produced in Chinese and English, the research assistant also compared these sources for differences (none were found). The analysis focuses on “latent” content (Fraenkel, Wallen & Hyun, 2015): not just the obvious presence of subject(s), but the meaning and context of references as a whole.
As Hong Kong society is majority Han, included as ethnic minorities in the study are all people/groups living in Hong Kong who are recognizable as being not of the Han group (i.e. Chinese ethnic groups other than Han; Filipinos, Indonesians, Indians, Whites, etc.). Artefacts and items explicitly connected with minority ethnicities are also included. We follow three principles for coding: comprehensiveness, transparency, and neutrality. By comprehensiveness, we mean: 1) to examine as much content in textbooks as possible and 2) to code as much relevant content as possible. Transparency implies that anyone could do the coding and analysis in a similar way and find similar things. For sources containing substantive references to related multicultural content, our primary method of coding is text coding, as this research aims to understand the latent content and the multicultural attitudes that authors of the textbooks want to instill in students. As to the principle of neutrality, to minimize subjectivity, two researchers in the team analyzed the textbooks independently from each other, and then compared the results to establish basic interpretative reliability. Any discrepancies in analyses were explored to evaluate potential differences in interpretation. In any such cases, revised coding categories were implemented in a reexamination of the data, with parallel analyses repeated until disparities were negligible. The major data source is textbooks for General Studies. The analysis includes 127 General Studies textbooks with 7 different series, which is about 36% of the 354 existing textbooks from 1997-2017. Considering that the textbooks we collect cover all the guidelines of General Studies (i.e., 1994, 2002, and 2011), they are representative samples for this paper.
After analyzing discourse evident in the textbooks, we found that multiculturalism in current Hong Kong General Studies textbooks provide a “group-paradigm”. By group-paradigm we mean that textbooks rely on the group-based way of thinking, to demarcate and portray people from different cultures and/or ethnicities. In this case, differences among peoples in the same group and commonalities across many people in different groups are ignored, overtly or covertly. For example, textbooks reinforce the links of Eastern culture (especially Chinese culture) with collectivism, compliance, and order, and contrast it with a sense of Western culture which emphasizes liberty, autonomy, and individualism. Although attaching an individual to a group would be helpful for grasping a basic understanding of the individual in relation to culture, this can also impede the individual to be understood beyond that basic understanding. It risks discouraging students from thinking beyond the limitations of this artificial framework, for understanding themselves and others with a more critical distance from such concepts as culture, religion, race, and territory. In relation, we argue that recasting the paradigm in textbooks from mostly group-based to more individual-based can help to thwart stereotypes, prejudices, fear, and hatred that a group-paradigm can enable toward “other” peoples, religious, cultures, and countries (e.g., Islam and Muslims). An individual-paradigm sees the individual not as an artifact of a group (e.g., a part of a culture, religion, or country) that one should belong to and fit in with, but as a unique person with intersectional experiences within a multicultural society. A more balanced approach to individuals in groups can also help develop student respect for fundamental differences that people have, which is a more appropriate aim of multiculturalism.

Authors

• Liz Jackson, University of Hong Kong

• Cong Lin, University of Hong Kong