University of Richmond UR Scholarship Repository School of Professional and Continuing Studies School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications 2017 Hong Kong’s Post-Colonial Education Reform: Liberal Studies as a Lens Robert W. Spires University of Richmond,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.richmond.edu/spcs-faculty-publications Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Spires, Robert. “Hong Kong’s Post-Colonial Education Reform: Liberal studies as a lens.” International Journal of Education Reform, 26:2 (2017): 156-175. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Professional and Continuing Studies at UR Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of UR Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Hong Kong’s Postcolonial Education Reform Liberal Studies as a Lens Robert Spires ABSTracT: The Hong Kong education system is at a crucial point in its trajectory, and changes to public education also reflect broader social, eco- nomic and political changes within Hong Kong and globally. Since the 1997 handover of Hong Kong from British control to China, Hong Kong has struggled to develop its own identity under the One Country, Two Systems premise. One of the compulsory courses in the Hong Kong curriculum known as liberal studies, introduced in 2009, provided a useful departure point for exploring many social tensions occurring in Hong Kong. Exploring education reform through liberal studies explains how these social tensions manifest within education, and how these educational tensions manifest within the broader society.