Chapter 3

Review of Curriculum Literature

In the foregoing historiographical discussion, the issue of how cultural

differences ought to be conceptualised was addressed. It was argued there that the
mystification of ‘culture’, as of ‘race’, in China as in other parts of the world, both
arises from and reinforces an ahistorical view of the past. In opposition to
deterministic visions of ‘cultures’ as monolithic and impermeable, an approach to
history and tradition was proposed which not only allows but indeed requires us to
adopt a critical stance in our analysis of culture, seeing it as historically constructed,
complex, varied and subject to change. This does not by any means imply a denial of
the reality of cultural difference; it merely asserts the possibility of analysing that
difference critically from a historical perspective – a possibility that a number of
scholars have called into question by treating culture as ‘a rationale or means for
placing individuals, organisations, socities or even nations into straightjackets of
incommensurable difference’.1 This view of culture has demonstrated, as Limerick
has observed, ‘a startling ability to bring critical inquiry to a halt’. 2 As was argued in
Chapter 2, and is demonstrated in subsequent chapters, the question of how ‘culture’
should be defined or interpreted is particularly crucial to an analysis of the
development of Hong Kong’s History curriculum.
The present chapter reviews approaches to curriculum history, relating these
to the historiographical categories identified in the previous chapter, and attempts to
provide a comparative perspective on visions of history teaching that have been
espoused in various parts of the world at various times. Particular attention is
devoted to the question of how external influences on curricula, or inter-cultural
exchanges of influence, have been and ought to be interpreted. Since, in the case of
Hong Kong, much of that influence has come from England (see Chapters 6-9
below), a large proportion of the research discussed below relates to history teaching
there. However, reference is also made to developments in mainland China, Taiwan,
and other countries both in Asia and Europe. The discussion of research on history
curricula examines the content and aims of official curricula, the curriculum
1
Diane M. Hoffman, ‘Culture and Comparative Education: Toward Decentering and Recentering the
Discourse’ (Comparative Education Review, vol. 43, no. 4), p. 465
2
quoted in ibid., p. 465

60
development process, and issues and problems related to implementation – the areas
with which the present study is principally concerned.
This analysis of existing literature provides the context for the analysis in
later chapters of how and why the curriculum for history in Hong Kong has been
unique or peculiar. It is suggested that, while the role of ‘culture’ cannot be
discounted, this needs to be seen against the background of the social and political
history which has been the context for the development of the overall system of
schooling, as well as of the individual subject of History. Nor is this social and
political context explicable in terms of simplistic assumptions concerning the impact
of ‘colonialism’ versus the resistance of ‘Chinese culture’. For this reason, Hong
Kong’s political, educational and cultural history over the past forty years are
discussed separately and in greater depth in Chapter 5.

I. History and Ideology in the Study of the Curriculum

The purpose of this section is to review the state of curriculum history as a

field of study, with particular reference to areas which have, or may be presumed to
have, especial relevance to this research: colonialism in education, the history of
school subjects, curriculum and the state, and the issues of objectivity, relativism and
truth. Although several references are made to literature on the broader Hong Kong
curriculum, discussion of this is largely left until Chapter 5. In the current section,
the focus is on general approaches to the history of curriculum as they relate to the
types of history outlined in the preceding chapter. The aim is to show what kinds of
approaches to curriculum history have been practised by scholars in the field, to
compare and criticise these approaches, demonstrating in the process where the
present study is located in relation to them.

Positivism, Social Science, and Ahistoricism in the Study of Curriculum

One common theme in English and American literature on curriculum history

over the past two decades has been a lament over the traditional ahistoricism, or the
ignorance of and inattention to history which has tended to characterise studies of
the school curriculum. Goodson, for example, notes that a Whiggish ‘Acts and Facts’
approach to curriculum history has typified much of the relatively small amount of

61
work done on the history of the school curriculum in England. 3 Similarly, Kliebard
has described American curriculum history as having roots in ‘a history of education
for which the past was simply the present “writ small”’. 4 Writing in 1986, Reid
complained that ‘curriculum study has tended not merely to be ignorant of, but even
to be positively opposed to historical research, since the past has often been
represented as a dark age to be forgotten in the search for a brighter future.’5
This faith in progress was linked with a faith in science – a belief, as Pinar
puts it, ‘that more effective knowledge awaited more refined and rigorous scientific
experimentation.’6 It is this kind of naïve positivism that Kliebard and others see as
underlying the reformist, almost missionary zeal with which educationalists and
administrators set about expanding educational provision in developed and
developing countries up to the 1960s and 1970s.7 The emphasis in educational
research was overwhelmingly on quantitative, statistical research at the expense of
historical, cultural and social contextualization. As Arnove, Altbach and Kelly
observe, ‘the debates characterizing the field [in this case that of Comparative
Education in the United States] were over method and these came to focus on
applying even more rigorous “scientific methods” to research and on making the
field heavily quantitative relying on statistical techniques.’8
In tandem with this emphasis on ‘scientific methods’ in research went a
concern to ensure the effective teaching of ‘given’ subjects, with very little reflection
on where those subjects came from or how they had been constructed over time.
Carr and Kemmis have commented at length on the ‘unreflective’ nature of the
traditional field9, while Goodson and Kliebard have noted the relative lack of
research into subject content, and the relatively unchanging contours of the school
subject landscape over the past hundred years in England and America. 10
Nonetheless, the past thirty years have seen a reaction in the curriculum studies field
against approaches which, if they gave any attention to history whatsoever, tended to

3
Ivor Goodson, ‘The Making of Curriculum’ (Falmer, 1995), pp. 41-58
4
Herbert M. Kliebard, ‘Constructing a History of the American Curriculum’, in Jackson, ed.
‘Handbook of Research on Curriculum’ (Macmillan, 1992), p. 181
5
quoted in William F. Pinar et al., ‘Understanding Curriculum’ (1996, Peter Lang), p. 42; See also the
work of Harold Silver and Brian Simon, cited in Chapter 4 below.
6
Pinar, op. cit., p. 42
7
Kliebard, op. cit.
8
Robert F. Arnove, Philip G. Altbach and Gail P. Kelly, ed.s, ‘Emergent Issues in Education:
Comparative Perspectives’ (Suny, 1992), p.15
9
Wilfred Carr and Stephen Kemmis, ‘Becoming Critical’ (Falmer Press, 1986), Ch. 2
10
Goodson, op. cit. and ‘Studying Curriculum’ (Open University Press, 1994); Kliebard, op. cit.

62
treat it in an unreflective, scissors-and-paste (or, as Goodson puts it, an ‘Acts and
Facts’) fashion. Noah and Eckstein suggest that one of the main causes of this
reaction may have been the perceived failure of education to deliver the benefits that
had been expected of it, for example in terms of eliminating poverty and acting as ‘a
sovereign remedy for the ills of the world.’ 11 The reaction largely manifested itself,
however, in a wave of ideologically-inspired research which has yet to subside, and
an agonising over the theoretical problems of objectivity and status of curricular
‘knowledge’ which continues to mark much research in the fields of curriculum
history and comparative education to this day.

The Conceptualisation of External Influences on ‘Colonial’ Curricula

Since the 1970s many scholars have turned to ‘dependency theory’ and ideas
of ‘cultural imperialism’ or ‘hegemony’ to explain the problems not only of colonial
and postcolonial education systems around the world, but also of educational
provision for underprivileged sections of the populations of developed countries. In
‘Education as Cultural Imperialism’, in many ways the founding text of this school
of thought, Carnoy asserted that

‘Western formal education came to most countries as part of imperialist domination. It was
consistent with the goals of imperialism: the economic and political control of the people in
one country by the dominant class of another.’12

Similarly, Altbach and Kelly have characterised the literature on colonial education
as having ‘told us what those who ran the schools wished to have them accomplish –
which, put quite simply, was to assist in the consolidation of foreign rule.’ 13
Meanwhile, Michael Apple, in works such as ‘Ideology and Curriculum’, has sought
to show that what Carnoy claims to have been true of colonial education systems is
true also of education systems in developed societies. Apple argues that ‘bourgeois’
interests have managed to control education systems for the purpose of reinforcing

11
Harold J. Noah and Max A. Eckstein, ‘Dependency Theory in Comparative Education’, in ‘Doing
Comparative Education: Three Decades of Collaboration’ (Comparative Education Research Centre,
The University of Hong Kong, 1998), p. 89
12
Martin Carnoy, ‘Education as Cultural Imperialism’ (D. Mackay Co., 1974), p. 3
13
Altbach and Kelly (ed.s), ‘Education and the Colonial Experience’ (Transaction Books, 1984), p. 1

63
their own economic and ideological hegemony. 14 In the same way, with regard to
colonial education, Carnoy asserts that:

‘European education created ‘sensible’ values of liberty and freedom, ones that were derived
from European standards of conduct and were likely to produce a continuing cultural and
economic dependency on the ex-colonial countries. As an alternative to the kind of
resistance colonization produced by the uneducated, schooling served Britain and France
well.’15

Carnoy is here developing an argument similar to that put forward in the late1940s
by Furnivall, to the effect that colonial education policy sought to transform society
to a westernized viewpoint.16 The purpose of this transformation, according to
Carnoy, was to build ‘a cultural dependency among the educated and ruling classes
so that revolutionary overthrow would never be a likely alternative.’ 17 Altbach
argues that such a cultural dependency can be sustained and even strengthened after
the granting of political independence to former colonies, in particular through
academic exchanges between universities in developed Western countries and those
in poorer former colonies, as well as through the dominance of local textbook
markets in parts of ex-colonial Africa and Asia by large multinational publishing
houses.18
In some ways the theories of Meyer regarding the effects of globalisation on
education represent the most recent variant of the ‘cultural dependency’ thesis.19
Meyer and his colleagues and students posit a direct causal relationship between
what they perceive as a monolithic ‘global [i.e. Western] culture’ and education
policies in non-Western, largely Third World states. Hence Yun-kyun Cha writes that

‘…the school curriculum is a ritual enactment of worldwide educational norms and

conventions rather than instrumental choice of individual societies to meet various local
requirements. The definition of legitimate knowledge to be taught in schools, and the
14
Michael W. Apple, ‘Ideology and Curriculum’ (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979)
15
Carnoy, op. cit., p. 143
16
J. S. Furnivall, ‘Colonial Policy and Practice’ (Cambridge University Press, 1948)
17
paraphrased by Keith Watson in Watson, ed. ‘Education in the Third World’ (Croom Helm, 1982),
p. 33
18
Philip Altbach, ‘The Distribution of Knowledge in the Third World: A Case Study in
Neocolonialism’ in Altbach and Kelly ed.s, op. cit., pp. 229-251; and ‘Textbooks: The International
Dimension’, in Apple and Christian-Smith ed.s, ‘The Politics of the Textbook’ (Routledge, 1991), pp.
242-258
19
John W. Meyer, David H. Kamens, and Aaron Benavot (ed.s), ‘School Knowledge for the Masses:
World Models and Curricular Categories in the Twentieth Century’ (Falmer Press, 1992)

64
 selection and hierarchical organization of such bodies of knowledge are thus by and large
“externally” prescribed. At the core of the prescription lies “rational” discourse on how the
socialization of children in various subject areas is linked to the self-realization of the
individual and, ultimately, to the construction of an ideal society. The discourse is highly
standardized and universalistic in character.’20

Kamens and Benavot see the power of Western culture as determining the direction
of educational change worldwide, even to the extent of asserting that ‘curricular
content’ is ‘institutionalised at the world level’,21 though unlike Carnoy they see
supranational forces playing a more subtle ‘capacitating’ rather than an ‘impact’
role.22
This ‘Common World Educational Culture’ thesis has been criticised by
Dale.23 Although he recognises the importance of supranational forces, as well as
‘the possibility that policy goals as well as policy processes can be affected by
external influences on national education policies’,24 he questions Meyer’s
assumptions of cultural determinism. Dale insists that ‘the existence of a world
curriculum has to be demonstrated rather than assumed’, and that such a
demonstration would entail not merely identifying similarities in the language of
official curriculum definition, but also an investigation of ‘how,… and with what
effects, curriculum [is] devised, diffused and implemented.’ 25 In particular, he
emphasises the importance of seeing educational policies not as the product of
culturally-determined ‘irrational whims’, but rather ‘as means by which states
attempt to defend and extend their interests’.26
Many of the problems with theories of cultural dependency, such as that
criticised here by Dale, stem from a view of culture which sees it in Spengler’s terms
as ‘a discrete phenomenon of nature’.27 In discussing the use made of ‘culture’ in
comparative educational reseach, Hoffman notes the common tendency, amongst
both educational researchers and ‘elite third world nationalists’, to construct
20
Yun-kyung Cha, ‘The Origins and Expansion of Primary School Curricula, 1800-1920’, in Meyer,
Kamens and Benavot (ed.s), op. cit., p. 65
21
David H. Kamens and Aaron Benavot, ‘A Comparative Historical Analysis of Mathematics and
Science Curricula’, in Meyer, Kamens and Benavot (ed.s), op. cit., p. 104
22
Paul Streeten, ‘Human Development: The Debate about the Index’ (International Social Science
Journal 47, 1 (143), 25-37, 1995)
23
Roger Dale, ‘Globalization and Education: Demonstrating a “Common World Educational
Culture”, or locating a “Globally Structured Educational Agenda”?’ (forthcoming article)
24
Ibid.
25
Ibid.
26
Ibid.
27
See Chapter 2 above

65
indigenous cultures around the theme of ‘authenticity’. 28 She observes, however, that
such conceptions often fail to address the question of ‘Who owns or defines the
authentic?’.29 For some anthropologists, she remarks, culture ‘is fundamentally
suspect because it is frequently reified and essentialized in social analysis, becoming
a force or thing with a life of its own that determines how people behave.’30
Generalisations about colonial education policies, often based on a similar
concept of ‘culture’, have been challenged by a number of scholars, usually on the
grounds that they offer an unduly uniform and deterministic interpretation of
colonialism which ignores the wide variations between different colonies of different
colonial powers at different times. This is the thrust of Watson and Whitehead’s
analysis of British colonial education policy, which challenges Carnoy’s claim that
‘the primary purpose of [colonial] schooling was control’. 31 On the contrary, they
argue, the British, in contrast to the French and the Dutch, were extremely slow to
develop an overall, coherent educational policy for their colonies.32 When they
started to do so in the interwar period, the British tried to encourage programmes of
vocational and technical education, very much along the lines of those which
organisations like the World Bank and UNESCO have tried to promote more
recently, which were seen as more suited to local needs, only to find that such
schemes, where implemented, tended to be subverted by the desire of Africans and
Asians to send their sons to academic, English-medium schools.33 As Whitehead has
put it,

‘Africans and Asians alike viewed an English academic education as the means to social and
economic advantage and, for some, eventual political power. Anything less was regarded as
second rate. In retrospect, it seems pointless to condemn the British for circumstances
beyond their control…. In the final analysis the major characteristics of British colonial
education policy owed more to the volition of the governed than to the persuasive power of
officials.’34

28
Hoffman, op. cit., p. 467
29
Ibid.
30
Ibid., p. 466
31
paraphrased by Watson, op. cit., p. 33
32
Clive Whitehead and Keith Watson, in Watson, ed., op. cit.. As Andy Green (‘Education and State
Formation’ (Macmillan, 1990)) has shown, national education policy in England tended to exhibit a
similar incoherence.
33
Whitehead and Watson, op. cit.; See also Ball, ‘Imperialism, Social Control and the Colonial
Curriculum in Africa’, in Goodson and Ball, ed.s, ‘Defining the Curriculum’ (Falmer, 1984)
34
Clive Whitehead, in Watson ed., op. cit. (1982), p. 58

66
This view contrasts markedly with Pennycook’s assumption that schooling in Hong
Kong, and in particular the use of English as the medium of instruction, have been
part and parcel of a system of colonial oppression. The thorny issue of medium of
instruction policy is discussed further in Chapter 5.
Like Pennycook, scholars such as Altbach, Kelly, Carnoy, Freire and
Bullivant argue that this desire among colonial and ex-colonial peoples to borrow
educational models and expertise from the West is evidence of some sinister and
subtle hegemonist conspiracy by Western governments and institutions – a
conspiracy so subtle that most of its victims have not perceived it as such.35 This
‘implication that the majority of humanity are dupes’ has been attacked by Noah and
Eckstein,36 who point out that ‘we have plenty of evidence of successful challenge
by the periphery to the power of the center’. 37 Contrary to the assertions of
dependency theorists, Noah and Eckstein maintain that ‘the resilience and vigour of
nationalism, local and national languages, and national cultures and historical
traditions continue to mock all forecasts about the growth of a global [Westernised]
culture.’38 Indeed, Kelly herself has noted the ways in which Vietnamese teachers
during the period of French rule managed to turn the externally imposed school
system to their own purposes so that, despite all the powers at their disposal, the goal
of reproduction of French ideas and values in the minds of the Vietnamese was never
achieved.39 Nonetheless, Kelly, like Altbach and Bullivant, equivocates when the
evidence threatens to undermine her ideological preconceptions, settling for the
cautious verdict that ‘In some instances… reproduction may be less than perfect.’40
The theories of ‘dependency’ and ‘neocolonialism’ which Altbach, Kelly,
Carnoy and others have developed have been very influential in studies of former-
colonial and Third World education systems generally, claiming as they do to explain
how Western, developed countries and their institutions maintain a cultural as well
as an economic and political grip over less developed countries after the latter have
gained their political independence. In the case of Hong Kong, assumptions of some
35
Altbach and Kelly, op.s cit.; Carnoy, op. cit.; Freire, ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ (Herder and
Herder, 1972); Bullivant, ‘Cultural Reproduction in Fiji: Who Controls Knowledge/Power?’
(Comparative Education Review 20, February, 1976), pp. 1-10. Note Bullivant’s use of Foucault’s
‘knowledge/power’ concept here.
36
Noah and Eckstein, op. cit., p. 88
37
Ibid., p. 86
38
Ibid., p. 86
39
Kelly, ‘Teachers and the Transmission of State Knowledge: A Case Study of Colonial Vietnam’, in
Altbach, Kelly and Arnove (eds.), ‘Comparative Education’ (Macmillan, 1982)pp. 176-194
40
Ibid., p. 190

67
kind of neocolonial conspiracy on the part of the British administration have, as
noted in Chapter 1, been made by politicians, journalists and academics. Ming K.
Chan, for example, in the preface to a 1992 volume on ‘Education and Society in
Hong Kong’, wrote that

‘there lurks the real danger of neo-colonial restoration by the sunset regime in ensuring that
education will continue to be a key element of continued British influence in Hong Kong
even after 1997 through the socialisation of the local elites.’41

Chan’s implications regarding British neocolonial intrigue, however, are not

substantiated by the other articles in the same volume. Julian Y.M. Leung remarks in
the final chapter that

‘It is common to find in Hong Kong educators attributing educational problems such as
juvenile delinquency and underinvestment in pre-school education to the evils of ‘colonial
education’, often without any in-depth analysis.’42

Leung’s comment echoes the arguments of Noah and Eckstein when they
accuse dependency theorists of massive over-simplification in their analyses of
colonial education systems, and of tending to easily towards ‘a saints and sinners
interpretation of the world’,43 one that ‘is probably more a matter of faith and values
than social science’.44 Indeed, Noah and Eckstein maintain that much research on
colonial education has been undertaken from a distinctly Marxist, determinist
position. They imply that many scholars have been hard at work with the scissors
and paste, attempting to fit often recalcitrant evidence into pre-ordained theoretical
frameworks which demonise Western influences and institutions:

‘An important objection to this generally rousing tale, is that institutions (schools,
universities, foundations, textbook publishers, information and communications enterprises,
governmental aid agencies, and so forth), the whole apparatus of putative hegemonic power,
cannot have intent and purposefulness ascribed to them. Only human beings have purpose,
and the habit of confusing purpose with tendency, and then of making moral judgements

41
Ming K. Chan, ‘Series Editor’s General Foreword’, in Postiglione (ed.) ‘Education and Society in
Hong Kong’ (Hong Kong University Press, 1992)
42
Julian Y.M. Leung, ‘Education in Hong Kong and China: Toward Convergence?’, in Postiglione
(ed.), op. cit., p. 268
43
Noah and Eckstein, op. cit., p. 88
44
Ibid., p. 89

68
 about tendencies, combines to produce a simplistic view of educational and cultural
change.’45

This criticism echoes Berlin’s more general criticism of deterministic theories of

history cited in Chapter 2.46 Watson, Whitehead and, in Hong Kong, Sweeting, do
not attempt to deny that colonial policies, administrators or colonial institutions may
have influenced the kind of education that was offered in colonial schools, but they
regard such intellectual tools as ‘dependency theory’, ‘neocolonialism’ or ‘cultural
imperialism’ as, at best, blunt instruments with which to analyse the realities of
colonial education systems.47 In the view of Noah and Eckstein, such theories ‘[do]
not help to control bias in research, nor [do they] help researchers make good use of
counterfactual evidence to improve their theoretical models.’48 Indeed, in this view
the domination by neo-Marxism of so much research into colonial and Third World
education systems in the past few decades would seem to bear out Windschuttle’s
dictum concerning overarching, determinist theories of history which ‘might seem to
have universal application [but] very often reflect more about the time and place in
which they were produced than anything else.’49
In Chapter 5 the question will be addressed as to the extent to which Hong
Kong during the last two decades of British rule can in fact be seen as conforming to
any kind of ‘colonial’ model, and therefore how legitimate it is to apply theories of
‘colonialism’, whatever their merits, to any analysis of Hong Kong during this
period. An alternative model is suggested of colonialism in Hong Kong, which sees
it as a system of collaboration rather than simply as one of political, economic or
cultural oppression versus resistance. However, regardless of how useful it may be to
compare the Hong Kong of recent years with other colonies, there remains a very
noticeable gap in the relatively limited body of research on colonial education
systems: namely, the lack of in-depth research into the development of particular
school subjects. While Altbach and Kelly, for example, state that ‘what history was
taught (in colonies) revealed a devaluation of indigenous cultures’, 50 little evidence
is advanced to support this claim, or to distinguish between history curricula in
45
Ibid., pp. 86-7
46
See Chapter 2, n. 25
47
Watson and Whitehead, op.s cit.; Anthony Sweeting, ‘Hong Kong Education within Historical
Processes’, in Postiglione (ed.), op. cit., pp. 39-82.
48
Noah and Eckstein, op. cit., p. 88
49
Keith Windschuttle, ‘The Killing Of History’ (The Free Press, 1996), p. 177
50
Altbach and Kelly, ‘Education and the Colonial Experience’, p. 5

69
different colonies at different times. There would, therefore, seem to be a need for
studies such as the present one which attempt, amongst other things, to show the true
relationship between alleged ‘colonial’ or ‘neocolonial’ influences and the detailed
curriculum of a particular subject in particular colony at a particular time.

Postmodern ‘discourses’ in Curriculum Studies

As was noted in Chapter 2, many disillusioned Marxists and critics of ‘the

West’ or the ‘bourgeois’ establishment have in recent years turned to postmodern and
postcolonial theory for inspiration. Foucault and Said in particular have come to be
regarded with awed reverence by many academic historians around the world, much
to the alarm of more orthodox historians such as Windschuttle and Evans.51 The
latter have criticised many postmodernists for, amongst other things, their intense
dogmatism and resistance to criticism, and their tendency to waive the normal rules
of evidence under the excuse that all truth is relative, and claim that ‘facts’ are
irrelevant or non-existent. Windschuttle has voiced concern over what he sees as a
creeping postmodernist putsch in the history departments of Australian universities. 52
In the field of curriculum studies, however, it would seem as if, at least in the United
States, the postmodernist revolution has already been largely accomplished.
Evidence for this can be seen in the organising principle adopted in a recently
published textbook surveying the American curriculum studies field, edited by Pinar,
Reynolds, Slattery and Taubman. In this book, the poststructuralist term ‘text’ is
applied to various different ways of looking at the curriculum, with each chapter
devoted to a particular ‘text’ or ‘discourse’ – ‘Curriculum as Historical Text’,
‘Curriculum as Political Text’, ‘Curriculum as Gender Text,… as Racial Text,… as
Poststructuralist, Deconstructed, Postmodern Text,… as Aesthetic Text’, and so on.53
Many curriculum scholars have in recent years attempted to apply
Foucauldian analysis in their work, including some like Stephen Ball who would
hesitate to describe themselves as ‘postmodernists’54. Ball is concerned, as are more

51
See Chapter 2
52
Windschuttle, op. cit., Chapter 1
53
Pinar et al. (ed.s), ‘Understanding Curriculum’ (Peter Lang, 1996)
54
Stephen Ball, ‘Politics and Policymaking in Education’ (Routledge, 1990), and ‘Global Trends in
Educational Reform and the Struggle for the Soul of the Teacher’ (The Chinese University of Hong
Kong, Wei Lun Lecture, 27 November, 1998)

70
out-and-out postmodernists like Cherryholmes, McLaren or Bauman 55, with the way
in which particular ways of looking at the curriculum and pedagogy are freighted
with particular sets of values, and he shares the distaste of many English and
American educationalists for modern Western consumer culture and its
encouragement of ‘competitive individualism and instrumentality.’56 In reaction to
the perceived soullessness of consumerism, and what Ball calls ‘the rational, grey
calculability of reform’57, Woods calls for teaching to achieve ‘authenticity’ by
having an ‘emotional heart’58, while Hargreaves argues that ‘without desire, teaching
becomes arid and empty. It loses its meaning.’59 McLaren calls for a ‘critical
pedagogy’ the task of which is

‘to provide students the discursive… means to understand ideological dimensions of their
experiences, deep memories, psychological blockages, and passionate investments in
everyday life and relate these to material and symbolic structures of power operating in the
larger contexts of social life.’60

Other scholars, however, remain deeply dissatisfied with and suspicious of

this kind of appeal for curriculum research to somehow become culturally or
emotionally ‘authentic’. Pinar and his co-authors themselves raise the possibility that
McLaren is ‘proposing… a mixture of phenomenology and Marxism dressed up in
postmodern clothes’61, and they pose, while not seriously attempting to answer, the
following question:

‘If the discourses of phenomenology, autobiography, feminism, multiculturalism, politics,

and poststructuralism are all simply different discourses which construct different objects or
“figures” of study, then what are the relationships among them all, and what criteria might
one employ to choose one over the other at any particular moment?’62

55
On Cherryholmes and McLaren, see Pinar, op. cit., Chapter 9; also Zygmunt Bauman, ‘Mortality,
Immortality and Other Life Strategies’ (Stanford University Press, 1992)
56
Ball, ‘Global Trends in Educational Reform…’, p. 5
57
Ibid., p. 11
58
P. Woods, ‘Researching the Art of Teaching: ethnography for educational use’ (Routledge, 1996)
59
A. Hargreaves, ‘Changing Teachers, Changing Times’ (Cassell, 1994), p. 12
60
P. McLaren, ‘Critical pedagogy, postcolonial politics, and redemptive remembrance’, in ‘Fortieth
Yearbook, National Reading Conference’ (Chicago, 1991), p. 10
61
Pinar, op. cit., p. 513
62
Ibid., p. 514

71
However, for Eisner, and ultimately for Pinar too, the ever-increasing variety of
these discourses is a cause for celebration rather than anxiety. 63 As Eisner puts it,
‘Helping people participate in a plurality of worlds made, I believe, is what
education ought to try to achieve. The ability to participate in a variety of worlds
need not lead to a Tower of Babel.’64
Eisner criticises the identification of objectivity as ‘isomorphic with
reality’,65 and to this extent Eisner and other scholars influenced by postmodernism
are at one with Collingwood, MacIntyre, Berlin and Popper, and indeed with many
of their critics in the curriculum studies field. However, the tendency of many
scholars in the contemporary curriculum field to downplay the need for ‘objectivity’,
and to see ‘truth’ as entirely subjective and individual, has come under attack.
Phillips, for example, while accepting that ‘truth’ can never be entirely certain or
absolute, insists (in terms that echo MacIntyre 66) that ‘the presence of a critical
tradition is the best safeguard’67 against bias in qualitative research. Bridges,
meanwhile, accuses postmodernist scholars, in particular Guba and Lincoln in their
work on qualitative research, of disingenuousness in their apparent disavowals of
concern for truth, and argues that such scholars ‘almost inevitably get drawn into
forms of expression which imply the truth of what is asserted.’68
This observation reflects the similar criticisms made of Foucault by Merquior
and MacIntyre, which were discussed in the previous chapter. 69 Foucault’s
declaration that he was writing ‘fiction’ did not, Merquior points out, alter his
insistence that others should believe his arguments.70 ‘Foucault does not,’ he writes,
‘give up at least one truth claim: that his own analytics of power is true.’ 71 In
weakening or ignoring conventional rules of evidence, Foucauldian and similar
approaches towards research tend to legitimate forms of research that are little more
than ‘flights into fancy’72 or, in Jackson’s words, ‘[journeys] among appealing

63
Elliot Eisner, ‘Objectivity in Educational Research’, in M. Hammersley (ed.), ‘Educational
Research: Current Issues’ (The Open University, 1996), pp. 49-56; Pinar, op. cit., Chapter 15
64
Eisner, op. cit., p. 54
65
quoted in Phillips, ‘Subjectivity and Objectivity: An Objective Enquiry’, in Hammersly (ed.), op.
cit., p. 62
66
MacIntyre, op. cit., Chapter 15
67
Phillips, op. cit., p. 69
68
Bridges, ‘Educational Research: Pursuit of Truth or Flight into Fancy?’ (British Educational
Research Asoociation Conference, Belfast 27-30 August, 1998), p. 12
69
See Chapter 2, above.
70
Ibid., Chapter 10
71
Ibid., p. 146
72
Bridges, op. cit.

72
fictions’, lacking ‘rigor of thought’.73 The uses and abuses of postmodernist and
postcolonialist ideas in historical research were discussed in the previous chapter,
and the influence of these ideas on the development of, and research into, school
history curricula will be examined below. Postmodernist ideas with their roots in
Foucauldian analysis have deeply influenced, for example, the work of Jenkins,
Brickley and, to a lesser extent, Phillips on the development of history within
England’s national curriculum.74 Meanwhile, Pennycook’s recent work on the
English language and colonial education has posited a postmodernist interpretation
of education policy in Hong Kong.75

Education and State Formation

A number of scholars have concentrated their attention on the relationship
between education policy and the state. Dale and Apple,76 for example, share many
of the concerns expressed by Ball regarding the march of consumerist and
managerialist ethics into the sphere of educational policymaking, 77 and see recent
developments in educational policy in Britain and America in a very negative light.
However, despite his use of terms such as ‘class struggle’ and ‘the capitalist state’,
and an overall left-wing orientation, Dale’s approach is not one of economic, cultural
or linguistic reductionism. While he sees the state’s attitude to education as the
product of a nexus of established interests among which those of the business
community have become increasingly prominent, he views the state not as some
monolithic entity, but as an arena for conflict between often contradictory interest
groups, including bureaucrats, teachers, unions, politicians, publishers and the
media.
Among those features of the recent debate over education policy in
‘capitalist’ countries which Dale and Apple (as well as Ball) view with disquiet are
the complaints from the political right concerning, amongst other things, its
supposed ‘lack of patriotism’.78 The way in which such concerns have influenced
debate over the history curriculum specifically will be examined in subsequent
73
Philip Jackson, ‘Response to Maxine Green’ (Curriculum Inquiry, 10 (2), 1980), p. 177
74
See Section B below
75
Alistair Pennycook, ‘English and the Discourse of Colonialism in Hong Kong’ (Routledge, 1998),
See Chapters 1 and 2 above
76
Dale, ‘The State and Education Policy’ (Open University Press, 1989), and Apple, ‘Critical
Introduction’
77
Ball, op.s cit.
78
Apple, in ibid., p. 5; Ball, op.s cit.

73
sections. However, concerns to use history in particular to develop patriotic
sentiment and inculcate nationalist ideology have, as noted in Chapter 2 and below,
featured prominently in academic and educational circles in many countries at
various times. While Dale (or Apple or Ball) do not really look beyond England or
America for examples of the use of education to create or bolster patriotism and
contribute to the task of state formation, Green has attempted to provide a
comparative, historical perspective on this phenomenon by looking at the
development of state systems of education in various European and Asian countries,
and particularly in what he terms ‘developmental states’.79 In East Asia in particular,
he argues that whereas other scholars have seen the primary motivation for
educational development as economic, it in fact ‘lies in the drive towards achieving
national identity and cohesion.’80 He describes how ‘national curricula in most of the
East Asian states reserve a central place for learning which encourages moral
understanding and which promotes social cohesion through appreciation of national
traditions and goals and the meaning of citizenship.’81 With respect to Hong Kong,
meanwhile, Morris has argued that classroom culture here as elsewhere in East Asia
tends to stress a ‘morality of aspiration’, but that, in contrast to other East Asian
societies, 'levels of loyalty to the state (both the colonial and mainland varieties) are
extremely low in Hong Kong and this is consistent with the promotion of a
depoliticized curriculum.’82
Green has shown how the differing nature of the state in Germany, France,
Britain and the United States helped to shape the development of national education
systems in those countries. He emphasises also the way in which those states
themselves, and the values or ‘culture’ which have characterised them, were
moulded by history. Thus, on the continent of Europe,

‘in those countries where the attainment of national unity, both cultural and territorial, was
particularly delayed and protracted or characterized by long periods of military conflict,
nationalism became an important factor in state formation. In many states [e.g. Prussia], in
fact, the creation of the modern bourgeois state and the rise of nationalist movements were
inseparable.’83
79
Andy Green, ‘Education and State Formation in Europe and Asia’, in Kennedy (ed.), ‘Citizenship
Education and the Modern State’ (Falmer, 1997)
80
Ibid., p. 26
81
Ibid., p. 25
82
Morris, ‘Civics and Citizenship Education in Hong Kong’, in Kennedy (ed.), op. cit., p. 124
83
Andy Green, ‘Education and State Formation’ (Macmillan, 1990), p. 109

74
The education system which arose in Prussia, and later Germany, was from the start
a state-run system dedicated to the purpose of inculcating loyalty to the Junker-
dominated state and to fostering in students the bureaucratic and military skills
particularly required by that state. The Prussian system of schooling was
characterised by A.J.P. Taylor as ‘a massive engine of conquest’. 84 French state
education represented, in the words of Zeldin, ‘an organized onslaught on regional
and local eccentricity’.85 Durkheim reflected mainstream nineteenth-century
European assumptions concerning the purposes of education when he wrote:

“Society can only exist if there exists among its members a sufficient degree of homogeneity.
Education perpetuates and reinforces this homogeneity by fixing in the child, from the
beginning, the essential similarities that collective life demands.” 86

In England and America, however, a more laissez-faire approach to education

predominated. In America, there was a popular drive to establish schools, largely
inspired by a desire to inculcate republican virtue, morality and a respect for social
order. In England, the early establishment of a nation state, and a more

84
quoted in ibid., p. 32
85
quoted in ibid., p. 161
86
quoted in ibid., p. 37

75
complacent nationalism bred of economic and imperial success, strengthened liberal
faith in the virtues of voluntarism in education. Green argues that England’s liberal,
laissez-faire tradition has contributed to the development of a comparatively
incoherent and miserly state education policy.
Green thus sees the relationship between education, nation-building and the state in
‘the West’ as well as Asia as a complex one, in which the history of state formation
has played a key role. Much of this history has been characterised by struggles on
the part of established elites to use education to bolster their ‘hegemony’ but, in
Green’s words, ‘the process is ever contested and the results of the struggle are never
decided in advance’.87 ‘Public education’, he observes, ‘has everywhere been Janus-
faced, at once the very font of enlightenment and liberty, and a vehicle for control
and political socialization’.88 The tensions between these different educational aims
in Hong Kong, and the way in which they are related to the nature of the state, is
discussed in Chapter 5.

The History of School Subjects

In Chapter 2, the case was put forward for a critical-rational approach to

history as a ‘craft tradition’ – an approach which seeks to avoid, on the one hand,
reliance on overarching explanatory frameworks of an unduly determinist nature,
and on the other hand a postmodern or poststructuralist perspective which tends to
lead to highly relativistic notions of truth and to obscurantist linguistic word-games.
In the field of curriculum studies, while determinist and historicist, postmodernist
perspectives have exerted a considerable pull on large numbers of scholars, others
have conducted historical research of a more conventional nature, relatively
unencumbered with the theoretical baggage of postmodernism or Marxism. Simon,
Silver and Kliebard have undertaken historical research of this kind into systems of
schooling and curricula, in the broader sense, in the UK and America, while
Goodson has pioneered research into specific school subjects.89
In putting the case for curriculum history, Goodson has enumerated three key
objectives:
87
Ibid., p. 99
88
Ibid., p. 181
89
Goodson and Kliebard, op.s cit.

76
 (1) ‘Our study should set, as one objective, the illumination of contemporary reality
through historical study, not so as to ‘sharpen contemporary axes’ but most
definitely to sharpen contemporary thought and action.
(2) Where possible, curriculum history should also aim to scrutinize, test, or contribute
to educational theory. It is at the heart of the enterprise to examine curriculum
development and transformation over time…
(3) Finally, curriculum history should be concerned, perhaps above all, with

understanding the ‘internal’ process of curriculum definition, action and change’.90

Elsewhere, he terms this approach ‘the social contructionist perspective.’ 91 In noting

that much recent research in the curriculum field has focussed on school or
classroom practice, Goodson insists that histories of the development of school
subjects are necessary in order to reveal how subject syllabuses and content – and
even the existence of certain subject disciplines – are not simply fixed or ‘given’
categories of knowledge, but have emerged over time as the result of struggles
between various interested groups or ‘stakeholders’, including teachers, bureaucrats,
university academics, politicians and business leaders.92 In elaborating this view,
however, he sometimes appears to be making the very ‘postmodern’ assumption that
apparently idealistic motives or ‘rhetoric’ generally serve merely to mask a struggle
for power.
Goodson uses Hobsbawm’s concept of ‘invented tradition’ in describing his
own ideas concerning the evolution of school subjects – ‘invented tradition’
denoting, in Hobsbawm’s words:

‘…a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or
symbolic nature which seek to circulate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition,
which automatically implies continuity with the past. In fact, where possible, they normally
attempt to establish continuity with a suitable historic past.’93

90
Goodson, ‘History of Education in England: Conflicting Paradigms’, in ‘The Making of
Curriculum’ (Falmer, 1995)
91
Goodson, ‘Studying Curriculum’ (Open University Press, 1994), Chapter 8
92
See Goodson, op.s cit.
93
Hobsbawm and Ranger (ed.s), ‘The Invention of Tradition’ (Cambridge University Press, 1985), p.
1, quoted in Goodson, ‘The Making of Curriculum’, p. 22

77
The emphasis here is on the way in which once certain sets of practices become
established as ‘traditional’, they then tend to become accepted uncritically en bloc.
Goodson emphasises the dangers of this sort of uncritical acceptance:

‘When investigation is limited to the immediate realisation of subject knowledge, there is a

grave danger of perpetrating a classroom myopia that inevitably obscures and mystifies a
central component in the complexities of classroom life.’94

His use of the adjective ‘traditional’ is generally derogatory, and he makes no

attempt, as MacIntyre does, to distinguish between traditions that may be ‘vital’, and
those that are ‘dead’.95 However, his insistence that school subject traditions be
subjected to critical historical examination is consistent with MacIntyre’s concept of
a ‘living tradition’ which is sustained and adapted through the efforts of a ‘critical
community’ of practitioners, in contrast to a ‘dead’ or artificially rigid tradition
which is uncritically accepted as ‘given’.96
For Goodson, therefore, it is important that histories of school subjects take
into account the construction of formal, ‘preactive’ curriculum, as well as the
implemented or ‘interactive’ curriculum. ‘Preactive’ curriculum is important, he
argues, in setting the parameters of classroom practice. Moreover, it is, he claims,
largely at the ‘preactive’ stage of drafting syllabuses and creating course guidelines
that the conflicts and negotiations between different groups of ‘stakeholders’ take
place.97 He sees the establishment of school subjects as the product of struggles for
resources and status between subject groups. As a result of such struggles, subjects
such as Geography or Science have, he argues, been transformed from
‘idiosyncratic’, often idealistic, practically, and vocationally-oriented local
initiatives, into subjects surrounded by the full-blown paraphernalia of ‘disciplinary’
status, including academic-style public examinations and university departments. 98
‘The process of evolution for school subjects,’ says Goodson, ‘can be seen not as a
pattern of disciplines translated down or of ‘domination’ downwards but very much
as a process of ‘aspiration’ upwards.’99 However, Kliebard has suggested that…

94
Goodson, ‘The Making of Curriculum’, p. 20
95
On MacIntyre’s concept of tradition, see Chapter 2.
96
MacIntyre, op. cit.
97
‘The Making of Curriculum’, p. 205
98
‘The Making of Curriculum’, Chapter 10 – ‘Becoming a School Subject’
99
Goodson, ‘Becoming an academic subject: Patterns of explanation and evolution’ (British Journal
of Sociology of Education 2(2)), p. 176

78
 ‘in the case of traditional subjects such as mathematics, classical languages, and history…
their incorporation into the curriculum may have already been attended by the conventional
academic trappings relatively unrelated to any interests on the part of the learner. In some of
these cases, one can speculate, the climb has been from, say, revered and time-honoured
classics of literature “downward” toward works that more closely approximate the interests
of learners in terms of literature.’100

The latter does seem to have been the case with the history curriculum in England,
as will become apparent in the second half of the present chapter. In Hong Kong,
Sweeting and Lee have both noted efforts, at least at the level of ‘preactive’
curriculum definition, to push the content of history ‘downward’ in recent years. 101
The extent to which this pattern has been evident in the development of Hong
Kong’s History curriculum will be further examined in the course of this research,
While emphasizing the need for histories of ‘preactive’ curricula, Goodson
has also sought to develop methods for examining the relationship between the
‘preactive’ and ‘interactive’ curriculum – or between the curriculum as it is officially
defined and as it is implemented in the classroom. He has pioneered the use of
teachers’ ‘life histories’ to explore this relationship, whereby samples of individual
subject teachers are interviewed and observed over the course of a number of years
in order to record and analyse their experiences.102 This method cannot, of course, be
used in a retrospective study such as the present one. However, considerable use is
made of interviews with key players in curriculum development. The
methodological implications of this are discussed in Chapter 4.
Perhaps of particular use in shedding light on the relationship between
‘preactive’ and ‘interactive’ curricula in an educational system like Hong Kong’s,
however, are data to be derived from examinations and textbooks. Hammersley has
noted how in England tight control of the examination system by universities has
tended to lead to subjects taking on a pronounced academic cast as schools compete
for good examination results,103 while Kliebard has argued that in a system like
100
Kliebard, ‘Constructing a History of the American Curriculum’, in Jackson (ed.) op. cit., p. 179
101
Anthony Sweeting, ‘Politics and the Art of Teaching History in Hong Kong’, in ‘Teaching
History’, July 1991, pp. 30-7; Lee Chi Hung, ‘An Investigation into the factors that shape the design
and formulation of a curriculum package: a case study of the Local History Package for lower
secondary schools of Hong Kong’ (unpublished M.Ed. dissertation, The University of Hong Kong,
1996)
102
Ivor Goodson, op. cit. (1995), Chapter 7, ‘History, Context and Qualitative Methods’
103
quoted in Kliebard, ‘Constructing a History of the American Curriculum’, p. 179

79
America’s, where ‘there is no nationally recognised examination system and
therefore no formal controls emanating from the universities who control the
substance of those examinations,… then neither the academic cast nor its tenacity is
likely to be as pronounced.’104 In Hong Kong and in other East Asian societies,
however, Morris has noted how social and economic factors combined with
centralised assessment practices have led to ‘examinations… dominating the process
of education,’ so that ‘the effect on all aspects of the curriculum of a highly
competitive public examination system is pervasive.’105 He follows Lewin in
observing how attempts at pedagogic innovation have tended to be thwarted in such
systems, even where such innovations have seemed popular among teachers, largely
due to ‘the pressure to achieve high examination pass rates.’ 106 An analysis of the
assessment practices adopted in public examinations must therefore form a central
part of this research. The issue of examinations, as they relate both to history
teaching in Hong Kong and to the local education system as a whole, will be
explored in greater detail below and in Chapter 5.
Analysis of textbooks has also been used by scholars interested in the history
of school subject curricula, and the relationship between processes of curriculum
definition and the realities of implementation. Adamson, for example, has used his
analysis of English language textbooks in Communist China to challenge
stereotypical views of curriculum development in China as being highly centralized
and ‘top-down’.107 Indeed, he argues that in the case of China’s English language
curriculum, there is actually far more consultation and interaction between the centre
and the periphery, and between curriculum developers and teachers than is the case
in Hong Kong. However, Leung and Au Yeung have argued that the overall pattern
of curriculum development in China has tended to be one of centralising ambitions
being obstructed by logistical and practical barriers to central control, and by the
political and administrative changes which have accompanied modernisation. 108
While Adamson’s study suggests that the process of developing the English

104
Kliebard, ‘Constructing a History of the American Curriculum’, p. 179
105
Paul Morris, ‘Assessment’, in Marsh and Morris (ed.), ‘Curriculum Development in East Asia’
(Falmer, 1991), p. 40
106
Ibid.
107
Bob Adamson, ‘English in China: The Junior Secondary School Curriculum, 1949-94’
(Unpublished PhD. thesis, The University of Hong Kong, 1998)
108
Leung, ‘Curriculum Development in the People’s Republic of China’, and Au Yeung, Lai,
‘Curriculum Dissemination in the People’s Republic of China’, in Morris and Marsh (ed.), op. cit.,
Chapters 4 and 5

80
language curriculum has been relatively collaborative, Paul Scott’s work on history
and geography – subjects whose content is, as Green has shown, particularly
sensitive politically – indicates that the locus of struggle over curriculum definition
has been within tertiary institutions, with different political-academic factions
struggling over particular versions of history or geography.109

The Approach Adopted in the Present Study

This research into the development of school subjects in China is evidence of

the way in which curriculum history, and histories of particular school subjects, can
challenge or refine over-simplistic theoretical models of curriculum development,
dissemination and implementation. Among those approaches to curriculum history
which have been criticised as tending to produce such over-simplistic models of
curricular change, the above discussion has identified ‘neocolonialism’ and
‘postcolonialism’ and ‘postmodernism’ – approaches which are closely related to the
determinist and postmodernist philosophies which were discussed in the previous
chapter. This is not to say that all work which is in any way associated with, for
example, neo-Marxist or Foucauldian analysis need be dismissed as entirely
worthless.110 The work of Apple and Ball has done much to reveal political and
ideological bias in curriculum development, even if too much explanatory power
has, according to their critics, sometimes been ascribed by them and by others to
abstractions such as ‘class struggle’, ‘race’, ‘gender’ or ‘discourse’.
It is the challenge which ‘postmodernist’ or ‘cultural imperialist’ theories
pose, however inconsistently111, to all claims of ‘objectivity’ and thus to the value
and status of all research, which I follow Bridges, Merquior and Windschuttle in
rejecting. If curriculum history is to fulfill any of the aims which Goodson has
outlined and attempt, in Collingwood’s words, to reach a better understanding of the
present ‘by reconstructing its determining conditions’, objectivity must remain its
ideal or, in MacIntyre’s Aristotelian terms, its ‘telos’. The present study follows
Goodson in attempting to analyse and explain the development of a particular school
109
Paul Scott, conference paper presented at Hong Kong University, March 1998
110
See Chapter 2, above.
111
Ball, for example, claims that his work is essentially a pragmatic attempt to describe the ‘real
world’ of education policy – a claim which would suggest that he wants to have his Foucauldian cake
and eat it. (Ball, ‘Some Reflections on policy theory: a brief response to Hatcher and Troyna’, in
British Journal of Education Policy, 9 (2), 171-82)

81
subject by examining the process of curriculum definition at the preactive stage, the
relationship between this process and that of curriculum implementation in the
context both of the organisational structure of the educational system as a whole, and
of the broader political, administrative, social and cultural changes which have
constituted the background to these processes. However, the claims that Goodson
makes for his ‘social constructivist’ theory, some of which, as has been noted, echo
postmodernist assumptions about ‘power’, are treated with a large degree of
scepticism.

II. The History of History as a School Subject

The purpose of the remainder of this chapter is to place the present study in
the context of previous work on the history of school history curricula. The analysis
adopts the subdivisions employed in Chapter 1, namely between the curriculum as
officially defined, the process of curriculum development, and the implemented
curriculum. Many of the references made to overseas research will be to studies of
the history curriculum in England, because of the relatively close educational links
which have existed between the latter and Hong Kong. A number of references are
also made to history curricula in the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, because of their
close historical and cultural ties with Hong Kong, and to research on history
teaching elsewhere in Asia and in Europe.

A. Philosophies of History Teaching – Content, Aims and Pedagogy in Official

Curricula

This section discusses the ideals and assumptions underlying formal

curriculum statements – what Goodson calls the ‘preactive’ curriculum – particularly
with regard to the overlapping issues of content selection, aims and pedagogical
methods. The focus is on the ideas of history which have shaped the intended
curriculum, and the influences which have shaped these ideas. The discussion of
these influences is of course intimately related to the analysis of the organisation of
the curriculum development process and the roles of particular groups or individuals
in it.

82
Content

The content of history curricula in most countries has traditionally consisted

largely of a chronological account of the national past, based upon an inherited
consensus of accepted facts – thus reflecting the kind of state-centred, scissors-and-
112
paste approach discussed in the previous chapter. Slater has parodied the
immediate post-war history syllabus in England as follows:

‘Content was largely British, or rather Southern English; Celts looked in to starve, emigrate
or rebel; the North to invent looms or work in mills; abroad was of interest once it was part
of the Empire; foreigners were either, sensibly, allies, or, rightly, defeated. Skills – did we
even use the word? – were mainly those of recalling accepted facts about famous dead
Englishmen, and communicated in a very eccentric literary form, the examination length
essay. It was an inherited consensus, based largely on hidden assumptions.’ 113

As Phillips has noted, 114 these remained the dominant features of history teaching in
most English schools well into the 1970s. In France, too, most attention in history
lessons was traditionally given to ‘high politics and “great men”’, rather than to
‘society, ideas and regional variations.’115 The dominance of the chronological,
narrative, state-centred approach was not, at least in the English case, a result of
adherence to any officially prescribed curriculum since, as Phillips observes, the
English governments until the 1980s believed that they should ‘leave the “secret
garden” of the curriculum alone’.116
Phillips argues that questions of history curriculum content in England have
been very much bound up with questions of national identity as well as with
changing ideas concerning the purposes of teaching history. Thus Britain’s relative
decline on the world stage, the influx of immigrants into the country, the growing
importance of relations with the rest of Europe, the growth of social science and
changes in educational theory all contributed to feelings that history in schools was
far too Anglocentric, as well as being ‘useless and boring’. 117 The Schools Council
112
For a general overview of history teaching in different parts of the world, see ‘The International
History Yearbook’, 1995
113
John Slater, ‘The Politics of History Teaching: A Humanity Dehumanized?’ (Institute of Education,
Special Professorial Lecture, London, 1989), p. 1
114
Robert Phillips, ‘History Teaching, Nationhood and the State’ (Cassell, 1998), pp. 17-19
115
‘The Economist’, November 1 1997, pp. 99-100
116
Phillips, op. cit., p. 14
117
Ibid., pp. 14-15

83
History Project (SCHP or SHP) sought, according to Phillips to promote a ‘new
history’ in the 1970s, which aimed to reduce the ‘over-emphasis upon chronology
and the consequent tension upon the need to “get through” the syllabus… through
“patch” or “thematic” approaches to the selection of content.’ 118 This would allow
greater scope for the exercise of creative teaching methods, as well as selection of
content on the basis of interest and relevance to students. ‘Thus SCHP courses
included social, economic and cultural history as well as political history. Historical
events and periods were chosen for specific purposes: the history of medicine (a
study in development), the American West (a study in depth), the Arab-Israeli or
Northern Ireland conflicts (understanding of contemporary problems) and so on. The
promotion of ‘new’ history, in England as in America, was also a matter of providing
new justifications for history’s place in the school curriculum in an era of mass
education (see below). This stimulated attempts to demonstrate the subjects
usefulness in teaching ‘skills’, and hence an elaboration of the nature of history as a
discipline or ‘craft’, and not simply as a body of established knowledge to be
absorbed. Those who promoted ‘new history’ saw the purpose of the subject as to
teach not simply what historians had already discovered about the past, but how they
went about discovering it.119
Studies of the British Conservative Government’s moves in the late 1980s
and early 1990s to incorporate history into a new ‘National Curriculum’ for England
have highlighted the role which ideas concerning national identity and the purpose
of history teaching played in the debate over National Curriculum history. With
regard to content, this often fierce debate between politicians, academics, teachers
and the press tended to become polarised between those, many of them supporters of
the government, who wanted more British history in the curriculum, as well as a
more chronological approach to teaching it, and those, often on the political left,
who emphasised the importance of skills and fought for a reduction of the proportion
of British history in the syllabus. The latter tended to equate calls for an emphasis on
British history with attempts to inculcate an uncritical patriotism. 120 Aldrich and
Dean cite a 1988 speech by Kenneth Baker, the Education Secretary, in which he
insisted that children should be taught the key events in British history, among which

118
Ibid., p. 16
119
See M. B. Booth, ‘History Betrayed?’ (Longmans, 1969)
120
Phillips, op. cit.; R. Aldrich and D. Dean, ‘The Historical Dimension’, in Aldrich (ed.), ‘History in
the National Curriculum’ (Bedford Way Series, Kogan Page, 1991)

84
he included ‘the spread of Britain’s influence for good throughout the world’, largely
as a means of inculcating national pride. 121 Goodson illustrates the opposing point of
view when he quotes from the Interim Report of the National Curriculum History
Group:

‘At the heart of these disagreements on historical knowledge, British history and chronology,
is the lingering fear among some members of the group, particularly those who are teachers
and educationists, that the history curriculum will be dominated by rigid external testing and
rote learning of famous dates in British history.’122

For many teachers and educationalists, then, the issue of content – and
particularly of the proportion to be devoted to national history – was intimately
bound up with questions of values and pedagogical methods. However, a number of
academic historians, holding a variety of political viewpoints, defended the decision
to devote forty percent of the history curriculum to British history. Keith Robbins, a
historian with Labour sympathies, warned that seeking to avoid national history and
‘set sail in a global ship without anchorage in a particular place through time’ would
not help to make history more relevant and interesting for pupils.123 For his part, the
Liberal Democrat peer Conrad Russell noted that the History Working Group
showed awareness that British History did not necessarily mean ‘the History of
greater England’.124 The growth in recent years of Scottish and Welsh nationalism, as
well as the problems of Northern Ireland, have ensured that the National Curriculum
definitely does not envisage British history being taught exclusively from the
perspective of England, let alone from that of Whitehall.125
The gradual integration of Europe has provided another politically
contentious dimension to debates over history curriculum content in Britain and
other European countries. Janet Nelson, a historian of medieval Europe, criticised
the History Working Group in England for omitting the reign of Charlemagne from
the curriculum, while including ‘medieval Islam’ and ‘medieval China’. ‘If pupils
are to understand European distinctiveness… as they become citizens of the new

121
Aldrich and Dean, op. cit., p. 95
122
Times Educational Supplement, 18 August 1989, p. 4, quoted in Goodson, ‘Studying Curriculum’,
(Open University Press, 1994), p. 100
123
Keith Robbins, in Gardiner (ed.), op. cit., p. 24
124
Conrad Russell, in Juliet Gardiner (ed.), ‘The History Debate’ (History Today Books, 1990), p. 50
125
Robert Phillips, Paul Goalen, Alan McCully and Sydney Wood, ‘Four Histories, One Nation?
History teaching, nationhood and a British identity’ (Compare, Vol. 29, No. 2, 1999), pp. 153-169

85
Europe,’ asked Nelson, ‘do they not also need to learn something of the old?’126 In
France, by contrast, a new, compulsory, year-long course in European history was
inaugurated in the autumn of 1997 as part of a move in French schools away from
the traditional ‘heroic, patriotic’, Franco-centric history towards what ‘The
Economist’ called ‘the more academic, “how-it-really-happened” sort’ which seeks
to place French history in a wider perspective.127
The debate over how to characterise European identity in relation to national
identities remains complex and highly-charged. While most states publicly espouse
liberal, inclusive, tolerant approaches to the definition of ‘Europeanness’, elements
within most European societies also hold visions more akin to the ‘Romantic
authoritarianism’ which gave rise to Fascism, Nazism and Stalinism. 128 This concept
of a racially- and culturally-determined nationalism, usually justified by reference to
an account of history constructed in a ‘scissors-and-paste’ fashion, was discussed in
the previous chapter, where it was also shown that such an approach has been far
from uniquely European. India and Pakistan are two other examples of countries
where ‘Romantic authoritarianism’ and more liberal conceptions of nationalism
contend in approaches to the national past. As Avril Powell has demonstrated,
however, blatantly biased and manipulated accounts of history have been far more in
evidence in the Pakistani history curriculum than in that of India, so that ‘Eras and
events deemed either irrelevant, hostile or inconvenient to the fulfillment of the
Pakistan Movement are omitted’.129 Though the BJP and Shiv Sena parties in India
promote similarly chauvinist visions of history, they are prevented from
monopolising public or textbook accounts of the past by the more liberal and
democratic climate there.130
In China and Taiwan, similar issues relating to national identity and
pedagogical aims and methods have influenced the selection of history curriculum
content. Michelon has noted how, in Taiwan,

‘Up until 1997, for the high school entry examination, children had to know the history of
continental China from the times of the Warring States, together with the names of
126
Janet Nelson, in Gardiner (ed.), op. cit., p. 60
127
‘The Economist’, Nov. 1 1997, pp. 99-100
128
John Slater, ‘Teaching History in the New Europe’ (Cassell, 1995), p. 16
129
Avril Powell, ‘Perceptions of the South Asian Past: Ideology, Nationalism and School Textbooks’,
in Nigel Cook (ed.), ‘The Transimission of Knowledge in South Asia’ (Delhi, Oxford University
Press, 1996), p. 222
130
Ibid., p. 223

86
 successive emperors during the Qing dynasty, but not the county capitals of Taiwan, nor the
names of its rivers, nor the names of the island’s aboriginal peoples.’131

This was a direct result, he writes, of the Nationalist government’s attempt to ‘foster
the illusion of nationalist China.’132 The democratisation of Taiwan over recent years
has been accompanied by more and more open expressions of ‘Taiwanese’ identity,
and has recently led to reforms of the history curriculum which drastically increase
the proportion of Taiwanese history, and which introduce topics such as the history
of Taiwan’s aboriginal peoples never before covered in Taiwanese schools. Such
changes have been fiercely resisted by the pro-reunification New Party and by the
pro-reunification press.133
Besides expressing concern over the political implications of teaching more
Taiwanese history, a number of conservative academics and educationalists in
Taiwan have also lamented a more general ‘decline of respect for history’, with Du
Wei Yun of the National Political University (Guoli Zhengzhi Daxue) proclaiming
that ‘History has become a minority interest, the arteries of our historical life-blood
are being severed, and the destiny of 5,000-year-old China is in jeopardy.’ 134 Wang
Xiu Zheng also voices concern that the depth of coverage and the amount of time
allowed to history have both been diminished over the past forty years. 135 Such
scholars insist that students must be taught the full 5,000 years of Chinese history,
chronologically, and in as much detail as possible, though Wang also calls for more
cross-curricular links between History, Geography and Civics. 136 The new course in
Taiwanese history, while it is more attractively illustrated and laid out than previous
history courses, and gives some attention to economic, social and cultural as well as
to political developments, nonetheless retains a traditional chronological approach,

131
L. Michelon, ‘An Educational Reform… or a Political One?’ (in ‘China Perspectives’, Jan.-Feb.
1998), p. 52
132
Ibid.
133
Ibid. See also coverage of the debate in conservative papers such as the Lian He Ribao
134
Du Wei Yun, ‘The Past and Future of Chinese History Education’ – ‘Zhongguo lishi jiaoyude
guoqu yu weilai, speech delivered at Special Conference on the Past and Future of History Education
– lishi jiaoyu zhi huigu yu chanwang zhuanti yanjianghui’ (in ‘Modern China’ – Jindai Zhongguo,
(Taipei, Guojian tushuguan) Min85, September), pp. 83-90 (in Chinese)
135
Wang Xiu Zheng, ‘The Past Forty Years of National History Education at Junior Secondary Level
– a discussion of the editing and compilation of textbooks’ – ‘Sishinianlai woguo go(qu)zhong lishike
jiaoyu – yi jiaokeshude bianzuan wei taolun zhongxin’ (Collected Papers on Educational Materials –
Jiaoyu ziliao jikan, (Taipei, Guojia tushuguan), Min80, June), p. 125
136
Ibid.

87
and provides few opportunities for students to work with primary sources. 137 There
are indications that this may be changing.138 However, it is worth re-emphasising that
the vision of the history subject which sees its principal purpose as delivering a
chronological survey of the national past is not peculiarly Chinese, as references
made above to Britain, France and India have demonstrated. As was observed in
Chapter 2, and is discussed further in Chapter 10, what is significant about Taiwan
is the openness and vigour of the debate between contending views of the past. This
openness is stimulating discussion amongst history educators not simply over how to
define a single ‘correct’ account of the past, but also over how history can be taught
in a way that confronts students with contradictory accounts, and shows them how to
subject these to critical analysis.139
In mainland China, shifts in the content of the school history curriculum have
been very closely tied to changes in the political alignment of the ruling clique.
Manling Chau records how the Sino-Soviet split of the late 1950s led to a reversal of
the previous Soviet-inspired emphasis on world history, since following the split,
‘Chinese history was considered the essential content of education in patriotism.’ 140
Following the hiatus of the Cultural Revolution, this very China-centred curriculum
was restored, but the ‘Open Door Policy’ and the liberalising atmosphere of the late
1980s brought proposals to give equal weighting to national and world history, and
to give far more emphasis to modern and contemporary history, extending the period
for study up to 1982. In the aftermath of the 1989 crackdown, an extra weekly
history lesson on modern and contemporary Chinese history referred to as
‘education in the National Situation’ was instituted, while in 1992 history was made
compulsory for all students up to the penultimate year of secondary schooling. In the
run-up to Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule in 1997, teachers were instructed and
exhorted by academics and officials to teach their students about Hong Kong’s

137
‘Guidepost’ Guo Zhong Xuexi Biaokan ‘Renshi Taiwan: Lishi Bian (Nan Yi Shu Ju, 1997), (in
Chinese)
138
Taiwan’s most recent official history curriculum recommends the use of classroom discussion, role
play and encourages teachers to get their students to do document-related work. Whether
examinations and teaching materials change to reflect these aims remains to be seen.
(http://www.edu.tw/primary/business/2214c.htm)
139
Discussion of such issues figured prominently, for example, in the proceedings of a conference on
history teaching which took place in Taipei in February 1997. One of those invited was the British
historian Peter Lee. (Flora Kan, personal communication, July 2000). See also Chapter 10 below.
140
Manling Chau, ‘Change and Continuity: History Teaching in the People’s Republic of China’ (in
‘History Yearbook 1995’), pp. 124-40

88
history and the significance of this glorious moment in the history of the
motherland.141 ‘Hong Kong history’ as far as the mainland authorities are concerned
means principally ‘the history of how China lost Hong Kong and then regained it’,
rather than the history of what went on within Hong Kong itself during the
intervening period.142 Similarly, the history of areas such as Xinjiang or Tibet tends
to be covered selectively, with only the periods during which such areas were ruled
by China included in most history courses.143 The content of the mainland’s school
history curriculum thus remains highly chronological, China-centred, and
susceptible to changes in the prevailing political winds.
Previous research into Hong Kong’s History curriculum indicates that
politics also appears to have played a significant role in determining the content of
Hong Kong’s history curriculum at various times. Sweeting recounts how before
World War II a local official reported to the Colonial Office in London that ‘special
local conditions justified more attention being paid to ancient civilizations than to
current affairs’, while a Colonial Office mandarin noted that ‘it is not considered
desirable to interest Hong Kong students too much in political and administrative
questions.’144 These comments were made during the 1930s – a period when China
was in the grip of a nationalist ferment which alarmed the British authorities in Hong
Kong. The concentration on remote periods of European history continued, however,
into the 1960s. This was often justified, Sweeting reports, by reference to the
existence of Chinese History as a separate subject, and the need to avoid duplication
of content. ‘Since the 1960s,’ he writes, ‘the syllabus has struck more of a balance
between European and Asian history, although a reluctance to offend the sensitivities
of the People’s Republic of China and its supporters within Hong Kong by actively
promoting the cause of local history also operated as a diversion away from one of
the most obvious and natural directions of change.’145 Hong Kong history did figure

141
Li Jia Xian, ‘Lun Xiangang Hui Gui ji Zu Guo Tongyi’ (On Hongkong’s Return to the Motherland
and the Unification of the Country) (Lishi Jiaoxue, 1997, No. 7); Li Zheng Hua ‘”Yi Guo Liang
Zhi”… Xianggang Lishi Xin Bianzhang’ (Lishi Jiaoxue, 1997, No. 6), pp. 19-22; Qian‘”Yi Guo Liang
Zhi” yu Xianggang Hui Gui’ (“One Country Two Systems” and Hong Kong’s Return to the
Motherland) (Lishi Jiaoxue, 1997, No. 5), (all in Chinese)
142
See articles cited in previous note and in Chapter 2 above. See also the discussion of museums in
Chapter 9 below. This approach is also evident in a Hong Kong-published children’s book called
‘Xianggang Bainian Fungwan’ (Hong Kong One Hundred Years Winds and Clouds) (Sun Ya
Publications (HK) Ltd, 1997), (in Chinese)
143
Personal communication from a Uighur historian (name confidential)
144
Anthony Sweeting, ‘Politics and the Art of Teaching History in Hong Kong’ (Teaching History,
July 1991), pp. 32-3
145
Ibid., p. 34

89
as a minor sub-topic under the aegis of ‘British Colonial and Commonwealth
History’ – a topic in the A’ level syllabus until it was dropped in 1984 – when it was
covered from the British point of view.146 For most of the period with which this
study is concerned, however, the curriculum followed by most students contained
little or no Hong Kong history. Lee recounts how efforts to re-introduce local history
at junior secondary level in the early 1990s aroused suspicions on the part of Beijing
officials and their local supporters that there was a neo-colonialist plot afoot aimed
at ‘internationalising’ Hong Kong.147
Existing research on the development of Hong Kong’s history curriculum has
not, however, uncovered much evidence of direct governmental interference in the
selection of content, although Morris observes that the new 1988 Hong Kong
Certificate of Education (HKCE) syllabus for history provided pupils ‘with a more
politicised historical framework than was previously the case, and one more relevant
to Hong Kong’s future.’148 However, Auyeung shows that the process of drafting the
new HKCE syllabus took place between 1978 and 1981, in other words before the
Anglo-Chinese discussions on Hong Kong’s future had even begun. 149 John Tan also
notes that, in contrast to the more traditional chronological approach of earlier years,
since the early 1980s the HKCE and A’ level syllabuses have adopted a thematic
approach to content, the themes covered including liberalism, nationalism,
colonialism, democracy and totalitarianism. 150 Lee and Tan have observed that, in
contrast to the rest of the history curriculum, the content of the junior secondary
local history pilot project of the early 1990s and of the Hong Kong section of the
new A’ level syllabus concentrated more on social and economic themes, thus
avoiding any potential offence to either the British or Chinese governments. 151 Tan
argued that this demonstrated a trend ‘of playing down the colonial links between
Britain and Hong Kong and emphasising the Chinese and Asian roots of Hong
Kong.’152 Lee and Tan both speculate about the extent to which self-censorship, as
146
John Tan, ‘History of the History Curriculum under Colonialism and Decolonisation: A
Comparison of Hong Kong and Macau’ (conference paper prepared for the 10th annual conference of
the Hong Kong Educational Research Association, 1993), p. 19
147
See Lee Chi Hung, op. cit.
148
Paul Morris, ‘Preparing Pupils as Citizens…’, in Postiglione (ed.), ‘Education and Society in Hong
Kong’ (Hong Kong University Press, 1992), p. 129
149
W.N.C. Auyeung, ‘Recent Developments of the Official History Curriculum for History in Hong
Kong Anglo-Chinese Secondary Schools’ (M.Ed. Dissertation, The University of Hong Kong, 1987),
p. 194
150
See Sweeting, ‘Politics and the Art of Teaching History in Hong Kong’
151
Lee Chi Hung and John Tan, op.s cit
152
Tan, op. cit., p. 19

90
opposed to direct official interference, may have influenced officials in their drafting
of history syllabuses. The issue of self-censorship and history teaching in Hong
Kong will be discussed below in the sections on curricular aims and on
implementation, and in Chapter 5.
Political issues, and particularly issues of national identity, sometimes arising
partly out of social and economic shifts (such as immigration in England or the
gradual indigenization of Taiwanese society), appear to have played a very
significant role in debates over the selection of content for national history curricula
in most countries. By comparison, the absence of local history from Hong Kong’s
History curriculum for so much of the period under study here is striking. The
contrast here with Singapore, another former British colony, and one much smaller
than Hong Kong in terms of area and population, could not be more striking. The
content of history curricula in most other countries appears to have been influenced
largely by nation-building concerns, even when these are balanced by more liberal,
cosmopolitan and tolerant political and educational values. However, History as a
school subject in Hong Kong appears to have lacked any real focus in terms of
content and has rather, to borrow the metaphor used by Keith Robbins, sought to ‘set
sail in a global ship without anchorage in a particular place through time.’ 153 Exactly
how and why this situation came about it is one of the main purposes of this research
to explain.

Curricular Aims, Objectives and Values

The foregoing discussion indicated how selection of history curriculum

content in various countries has often been informed by particular political or
pedagogical concerns. The purpose of this section is to investigate more closely the
aims and objectives which have been attached to history as a school subject in
different places during the late twentieth century, by looking at literature on history
curricula in Hong Kong, China, England and other parts of the world. The menu of

153
Robbins, op. cit.

91
aims which emerges from the literature is not assumed to be exhaustive, but it should
be read in the context of the discussion of the philosophy of history in Chapter 2.

Appreciating the ‘laws’ of history

Talk of ‘laws’ of history is, as was shown in Chapter 2, characteristic of

openly deterministic views of history such as those espoused by Marxists or by
pseudo-Darwinians such as Spengler. The idea that students should be taught to
appreciate and understand the ‘laws’ of history has been evident in the ‘Master Race’
discourse of Nazi history, and in the socialist teleology of history curricula in
Communist states. Such notions are seldom considered as important or even
legitimate objectives for history teaching in more democratic and liberal states,
although H.K. Cheung, in his study of Hong Kong’s post-war history curriculum
seems to imply that they should be when he writes that history should communicate
a ‘World View’ to students, meaning…

‘the explanation for the motives of historical development – e.g. rules of history, whether
history is advancing or falling backward or repeating itself, etc.’154

Cheung does not, however, find any evidence of such a philosophy in Hong Kong’s
formal history curriculum. Indeed, he counts this a major failing of the local history
curriculum.155
Fukuyama’s liberal democratic form of determinism may to some extent
reflect or inspire deterministic beliefs amongst history teachers in America or ‘the
West’ more generally. History teachers, like other citizens of liberal democratic
states, may also individually hold and express a variety of deterministic
assumptions, ranging from chauvinistic nationalism to doctrinaire Marxism. 156
However, the more rigid forms of determinism are far more likely to become state-
certified orthodoxies in authoritarian states. Thus Marxist or nationalist ‘laws’, or a

154
H.K. Cheung, ‘Zhan hou sishi nian xianggang zhongxue lishike kecheng’ ‘The Development of
Hong Kong’s Secondary School History Curriculum in the Forty Years since the War’ (The Chinese
University of Hong Kong Education Journal, 15, 2, December 1987), p. 78, (in Chinese)
155
It should be noted that Cheung was and still is a History Panel Chairman in a local secondary
school, and the author of a widely used study guide for A’ level students.
156
For a discussion of the loosely related issue of ‘ethnocentricism’ amongst teachers in England, see
Janet Maw, ‘Understanding Ethnocentrism: History Teachers Talking’ (Teaching History, June 1994)

92
combination of both, have become the basis of history curricula in places such as
Cuba, Vietnam, and mainland China, where, in the words of Chau Man Ling,

‘The belief that socialism-communism will eventually replace capitalism according to

historical laws guides schoolchildren in a practical way “to look forward” to a socialist
society. In this sense, the laws of social development and patriotism are actually two sides of
the same coin – the love of the socialist fatherland.’ 157

In other words, the teleology of socialism tends to shade into a teleology of national
destiny, or ‘socialist patriotism’ of the kind first officially promoted in the Soviet
Union in the 1930s.158 As was demonstrated in the previous section, however,
patriotism in various forms has been identified as a primary aim of official history
curricula in many countries.

Patriotism and Nation-building

It was noted in Chapter 2 and in the section on history curriculum content

above how many governments have sought to use history to create or bolster a sense
of loyalty to the state. In the case of mainland China, Chau’s account shows how
socialist orthodoxy has increasingly become transmuted into xenophobic patriotism
in the official history curriculum, so that at present,

‘…the unbroken recorded history of three thousand years and the impressive cultural and
economic achievement of the Chinese nation before the fifteenth century are to be
emphasized as serving the need to inspire national dignity and restore confidence. That
unbroken record, in conjunction with modern and contemporary history, should serve to
illustrate “the distinctive character” of the Chinese people, who “have made significant
contributions to mankind” and, more important (sic.), have a “revolutionary tradition”; taken
together, ancient and modern history should arouse indignation against foreign imperialist
powers and the exploiting class, and reinforce “the support for socialism”.’159

Ample evidence of the importance attached in mainland China to history as a means

of promoting patriotism can be found in recent issues of the mainland history
157
Manling Chau, op. cit., pp. 135-6
158
See J. Muckle, ‘Education in Russia Past and Present: an Introductory Study Guide and Select
Bibliography’ (Bramcote Press, Nottingham, 1993); also H. Gunter ed., ‘The Culture of the Stalin
Period’ (Macmillan, 1990)
159
Chau, op. cit., p. 136

93
teaching journal, Lishi Jiaoxue (History Teaching), with articles entitled
‘Considerations on History Teaching as a means of Deepening Education in
Patriotism’, and ‘Education in Patriotism is the Eternal and Primary Objective of
History Teaching’, published in 1989 and 1990 respectively. 160 The Opium War has
also been keenly promoted in mainland China as an essential topic for developing
‘indignation against foreign imperialist powers.’161 Such calls have also been made
in the context of party-sponsored campaigns for ‘spiritual civilisation’ (jingshen
wenming) and against ‘spiritual pollution’ (jingshen wuran).
In Nationalist Taiwan, the promotion of state-centred patriotism has also
been a key objective of history teaching, though by comparison with mainland China
the emphasis has been even more on the glories of the distant past and the heritage
of Chinese culture, while with respect to modern and contemporary history a
Nationalist Party line has been followed, with the Communist authorities on the
mainland coming in for ritual abuse.162 However, the recent democratisation process
in Taiwan and the introduction of more Taiwanese history into the curriculum have
been accompanied by a shift in the focus of patriotism, with more emphasis on
‘Taiwaneseness’ and less on ‘Chineseness’.163 At the same time, efforts have been
made in the new textbooks on Taiwan history to treat the issue of the Japanese
occupation of the island in an even-handed, objective manner – a move that has
aroused furious indignation on the part of some more conservative and nationalistic
elements who believe, as do their mainland counterparts, that this period in
Taiwanese history should be portrayed in such a way as to arouse ‘patriotic
indignation’.164 In contrast to the latter view, three Taiwanese academics analysing
upper-secondary level textbooks from mainland China noted in 1995 how the
‘friendly’ policy of the mainland government towards foreign countries was
contradicted by the often xenophobic content of mainland history textbooks. 165 The
authors of this article do, nonetheless, believe that history should be used to promote
160
‘Considerations on History Teaching as a means of Deepening Education in Patriotism’ – Lishi
jiaoxue shenhua aiguozhuyi jiaoyude sikao (Lishi Jiaoxue, China, 1989, No. 6), pp. 32-5; ‘Education
in Patriotism is the Eternal and Primary Objective of History Teaching’ – Aiguozhuyi jiaoyu shi lishi
jiaoxuede yongheng zhuti (Lishi jiaoxue, 1990, No. 7), pp. 44-6 (in Chinese)
161
‘The Opium War – an Educational Discussion’ – ‘Yapian Zhanzheng’ – yi zhang jiaoxue cankao
(Lishi jiaoxue, China, 1989, No. 4), p. 20
162
Michelon, op. cit.
163
Ibid.
164
Ibid.
165
‘An Investigation of the Content of History textbooks in Mainland China’ – Dalu Gaozhong
lishike jiaoyu neirongzhi yanjiu (Educational Research Periodical – Jiaoyu yanjiu zixun, (Taiwan)
Min 84, November), pp. 35-54 (in Chinese)

94
patriotism, but their preferred version of patriotism is cultural rather than political or
state-centred, and they deride the Communists’ ‘leader-worship’.166
China is far from being the only country to have used classroom history as
‘an outlet for national frustrations’.167 History in French schools has until recently
tended to serve a similar purpose,168 while English politicians and academics aligned
with what Phillips terms ‘the New Right’ attempted during the 1980s and early
1990s to make National Curriculum history in England a vehicle for uncritical
British patriotism.169 In Britain, however, as in Taiwan or India, different and rival
versions of patriotism have been promoted. Right-wing politicians and tabloids may
insist that students be taught about national heroes and famous battles, but in Britain
more moderate conservatives like Keith Joseph have called simply for an emphasis
on ‘the development of the shared values which are a distinctive feature of British
society and culture, and which continue to shape private attitudes and public
policy.’170 In Britain, too, the issue of European identity, raised by Nelson171, raises
the question of where the main focus (or foci) of patriotism should be – the British
predicament in a sense being a mirror-image of that faced by Taiwan, where the
issue is one of broader ‘Chinese’ versus specifically ‘Taiwanese’ identity. The
situation in Britain is also complicated by the rival claims of Scottish, Welsh and
Northern Irish identity.172 The above analysis of history curricula in Europe, South
Asia and ‘Greater China’ does not indicate that liberal-democratic institutions and an
open political climate guarantee the promotion of a critical approach to the national
or global past. However, it does appear that only in those countries – whether in Asia
or Europe – in which such a political climate exists, is a vision of history as a
critical-rational ‘craft’ likely to have any chance of thriving either inside or outside
the school history classroom.
In Hong Kong, ‘patriotism’ as a specific objective of history teaching has not
figured on the official curriculum agenda until relatively recently, though, as Morris
has noted, the content of other subjects such as ‘Economics and Public Affairs’ and
‘Geography’ was changed before the handover in order to include more information
166
Ibid.
167
‘The Economist’, op. cit., p. 100
168
Ibid.
169
Phillips, op. cit.; Aldrich, op. cit
170
quoted by J.C.D. Clark in Gardiner (ed), op. cit., p. 41; see also Phillips, op. cit., Chapter 10
171
Nelson, op. cit.
172
Robert Phillips, Paul Goalen, Alan McCully, Sydney Wood, ‘Four Histories, One Nation? History
teaching, nationhood and British identity’ (Compare, Vol. 29, No. 2, 1999)

95
about mainland China.173 The emphasis in Chinese History syllabuses has also
shifted from a more ‘cultural’ sense of Chineseness to a more explicitly political
one.174 The objective of promoting patriotism through history – as well as the issue
of the appropriate balance between local Hong Kong identity and a broader sense of
Chinese identity – has been thrust very much onto the official agenda since the
return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty, in ways and with consequences which
are examined and analysed in subsequent chapters.

History for Civic and Moral Education

In Chapter 2 the moralising concerns of much Chinese historiography was

noted and it was observed how persistent was the urge amongst many Chinese
scholars to search the past for moral exemplars. The desire to use history to promote
patriotism, and the desire to use history to mould good citizens are found together in
the work of the self-proclaimed traditionalist, Qian Mu, as they are in the history
curriculum of mainland China – even if the style of morality may be somewhat
different in each case.175 Chau Man Ling says that on the mainland ‘The aim is to
encourage pupils to model themselves upon the revolutionary heroes and proletarian
revolutionaries of the past generation…,’ as well as to ‘enable the students to
develop a sense of historical responsibility for the socialist modernisation of their
fatherland and for the peace of mankind and progressive cause (sic.).’ 176 In Taiwan’s
history curriculum and, as Luk has shown, in the curriculum for Chinese subjects in
Hong Kong, the moral content has tended to be more traditionally Confucian.177
The use of history as a vehicle for teaching morality is not, however, in any
way peculiar to China. In the case of Britain, Phillips has noted how in the 1980s
and 1990s many of the right-wing proponents of a more traditional approach to
history teaching have lamented the loss to history classrooms of moral exemplars
such as Alfred the Great, Lord Nelson and Florence Nightingale. 178 Nor has the
desire to use history to inspire worthy civic sentiments been confined to those on the
173
Morris, ‘Preparing Pupils as Citizens…’, in Postiglione (ed.), op. cit.
174
Luk, op. cit.. See Chapters 5 and 9 below.
175
Qian Mu, ‘Zhongguo Lishi Jingshen’ (See references in previous chapter); Zhang Zheng, ‘Some
issues arising from research into the role of Chinese history teaching in moral education’ – Zhongxue
lishi xueliaoke deyu yanjiude jige wenti (Lishi jiaoxue, China, No. 8, 1997), pp. 31-5
176
Chau, op. cit., pp. 137, 135
177
Luk, op. cit; also Wang Xiuzheng, op. cit.
178
Phillips, op. cit., Ch. 3

96
right of the political spectrum. White has argued in the pages of ‘Teaching History’
for an emphasis on contemporary topics and on issues such as the origins and
development of the Welfare State, in order to give pupils a better understanding of
matters directly relevant to their lives and therefore enable them more intelligently to
exercise their rights as citizens in a democracy. 179 In addition, others have called for
history to be used to inculcate a sense of European citizenship.180
Calls for the inculcation through history of a broader sense of identity
(European or global) among students have tended to be accompanied, for example in
Britain and America, by claims for the potential of history to encourage values of
tolerance and pluralism.181 As was remarked in Chapter 2, postmodernists see their
approach to history as intrinsically tolerant and pluralist, though others have
contested this view. The Taiwanese scholar Zhang Si De, 182 both the English and
American school history curricula have been deeply influenced by the values of
multi-culturalism, openness and tolerance. Zhang notes the concerns of conservative
American commentators such as Bloom and Schlesinger that American education is
promoting a ‘salad bar’ approach to culture which may lead to tribalism and
fragmentation.183 However, though he sympathises with such concerns he still sees
multiculturalism on balance as a good thing. Schlesinger, for his part, prefers what
he sees as the balance achieved in England’s National Curriculum history between
British, European and World History, and between the aims of communicating
substantive historical knowledge and teaching the skills of criticism, empathy and
interpretation, while avoiding the relativism implicit in what he terms ‘the
[American] cult of ethnicity’.184
Previous research on Hong Kong’s History curriculum has not focused on the
nature of the civic or political values which have informed the subject, despite the
‘more politicised framework’ which, according to Morris, the history curriculum has
had since the mid-1980s.185 The promotion of morality through history would seem,
as Luk’s research has suggested, to have been very much the province of the
179
C. White, ‘The Aims of School History’ (Teaching History, January, 1994)
180
Nelson, op. cit.; John Slater, op. cit.
181
Phillips, op. cit.
182
Zhang Side, ‘Multiculturalism and American History Education’ – Duoyuan Wenhua yu Meiguo
lishi jioayu (Dangdi (Taiwan), Min 80, October), pp. 36-47
183
Allan Bloom, ‘The Closing of the American Mind’ (Penguin, 1987); Arthur Meier Schlesinger,
‘The Cult of Ethnicity, Good and Bad’, quoted in Zhang, op. cit.; see also, A. M. Schlesinger, ‘The
Disuniting of America’ (W.W. Norton, 1998)
184
quoted in Zhang, op. cit.
185
Paul Morris, op. cit. (1992)

97
separate subject of ‘Chinese History’.186 Studies of history curricula in England,
America, Taiwan and mainland China, moreover, appear to show that the use of
history for moral or civic education tends to be closely related to the way in which
the history curriculum in each society portrays the present nature and past
development of that society: socialist (‘with Chinese characteristics’) in mainland
China; Taiwanese/Chinese and (increasingly) democratic in Taiwan; democratic,
plural and multicultural (to differing degrees) in England and America. This raises
the question of whether, in the case of Hong Kong, the lack of local content in the
history curriculum, as well as uncertainty over the territory’s identity and political
future, may have contributed to neutralising any efforts to use the history curriculum
to foster morality or civic awareness. This issue will be addressed in subsequent
chapters.

‘Skills’, Critical Thought and ‘Empathy’

The view that history can and should be used to promote particular versions
of morality thus seems to have been generally accepted by drafters of official history

186
Luk, op. cit.

98
curricula in mainland China and (Nationalist) Taiwan, and by those responsible for
Hong Kong’s ‘Chinese History’ curriculum. In England and America, however,
while some have called for a return to a more moralising approach to history
teaching187, many have seen such moralising aims as sitting uncomfortably with
what most academic historians and history teachers nowadays see (at least in theory
if not in practice) as the main aim of history as a school subject: the teaching of
critical and interpretative skills, or the ability to ‘think historically’. In England, Lee
has put the ‘purist’ case for the exclusion of what he sees as extraneous educational
objectives from the history classroom by insisting that ‘history stands outside
patriotism and liberal democracy and holds no brief for them. … History cannot
guarantee liberal democrats, any more than music and art can guarantee futurists.’ 188
He goes on to argue, however, that history if taught properly should have the effect
of fostering ‘autonomy of thought’ in pupils, because the ways of thinking that
characterise historical understanding, such as an awareness of different
interpretations and a critical attitude to sources, constitute, in his words, ‘one form of
(or criterion for) autonomy of thought.’189 Sweeting, an important figure in the
development of history teaching in Hong Kong over the past thirty years, has made a
similar claim for the importance of teaching ‘skills’ by expressing the hope that
history…

‘will play a major part in preparing for independence of thought. It might even become what,
in the best sense of the term, it should be: a subversive activity, transcending all party-
political lines.’190

Implicit in this statement is a view of history as a critical ‘craft’, one of whose main
aims is the ‘initiation’ of students ‘into conflict’ for which MacIntyre calls. 191 In
Europe, a similar vision of the aims of history teaching has been seen as central to
the task of preparing students to exercise of their rights and responsibilities as
autonomous citizens of liberal-democratic states.192

187
e.g. C. White, op. cit.; N. Tate, ‘Off the Fence on Common Culture’ (Times Educational
Supplement, 29 July 1994)
188
Lee, ‘History, Autonomy and Education’ (Teaching History, October 1994)
189
Ibid.
190
Sweeting, op. cit. (1991), p. 36
191
Alasdair MacIntyre, ‘Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry’ (Duckworth, 1990), p. 231
192
Slater, op. cit. (1995), pp. 144-146

99
 While Phillips has shown how the objective of teaching ‘skills’ through
history has gradually achieved the status of educational orthodoxy in Britain over the
past thirty or forty years since the beginnings of ‘new history’, he and Lee have
noted how the aim of teaching pupils how to think critically, as opposed to the aim
of simply teaching them to remember facts and write exam-style essays, has posed
great challenges relating to teacher training, the production of suitable teaching
materials, and the devising of appropriate assessment mechanisms. 193 Phillips
describes how the much-touted aim of using history to promote ‘empathy’ created
much controversy and became the target of much ‘derision’ in England during the
‘Great History Debate’ of the late 1980s and early 1990s.194 ‘Empathy’ was often
very loosely defined by its advocates. It was generally taken to involve the
cultivation of students’ historical imagination so as to enable them to put themselves
in the place of people in the past, and imagine how they would have felt and acted in
particular past situations. This aim was often explicitly related to the desire to use
history to promote tolerance and pluralism, since it involved encouraging in pupils
‘a willingness to enter a different experience.’ 195 Problems arose, observes Phillips,
because exercises in ‘empathy’ often became purely imaginative and ahistorical, and
unrelated to any adherence to rules of evidence.196 The challenge was to devise forms
of assessment which would reward the exercise of genuinely historical imagination,
while distinguishing it from the construction of pure fiction.
Sweeting, writing in 1991, made a similar point with regard to the practical
difficulties of teaching historical ‘skills’ in Hong Kong. He noted that local
curriculum developers had been pushing for the teaching of ‘skills’ in history
lessons, but that problems in implementing appropriate pedagogical methods and
assessment practices had tended to impede their efforts. 197 This observation, and
those made by Phillips and Lee, illustrate the danger of taking official curriculum
objectives at face value, or of assuming that these objectives tell us anything about
what is actually taught in classrooms. The issue of the implementation of curricular
objectives, and the problems presented in realising particular pedagogical aims, are

193
Phillips, op. cit. (1998), Ch. 2; Peter Lee, ‘History and the National Curriculum in England’ (in
‘International Yearbook of History Education, 1995’)
194
Phillips, op. cit., pp. 20-1
195
Ibid., p. 20
196
Ibid.; See also Lee (1995)
197
Sweeting, op. cit. (1991)

100
discussed further in the section on implementation below.

Promoting ‘Postmodern’ Awareness

The danger of assuming that public or scholarly debate over history teaching
necessarily reflects classroom reality is perhaps particularly apparent in the case of
‘postmodernism’. As was demonstrated in the previous chapter and in the earlier part
of this one, adherents of postmodernism have in recent years become increasingly
prominent in the fields of both history and curriculum studies. It is therefore scarcely
surprising that they have made their presence felt in, for example, the debate over
history education in England, where Keith Jenkins and Peter Brickley have written a
number of articles for the history teachers’ journal ‘Teaching History’ in which they
exhort teachers to be more reflexive, more aware of their own methodologies, of
their own ideological positions and those of others, and hence more aware of the
‘constructed’ nature of all history.198 ‘The approach,’ claim Brickley and Jenkins,
‘carries into the academic world the pluralist principles of democracy. …
Postmodernism does, through its incredulity, maintain an awareness of the
relationship between political power and historical knowledge which, in a
democracy, ought not to be ignored…’199 Jenkins quotes Hayden White’s suggestion
that an appreciation of history’s ‘meaninglessness’ is ‘a necessary precondition for
the production of a historiography ‘charged with avenging the people’ (avenging
which people, and against whom or what, is left unclear).200
As well as coming in for criticism on philosophical grounds such as those
outlined in Chapter 2, for example from MacIsaac, Hughes and Alexander (who
explicitly derive many of their arguments from Collingwood),201 and from Aldrich,202
postmodernists such as Jenkins and Brickley have been attacked for failing to relate
their theories or their exhortations to any practical suggestions as to how

198
Keith Jenkins and Peter Brickley, ‘Always Historicise: Unintended Opportunities in National
Curriculum History’ (Teaching History, January 1991); Brickley, ‘Teaching Postmodern History’
(Teaching History, January 1994); Keith Jenkins, ‘Beyond the Old Dichotomies: Some Reflections on
Hayden White’ (Teaching History, January 1994); see also Patrick Joyce (cited in Chapter 2 above)
199
Jenkins and Brickley, op. cit., p. 14
200
Jenkins, op. cit., (1994)
201
MacIsaac, ‘From Collingwood to the Teaching of Historical Thinking’ (Teaching History, June
1996); Hughes, ‘Rethinking Collingwood’ (Teaching History, June 1995); Alexander, ‘Clarity Please!
A Reply to Keith Jenkins and Peter Brickley’ (Teaching History, October 1991)
202
R. Aldrich, ‘Always Historicise?’ A Reply to Keith Jenkins and Peter Brickley’ (Teaching History,
October 1991)

101
‘postmodern’ history could be implemented in the history classroom.203 In mainland
China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, meanwhile, although postmodern ideas have begun
to enjoy a certain vogue in academic circles204, no calls have yet been made for
history to be taught from a ‘postmodern’ perspective of the sort advocated by
Jenkins and Brickley.

Pedagogy

As with the intended aims of the official curriculum, so with the intended
pedagogy, the research of, for example, Morris and Sweeting in Hong Kong, Phillips
and Lee in England, and Booth, Sato and Matthews in their comparison of history
lessons in England and Japan, has indicated that official intention and classroom
implementation are often far removed from each-other.205 This issue will be
discussed in greater detail in the section on implementation below. The purpose of
the present section is to briefly discuss and compare officially prescribed
pedagogical methods as they relate to the aims of official history curricula.
The implicit or explicit assumption made by most Taiwanese and mainland
Chinese scholars when writing about history teaching is that the principle
pedagogical aim is the transmission of information. Thus the pedagogical concerns
expressed in history teaching journals in China and Taiwan tend to revolve around
the need to ensure the accuracy or ‘correctness’ of the historical information
contained in history textbooks, the difficulties of covering the syllabus in the time
allocated for history lessons, or the trade-off between depth of coverage and the
practical need to keep textbook language simple and avoid requiring students to
memorise too many names.206 Chau, in describing an international conference on
history teaching held in Shanghai in 1993, writes:

‘Chinese, Japanese and Korean academics all shared similar experiences of attempting to
produce correct materials setting out correct opinions and values.’207

203
Ibid.
204
See Chapter 2 above
205
Paul Morris, ‘The Hong Kong School Curriculum’ (The Hong Kong University Press, 1995), Ch.
10; Sweeting (1991); Phillips, op. cit. (1998); Lee, op. cit., (1998); Martin Booth, Masayuki Sato and
Richard Matthews, ‘Case Studies of History Teaching in Japanese Junior High Schools and English
Comprehensive Secondary Schools’ (Compare, Vol. 25, No. 3, 1995), pp. 279-301
206
See references to Lishi Jiaoxue and Taiwanese journals above.
207
Manling Chau, op. cit., p. 140

102
As was illustrated in the previous section, there has been considerable debate on
both sides of the Taiwan Strait over the aims which history can or should serve, in
terms of fostering patriotism, morality or, more recently in Taiwan, liberal values
such as tolerance and pluralism. However, discussion of pedagogical styles which
would encourage students to think critically or autonomously has been noticeable by
its absence, and the assumption remains that history lessons will be teacher-centred.
There are signs that attempts to introduce such new teaching methods are beginning
to be made at the official level in Taiwan, with one recently published history
textbook featuring sections encouraging students to ‘research and discuss’. 208
Nonetheless, as Morris has observed with regard to East Asian education systems
more generally, the examination system if nothing else dictates that the over-riding
pedagogical priority remains knowledge transmission rather than the teaching of
‘skills’.209
In England, officially recommended curricula have gradually moved away
from an espousal of a similarly teacher-centred, information-transmission
pedagogical approach, and have advocated more open, activities-based methods
which are aimed at encouraging students to think for themselves, to become aware
of different interpretations of historical events, and to learn to construct their own
interpretations on the basis of source material. 210 This emphasis on the teaching of
skills originated with the ‘new history’ of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Despite
being anathematised by those Phillips refers to as ‘the New Right’, this approach
became the basis of the pedagogy adopted for National Curriculum History, which
stipulated the three ‘attainment targets’ of ‘knowledge and understanding of history’,
‘interpretations of history’, and ‘the use of historical sources’. 211 Thus teachers were
officially required to teach students how to use primary sources to question and
criticise received interpretations, and to guide students in producing the project work
which was a component of the new GCSE course. Group work, role play and class-

208
‘Renshi Taiwan (Lishi Bian)’ (Nan Yi Shu Ju, Taipei 1997)
209
Paul Morris, 1991, pp. 40-1
210
Phillips, op. cit. (1998); Lee, op. cit., (1995)
211
Phillips, op. cit. (1998)

103
room discussion have also been increasingly encouraged – evidence once again of a
vision of history teaching which implicitly sees one of its main roles as that of
‘initiating students into conflict’.212 Lee and Phillips have noted, however, that the
new pedagogical techniques which teachers were expected to use, and which the
new forms of assessment for GCSE history were designed to force them to use, have
imposed strains on a history teaching profession which has faced considerable
difficulties in implementing them.213 Their analysis of these problems is reviewed in
the section on implementation below.
Writing on the development of Hong Kong’s history curriculum, Sweeting
has noted the predominance, at least until the 1980s, of a traditional ‘one-way
exposition’ pattern in history pedagogy, which has usually required ‘convergent
thinking in the form of predictable responses, from pupils to teachers (or
examiners).’214 Sweeting links this pedagogical approach with an overly state-
centred, political focus in history curricula, something which he felt was beginning
to change in Hong Kong during the late 1980s and early 1990s:

‘The general direction of change… has been from a traditional, chronologically organised,
politically-oriented approach which required pupils to master a body of knowledge passively
and without questioning, to an inquiry-oriented, skills-concerned approach with inquiry
skills and conceptual frames of reference for understanding important elements of human
experiences, including social and even cultural aspects.’ 215

At least with reference to the official or intended curriculum, therefore, Sweeting’s

statement appears to indicate that the pedagogical approach adopted in Hong Kong
has changed in a direction similar to that seen in England, and with a similar
philosophical basis. Sweeting himself recognises, however, that the gap between the

212
MacIntyre, op. cit. (1990), p. 231
213
Ibid.; Lee, op. cit., (1995)
214
Sweeting, op. cit., (1991), p. 30
215
Ibid., p. 35

104
intended curriculum and actual classroom practice in Hong Kong has often been
rather wide.

The Impact of External Forces

A major source of external influence on the development of Hong Kong’s

school curriculum which Morris, Sweeting and Bray 216 have identified is the English
educational system. The structures of Hong Kong’s system of schooling, of the
system of public examinations at Forms 5 and 7, and of the university system were
all originally closely modelled on their English counterparts. Morris, Sweeting and
Bray do not, however, see this English influence (at least during the period with
which this study is concerned) as having necessarily been part of an attempt to
perpetuate British neocolonial domination.217 While Bray notes the high number of
British (and other foreign) personnel working in Hong Kong’s education sector, and
the ‘heavy influence’ of Western (often British) advisers on Hong Kong’s education
system generally, he sees Hong Kong as having in many ways benefited from what
some might see as an ‘excessively Western bias’ in its education system, just as he
sees some potential benefits accruing from the increasing mainland Chinese
influence on Hong Kong’s education system. For Bray, such influences are part of a
healthy flow of educational ideas back and forth across political boundaries.218
Elsewhere in the world, such a flow also appears to be taking place, and to be
influencing the development of national history curricula. The impact of European
integration on history curricula in France and Britain has already been alluded to,
and is being felt across Europe.219 Reference has also been made to comparisons by
different scholars of England’s history curriculum with history curricula in America,
and of both with history in Taiwan schools.220 The extent and nature of American or
other external influences on the recent changes to Taiwan’s own history curriculum

216
Morris ‘Preparing Pupils as Citizens…’; Sweeting, ‘Historical Perspectives’; and Bray, ‘The
Impact of External Forces’, in Postiglione (ed.), op. cit. (1992)
217
This issue of how external influences on Hong Kong’s curriculum have been and should be
characterised is discussed further in Chapter 5 and subsequent chapters.
218
Bray, op. cit.
219
Nelson, op. cit.; Slater, op. cit.; See also contributions to Audrey Osler, Hanns-Fred Rathenow and
Hugh Starkey (ed.), ‘Teaching Citizenship for the New Europe’ (Trentham Books, 1995)
220
Zhang and Schlesinger, op.s cit.

105
have yet to be systematically investigated, though given the nature of the changes
and the academic and other ties between Taiwan and the United States, it seems
likely that such influences have played a role in bringing about curriculum reform.
Even in mainland China, a major history teaching journal featured a lengthy article
in 1990 on England’s new GCSE history curriculum, suggesting that even in the
highly sensitive area of history teaching, China is not entirely insulated from the
international flow of educational ideas.221 Meanwhile, Powell has shown that
interpretations of Indian history in textbooks written for England’s new history
national curriculum appear to have been heavily influenced by the way in which
standard Indian works interpret (or misinterpret) India’s past.222 This appears to
further undermine the ‘neocolonialist’ thesis, according to which influence and ideas
would be expected to flow entirely in the opposite direction.
In Hong Kong, Tan and Cheung 223 have looked for evidence of British
neocolonialism or ‘cultural imperialism’ in the development of the official history
curriculum, but have not turned up any significant evidence of such influences at
work. Cheung made some attempt to compare the development of the official history
curriculum in Hong Kong with those of Taiwan, mainland China and England,
though from a somewhat idiosyncratic part-Marxist, part-culturalist perspective, and
in a largely descriptive manner. Research on the development of the history
curriculum has not so far revealed much about the precise nature or extent of British,
Chinese or other external influences on history teaching in Hong Kong, except to
indicate that – at least with respect to the past few decades – necolonialism or
‘cultural imperialism’ are perhaps not the most illuminating research paradigms to
use.

B. The Nature of the Curriculum Development Process

Goodson, Dale and Ball all see the curriculum development process as a
struggle between various interest groups or ‘stakeholders’ (see the first part of the

221
Sheng Yuan, ‘Yingguo Xinde Lishi kaoshi benxi – zhongdeng jiaoyu putong zhengshu (GCSE) lishi
guojia… pingjie’ (Lishi Jiaoxue (1990, No. 4)); See also Chapter 7 below on links between Hong
Kong curriculum developers and those on the Chinese mainland.
222
Averil Powell, op. cit.
223
John Tan, op. cit.; H.K. Cheung, op. cit.

106
present chapter).224 Goodson’s studies of school subjects in England has led him to
suggest that subject histories are largely the products of struggles for status and
resources between different groups of teachers – in other words, that one of the main
forces determining the development of the curriculum for any subject is the drive by
teachers of that subject for increased recognition and prestige for their discipline in
schools.225 This model assumes high levels of teachers activism and assertiveness, as
well as generalising, perhaps unduly, as to the significance of struggles for power
and status as the driving force of curriculum change. It also assumes the kind of
institutional framework for curriculum development that provides a forum in which
these battles for status and resources can be met and, hopefully, resolved. While
these conditions may have existed in relatively liberal-democratic England, the
extent to which they have pertained in Hong Kong is more questionable. The general
features and development of Hong Kong’s educational system, as they relate to the
nature of the state, are analysed in Chapter 5. The present section briefly reviews
what previous researchers have seen as the implications for the development of the
history curriculum of organisational and institutional frameworks, and the people
and pressure groups that exert influence within them.

Institutional Structure

The highly centralised and bureaucratic nature of Hong Kong’s educational

policy-making process has often been remarked, for example by Morris, McClelland
and Sweeting.226 However, while acknowledging the weaknesses of this kind of
system (of which more in Chapter 5), such as its frequent lack of success in
changing the implemented curriculum and its tendency to treat teachers as
technicians rather than professionals, Morris notes that other countries, such as the
UK, Australia and the USA, have been moving away from a largely school-based
system of decision making towards a more centralised system. 227 Indeed, the whole
process of producing a National Curriculum history course for England was part of
such a move towards centralisation. Much of Phillips’ study of the development of

224
Goodson, Dale, Ball, op.s cit.
225
Goodson (1988), Chapter 10
226
Morris, op. cit., (1995); J. McClelland, in Marsh and Morris (ed.), op. cit. (1991); Sweeting, op.s
cit. (1991, 1992)
227
Morris, op. cit. (1995), p. 95

107
National Curriculum history in England is devoted to analysing the origins,
composition and deliberations of the various central bodies set up to consider
various aspects of the new curriculum. 228 With respect to Hong Kong’s history
curriculum, Tan has examined the evidence (or lack of it) of official interference in
teaching and textbook production, with particular attention to politically sensitive
issues during the ‘decolonisation’ period. However, no work has yet been done on
the history of Hong Kong’s history curriculum which attempts to do what Phillips
has done in his study of England’s history curriculum – that is, to undertake a
comprehensive analysis of the nature and power of the different organisations
involved in producing the intended curriculum, the relationships between these
different bodies, and the influences exerted on and within them by politicians,
bureaucrats, teachers, academics and the media.

‘Stakeholders’, Pressure Groups and Curriculum decision-making

Politicians, teachers, academics and the media were all involved in England’s
heated ‘Great History Debate’ of the early 1990s, Phillips’ analysis of which seems
to bear out Goodson and Ball’s vision of the curriculum decision-making process as
an often fierce struggle between rival political, ideological and professional interest
groups. Phillips also shows how the involvement of these various, often conflicting,
groups in the policy-making process made that process very difficult for the
government to control, so that outcomes in terms of policy recommendations
sometimes alarmed or annoyed the ministers who had instigated the process in the
first place.229 At the same time, on the other side of the world, another ‘great debate’
over history and other school subjects was taking place in Taiwan where, as
Michelon has noted, politicians and the media also played an important role in
bringing about curriculum reform, while conservative elements in the political and
academic establishments resisted it.230 No such open debate has been possible in
mainland China. Powell has similarly noted the contrast between democratic India
and authoritarian Pakistan. In the latter, textbook writers have been instructed ‘to get
students to know and appreciate the Ideology of Pakistan and to popularise it with

228
Phillips, op. cit. (1998)
229
Ibid.
230
Michelon, op. cit.

108
slogans’.231 In India, though rival political parties have attempted to manipulate
history teaching, legal protection of freedom of expression, and an open political
climate, limits the success with which they are able to do so:

‘… the authors claim autonomy in their interpretations, alternative textbooks abound, and
discussion about the issues is carried on, if stridently, by a wide range of newspapers.
Historians who support alternative concepts of the Indian nation and civilisation are able to
voice in their own publications condemnation of the NCERT [National Council of
Educational Research and Training] for what is deemed deliberate distortion of the past.’232

In England too, politicians and the popular press played a prominent role in
the debate over history teaching in the late 1980s and early 1990s, reflecting a range
of views from those of chauvinist little-Englanders to ultra-liberal multi-culturalists.
A large degree of influence on the process of curriculum development in England,
however, was exercised by history teachers and academic historians as a profession.
Although Phillips suggests that the Secretary of State attempted to ‘pack’ the History
Working Group (HWG) with individuals who seemed likely to favour his views on
education,233 the Final Report which they produced reflected a consensus amongst
academics and teachers as to the importance of history, and the methods by which it
should be taught – particularly as regarded the appropriate balance between ‘facts’
and ‘skills’. The process of drafting the new curriculum galvanised the Historical
Association (HA) into action, despite its previously ‘mixed reputation for
representing teachers’ interests’.234 The HA organised a series of conferences and
consultations which, in Phillips’ view, amounted to ‘a political strategy which… had
an important impact upon the ways in which the report was interpreted’. 235 Not only
did the HWG’s report represent a broad consensus, but the activities of the HA
ensured that it was seen to do so. This demonstrable consensus made it possible for
the new Secretary of State, who had become convinced of the merits of the report, to
dissuade the Prime Minister from rejecting it.236

231
Directive of the Ulama Grand Council to prospecitve Pakistani textbook writers, quoted in Powell,
op. cit., p. 221
232
Powell, op. cit., p. 223
233
Phillips, op. cit. (1998), pp. 54-5
234
Ibid., p. 87
235
Ibid.
236
Ibid., p. 96

109
 The lack of any association for professional history teachers in Hong Kong
marks a particularly sharp contrast with the situation in England. Hong Kong’s
curriculum development process as portrayed by Morris has generally been rather
more ‘top-down’ than those in England or contemporary Taiwan. As is noted in
Chapter 5, teachers, politicians and political parties have not played a major role in
the formulation of education policy. However, Lee has noted how, in the case of the
local history pilot project for junior secondary forms, Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing
media played a significant role in influencing the decision-making process related to
the introduction of local history at junior secondary level.237 Sweeting and Tan have
made more general observations concerning the relationship between politics and
history teaching in Hong Kong – again, particularly with reference to the absence of
local history in the curriculum, and, in the case of Tan, to the issue of self-censorship
by textbook writers.238 However, Sweeting, like Morris, has noted the relative
quiescence of local teachers in the curriculum development process, and the fact that
most policy initiatives have tended to come from above (i.e. often from the
bureaucrats in the central policy-making bodies) rather than from below (from
practising teachers).239 The question of what, if any, roles have been played by
teachers, bureaucrats, academics, politicians, the media and textbook publishers in
the process of developing Hong Kong’s senior secondary history curriculum over the
past twenty years, has until now hardly been addressed by researchers.

Key Individuals

In a highly centralised system of curriculum policy-making, a large amount

of influence may come to be wielded by a small number of key individuals. Phillips’
study underlined the importance of individuals such as Baker, Patten, Clarke, Tate
and Dearing, some of whom he interviewed, in the process of producing England’s
history curriculum, though he also showed how the influence of these individuals
was heavily circumscribed by the various other interests and personalities which
made themselves felt on the different curriculum policy committees and in the
media.240 In the case of Hong Kong, Sweeting and Tan have both mentioned Patrick

237
Lee Chi Hung, op. cit.
238
Sweeting, op. cit. (1991), Tan, op. cit. (1993)
239
Sweeting, op. cit. (1991), p. 34; Morris, op. cit. (1995), Chapter 9
240
Phillips, op. cit. (1998)

110
Wong, the history subject officer at the Examinations Authority since 1978, as a key
figure in the process of curriculum development for history in Hong Kong. 241 Given
the smaller scale of the whole education system, and the relatively passive nature of
the teaching profession (see Chapter 5), it seems likely that such individuals may
have been able to exercise even greater influence in Hong Kong than their
counterparts in England. This was one of the main reasons for the decision to
conduct interviews with key players in local curriculum development. This decision,
and the conduct of those interviews are discussed in the following chapter.

C. The Implemented Curriculum

Research on the development of formal or ‘preactive’ history curricula, in

terms of their content, aims and recommended pedagogical methods has been
extensive, perhaps due to the relative ease of studying official curriculum documents
as compared to gathering evidence of actual curriculum implementation. In a
retrospective historical study such as this, it is impossible to gather immediate
evidence of classroom implementation of the curriculum, as was noted above in the
discussion of histories of school subjects. However, as Phillips 242 has shown in his
study of the development of England’s history curriculum, it is possible to use
documentary and oral sources to shed light on what Ball243 terms ‘the context of
practice’, as well as on the ‘preactive’ contexts of ‘influence’ and ‘text production’.
The importance of combining studies of ‘preactive’ curricula with analysis of what
actually happens in schools has also been emphasised by Goodson244 and Ball since,
as they have separately pointed out, significant gaps or ‘slippages’ often exist
between what is prescribed in the official curriculum, and what is practised in the
classroom. Issues relating to the types of data used in the present study, and the
methods employed in analysing them, are tackled in more detail in Chapter 4. Hong
Kong’s educational culture is discussed in Chapter 5, but here it is simply noted that
previous research on Hong Kong’s school curriculum has suggested the particular
importance of textbooks and, particularly at senior secondary level, of examinations

241
Sweeting, op. cit. (1991), Tan, op. cit. (1993)
242
Phillips, op. cit. (1998)
243
Ball, op. cit. (1990), cited in Phillips, op. cit. (1998), pp. 5-6
244
Goodson, op.s cit. (1994, 1995)

111
in determining what actually gets taught in local classrooms, and that therefore data
relating to the setting and marking of public examination papers, and to the kinds of
published material used by teachers, may be highly indicative of the ways in which
the history curriculum has actually been delivered to senior secondary history
students.245

Examinations

Morris has noted the immense importance of examinations both in East Asia
generally and in Hong Kong in particular in influencing teachers’ choice of teaching
approach246, while McClelland has observed a highly academic, public-examination
oriented approach to be typical of education systems in many former colonies. 247
Sweeting has noted, however, how efforts by himself and others over the past thirty
years to promote a skills-based approach to history teaching have generally had a
very limited impact on teaching styles, and that, contrary to popular perception, the
Hong Kong Examinations Authority ‘has actually served as one of the most
influential proponents of change’ since it was established in 1978. 248 At the time
when he wrote this (1991), Sweeting expressed optimism that changes to Certificate
and A’level examinations, either recently enacted or forthcoming, would succeed in
effecting a revolution in history pedagogy, since innovations such as data-based
questions would force teachers to teach students how to think critically and analyse
evidence if they were to achieve their coveted examination results. However, at the
same time, he noted how teacher conservatism and a low level of teacher skills had
tended to act as constraints on innovation, even at junior secondary level where
examination-related pressure might be assumed to be less severe.249
During the debate over history in England’s National Curriculum, according
to Lee, ‘changing the pattern of assessment was seen as central to making history
rigorous and conceptually powerful’.250 Lee and Phillips both note that the need to
test skills related to the interpretation of historical evidence and ‘empathy’ led to
245
Morris, ‘The Hong Kong School Curriculum’ (Hong Kong University Press, 1995), pp. 112-117
246
Morris, op. cit., (1991)
247
J. McClelland, ‘Curriculum Development in Hong Kong’, in Morris and March (ed.), (1991). As
noted above, Keith Watson and Clive Whitehead have noted that such features of colonial education
systems are not necessarily attributable to the intentions of the colonial government.
248
Sweeting, op. cit., (1991)
249
Ibid.
250
Lee (1995)

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assessment procedures which were far more complicated than anything which
history teachers in England had had to cope with before. 251 They use evidence from
the reports of England’s Office of Standards in Education (OFSTED), The National
Curriculum Council (NCC), Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Schools (HMI) and other
official bodies, combined, in the case of Phillips, with data gathered through his own
interviews with teachers and curriculum planners, in order to gain an insight into the
problems which assessment-related and other issues had on curriculum
implementation. According to Phillips,

‘A worrying aspect of history’s implementation at an early stage for the NCC was that
“teachers see the attainment targets as purely assessment objectives and do not relate them to
teaching activities. This tends to divorce assessment from normal classroom activities”.’ 252

The perception of curriculum planners, then, was that the pressure which the
complex assessment procedures placed on teachers often led them to see assessment
in largely instrumental terms, rather than, as had been intended, in terms of the
attainment targets laid out for National Curriculum History. Another related source
of pressure on teachers was the need to ‘get through’ the syllabus in the limited time
available – though the complaint of insufficient time has been common to teachers in
both skills-oriented and content-oriented systems.253 Broader dissatisfaction with
what were seen by many as cumbersome and overly-subjective assessment
mechanisms led in England to a furious debate over both syllabuses and assessment
procedures for history and other National Curriculum subjects. Phillips’ account of
this debate revealed the influence which various different groups of ‘stakeholders’ –
politicians, teachers, academics, bureaucrats, the press and ‘public opinion’ –
exercised over the curriculum development process in England.254
Tan, in his study of the history curriculum in Hong Kong, undertook case
studies of four local schools, conducted interviews with curriculum developers and
teachers, and studied some documents relating to public examinations.255 He
remarked that ‘inertia to curriculum innovations is often a result of an inclination to
tailor content according to a conservative interpretation of examination
251
Lee, (1995) and Phillips, op. cit.
252
Phillips, op. cit. (1998), p. 116
253
See ibid. and references to Taiwan journals above; see also Martin Booth, Masayuki Sato and
Richard Matthews,
254
Phillips, op. cit. (1998)
255
Tan, op. cit.

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requirements’256, a conclusion that would seem to tally to some extent with the
problems observed in implementing the assessment methods for National
Curriculum History in England. However, Tan’s main interest is in the effects of
‘colonialism and decolonisation’ on the history curriculum, and he does not engage
in a very detailed study of issues related to curriculum implementation. For example,
he does not address the question of whether, if Hong Kong teachers do indeed adopt
a generally narrow or ‘conservative’ interpretation of examination requirements, thus
largely ignoring many of the objectives of the intended curriculum, they are allowed
to get away with this by the examination system.

The Maintenance of a ‘Market’ for History in Schools

A major factor in stimulating the drive to reform history teaching in England

and America from the 1960s onwards was the perception that history as it was
traditionally taught was regarded as boring and irrelevant by many students, and that
the very presence of history as a separate subject in the school curriculum was under
threat as many schools opted to teach new ‘social studies’ courses. 257 This reflects
Kliebard’s observation, noted earlier, that the development of academic subjects
such as history might tend to be away from a more academic emphasis towards a
more utilitarian, ‘skills’-oriented one, as they adapt to an era of mass compulsory
education. Concerns over the maintenance of student interest in history as a school
subject have been evident also in Taiwan and in mainland China. A widely-used
manual for trainee history teachers in China admits that many students ‘have
gradually come to regard history lessons as “relaxation lessons”’, the perception
amongst students being that their compulsory history lessons are rather a waste of
time and need not be taken terribly seriously.258
Research to date on Hong Kong’s senior secondary history curriculum has
not attempted to trace or account for any changes which may have taken place in the
popularity of history as a school subject over the past twenty years. Nor have studies
shown whether the popularity of the separate subject of ‘Chinese History’ has risen

256
Ibid., p. 10
257
Phillips, op. cit., Chapter 2; Aldrich and Dean, op. cit.; On Social Studies in Hong Kong, see
Chapter 5 below.
258
‘Zhongxue Lishi Jiaoxuefa’ (Gaodeng Shizhuan jiaocai, huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 1988),
p. 4 (in Chinese)

114
or fallen over the same period, measured in terms of the numbers of candidates
taking public examinations in the subject. A systematic attempt to analyse public
examination data related to History and Chinese History might reveal interesting
comparative data relating, for example, to the relative difficulty of questions, the
distribution of grades, and the relative popularity among candidates of different
topics and types of questions which might in turn allow inferences to be made about
the ways in which these subjects have been taught and studied.259
Phillips and others have used documentary data in combination with
information obtained through interviews to undertake this kind of analysis of history
teaching in England. Tan has made limited use of similar kinds of data in his study,
but with the over-riding objective of establishing the extent and nature of political
influence on Hong Kong’s history curriculum. Nonetheless, he does raise the issue
of concerns to maintain a ‘market’ for history in local schools, particularly in
relation to the desire of university academics sitting on subject committees to keep
‘their’ topics in the curriculum.260 This issue is linked to the question, discussed
above, of how the whole process of drafting the curriculum is organised, and the
relative influence of different groups and individuals on this process.

Language-related Issues

One of the dominant issues in Hong Kong education over the past two
decades has been that of whether Chinese or English should be the medium of
instruction in local schools (see Chapter 5 below). Auyeung noted in a 1987 study
that problems experienced by both students and teachers in the use of English
contributed to conformity and conservatism in history teaching methods,261 while
another study in 1982 had indicated that at Secondary 2 level only the upper
language proficiency groups benefitted from teaching in English.262 Research
presented in 1999 found that the use of English as the medium of instruction in
Hong Kong schools had ‘incredibly negative effects’ on the teaching of ‘history,

259
Flora Kan of Hong Kong University’s Department of Curriculum Studies is currently researching a
PhD on the development of the curriculum for Chinese History.
260
Tan, op. cit.
261
Auyeung, ‘Recent Developments of the Official Curriculum for History in Hong Kong Chinese
Secondary Schools’ (M.Ed. thesis, The University of Hong Kong, 1987)
262
Brimer (ed.), ‘The Effects of the Medium of Instruction on the Achievement of Form 2 Students in
Hong Kong Secondary Schools’, (Hong Kong, mimeo, 1985), cited in Sweeting, op. cit. (1991)

115
geography and science’.263 This perception was eventually reflected in the policy
enacted in 1997-8 to force three quarters of local secondary schools to adopt Chinese
as the medium of instruction for all subjects except English. While problems arising
from low levels of language proficiency may thereby be diminished, however,
research underway by Chau and Kan indicates that the use of Chinese for teaching
history may have implications for the kinds of educational and moral values which
become attached to the subject.264 Chau and Kan’s preliminary findings suggest that
using the Chinese language and Chinese terms to teach history may involve
importing many of the values and aims associated with the subject of ‘Chinese
History’ into the subject of ‘History’. Research in Taiwan has also suggested that one
of the main practical problems faced by students learning history in Chinese is the
sheer volume of often obscure names and terms whose memorisation is rendered
particularly difficult by the nature of the Chinese language.265
During the period with which this research is concerned the vast majority of
schools in Hong Kong were using, or attempting to use, English to teach history.
Moreover, despite the government’s new policy on medium of instruction, it will
become apparent in Chapter 5 that this issue has not been laid to rest. Problems with
the use of language, and particularly with the use of English, will therefore be
among the issues considered in the analysis of examination-related material and
textbooks.

Textbooks

The provision of suitable textbooks and other published materials has been
universally recognised as essential to the effective implementation of history

263
Herbert W. Marsh, Kit-Tai Hau and Chit-Kwong Kong, ‘Late Immersion and Language of
Instruction (English vs. Chinese) in Hong Kong High Schools: Achievement Growth in Language and
Nonlanguage Subjects (unpublished paper, 1999)
264
Chau Lai-ying and Kan Lai-fong, ‘Mu Yu Jiaoxue de Kunnan yu Jiejue Banfa – Yong Zhongwen
Jiangshou Shishi’ (‘The difficulties of mother-tongue education and their solutions – using Chinese to
teach World History’), (Zhongwen jiaoyu lunwenji, disanji, Hong Kong Institute of Education, 1996),
pp. 64-71 (in Chinese)
265
See Wang Xiuzheng, op. cit., and article on Mainland Chinese History textbooks, cited above. The
authors of the latter wrote that Taiwan could learn from mainland practice regarding the
simplification of terms (p. 54)

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curricula as of curricula for most other school subjects.266 Commenting on the
quality of history textbooks in England, Lee has written that

‘Professional textbook writers vary enormously in their ability to turn the statutory bones of
the History Curriculum into a proper course, in their understanding of the demands of the
assessment apparatus, and in their ability to work within the (already widely varying)
constraints imposed by different publishers.’267

Nonetheless, the 1994 OFSTED report in England stated that ‘[school history]
departments which have a good range of textbooks which are up to date, attractive
and appropriate are in the majority’, although it also noted that ‘excessive
dependence in some schools on a single textbook’ was a cause for concern ‘because
it can so often result in a narrow teaching style.’ 268 The OFSTED inspectors also
expressed concern about the ‘quality of worksheets and over-reliance on their use
which can lead to a diet of monotonous and undemanding tasks with limited teacher-
pupil interaction.’269 Similarly, they were disappointed by the under-utilisation of
libraries in many schools, ‘given that research is a core historical activity.’270
The aims of England’s history curriculum, and the skills-based orientation of
history teaching there thus necessitate the availability of a wide variety of
stimulating printed materials, even if the reality is not always as stimulating or
activities-oriented as the ideal. The rather different aims of a state-centred, tightly-
controlled, ideologically ‘correct’ history curriculum such as that in mainland China
are reflected in the nature and variety of the teaching materials used, as was brought
home to the British historian William Lamont when, on a visit to China during the
1980s, he was asked by a Chinese history teacher ‘Please, how big is the textbook in
England?’271. In Taiwan, too, the state exercised direct control over the production of
history textbooks until 1998, when for the first time the school textbook market was
opened up to relatively free competition between private publishers. 272 Whether the

266
Phillips, op. cit. (1998); Lee, op. cit. (1995); Wang Xiuzheng, op. cit.; ‘The International Yearbook
of History Education, 1995’
267
Lee, op. cit. (1995), p. 89
268
quoted in Bowen, ‘Secondary History Teaching and the OFSTED Inspections’ (Teaching History,
June 1995), p. 11
269
Ibid., p. 9
270
Ibid.
271
William Lamont, in Gardiner (ed.), op. cit., (1990), p. 34
272
Interview with a lecturer in the History Department of the National Taiwan Normal University,
Taipei, August 1998.

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new textbooks adopt a more skills-based, activities-oriented approach, or stick to the
tried-and-tested information-transmission model has yet to be seen. The pressures of
the market on textbook publishers in Hong Kong has been noted by Morris, who
claims that one result of such pressures tends to be that textbooks gradually become
‘more like the market leader.’273 Another problem he identified was the lack of co-
ordination or co-operation between curriculum planners and the publishers who were
expected to produce materials which would enable teachers to effectively implement
their curricular aims. This problem, according to Morris, reflects the fact that in
Hong Kong

‘…curriculum planning tends to focus on identifying worthwhile intentions and little time is
devoted to analysing the context in which innovations will be used, or to support their
implementation with concrete resources.’274

A 1985 study by Leung and Sweeting showed how even qualified history
teachers experienced problems in trying to increase the proportion of their lessons
taken up by ‘genuine pupil-engaged time’ as opposed to teacher talk, except when
assisted by specially-prepared course materials.275 The extent to which history
textbooks in Hong Kong have reflected the aims of the intended curriculum in terms
not only of their content and depth of coverage, but of their language, their approach
to questions of evidence and interpretation and their provision of suitable exercises
and activities, is an issue which has not until now been thoroughly investigated. Tan
has, however, studied the changes to one popular set of textbooks by A.C. Morales in
order to determine the extent to which Education Department (E.D.) officials had
sought to censor his work, and the extent to which Morales or his publishers had
exercised self-censorship.276 While he found little evidence of active interference by

273
Morris, op. cit. (1995), p. 100
274
Ibid., p. 101
275
Julian Leung and Anthony Sweeting, in Brimer (ed.), op. cit.
276
Tan, op. cit.

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the E.D., he did detect signs of self-censorship at work in successive edition of
Morales’ books. Evidence of self-censorship in Chinese history textbooks during the
run-up to the handover was, however, far more striking than anything uncovered by
Tan.277 The causes and extent of the phenomenon of self-censorship in Hong Kong,
its effects on history textbooks, and its implications for history teaching, will be
considered in the later chapters of this thesis. Finally, with reference to the more
general importance of textbooks in Hong Kong schools, Tan notes that they have
tended to be ‘a major factor influencing curriculum implementation with unqualified
teachers’, and that they ‘are still important, especially for students, even when
teachers do not rely on them during teaching.’278

Teachers’ Skills

Phillips and others have recognised the challenge which the emphasis on the
teaching of historical skills in history lessons in England in recent years has posed to
teachers, since in order to fulfil the requirements of the syllabus (and, incidentally,
ensure that their pupils achieve good examination grades) they need to be able not
only to appreciate the complex nature of history themselves, but also to
communicate this appreciation to their students.279 As was remarked in the section on
assessment above, many teachers experienced great difficulties, at least at first, in
implementing the new National Curriculum for history in England, and such
problems contributed to demands for a revision of the history curriculum which took
place in 1994. In the same year, the OFSTED report in England, while generally
positive in its comments on history teaching, noted that

‘It is common for there to be an excessively long explanation by the teacher at the start of
the lesson, followed by the reading of a photocopied page or passage from a textbook and
the answering of questions which do little more than test basic comprehension. As a result,
pupils often develop poor learning habits.’280

277
Bruce Gilley, ‘Past Imperfect: Post-handover textbooks whitewash Chinese History’ (Far Eastern
Economic Review, September 25, 1997)
278
Tan, op. cit., p. 13
279
Phillips, Lee, Aldrich, op.s cit.
280
quoted in Bowen, op. cit., p. 11

119
 Sweeting has noted that problems with the teaching skills and language
proficiency of history teachers have tended to hamper curriculum innovation in
Hong Kong, though neither he nor Tan go so far as Gilbert Chan, the principal
lecturer in Chinese history at the Institute of Education, who complained in 1997
that ‘We’ve got a bunch of amateurs in secondary schools teaching Chinese
History.’281 In 1991, Sweeting appeared to be optimistic about the improving
professionalism of history (as opposed to Chinese history) teachers in Hong Kong,
although he noted that the considerable number of unqualified teachers teaching
mainly junior forms tended to be very heavily dependent on textbooks.282
In the course of this section on implementation, the close links which often
exist between assessment practices, textbook quality, language-related factors and
teachers’ skills in determining the way in which history is actually taught and
experienced in the classroom have been emphasised. As Phillips and Tan have
shown in their studies of history curricula in England and Hong Kong respectively, it
is possible through analysing a combination of official documentation, public
examination-related material, textbooks and data obtained from interviews to infer a
great deal about the realities of curriculum implementation and the reasons for
whatever ‘gap’ may be found to exist between the curriculum as intended and as
implemented.

Conclusion: History Education, Culture and the State

The discussion in this chapter of approaches to the history of the curriculum

in general, and of history as a school subject in particular, suggests that
‘essentialised and reified’ uses of concepts such as ‘culture’ and ‘colonialism’ can
produce distorted and unduly deterministic accounts of educational development.
This is not to imply, as some anthropologists have done, that all use of ‘culture’ as a
concept is necessarily suspect,283 but simply that the concept ought to be interpreted
in a narrower sense, to refer to the historically-constructed and shifting categories
through which communities or individuals express their own identities and values.
Culture in this sense, and not as a supreme determining force, has, as noted above,
281
quoted in Gilley, op. cit.
282
Sweeting, op. cit. (1991)
283
Hoffman, op. cit., p. 466

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influenced history curricula throughout the world. However, as was also noted, both
culture and history, particularly as they relate to national identity, have in turn been
influenced and manipulated by the policies of nation states. Green and Dale have
placed special emphasis on the importance of seeing education policy in this
political context, while Phillips, Slater, Powell and others have noted the central role
played by history as a school subject in the nation-building agendas of states as
different as India, Taiwan, Pakistan, France and England.
The present study therefore treats the nature of the state in Hong Kong, as
well as the local cultural context, as crucial to an understanding of history
curriculum policy. Chapter 5 below provides an analysis of Hong Kong’s political,
educational and cultural development since the 1960s. This analysis seeks to
characterise state and society in Hong Kong without recourse to stereotypical
notions of ‘colonialism’ or ‘Chineseness’, thus establishing the historical context
essential to the discussion of the history curriculum in subsequent chapters.

121