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Purpose – This paper aims to apply the inventory – Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME) to examine the development of teamwork skills among freshmen from the Chinese Mainland through a cooperative learning activity (group project) in the context of Hong Kong. Design/methodology/approach – The questionnaire survey was conducted twice, at the beginning (pre) and end (post) of the group project; qualitative interviews were undertaken after their project completion. Findings – It was found that, except for Category 5 (having relevant knowledge, skills and abilities), the post mean scores in all items of other four categories declined, because students’ Chinese Mainland backgrounds led to their different understanding toward teamwork, as unveiled by the qualitative interviews. However their project completion enabled them to acquire the relevant competencies, causing the rise in the mean scores of Category 5. Research limitations/implications – Limited by the small sample size and American-driven CATME, this study did not observe the significant improvements in students’ self-reported evaluation of teamwork. There should be more applications of this instrument into the Asian and Chinese contexts for having it adapted to different national and cultural situations. Practical implications – As a gap observed in Chinese Mainland students’ understanding to teamwork, overseas education institutions can incorporate this for curriculum development. Originality/value – As a pioneer work in applying the CATME in the Chinese Mainland situation, this study implied a significant room for such kind of inventories mainly originated from west to incorporate the diverse national and cultural characteristics.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe and discuss current challenges for citizenship education in England. Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides a relatively brief overview of the reasons for the introduction of citizenship education into the National Curriculum. Then, it describes the different versions (in 2002, 2008 and 2014) of the National Curriculum for citizenship. Finally, this paper draws attention to the issues that explain the reasons for the radical change in status and nature of citizenship education evidenced by the 2014 version of the subject. Findings – Following the period 1998-2010 in which citizenship education became research informed and professionally developed, policy makers now since 2014 seem to be involved in the development of citizenship education in the National Curriculum in the form of promoting knowledge about civics, willingness to volunteer and a commitment to manage responsibly personal finances. In 2014 policy makers have confirmed the place of citizenship education in the National Curriculum but its nature, the relative lack of attention devoted to it and the growing official commitment to character education which emphasises personal morality rather than citizenship education suggests that it has lost a lot of ground. This paper argues that there are parallels between what we felt had happened at earlier points, principally, the early 1990s, when political education had been rejected in favour of a particular form of citizenship education (i.e. volunteering); and the situation in 2014 when volunteering and character education are now officially preferred. Originality/value – This paper argues for a need to address key current challenges in citizenship education in the context of earlier development.

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