School leadership for civic learning: The case of socio-political turbulence in Hong Kong

Abstract

Currently, the challenges deriving from the complex and dynamic socio-political context in Hong Kong influence principals’ and teachers’ relationships and interactions. Academic autonomy in Hong Kong secondary schools is not simply granted by the principals, it is influenced by the society, school conditions and key stakeholders. This study employed qualitative methods to examine how principals negotiate the political context surrounding citizenship education and how these practices influence the civic learning in schools. The results revealed that in school citizenship education, when principals lacked a clear vision of citizenship education, most teachers were compliant and avoided discussing controversial political topics with their students. Such teachers had less autonomy and consequently less self-efficacy. When principals mediated the diverse needs of students and balanced the different expectations of school stakeholders, there were both compliant and critical teachers. Teacher autonomy and self-efficacy were also affected by the current socio-political context in Hong Kong. When principals had a clear school civic mission, the results differed across schools. These findings suggest that principals have to reflect on their own understanding of the purposes and perspectives of citizenship education significantly to meet the multiple demands of a complicated and turbulent socio-political environment.

Mission and mandates: school leaders’ and teachers’ professional discretion in enacting education for democracy

“…A fourth strand of research has payed particular attention to the role of formal leadership in promoting democracy and social justice in schools (e.g., Alviar-Martin et al, 2008;Szeto, 2020;Wong et al, 2020). Studies within this strand have critiqued the largely conceptual nature of existing studies on the enactment of social justice in schools (Berkovich, 2014;Szeto, 2020), and have addressed practices of leadership in the work with social justice.…”

“…Studies within this strand have critiqued the largely conceptual nature of existing studies on the enactment of social justice in schools (Berkovich, 2014;Szeto, 2020), and have addressed practices of leadership in the work with social justice. For example, studies have demonstrated that during turbulent sociopolitical times, teachers experience difficulty addressing controversial issues and thus tend to avoid controversial topics, especially when school leaders lack a clear vision of citizenship education (Alviar-Martin et al, 2008;Wong et al, 2020). Moreover, a study by Szeto (2020) has demonstrated how principals' practices of democratic leadership occurs through responding to social justice challenges by cultivating an inclusive school environment to ensure equitable participation in school activities, fulfilling the needs of every student, motivating teaching teams' potential at different levels of hierarchy in the school, as well as establishing a mutual understanding with community stakeholders based on their personal morality and professional ethics.…”

“…As such, the current study indicates that it is not so much the political context that narrows the discretionary space (cf. Wong et al, 2020) in the Norwegian context but is instead the community and the stakeholders closer to the schools, such as parents.…”