TAIWAN:
Examining social issues with new pedagogies

Professor Doong Shiowlan from National Taiwan Normal University introduced the "alternative teaching and learning approaches" adopted in Taiwan for civic education, which include case method teaching, an issue-centred and an economic reasoning approach. She demonstrated how learning activities such as watching films, discussions, debates and news analyses can help students gain a greater understanding of issues such as the life of new immigrants, midnight curfews for teenagers, Taiwan's foreign policy and the environment. Students subsequently showed less discrimination towards new immigrants and also enhanced their own problem-solving abilities.

HONG KONG:
Breaking through institutional constraints on civic education

Research done in 1994-95 by Professor Tse Kwan-choi from the Chinese University of Hong Kong showed that civic education in secondary schools at that time was sparse, while teacher quality and material on the subject were inadequate to prepare students for democratic citizenship in the pre-1997 transition period. Dr Leung Yan-wing, Co-head of the Centre for Citizenship Education at the HKIEd pointed out that local schools experienced "re-depoliticisation" of civic education after the 1997 handover, with political content such as democracy and human rights being removed while there was a strong focus on national and patriotic education. But in research conducted in 2005-06, he found that the experiential learning approach is proving to be effective. Students were becoming more active citizens after participating in outside-the-classroom social and political activities.