Abstract
This case study explored how the principles of multicultural and intercultural education are reflected in a minority-majority Hong Kong secondary school (that is, a school where most students are ethnic minorities). The findings suggest that the school illustrates several aspects of multicultural and intercultural education, especially content integration, prejudice reduction, equity pedagogy, and democratic deliberation, particularly in relation to school-based material, teacher sensitivity, and dialogical reasoning. The main hurdles discovered are language learning difficulties and an unsupportive social environment. This study contributes to literature on the development of multicultural and intercultural education in Hong Kong and offers directions for generalizable future research.
Introduction
With a population of 91.6% Chinese people and 8.4% non-Chinese ethnic minorities (Census and Statistics Department, 2022), Hong Kong is often described by its government as “Asia’s World City” (Law & Lee, 2012; Lin & Jackson, 2019, 2020). However, many have argued that Hong Kong society, on policy, community, and school levels, has not sufficiently considered or recognized the needs and rights of ethnic minorities; nor has it provided equal opportunities or facilitated social integration. Racial discrimination is “pervasively experienced” by ethnic minorities (Chan et al., 2015), while minority cultures are often poorly and at times negatively represented in media and curriculum (Jackson, 2017; Jackson & Nesterova, 2017; Lin & Jackson, 2019). Systemic inequities render ethnic minorities disadvantaged in education as well as the job market (Bhowmik & Kennedy, 2016; Jackson, 2014b).
While there is increasing theoretical discussion of multicultural and intercultural education in Hong Kong, relatively less effort has been taken to investigate how ethnic minorities perceive various challenges in education and society and what changes they believe are needed. Based on Banks’ (1995, 2008) and Jackson’s (2014a) frameworks, this research focuses on the experience of ethnic minorities in a Hong Kong minority-majority secondary school to explore whether and how principles of multicultural and intercultural education are reflected in the school and obstacles inhibiting desired outcomes. The paper begins with a discussion on multicultural and intercultural education in Hong Kong before discussing our study’s methods, findings, and conclusions.
Multicultural and Intercultural Education in Hong Kong
The concept of multicultural education originated in response to growing awareness about the value of cultural diversity and the harms of ethnocentrism and ethnic and racial inequities, prejudice, and stereotypes in pluralist societies such as the U.S., the U.K., and Australia (Banks, 2008; Hill, 2007; Jackson, 2014a, Nieto, 2017). Regarded by most as the founder of multicultural education, Banks believes that multicultural education should not be viewed as only a remedy for injustices and inequalities created by historic, socioeconomic, and socio-political processes, but as a powerful agent to challenge and reshape the status quo and reform the education for all (Banks, 2008; Banks & Banks, 2019). Banks (1995, 2008) elucidates five components of multicultural education: content integration, knowledge construction, prejudice reduction, equity pedagogy, and empowering school culture, and social structure.
Inspired by elements of multicultural education, interculturalism or intercultural education is gaining prominence. Proponents stress the “inter” element, which refers to dialogical interactions and relational dynamics across groups as well as the fluid nature of identity, aiming to expand multiculturalism from potentially tokenistic treatment of diversity to engaging practical agency for change (Gorski, 2008; Jackson, 2014a). Others, however, assert that the claimed merits of interculturalism are found in or fundamental to multiculturalism, and that the term is rather a way to evade criticisms of multiculturalism (Meer & Modood, 2012; Holm & Zilliacus, 2009). Thus, some use the terms interchangeably (Hill, 2007).
After reviewing the limitations of multiculturalism and critical multiculturalism, Jackson (2014a) emphasizes interculturalism as a method that focuses on developing students’ skills and capacities for dialogue, rather than transmitting multicultural values as a priori truths. On the practical level, she identifies democratic deliberation and critical media literacy as two important aspects of interculturalism. By democratic deliberation, Jackson means that teachers should facilitate students exploring different views and formulating their own. This requires a change in the relationship between teachers and students, from deliverers and receivers of knowledge, to more equal participants in a cooperative search for answers.
encourage students’ active and critical, rather than passive, reception of stereotypical and negative media messages about minorities, and … correct for the misinformative effects of much of mass media, when it comes to issues of controversial social difference. (p. 134)
From this perspective, teachers should help students deconstruct media messages and examine underlying agendas. Materials including textbook content should be scrutinized and analysed with culturally sensitive questions.
Despite theoretical debates over to what extent multicultural and intercultural education differ, this paper conceives them as overlapping and complementary within education, supporting and reinforcing each other (Hill, 2007; Jackson, 2013; Salter & Maxwell, 2018). Democratic deliberation and critical media literacy are important today due to changes in how students interact with media and information and the value of assessing diverse perspectives to develop one’s worldview. Media literacy is needed for knowledge construction; democratic deliberation is the platform for prejudice reduction; content integration enables media literacy; and equity pedagogy and empowering school culture facilitate deliberation. These relations are illustrated in Figure 1.
The connections between Banks and Jackson’s frameworks
Citation: Beijing International Review of Education 5, 4 (2023) ; 10.1163/25902539-05040002
Multicultural and intercultural education are sensitive to local context. The evolution of identity, cultural norms and traditions, historic events and their ramifications, and social conditions impact what practices are most effective and just for managing diversity. Multicultural and intercultural education have gained momentum in western countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. However, the uniqueness of each society’s history, political landscape, and cultural composition makes experience from any given society difficult to transfer.
Hong Kong has its own set of unique factors, with its change of political affiliation from being a British colony to a special administrative region of China. The need to better represent and support ethnic minorities and minority cultures, and the appeal for multicultural and intercultural education from the United Nations and local non-governmental organizations have stimulated local institutional responses, such as the Race Discrimination Ordinance of 2008 (Law & Lee, 2012) and measures to teach non-Chinese speaking students Chinese (Education Bureau, 2019). Optimistic views frame Hong Kong’s position concerning multicultural and intercultural education as “ahead of the game in some respects” (Jackson, 2013, p. 108), while more efforts are still needed to enhance the education and prospects of ethnic minorities (Gao, 2019; Jackson & Nesterova, 2017; Lin & Jackson, 2019, 2020; Lin, 2022; Thapa & Adamson, 2018).
Given this context, this study will explore the following research questions:
- 1.How do elements of multicultural and intercultural education manifest in a minority-majority secondary school in Hong Kong?
- 2.What factors facilitate or hinder multicultural and intercultural education in the school?
Methodology
The School
The studied secondary school has one of the largest percentages of ethnic minority students among public schools in Hong Kong. Over 90% of the student population is non-Chinese, including mostly South Asians (i.e., Indians, Nepalese, Pakistanis, etc.) and Southeast Asians (Filipinos, Indonesians, etc.). A much higher than average proportion of school staff (nearly half) are ethnic minorities. Multiculturalism and interculturalism are celebrated in school missions. This makes the school a rich source of information about the potential of multicultural and intercultural education and a unique case to explore multicultural and intercultural practices and challenges in Hong Kong.
The first author of this article was a teacher at this school for one and a half years and left the school one year before research commenced. This partly-insider position provided access to and familiarity with school that helped the authors make informed judgements about sampling and research design. The acquaintance with school staff also provided convenience and ease to negotiate the research. Meanwhile, the fact that the author was no longer working at the school reduced the risk of conflict of interest or relational complications with participants. The first author conducted field study in the school over 2 months between September and October, 2020.
Methods and Data
Our methodology is a qualitative case study, as we seek descriptive and inductive insights about the case in its natural setting (Baxter & Jack, 2008; Stake, 2000; Yin, 1994). Specifically, we sought to understand how elements of multicultural and intercultural education manifest in a school. The qualitative case study approach helped us gain insights and context-specific knowledge from the perspectives of the principal, teachers, and students (Stake, 2000; Flyvbjerg, 2006). It also helped develop complex understanding and subsequent theorization (Stake, 2000). Interview, observation, and document analysis were used to attain data. By triangulating methods and gathering data from a variety of sources, we aimed to gain holistic understanding as well as optimize the validity and reliability of conclusions.
Interview is one of the most straightforward ways of accessing people’s perceptions and constructions of reality (Punch & Oancea, 2014). Given our interest in teachers’ and students’ experiences, what they have to say about school life is a major source of information. Two focus group interviews were conducted with students: one with junior forms (S1-S3) and one with senior forms (S4-S6). Each group contained five students. The reason for using a group interview lies in the importance of group interaction in revealing intercultural relationships. Moreover, students feel more comfort and less pressure communicating with peers than with the researcher alone. Their agreements and disagreements also helped the researchers gauge the reliability of statements. The authors invited the principal of the school to provide a list of relatively more expressive students from different backgrounds, including ethnic minorities and Chinese, and made random selections from the list. Invitations were delivered to students, and all participated with consent. The focus group interviews guided participants to share and discuss their experiences at school in relation to multicultural and intercultural education. Each lasted 60 minutes and was conducted in English.
The principal and five teachers were interviewed individually. The reason for the individual format is that these participants were expected to be more concerned about privacy when expressing views about the school. The format could encourage them to be honest and protect their confidentiality. The principal was interviewed first so that a general picture about the school’s leadership in multicultural and intercultural education could emerge. The authors, based on consultation with the principal, recruited teachers on the basis of ethnic diversity, also selecting teachers of Liberal Studies and History, two subjects most relevant to multicultural and intercultural education. Invitations were sent to teachers, and all participated with consent. The maximum variation sampling (Flyvbjerg, 2006; Schreier, 2018) of interviewees is intended to reflect the diversity of school members and represent as many perspectives as possible. These interviews were semi-structured, exploring personal views rather than seeking answers. Each lasted for 40 minutes and was conducted in English. Interviewees’ pseudonyms, ethnicities, and grades/subjects are listed in Table 1.
According to Banks (2008) and Jackson (2014a), many manifestations of multicultural and intercultural education are neither verbal nor written, but embedded in actions, reactions, interactions, relationships, and other phenomena which is difficult to capture empirically through typical data gathering. Observation, therefore, complemented interview and document analysis here to capture data that does not initially appear as text. Observation provided an opportunity to understand multicultural and intercultural practices in a naturalistic setting and context (Adler & Adler, 1994). The first author observed one Liberal Studies lesson and one History lesson (40 minutes each) in two classes (one from senior form and one from junior form), as well as events at the school and made notes of other occurrences relevant to the research.
Documentary data is often used in qualitative research in conjunction with other data (Punch & Oancea, 2014). The authors reviewed teaching and learning materials from lessons to supplement their interpretation of interview and observation data and produce further understanding of content integration and knowledge construction. Special attention was paid to texts that involve identities, cultures, multiple perspectives, and others relevant themes.
Data Analysis
Data were analysed from interview transcripts, observation notes, and documents. The data were coded according to Banks’ and Jackson’s frameworks and related literature. Coding took place on two levels: primary descriptive coding where codes remain empirical and stem from literature, and conceptual coding where codes are more theoretical and general. The authors took the five dimensions of multicultural education and two aspects of intercultural education in Banks’ and Jackson’s frameworks respectively as conceptual codes to organize and categorize data from primary descriptive codes. All the interview data were transcribed verbatim and coded with primary descriptive codes. An observation log helped categorize incidents and produce descriptive codes. Texts from documents were also coded descriptively. Once this was done, codes were read and categorised under conceptual codes.
Findings
Content Integration
Content integration involves the representation of diversity in curriculum and lack thereof. Here, we found first that the materials used for Liberal Studies and Chinese History lacked representation of minorities’ cultures. This is due in part to the fact that many such materials are provided from outside the school, such as the Education Bureau (central education government office). In Liberal Studies lessons on globalization, examples were almost all Chinese and American. However, few students in the school are Chinese or American.
Similarly, in a Chinese History lesson, modern China is explored through two perspectives: British and Chinese. Although Britain and China are major actors in this history, this is not likely to stimulate interest among students who are not British or Chinese. Lessons also indicated that “Britain colonized India in the 17th Century, and she began to turn to China”. This could be an intersection where dynamics between Britain and China can be compared to those between Britain and the Indian subcontinent, to integrate content that reflects to a small extent a part of the world many students are connected to. Unfortunately, the passage stops there, and no further mention of India is made.
if you talk about curriculum, in general, I think there’s not enough material from outside, to make students understand more. But internally, we try to tailor-make some programs and materials to make students understand each other, whether they are local or non-locals.
Sometimes for example, if the article is about introducing themselves, we also include different cultures. Because normally the local curriculum seldom has these things, for them we add more because we want to let them think it’s related to them and also use these things in their daily life.
jason, Chinese language teacher of Chinese heritage
Everything has to be relevant to them, otherwise, if things are too distant or alien, if it is too Chinese or if it is too Hong Kong, then they don’t feel belong to it, so we’re trying hard to relate to them. Sometimes we try to come up with some topic or material which is related to them, so it can be issues in India, it can be issues in Pakistan … how they adapt to life in Hong Kong, we do discuss about racial discrimination here and what we can do.
jack, Liberal Studies teacher of mixed Chinese-Filipino heritages
These accounts show educators are aware of the importance of culturally relevant content. Due to lack of such content, some teachers take initiative in their teaching.
Knowledge Construction
I find more of a conflict when it comes to the information that we are giving, for example, sometimes we are giving information from only one actor’s perspective so that’s where I sometimes find the conflict to be. For example, let’s say whenever we’re teaching Cold War, every single time I feel bad because I am not giving information that might be pro-Russia pro-Soviet Union. There is a lot of information about how the US went out to save the world and all those things, so there I do see a limitation of the kind of the syllabus that they have first of all. There is not much from a Russian perspective.
However, Mary added that she does not emphasize her thoughts, as they go beyond the scope of the (exam-oriented) curriculum. In lesson notes, the authors also noticed subjective statements, which were not critically examined. For instance, one Chinese History lesson states: “Our present well-being largely depends on China’s support, and our future will be generally bright if China develops well.” Who are “we” in this sentence? Should students be aware of the source of such statements, or should they simply accept that the “our” includes and represents them? In interviews, a student Jeff (of Nepalese heritage) stated that “history is just facts”, which also reflects lack of awareness of knowledge construction as a process.
Prejudice Reduction
In an ideal multicultural scenario, I think everybody would love to have a very sort of balanced classroom of people from different ethnicities and backgrounds and stuff like that, that would be fantastic. And I think there was once in a classroom where it was quite balanced and it was quite fun because everybody got to really learn about other people’s cultures and to be quite frank I’ve learned so much about our students as well. I’ve learned a lot and gained a different perspective in teaching as well.
I think the most obvious reason would be the proportion of the students. Most are non-Chinese … Another reason could be that our staff, our team, is also quite diverse … so I think that working next to a person who is also different and shares the different culture helps.
I hope the school can attract more students from different cultural backgrounds.
rick, S6 student of mixed Chinese and Pakistani heritages
I hope we have more Chinese students. It’s much better. International [ethnic minority students] is good, but I think Chinese students also have their culture.
jason
Actually, we are trying to put students from different backgrounds in different classes, so they are able to make friends together. I think for the last two years students actually mix together more than before. I think one of the reasons is the number of students from different backgrounds also increased, of course majority still Pakistani, but we have really students from different cultural backgrounds, and when they are together, they’ll try to mix together.
I always stay with Indonesian friends because most of the people, most of the students here are also grouping with their own cultures, their own kind, so it’s kind of difficult for us to go with them, like blend with them.
I would say our school is not like completely segregated, it’s more like we can still see groups of people who are together that are from different cultures, and the reason will be because of the same interest, like the language wouldn’t really cause a big problem.
We encourage each other to know more, for example in different festivals, maybe a Chinese one, or even Nepalese festivals, or even maybe Muslim festivals, we also celebrate, also have a kind of short sharing, let students understand each other.
[We need] more activities that include all cultures together, not only One Belt One Road (cultural carnival), but more activities that involve all the students like all the cultures that we have.
I think we have a number of open-minded teachers. They have passion to help ethnic minorities in Hong Kong to learn. We have colleagues having the same religious background as the students. We are able to understand them in terms of religion as well as cultural background because we also have teachers from different backgrounds. It creates a more open-minded environment for understanding and also accepting each other.
hilda
I think the teachers here are more aware of the cultural differences … I think in our school there are more teachers who will consider students’ cultural backgrounds, who will be more sensitive towards their backgrounds and they would want to educate themselves and that’s a really good thing.
mary
Equity Pedagogy
I think it’s not only ethnic minorities, even Chinese, everyone is different, right? even you and me also learn in different way, right? Of course as teachers they have to use different strategies to teach in their class, so cannot focus on one area and ignore the others. So, of course in the lesson sometimes they have maybe role-plays, sometimes questions, discussions, sometimes maybe teachers teach and students just listen. I think it’s not just because whether they are ncs (non-Chinese students) or not, I think people are different in learning, so teachers need to have different strategies to teach.
I think the main reason is our schoolteachers, they are quite open-minded and try to explore different students’ talents. As long as we know what they like we try to find some resources to help students develop their talents. We also encourage them to join different activities to find out what they are really good at, so they can further develop in those areas.
So what we can do is talk to them and let them tell us what they want to do with their life, let them know what are the opportunities and what they can [do] … I think overall what I’m saying is it should be student-oriented not education system-oriented.
Material, curriculum is important because every school is making different curriculum for teaching Chinese to the non-Chinese students, some might be higher, some might be lower. For example, in kindergarten you might not find big differences but when they are in primary school we can find the differences, some really teach very difficult Chinese, some may be due to many different reasons the Chinese level is not good enough. So, when these students again promote to secondary school, the gap will be more, so it will be more difficult for teachers to teach … If government really can assign some or invite some professionals to develop a curriculum in Hong Kong, for example, in primary school they should teach this, in kindergarten they should teach this. But of course we also need to remember we also have a group of students they are new arrivals, they come and they do not know anything at all, so we also need to have maybe a special program for this type of students, how can we help them to learn Chinese so they can catch up with the special curriculum.
In our school you seldom can hear Cantonese, normally only the Chinese teacher will speak in Cantonese and others so little. Everything is in English. I think this is not really easy for the Chinese teacher to help the students improve a lot. Especially some students sometimes will say after they come to our school their Chinese level is down. Because some of them in their primary school where there are not many em students, the school will force them to speak Cantonese, sometimes English, but because so many students’ English level in primary school is not really good which will force them to speak in Cantonese, or at least the Chinese students speak in Cantonese and they speak English or mix English and Chinese.
I know, OK, you have to learn the Cantonese language and stuff like that, you have to talk to local people, that’s all good and great. But then I don’t think we should lock them into these things. I think we should sort of accept their culture and … think outside the box. There are many sorts of English-speaking opportunities for a lot of our students and staff.
john
It’s good to learn Chinese but I feel like sometimes the role of Chinese is also overemphasized … Chinese is also a very hard language especially Cantonese, so people really struggle and because of that a lot of students cannot go to university.
jordan
Empowering School Culture and Social Structure
While having co-ethnic teachers (teachers sharing ethnicity with students) was seen as a source of empowerment for students in the school, challenges in the social structure included negative past experiences and an overall unsupportive environment where low expectations and stereotypes related to minority students are common. The presence of co-ethnic teachers was seen as part of a positive and empowering school culture for ethnic minority students. In this context, Jordan believed having more non-Chinese teachers could be even more helpful: “I feel like one thing that can help them [ethnic minority students] is to recruit more teachers coming from the same background [as them].”
I think they faced a lot of problems when they were studying in primary school, especially for those that studied in local schools, they received like unfair treatment from students and teachers. So when they come here at the beginning they brought those experience to the school, they feel like it’s not really good to express themselves, but later on when they study here for maybe a few months they already find out the cultures in this school and they are more willing to share with others what they like, what they don’t like, become more active in joining different activities, which helped them develop themselves.
hilda
Quite a few of them [students] lack the ability to plan for future …and that is something that I think should be done at primary school. By secondary school they’ve already had so many accumulated failures that they view their identity of themselves as already so weak that they don’t expect much from themselves. I think in primary school they should be reminded again and again what they can do in future what they can become in future and what is their strength and what is their weakness. I think this is something that’s really important because when they’re coming in form 1, from 2 and by form 3 most of them have lost vision.
Both accounts suggest that the goals of multicultural education cannot be achieved in a piecemeal manner, but require consistent nurturing throughout the learning journey. They also indicate that many primary schools in Hong Kong are not equipped with the necessary awareness and skills to establish a supportive foundation for multicultural and intercultural education.
I think still there is a lot of misunderstanding between the locals and ethnic minorities. They always feel that ethnic minorities are very poor, not educated, not good, maybe their character is not good, all these things. Sometimes our students share the experience with us, like maybe when they enter the mtr train and want to sit down, some local people run away from their own seats. Some people may say something that may not be appropriate to address them…. In these two to three years we also have some transfer students from other schools. Why they transfer? One of the reasons is they cannot really work well with the local students and teachers.
hilda
Employment for the em [ethnic minorities] is really the key because look at our students, some of them really, they are actually academically successful but then it seems there are not too many opportunities and they come back here and become a teacher again, but it’s not a very good thing if only a few Islamic organization can be a place for them. I think only when every company feels glad to hire them, I think (then) that’s a real multicultural society.
jack
Hong Kong tv actually portray the Pakistanis or Indians in a very bad way. I don’t watch a lot of Hong Kong tv but every time our teacher shows us something or like I see like trailers or advertisement it’s like they show them as very needy. Or like they are not allowed to go to school, their parents force them to wear scarf, their parents don’t allow them to play sports and like yes it happens but it doesn’t apply to all. But because they put it on tv that’s what 90% of Hong Kong people probably think that that’s the case of every single Muslim … I think the Hong Kong government should try to do something so that the Pakistanis or Indians or just Muslims will not be portrayed in such a bad way, negative way.
sara
These descriptions point to a generally unsupportive social structure, which undermines the principles and practices of multicultural and intercultural education.
I don’t think it [school culture] is empowering. It really needs to do better. I think we have a lot of pampering for students and protecting them, thinking that they need protection.
I think we need to bring them to other schools in Hong Kong because sometimes they only know their level in our own school, they don’t know the actual level outside of the school. This part is maybe weaker part of our school because we already think their Cantonese is not good. It’s too hard to cooperate with some local schools, maybe joining some competition or some activities together, but we seldom join. Because normally they only join some em (ethnic minority) dominated school, I think they need to join some local school also because in the future when they leave our school they need to survive in the society.
The teaching progress is too slow, so it affects our performance in the public examination. I think the reason is maybe because the teacher or like the school thinks that our students, I mean, students here aren’t that capable of learning so many chapters so quickly, so they try to like cancel some chapters and make it more easier for the students.
I feel like they [some teachers] have prejudice. They might feel like, oh this student is not learning because he’s em [ethnic minority] student, so he is little bit weaker. Personally, I don’t like it. I feel like that’s very unfair to them. But this attitude affects our teachers and their relationship with the students. So, whenever a student makes a mistake, they can just directly relate this mistake to his culture. It is so easy, but I feel this is also so unhealthy for the parents, for the teachers and for the students.
I’ve found out and also some teachers that I discussed found out, normally for the Pakistani male students, they may not really focus on studies they may focus more on the fitness part and other parts. But look at the Indian male students, they will focus more on their future and their academics. We also don’t know why, normally their mathematics is better, their logical thinking is better. The Indonesians, normally when they come to school all the Indonesian students are quite hard-working, and also they would really focus and they will respect their teachers and learn all the things, do all the things.
Here blanket judgements are made about groups, without considering the mechanisms or causes for differences. The expression “some teachers that I discussed found out” indicates that such stereotypes are shared by many people.
Democratic Deliberation
These days we’re learning about opium war so let’s say the way Chinese reacted to opium. Instead of informing them I would ask them “how would you react”, “do you think that’s a good thing”, “what would you do if you were a Chinese official” … So, I think it’s important to involve their opinion and then also to encourage students to think “what would you do” or (from the perspectives of) different parties.
The lesson reflects Mary’s statement. In the notes, four perspectives (from Lin Zexu, the Chinese governor who opposed opium, British merchants, British members of Parliament, and a British historian) are provided with two questions including “Who was fair enough?”; and “Which argument convinces you more?”
So I think that you [should] let both sides to come up with the reasons. I think reasoning is important and then understanding how the other people reason and what are their values. I think that’s quite a beautiful process of education.
In the Liberal Studies lesson observed, the teacher encouraged discussion and facilitated democratic deliberation by posing questions like “who doesn’t agree?”, “does it make sense?”, and so on.
When they teach, they teach opinions on both sides, so that we will get our own idea and write our own points. The teacher wouldn’t take any sides.
sara
The presence of democratic deliberation in the school is akin to what Jackson envisions, although its effectiveness appeared to depend on students’ expressiveness, which varies from class to class.
Critical Media Literacy
Few mentions were made during interviews to this theme. One was previously described, where Mary found possible biases in history curriculum. The idea of teaching for critical media literacy and equipping students with this skill is not systematically present in the school. However, during the Liberal Studies lesson, the teacher asked “how true is this?” after playing YouTube videos, and students answered “no”, “somewhat”, and “not really”. This shows an elementary level of criticality among teachers and students about media, though literacy elements such as perspective, agenda, implications, and so on were not discussed.
Summary
Based on the above, a comparison between the dimensions of multicultural and intercultural education and the situation at the school is summarized in Table 2.
Discussion
Most of the principles of multicultural and intercultural education in Banks’ and Jackson’s frameworks are expressed at the school, albeit varying in extent (please see Table 2). Many hurdles were revealed, however, which limit the effectiveness of multicultural and intercultural practices. Among the five dimensions of Banks’ framework, efforts are exerted regarding content integration, prejudice reduction, and equity pedagogy, whereas knowledge construction is still minimally attended to, and the school culture and social structure are not entirely empowering. Under the lens of Jackson’s framework, democratic deliberation is visibly practiced and supported, but critical media literacy is imparted only at a rudimentary level.
In terms of the features of multicultural and intercultural education, school-based culturally relevant material, teacher sensitivity, and dialogical reasoning are prominent. Customized materials which connect with students’ backgrounds are used to stimulate interest, encourage participation, improve self-esteem, and promote multicultural awareness. Many teachers demonstrate abilities to work in a culturally sensitive and responsive fashion, understanding, respecting, and appreciating students’ unique traits and facilitating learning experiences according to students’ needs. Dialogues and discussions are held where voices from various positions and perspectives are heard, enabling communication, negotiation, reasoning, retrospection, and disagreement, and enriching critical thinking. School members are also acquainted with minority students’ challenges, and many are passionate about helping them and striving for an inclusive and equitable education, despite constraints posed. The groundwork for multicultural and intercultural education is in place. Our findings elucidate some previous findings in Hong Kong (i.e., Jackson, 2013; Lin & Jackson, 2020)
However, there are obstacles that impair the efficacy of present efforts and progress. Firstly, the unbalanced ethnic composition is seen to reduce chances for transformative intercultural interactions with students from Chinese heritage. In the school, minority students form the majority of the population and create a mini society, whose culture and structure are distinct from the wider society. The gap between students’ experience in the mini society and the wider society hinders them from participating in and transforming the latter. The comfort zone that shields students from problems is at the same time a cage that confines their capacity for confronting conflicts, injustices, inequalities, and social reality in general and formulating social actions. Students attached to the mini society may stay within their cultural circles even after they leave school.
Secondly, language learning difficulties in Chinese stand in the way between ethnic minority students and the realization of their potential. The society and the school tend to view ethnic minority students’ heritage languages as inferior and obstacles to be removed to make place for languages considered more useful. Meanwhile, the education system has not developed functional measures to help them learn Chinese. Though the Chinese Language Curriculum Second Language Learning Framework has been in place for nine years, feedback from the school concur with an ombudsman report (Office of the Ombudsman, 2019) that it has not yielded much fruit. The excessive emphasis on Chinese language as a necessity for success coupled with low proficiency due to lack of support and assistance in learning leave many non-Chinese-speaking students feeling disadvantaged and rejected. The problem is not only about acquisition of language as a tool, but also unequal valuations of different languages that fuel discriminatory perceptions and treatment. These problems disempower and disenfranchise ethnic minority students.
Thirdly, the wider environment presents constraints that hinder multicultural and intercultural education at the school. Pre-secondary education renders inequalities that disadvantage and marginalize ethnic minority students. The various language abilities and the residual sense of disappointment, fear, self-abasement, lack of confidence, and deficiency in motivation that students bring into the school make it difficult for secondary education to perform its functions. Meanwhile, a sense of limited employment opportunities and widespread negative perceptions of ethnic minorities is pervasive. In the school, teachers’ low expectations and stereotypes of ethnic minorities can also be found. Yet even if the school provided an ideal multicultural and intercultural education, it cannot by itself revolutionize students’ future trajectories if all other forces in society act in the opposite direction.
Therefore, the goals of multicultural and intercultural education cannot be achieved simply by reforming a single school or modifying the curriculum. Multicultural education is a process which involves many institutions (Banks & Banks, 2019). This process requires different facets of the society to support each other in the pursuit of multicultural and intercultural objectives. Many elements of the Hong Kong society are far from supportive in that sense. Previous research also widely reports some of these barriers (i.e., Bhowmik & Kennedy, 2016; Jackson, 2017; Lin & Jackson, 2019). The relations between the discussed main themes and the theoretical frameworks are illustrated in Figure 2.
The relations between the findings and the theoretical frameworks
Citation: Beijing International Review of Education 5, 4 (2023) ; 10.1163/25902539-05040002
Our research offers insights into Hong Kong teachers and students’ perceptions about multicultural and intercultural education. There has been increasing appreciation for the roles of teachers and students in multicultural and intercultural education, as they are the ones that convert expectations of society into tangible changes. This case study reveals, from teachers and students’ perspectives, which goals have been achieved and how, which goals have not been achieved and why, and what other goals should be achieved.
Our study has a limitation in the sense that the studied school is a minority-majority school. Future research should include other available school types such as schools dominating by majority Chinese students with a small number of ethnic minority students, and schools with balanced composition of minority and majority groups. This way we can develop a comprehensive understanding of multicultural and intercultural education development grounded in various school settings in Hong Kong.
Conclusion
Our study, involves examining interviews with school staff and students, lesson observations, and learning materials suggests that multicultural and intercultural education is reflected at the school in terms of content integration, prejudice reduction, equity pedagogy, and democratic deliberation. Three major barriers still inhibiting outcomes are unbalanced ethnic composition, language learning difficulties, and unsupportive social environment. Future case studies of other schools, especially with different or contrasting ethnic compositions, could serve as a comparison and deepen understanding of the needs and challenges of different groups of students across settings.
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