Presentation Schedule
Music Education, Cultural Governance, and Identity Formation in Post Handover Hong Kong (107535)
Session Chair: Wai-Chung Ho
Tuesday, 12 May 2026 10:45
Session: Session 1
Room: Room G408 (4F)
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
This paper examines how culture and identity are constructed through school music education in Hong Kong as the city enters the period leading up to the 30th anniversary of its return to the People’s Republic of China in 2027. It explores how national, local, and global identities are articulated and negotiated within officially sanctioned music education materials in the post-handover period. Employing qualitative discourse analysis, the study examines official education policy documents, curriculum guidelines, and government approved music textbooks used in Hong Kong schools. The analysis is guided by two research questions: (1) how national, local, and global cultures are represented in music textbooks through repertoire selection and related interpretive narratives; and (2) how these representations correspond to identity discourses articulated in official curriculum policies. Conceptualizing music education as a form of cultural governance, the findings show that policy documents and curriculum guidelines explicitly emphasize Chinese identity and national belonging. In contrast, music textbooks primarily incorporate Chinese traditional music as cultural and musical heritage within a plural curriculum that remains largely shaped by Western classical music alongside selected global repertoires. Apart from institutionalized practices such as the singing of the national anthem, explicit expressions of nationalism or patriotism are limited in textbook content. This differentiated pattern demonstrates how cultural governance operates through the translation of policy discourse into curricular materials, positioning school music education as an institutional site where national identity is selectively mediated rather than uniformly imposed through classroom-level curricular content.
Authors:
Wai-Chung Ho, Hong Kong Baptist University, China
About the Presenter(s)
Professor Wai-Chung Ho is a University Professor/Principal Lecturer at Hong Kong Baptist University in Hong Kong
See this presentation on the full schedule – Tuesday Schedule
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