Historicizing hegemonies: Chinese school policies in postwar Singapore and Hong Kong

Abstract

Many scholars have applied the notion of hegemony to examine education policies. Their studies, however, are mostly single-societal research. Without a comparative lens, they tell us only minimally about cross-societal variations in the contradictions facing the ruling authorities in education and the resultant hegemonic approaches. To overcome these problems, this chapter compares state policies on Chinese schools in post-WWII Singapore and Hong Kong. After the war, the ruling regimes in both places sought to put Chinese schools under tighter control. Because of different racial politics in their respective territories, however, the two states handled the problem differently. Singapore was a multiethnic society. Because of pressure from the Chinese, the regime reluctantly incorporated Chinese schools as part of the state educational system, regardless of its failure in de-Sinicizing the curricula of these institutions. In sharp contrast, the state in Hong Kong - a largely mono-racial setting - faced less contradictory pressure in racial politics. After World War II, the chief adversaries threatening the position of the British were Beijing and Taipei. With no serious anti-Chinese mobilization from other racial groups, the British met the challenges from the two Chinas by accommodating the culture of the Chinese residents into the official curriculum and then transforming it into a denationalized mode. These findings urge scholars researching hegemony and education to adopt a comparative approach and to consider racial factors' impacts on the states' hegemonic approach.