Youth in a global world: attitudes towards globalization and global citizenship among university students in Hong Kong
Youth in a global world: attitudes towards globalization and global citizenship among university students in Hong Kong
Wing Hong Chui and Elliot W.Y. Leung
Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Despite the wealth of theoretical literature on globalization and global citizenship, empirical studies on the topic are lacking, especially in the context of pedagogical needs in relation to global citizenship education. In order to address this gap, a study was conducted in Hong Kong to investigate the attitudes of university students towards various dimensions of globalization and global citizenship. The initial results indicate that Hong Kong university students are generally quite aware of globalization’s impact on the economy and personal consumption choices and that while there is considerable apathy towards international affairs, there is also a great interest in cross-cultural service learning opportunities that is not being met by the available programmes. Moreover, this study finds almost no association between age, gender, and religion and any of the measured dependent variables on attitudes towards globalization and global citizenship, the only exception being the factor of past intercultural experiences, where a significant difference in measured attitudes was found between respondents who had and respondents who had not participated in such experiences before. Explanations of the findings and the implications of findings for policy and future research are discussed.
For this study, a convenience sample of first-year undergraduate students was recruited in early 2011 from four inter-faculty courses offered at the University of Hong Kong (HKU). As part of the so-called Common Core Curriculum, these courses bring together students from all faculties and disciplines, thus making them an ideal cross-section sample of HKU’s student body.
This project is funded by a UGC Teaching Development Grant offered by The University of Hong Kong (Project No. 10100334: The Development of the Common Core Course “Youth in a Global Asia Pacific Journal of Education 121 World”). The authors wish to thank the participants of the study and the respective course coordinators who have graciously spared class time to allow for the administration of these surveys. Also, many thanks go to Jade Chan and Cecilia Li for their research assistance.