The Hidden Curriculum of Hong Kongʼs Japanese Language Education

An Observation of Teacher-Learner Interactions

Abstract

　A hidden curriculum is defined as unorganized norms and values taught (yet not always learned) in classrooms. Using an ethnographic method based on observation and narrative data, I analyzed what hidden curriculum is taught and learned (or not learned) in Hong Kongʼs Japanese language classrooms. Teachers taught the hidden curriculum, which includes greetings, punctuality, aesthetics, politeness, and empathy, under the influence of their lived experiences, beliefs, and contexts. Compared with nativespeaking teachers, non-native-speaking Hong Kong teachers more explicitly taught, as the hidden curriculum, behaviors seen as typical of native Japanese speakers. Those non-native-speaking teachers and Hong Kong learners of Japanese jointly constructed an imagined community of Japan reflecting Hong Kong peopleʼs identities, though their Japan was different from the nation-state of Japan. Further, Hong Kong learners showed high degrees of autonomy, and they displayed overt resistance or indifference when their norms and values came into conflict with the hidden curriculum. Recently, it has become the norm that politically sensitive topics are avoided in classrooms