CROSS-CURRICULAR THEMES AND CURRICULUM REFORM IN HONG KONG: POLICY AS DISCOURSE by PAUL MORRIS and K. K. CHAN, both Department of Curriculum Studies, University of Hong Kong ABSTRACT: This paper critically evaluates the Hong Kong govern- ment’s recent attempt to introduce cross-curricular themes into the school curriculum. It is agued that the policy failed to have a signifi- cant impact because many of its key elements defined the themes as marginal and dispensable. Moreover, the policy embodied a discourse which portrayed teachers as empowered and, consequently, as the primary source of problems of its implementation. Keywords: curriculum, cross-curricular themes, Hong Kong 1. INTRODUCTION Since the early 1980s the Hong Kong Government has responded to changing socio-political circumstances and criticisms of the acade- mic orientation of schooling by introducing cross-curricular themes, namely, civic, moral, sex and environmental education which, together, were designed to promote aspects of personal, social and moral development. This paper describes the context of schooling and the policies designed to reorient the curriculum. It also analyses the key policy documents, including the discourse they employed, and the way they were subsequently interpreted by school principals. We argue that the policy failed to have a significant impact in schools as many of its key elements were, despite their manifest goals, interpreted as defining the themes as marginal and dispensable. Drawing on an analysis of the policy documents, it is also evident that the promo- tion of the themes contributed to the emergence of a discourse in which the state was portrayed as both reforming and decentralising the curriculum by empowering schools with responsibility for their implementation. 248 BRITISH JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL STUDIES, ISSN 0007–1005 VOL. 45, NO. 3, SEPTEMBER 1997, pp 248–262 © Blackwell Publishers Ltd. and SCSE 1997. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA