The influence of Confucianism on Hong Kong teachers' school guidance counselling practices

¶ … ethnographic examination of how guidance teachers make sense of their caring abilities on the job. Also, it looks at the counseling services they offer to students. The findings illustrate the influence of Chinese (particularly Confucian) culture the in Hong Kong schools. Implications for promoting culturally responsive approaches to counseling and culturally competent practices for helping are discussed.

The important 1990s government initiative to implement a whole school approach to guidance is described. It appears, however, that the role of the guidance teacher in the school reforms has not been clearly stated. In addition, the author seeks to investigate how school guidance and counseling is practiced within schools Chinese society.

The overall qualitative design was meant to provide the seed-bed for a later more in-depth quantitative study that will then involve statistical analysis. At present, the general research environment had to be probed qualitatively with interviews only to determine the criteria that would be tested in the future study (Hue, 2008, 303).

The problem statement dealt with the problems that the Western trained counselors had in encountering and incorporating the local Confucian customs into their methodology. With the use of a narrative analysis and personal experience methods, the study explores the experience of guidance teachers in counseling (Ibid).

The purpose of the study was to determine how much of the teaching and counseling was based upon Western influences and how much was upon the Chinese philosophy of Confucianism, hence the ethnographic methodology of the study. The central focus of their responses was that while many of the guidance teachers have received training based upon Western literature, particularly person-centered, in practice, they are inevitably influenced by the local culture of Confucianism. As Hue notes "the results showed that Confucianism served as a paramount and respected reference for school guidance and for teachers' expectations of how students could be better counseled" (Ibid, 306).

This consisted of interviews with the teachers. Twelve teachers who were enrolled in the Postgraduate Program in Education program at the Hong Kong Institute of Education were individually interviewed regarding the counseling services that they offered to their students on the job. The qualitative design of the study was to determine how Confucianism's key principles were incorporated into the teachers' personal systems of counseling and how this meshed with the Western influences (Ibid, 3).

The ethical issues consist of the contradictions and conflicts between traditional Confucian methods and the methods influenced from the West. Since Confucianism emphasizes personal morality, correctness of social behavior and most importantly, harmony of interpersonal relationships, Hue was able to describe ways in which this is played out in counseling practice. Confucians believe that each and every individual inherits 'natural tendencies' at birth. This also raised an interesting tension between the need for students to be socialized to cultural values of collectivism while being encouraged to pursue personal interests. Most guidance teachers suggested that "students should be fully developed as people able to pursue the interests of the collective while their personal interests and needs were still appropriately addressed and fulfilled" (Ibid, 311).