Different postcolonial conditions, different education histories: the cases of Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong

Abstract

ABSTRACT Through the cases of Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong, this article explores the status of history of education under different postcolonial conditions. It demonstrates that factors such as lingering imperial influences and their tensions with anti-colonial forces, the extent of the cultural hybridity of colonial and post-colonial elites, the identities that emerged amid decolonisation and political developments after power transfer have ramifications for matters such as who researches the educational pasts of ex-dependencies, for whom and what the studies are conducted, which historical periods are being focused on, and in which languages and venues the research products are published. Findings from this article also hints that factors such as the authoritarian conditions after power transfer and prolonged colonisation by non-western powers are likely to hinder a postcolonial intellectual field from producing historiographies publishable in the western academic world.