Chapter 7: Discourses and Practices of the Moral and Civic Education Curriculum in Secondary Schools in Macao

Since Macao’s¹ return to the sovereignty of China on December 20, 1999, she has been ruled under the principle of “One Country, Two Systems.” This is an idea originally proposed by Deng Xiaoping during the early 1980s to enable the reunification of China. He suggested that there will be only one China, and that areas such as Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan can have their own capitalist economic and political systems for another 50 years, while the rest of China practices the socialist system. With the commencement of the second wave of educational reforms in Macao, it is the concern of this study to reveal how the discourses of the moral and civic education curriculum interplay with the practices in researching and repositioning the identity of Macao. As such, it is important at this stage to conduct a comprehensive curriculum review after 10 years’ implementation of the current curriculum for future betterment.