Abstract:

Cultural awareness education is widely considered as one of the fundamental ways for enhancing multicultural diversity and providing equal opportunities. Cultural awareness education, especially cultural awareness education for the youth, is an ever-evolving educational topic in Hong Kong, where 92% of the population is ethnic Chinese according to the census data published in 2016. Through cultural awareness education, the youth are expected to develop cultural competencies needed in this multicultural society. In this paper, we present a preliminary study on using virtual reality technologies for cultural awareness education in Hong Kong. The results of the piloting trials we conducted in the local schools for a total number of 376 participants (Mage = 13.9 years, age range: 11 – 21 years), of which 310 participants are Chinese and 66 are ethnic minorities, show that the virtual reality enabled approach developed at City University of Hong Kong provides an attractive way of delivering intercultural knowledge and can effectively induce the recognition and the appreciations of various values shaped by different cultural backgrounds, in both quantitative and qualitative means.

Keywords:

Virtual reality, cultural awareness, cultural competencies, multicultural society.