Following the Extradition Law Amendment Bill (ELAB) in 2019, a large number of school and tertiary students were drawn into an oppositional movement (the Anti-ELAB movement) (Chan, 2020). These experiences have created identity challenges for young people when they explored and identified key values in life domains (Xu, 2020). Since identity formation is the major development issue for adolescents, it is timely and important to understand the identity challenges that adolescents have faced in the movement. The present study helps understand the influence of macro-level context on civic identity formation and provides implications for the development of initiatives or interventions to adjust to their difficulties.

To examine how Hong Kong local Chinese late adolescents identify their values and goals that relate to their roles as citizens in the context of the Anti-ELAB movement in Hong Kong, the researcher adopted a social psychological perspective of identity formation, drawing on the samples from Mainland Chinese students who were pursuing undergraduate study in Hong Kong. The researcher first identified individuals’ identity status in the domain of civic identity, then explored how the samples of Chinese late adolescents with different identity statuses in the civic domain interpreted their values and goals in citizenship in relation to the Anti-ELAB movement.

In the present study, civic identity means a subjective identification and a sense of attachment to a society (Pakulski & Tranter, 2000). Civic identity is presented in an individual's sense of belonging to a certain society, responsibility for society, and engagement in political and social affairs as an agency (Rubin, 2007). When they engage in social movements that address the problems in social and political systems, adolescents’ civic identity tends to develop (Youniss, 2011).

To identify the difference in individuals’ civic identity, Marcia’s (1966) identity status model was used in the study. Marcia (1966) defines identity in two dimensions, namely exploration, and commitment. According to the degree to which adolescents explore or commit to certain values or goals, four identity statuses are classified as achievement, moratorium, foreclosure, and diffusion. In relation to identity status in the domain of civic identity, achievement adolescents have examined different social ideologies, have a clear sense of belongings, and commitment to contribute to certain aspects of society. Moratorium individuals are actively exploring different ideological possibilities but have not committed to a specific belief. Foreclosure adolescents have prematurely decided on a political or civic stance before experiencing any broad or in-depth exploration among various social ideologies. Such a commitment is usually based on the expectations of authorities such as parents or school teachers. Diffusion individuals rarely express interest in any particular political stance or avoid to engage in the exploration of their own civic roles.

A mixed-methods design was used in the study. 61 undergraduate students participated in the study, including 13 males and 48 females. The majority of the participants were majored in disciplines in Humanities and Social Sciences. A survey was first used to collect data about the participants’ political identity and self-reported participation in the protest activities. Eight out of the 64 items that reflect the features of political identity were selected from the Modified Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status II (EOMEIS-2) (Adams, Bennion & Hug, 1987) and administered at the beginning of the study to measure specific identity statuses: achievement, moratorium, foreclosure, and diffusion. Participants were also asked to indicate how frequently they participated in different political activities in the Anti-ELAB movement and self-reported their attitude to the movement. Each participant was assigned a status according to Adams (1998)’s approach. Correlation between identity status and political participation was analyzed. “Rising to the occasion” narratives were then followed, which included a writing prompt (around 500 words) and a follow-up interview (lasting around 40 minutes). “Rising to the occasion” narratives mean that individuals identify a period of struggle, challenge, or novelty through narratives, in which individuals construct the meanings of their lives and get a sense of unity (Singer et al., 2002). Data analysis started from the content analysis of the written narrative accounts to identify the goals and values in relation to individuals’ role as a citizen. “Occasions” that triggered the change in civic identity were identified. Patterns in the individuals in each of four identity statuses with regards to their ways of construing the connection between their experience and a sense of identity emerged then.

The majority of participants were developed in moratorium status. The Anti-ELAB movement triggered them to explore the causes of the movement and to search for how and why the strikingly different stances and values were prevailing. For Mainland Chinese participants, the social movement provided them with the opportunities to observe how a social movement occurred, which was a new experience to them and this encouraged them to think of issues relating to politics, social values, and civic roles. This process enhanced some participants’ sense of belonging to Hong Kong, for the others, they strengthened the sense of belonging to Mainland China. A few participants returned to focus simply on personal interest. Some participants would like to become an agent to bridge the two groups of people. For foreclosure participants, students would refer to other people’s references when they explained their own civic roles in the movement. Mainland foreclosure participants would not like to discuss political issues and instead stressed their concerns with personal safety in the movement. They showed firmly their values and goals in certain aspects of citizenship while less mentioned a thorough process of in-breadth and/or in-depth exploration of alternatives. Diffusion participants neither reported articulation of their citizen roles nor presented a process of being engaged in exploration. For Mainland Chinese participants, some diffused participants mentioned that they were politically inactive people and they avoided talking anything about politics. A few of them showed strong identification of their civic roles as Chinese. They tended to differentiate “we” versus “they”, “our issues” versus “their issues” to indicate the difference between Mainland and Hong Kong local people. In the domain of civic identity, no one in the samples of Mainland Chinese participants reported identity achievement status in the civic domain.

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