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ENQUIRE PROJECT DETAILS BY GENERAL PUBLIC |
| Project Details |
| Funding Scheme : | Early Career Scheme | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Project Number : | 28604916 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Project Title(English) : | Introducing White-Collar Women to Hong Kong: A Case Study of Sacred Heart Canossian College of Commerce's Secretarial Training | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Project Title(Chinese) : | 香港的秘書史：嘉諾撒聖心商學書院的個案 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Principal Investigator(English) : | Dr Kang, Jong Hyuk David | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Principal Investigator(Chinese) : | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Department : | Department of Literature and Cultural Studies | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Institution : | The Education University of Hong Kong | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| E-mail Address : | djhkang@eduhk.hk | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tel : | 2948 7182 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Co - Investigator(s) : |
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| Panel : | Humanities, Social Sciences | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Subject Area : | Humanities and Arts | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exercise Year : | 2016 / 17 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Fund Approved : | 310,000 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Project Status : | Completed | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Completion Date : | 31-8-2019 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Project Objectives : |
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| Abstract as per original application (English/Chinese): |
The emergence of women’s white-collar jobs in the 20th century marked an important chapter of women's history. In the Hong Kong context, the secretarial profession was considered one of the first white-collar jobs for women, and became an indispensable component of the city’s economy in the latter half of the 20th century when Hong Kong gradually evolved into an international financial center. This project will trace the history of this phenomenon by using Sacred Heart Canossian College of Commerce (SHCCC) as a case study. Founded by the Catholic Daughters of Charity order in 1905, SHCCC was the first professional training institution to provide secretarial training in Hong Kong. After training thousands of secretaries over the years the college was known as “Hong Kong’s cradle for secretaries.” Nevertheless, it closed its doors in 2014. “It is a pity to see the college close after having turned out so many secretaries whose service has been an important part of the territory’s economic success,” wrote the Standard in its editorial on 30 January 2013.
This project will start from SHCCC’s foundation in 1905 until 1970, when other white-collar jobs opened up for women. By using SHCCC as a case study, this project will examine how a previously foreign profession was introduced by female missionaries to the colony, and analyze the college’s secretarial training in terms of women’s work, education and religious identity. From the perspective of women’s work, this research will focus on how the secretarial training influenced the lives and status of Chinese women as Hong Kong developed into a major commercial hub, and how SHCCC students embraced their new profession by connecting East and West, “tradition” and “modernity,” and family and work. From the perspective of women’s education, this study will look at the influence of this specialized training on the development of women’s schooling in the colony and assess the value of SHCCC’s vocational education. From the perspective of women’s religious identity, since most of SHCCC’s students in the early years were Christians, this project surveys the correlation between their religious identity and socio-economic status. |
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| Realisation of objectives: | 1. Reconstruct the history of Sacred Heart Canossian College of Commerce (SHCCC)'s secretarial training and identify SHCCC's role in the development of the secretarial profession in Hong Kong: The PI completed all the archival research, retrieving most of the existing school publications, mission documents, newspaper articles and government records directly related to SHCCC. In particular, the PI has conducted archival research at the Sacred Heart Canossian College, and found all the school publications about the commercial school. The PI also went through all the school publications stored in major University and public libraries in Hong Kong. Some of the mission documents were also discovered in Pavia and Verona, Italy. The PI also went to the Hong Kong Public Records Office and retrieved all the official government documents about and correspondences with the Canossian Mission. Subsequently, the PI also did extensive research at the Hong Kong Catholic Diocesan Archives to look for relevant documents about the Catholic Missions in Hong Kong, as well as the Canossian Daughters of Charity. Lastly, the PI went over the major Chinese and English newspapers (香港工商日報, 香港工商晚報, 華僑日報, 香港華字日報, 香港華字晚報, 大公報, 天光報, 遐邇貫珍, 循環日報, China Mail, Hong Kong Daily Press, Hong Kong Sunday Herald, Hong Kong Telegraph, Hong Kong Weekly Press) and collected all the relevant articles about the secretarial training school. The PI has presented the development of SHCCC’s secretarial training curriculum in his research paper (see section C). 2. Examine the influence of SHCCC's secretarial training on women in Hong Kong and analyze the collected narratives of these white-collar women: In order to identify the right informants, the PI went through the 70 initial survey responses received from the former students and teachers of SHCCC. The PI and the research assistants carefully selected 25 informants from the pool; the research team has completed all the oral history interviews and transcribed all interviews. These oral history interviews focused on how secretarial training influenced the lives and status of Chinese women as Hong Kong developed into a major commercial hub, and how SHCCC students embraced their new profession by connecting East and West, “tradition” and “modernity,” and family and work. In our analysis, which was presented in the research paper (see part C), reflected on the secretaries’ struggle between their new professional role in the outer sphere and their traditional family role in the inner sphere throughout the process. 3. Survey the influence of SHCCC's secretarial training program on the overall development of girl's schooling in Hong Kong and reflect upon the value of this specialized vocational education in the colony: In addition to doing archival research, the PI has surveyed the existing publications and research projects on the topic of women’s education in Hong Kong. The findings in this particular field are still scarce. The PI attempted to place SHCCC’s development under the context of education trends and practices of the colony, especially the important roles Christian and Catholic schools played in shaping the educational system in Hong Kong. This project suggested that SHCCC was unique because the religious charity was not the sole factor behind the establishment of the secretarial training curriculum; instead, this was also the reflection of the trend of the rapid increase of women entering into office in the West at the turn of the century. As a result, the school’s goal was to equip these women with basic knowledge and specialized skills. The PI also inquired about the school curriculum in the oral history interviews, and has learned interesting perspectives about how the public perceived SHCCC in the 60s and the 70s. The analysis was presented in the paper (see part C). 4. Investigate the socio-economic status of SHCCC's students by inspecting the correlation between their Christian identity and their education/employment opportunities as secretaries under the colonial context: The findings of this research project confirmed that Christianity indeed played a significant role in changing people's socio-economic status in the colony. Often negotiations and compromises had to happen for Chinese to embrace their new religious identity, but what often followed was opportunity. When education and employment became important mission strategies, these Christians became the first group of women to receive education and professional training. Due to the secular nature of the secretarial training, the PI learned that the religious elements of SHCCC were rather obscure; the short prayer during the morning assembly was the only religious ritual that the students were asked to perform. Nonetheless, according to former students, most students who apply to SHCCC had either Catholic family background, or they came from a Catholic primary or secondary school. Therefore, these students continue to embrace their religious identity when they enter into the commercial realm. 5. Contribute to Hong Kong's oral history project by transcribing interviews with former secretaries and promote further studies on the history of white-collar women in Hong Kong: With the help of research assistants and student helpers, the PI has transcribed all the oral history interviews. The PI is in the process of publishing a book that will feature the detailed stories of these Hong Kong secretaries (see part C). While working on this research project and promoting the practices or oral history, the PI was invited by schools and churches to be the advisor of their oral history projects. The PI has organized a number of oral history workshops, and supervised the process of their oral history interviews. The PI hopes the book will inspire more institutions in Hong Kong to preserve their valuable memories of the past. Problems Encountered: The progress of this project was delayed due to the closing of Canossian Mission Archive in Hong Kong. After talking to many experts in the field of history of Catholic Missions in Hong Kong, including Father Louise Ha, I was able to reach the supervisor of the Canossian Archive, Sister Teresa Chien. She, however, informed us that the archive is currently under renovation, therefore it was impossible for the research team to access any information. The problem was eventually resolved when Sister Vernoica Fuk, and former principal Sister Law were willing to provide timely assistance and received relevant archival materials from the school. In addition, the recruitment of former students and teachers was also very challenging and time-consuming. Luckily, former vice principal Cecilia Wu joined the project at the later stage and helped the research team to distribute the survey and identify potential informants for the research team. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Summary of objectives addressed: |
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| Research Outcome | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Major findings and research outcome: | At the end of the 19th century, with the invention of the typewriter, women began to enter the commercial realm, and the structure of European and American offices began to change⸺making the white-collar female class that symbolized "modernity" appeared in the West. When Hong Kong developed into an important trading port at the end of the 19th century, Sisters from Canossian Daughters of Charity from Italy took up the task of training secretaries, and established the first secretarial training curriculum in Hong Kong, The Sacred Heart Canossian College of Commerce (SHCCC). This project used SHCCC as a case study to analyze this newly-introduced white-collar female profession in Hong Kong. After completing the archival research and collecting oral histories from the school’s former students and teachers, the PI discovered that the religious charity was not the sole factor behind the establishment of Sacred Heart Commercial School; instead, this was also the reflection of the trend of the rapid increase of women entering into office in the West at the turn of the century. As a result, SHCCC’s secretarial training curriculum produced a new class of professional white-collar women for Hong Kong. In particular, when Hong Kong became the Asian financial center in the 70s, secretaries have become an indispensable part of the colony’s economy. The PI discovered that even though the secretarial profession has offered these women economic ability and eventually elevated their social status⸺the reason why secretarial professional was appealing to the grassroot families, what Hong Kong secretaries faced in the workplace was the extension of the "traditional" gender roles in the office. In other words, becoming a secretary did not help these professional women change the traditional gender power dynamics, but somehow reinforced the traditional gender constraints and stereotypes, making Hong Kong female secretaries the “professional servants” in this international financial center. The PI has completed a paper based on the findings of this project; the paper has been submitted to Journal of Women’s and Gender Studies for review. Please find the submitted paper in Part C. The PI is in the process of completing a book that features the oral histories of the secretaries; the PI has selected 15 detailed stories to present in this book. Joint Publication (H.K.) has shown initial interest in publishing this book, and has agreed to review the manuscript soon. Please find the draft of the introduction in Part C as well. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Potential for further development of the research and the proposed course of action: |
The PI will complete the book manuscript before the end of 2020, with the hope to publish the book before the summer of 2021. The PI will also try to promote the book by delivering public lectures and talks in Hong Kong, so that the public will have a better understanding of the history of the secretarial profession, as well as raise awareness of the gender issues that still exist in our society. The PI has offered oral history workshops regularly in secondary schools and churches in Hong Kong while doing this research project; the PI will continue to do so when the book comes out, so that we could preserve the precious history of different schools, institutions, and individuals in Hong Kong. Lastly, in the long run the PI will consider doing a project on the history of Hong Kong school teachers, another “gendered” profession in Hong Kong. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Layman's Summary of Completion Report: | In Hong Kong, the secretarial profession was considered one of the first white-collar jobs for women, and became an indispensable component of the city’s economy in the latter half of the 20th century when Hong Kong gradually evolved into an international financial center. This project investigated the secretarial profession by using Hong Kong’s first secretarial training school, Sacred Heart Canossian College of Commerce (SHCCC), as a case study. Sacred Heart has cultivated a large number of professional secretaries in the past 100 years, thus contributing to the development of commerce in Hong Kong. This project examined how a previously foreign profession was introduced by female missionaries to the colony by analyzing SHCCC’s school history and examining the stories of the school’s former students and teachers. This was the first research conducted on this subject, and is one of the more comprehensive research on the history of white-collar women in Hong Kong. This research project discovered that the secretarial profession did indeed provide a pathway for some women in Hong Kong to enter into the middle-class, on the other hand these white-collar women still expected to play the subordinate role when “serving” their superiors in the office. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Research Output | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Peer-reviewed journal publication(s) arising directly from this research project : (* denotes the corresponding author) |
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| Recognized international conference(s) in which paper(s) related to this research project was/were delivered : |
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| Other impact (e.g. award of patents or prizes, collaboration with other research institutions, technology transfer, etc.): |
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| Realisation of the education plan: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| SCREEN ID: SCRRM00542 |