Acculturation is an emerging field of inquiry in the multicultural context of Hong Kong. Behavioural acculturation focuses mainly on cultural practices such as language use, dietary preferences, customs and traditions, socialization and media consumption. Despite a phenomenal growth of research on the educational predicament of immigrant youth…

While existing research has well-recognized educational plan as an important predictor of students' educational achievement, the alignment of educational plan and achievement should not be taken for granted. As plan-achievement misalignment is liable to negative psychological and social consequences, this study aims to examine the extent to which…

Language learning has long been one of the most challenging issues facing non-Chinese speaking (NCS) students who are mainly ethnic minorities immersed in a multilingual environment in Hong Kong. Previous research on the education of NCS students suggested that early support from an immersion programme at a pre-school age may contribute to higher…

Private tutoring is one of the unintended outcomes of high-stakes testing and has become a widespread global phenomenon. It is called shadow education because it mimics the mainstream curriculum. From the critical perspective, this study investigated the role of private tutoring in a context of high-stakes testing through Interpretative…

Ethnic minority parents often appear to be less involved in school functions and activities than their culturally dominant counterparts. Their invisibility is usually assumed due to a lack of either interest or parental capacity to oversee their children's education. However, the simplistic equation between parental involvement in children's…

Investigations into the role of religiosity among Muslim youth have been undertaken mainly by international scholars in the West. To fill the knowledge gap, we use original qualitative data to examine empirically an under-research area of belonging and identity of the new generation of Muslim youth in Hong Kong. The narratives review lives of…

International large-scale assessments such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) have emerged as important tools for understanding educational systems within Asia and around the world. Although the achievement scales tend to capture the majority of the world's attention the background scales have become important tools in…

Hong Kong underwent tremendous changes after the transfer of its sovereignty to China in 1997. This study attempts to explore the changing role of schools in preparing students for future democratic citizenship in the post-colonial era. Different researchers have postulated that schools play a crucial role in the political socialization process in…

This article explores how ethnic minority students in Hong Kong secondary schools discursively construct their identities in relation to culture, heritage, and social discourse. It finds that the ethnic minority students negotiate their identities within multiple positioning from parents, school, and the broader social discourse on minority…

This paper reports a case study on Maneesha Rai, a Nepalese girl living in Hong Kong and an "out of school" student. Based on in-depth interviews, a case was constructed of her previous school days and current "out of school" days. These provided a vivid picture of her life and several themes were created using schema analysis…

This paper argues that the planned introduction of visual literacy into the New Secondary School Curriculum can play a crucial role in enabling students to think critically and creatively in Hong Kong's highly visual landscape. As Hong Kong's educational system remains entrenched in long-established and conventional pedagogies, the primacy given…

The enactment of the revised School Places Allocation Systems at the compulsory stage in 2004 had the aim of desegregating Hong Kong's non-Chinese linguistic minority (NCLM) students by including them into ethnic Chinese-dominated mainstream primary and secondary schools. Because of the presumed cause-consequence relationship between…

While research is increasingly available on the scale and costs of private supplementary tutoring, less information focuses on its pedagogical dimensions. This paper addresses patterns in Hong Kong. The paper begins with the quantitative picture solicited through questionnaires for students in Grades 9 and 12, and then turns to data from…

One of the challenges facing Hong Kong schools is the growing cultural diversity of the student population that is a result of the growing number of ethnic minority students in the schools. This study uses semi-structured interviews with 12 American, Canadian, Indian, Nepalese and Pakistani teachers working in three secondary schools in the public…

This paper explores the construction of local and national identities among secondary school students in post-colonial Hong Kong. As a Chinese society that has undergone a prolonged period of British colonial rule, the reunification of capitalist Hong Kong with the motherland under socialism in 1997 has set the context for a negotiation of…