Globalisation could be regarded as a human revolution that has been accelerated by the exponential development of information technology during the last century. It has brought about a growing concern over the exchange and internationalisation of education in various places. Hong Kong is an international city in the Asia-Pacific region and its Education Bureau (EDB) promotes the development of education internationalisation in many ways. This chapter looks at the phenomenon of internationalisation within education in Hong Kong in the following six aspects: higher education, the establishment of international schools, introduction of the International Baccalaureate, catering for the learning of non-Chinese-speaking children, the support provided to students learning English and the cultivation of an international perspective in students. It will also highlight new challenges that have been faced by the internationalisation of education in Hong Kong.
[Copyright © 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore.]

This book demonstrates the value of approaching education from a sociological and philosophical perspective. Specifically, it addresses current and long-standing educational issues in the Asia-Pacific region, integrating sociological and philosophical insights with practical applications in four key areas: educational aims, moral education, educational policy, and the East-West dichotomy. It discusses educational aims in terms of rationality, philosophical thinking, and sustainable development and presents the literary, religious, and analytical approaches to moral education. Four educational policies are then considered: Hong Kong's language policy, Hong Kong's policy on the internationalization of education, East Asia's policies on English education, and Australia's policy on teacher education. Different aspects of the East-West dichotomy are analysed: Confucian rationalism versus Western rationalism, Confucian learning culture versus Western learning culture, and Asian research methodology versus Western research methodology. Taken as a whole, the book shows that issues in education are rarely simple, and looking at them from multiple perspectives allows for rich and informed debates. It presents a rare philosophical and sociological analysis of the cultures and experiences of education in the Asia-Pacific region, and promotes research that leads to more culturally rooted educational policies and practice.
[Copyright © 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore]

This article reports the results of the first systematic, though only exploratory, study that assesses the effectiveness of the Philosophy for Children (commonly known as P4C) programme in promoting children's critical thinking in Hong Kong. Forty-two Secondary 1 students volunteered for this study, from whom 28 students were randomly selected and randomly assigned to 2 groups of 14 each: one receiving P4C lessons and the other receiving English lessons. The students who were taught P4C were found to show a greater improvement in the reasoning test performance than those who were not, to be capable of doing philosophy, and to have a positive attitude towards doing philosophy in the classroom. It was also found that P4C played a major role in developing the students' critical thinking, and that 10 crucial factors contributed to the success of the P4C programme.
[Copyright of Educational Research & Evaluation is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13803611.2012.658669]