Hong Kong's population has increased by around one million per decade from the end of World War II till the 1990s. A large proportion of this growth came from the mass influx of migrants from Mainland China, and the children born to them. During the 1960s and 1970s when Hong Kong's economy was booming rapidly, career advancement opportunities were abundant even for the less educated migrants and their children. But when the economic restructuring occurred in the 1980s and 1990s, trades such as manufacturing and construction sectors, where a large number of workers with migration background were employed, were hit most hardly. The problem of the intergenerational transmission of poverty and low social mobility has now become the focus in the agenda of poverty alleviation. This article aims to use a subsample of the 2006 By-Census dataset to explore whether children with migration background from Mainland China were generally disadvantaged in their educational attainment and income. The findings confirmed this hypothesis, indicating that the human capital investment strategy in Hong Kong is not sufficient to break down the barriers for children in disadvantaged social positions.
[Copyright of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2011.594419]

In this article, the controversy of divergent findings in research on parental socialization effects in different cultures is addressed. Three explanations intended to address divergent findings of socialization effects in different cultures, as advanced by researchers who emphasize cultural differences, are discussed. These include cultural differences in socialization values and goals of parents, parental emotional and cognitive characteristics associated with parenting styles, and adolescents' interpretations or evaluations of their parents' parenting styles. The empirical evidence for and against each of these arguments is examined and an alternative paradigm for understanding and empirical study of developmental outcomes associated with parenting styles in different cultures is suggested. Baumrind's directive parenting style is presented as an alternative to the authoritarian parenting style in understanding the positive developmental effects associated with "strict" parenting in cultures said to have a collectivist orientation. Directions for research on the three explanations are mentioned.
[Copyright of Ammons Scientific Ltd. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.2466/10.02.17.21.PR0.110.3.854-878]

One of the main features of globalization is the increasing mobility of population. As an immigrant society, Hong Kong has witnessed waves of Mainland Chinese arrivals and assimilation into her mainstream, particularly around the change of sovereignty period. school-aged children constitute a substantial fraction of the new population. Given their potential impact on Hong Kong's present and future, how these immigrant youngsters perform in school has always been a concern to the public as well as the government. This study compared Hong Kong 8th-graders' mathematics performance in the four rounds of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study by their immigrant status. The results showed that the first-generation immigrant students' performance had obvious retrogression compared to native students in the past years. Among the natives, non-local-born students with only their father born in Hong Kong had the most similar performance as the first-generation immigrants. The causes for the differences are explored from both internal and external perspectives.
[Copyright of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2011.621673]

The teaching practicum is a pivotal event for pre-service teachers to experience the transition from being students to being teachers. This paper examines the emergence of 'unruly pupils' as a central concern for pre-service English language teachers in their teaching practicum. The inquiry relates the pre-service teachers' perceived challenge of 'unruly pupils' to the mediation of contextual conditions and processes as well as the marginal positions in which they found themselves during the teaching practicum. The article also reports on the efforts that they undertook to address this perceived challenge. The findings suggest that pre-service teachers are encouraged to interrogate the contextual conditions and processes underlying the perceived challenge of 'unruly pupils' in their transition to being teachers, rather than treat it merely as a relationship challenge.
[Copyright of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2012.656440]

Investigations of Chinese students and their approaches to learning have emphasised a dichotomy in 'western' and 'Confucian' approaches to education but in a longitudinal study of Chinese postgraduate students' academic adjustment to a British university the dichotomy is less than real. The focus of this research was on an in-depth study of students' own conceptualisation of their learning and the vocabulary they used to describe their adjustment. Ethnographic interview data were collected from 14 participants studying different disciplines at three points during their first 10 months of study in a British university. The data show how students brought certain concepts of learning with them, acquired new ones, and found ways of combining the two. Students are aware of the contextual nature of their new learning processes, and the relationship between the two sets of ideas is not one of substitution but rather of extension and interaction. The implications for teaching and learning are discussed.
[Copyright of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2011.625001]

This article adopts the critical theory approach to reflect and analyse the impacts of globalization on the internationalization process of higher education in the Asia-Pacific region. It argues that globalization forces many of the higher education institutions in the region to follow global practices and ideologies of the Anglo-American paradigm without developing their own unique systems and honouring the rich cultures of their own countries. While higher education institutions are indulging in internationalization in terms of marketization and economic pragmatism, they have to ask themselves, 'What is missing in the process of internationalization?' This article argues that internationalization of higher education contributes to building more than economically competitive and politically powerful states. It represents a commitment to the development of an internationalized curriculum where the pursuit of global citizenship, human harmony and a climate of global peace is of paramount importance.
[Copyright of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2011.652815]

Despite extensive discussion on critical thinking (CT) by Chinese students, there are still debates over the question of why Chinese higher education students, when studying abroad, lack (or rather do not demonstrate) CT skills. The main objective of this paper is to explore how far it can be established from the published research literature whether the key factor affecting Chinese university students' CT with respect to academic study in English is cultural background or previous training. The conclusion is that culture cannot be the sole explanation for Chinese students' CT performance at universities abroad. The evidence strongly suggests that, while CT elements can indeed be found in ancient Chinese culture, many other factors, especially students' previous learning experiences, are of more immediate relevance and likely to affect performance. As a result, a holistic approach is suggested. The review also suggests that there is at times a lack of clear definitions and/or explanations of the scope of the key concept - culture - in the current literature.
[Copyright of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2010.546400]

There is a clear need for new research into the work and life outcomes for graduates of Australian international education. Drawing upon divergent post-study transitions, this article aims to present a multi-faceted, qualitative foundation for the consideration of both positional and transformative impacts of international education on graduates' post study lives and careers. We compare three divergent study and life pathways for international students via three case studies of different models of Australian international and transnational education provision. The findings show that positional and transformative outcomes were often intertwined in surprising ways in participants' stories. The pathways that they followed after graduation were strongly influenced by their engagement with international education as a life as well as a learning experience. All three case studies also suggest that concepts of the prestige of the Western degree need further consideration.
[Copyright of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2011.562369]

Museums have been employing theatre activities in their educational programmes to outreach youngsters for more than three decades all over the world since the late 1980s; however, it is still quite a new experience for eastern and south-eastern Asian countries. In the past 3 years, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan started to use different forms of museum theatre in educational programmes to represent their multiple histories and cultural identities through various projects and showcases. Among these praxes, process drama have been most widely employed by teacher-facilitators for youngsters to reconstruct their own interpretations of historical events and narratives through chosen and rediscovered historical fragments, often neglected and even forgotten in the past. I argue that these process drama projects help the youngsters to reconstruct their own ever-changing cultural identities of these places which are under enormous change day by day in their current postcolonial and postmodern conditions. I also try to demonstrate how these praxes cross geographical, historical, ethnic and cultural as well as community borders to translate historical narratives buried in their heritage sites, ethnic community histories or aboriginal intangible cultural heritage such as tribal dances, songs and rituals into contemporary dramatic enquiry activities and performances. Why are they interested in these praxes almost at the same time lately? What are their goals in these projects? What cultural and social meanings do these praxes carry and sustain? What are the aesthetic strategies they use in these programmes and why do they choose them and how well do they work to achieve their goals? I would like to apply theories of museum theatre, process drama as well as postmodern aesthetics and educational theories and theories of post-colonialism to re-examine these praxes in their different cultural contexts to explore the above questions.
[Copyright of Research in Drama Education: The