This study examines the value priorities of Chinese parents regarding their children’s education in globally competitive context. Although Chinese parents are often viewed as being excessively controlling of their children and preoccupied with their academic performance, research indicates that contemporary Chinese families hold diverse beliefs and values influenced by globalization and socio-cultural transformations. Via a mixed-method study primarily using responses to surveys (n = 867) and semi-structured interviews (n = 18) among Chinese parents in Hong Kong schools, the study sheds light on multiple and competing educational priorities among Chinese parents of a new generation. Findings reveal the complex landscape of value orientations as the parents navigated the challenges of supporting their children’s schooling. Parents’ concerns about whole-child development appeared to sometimes conflict with the school system’s academic focus. Implications concerning the difficulties of aligning family-school values for collaboration and intensifying educational competition are discussed. Copyright © 2024 The Author(s).

This article refers to the case of the Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS) in Hong Kong to engage empirically in a debate over school choice. Based on a survey of 910 parents of primary school-leavers on their considerations in making school choices for their children, our analysis shows that DSS schools as an educational option are essentially exclusive to high-income parents, and that DSS schools are opted for as an alternative for the instrumental reason of having higher chances of getting into university rather than such claimed educational reasons as providing students with innovative design of curricula, pedagogies, and assessments.
[Copyright of Journal of School Choice is the property of Routledge.]

Since the mid-1990s, important education policy changes, such as the growth of Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS) schools and the reform of the medium of instruction (MOI) policy, have been made in Hong Kong. Little is known about their impact on school segregation and educational inequality. We address this issue using six successive cycles of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study data. We found evidence for rising levels of secondary school segregation in terms of family socio-economic status and mathematics achievement from 1995 to 2011, whereas segregation declined from 2011 to 2015. We speculate that the salience of the MOI policy in expediting the segregating tendencies of the DSS sector might explain a growing magnitude of the effect of family socio-economic status on academic achievement between 1995 and 2011, and the reversed direction of such trends between 2011 and 2015. Implications are discussed.
[Copyright of British Journal of Sociology of Education is the property of Routledge.]

This paper seeks to question what impact education vouchers have on the process of school choice. The context examined in the paper is the Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme ('Voucher Scheme') introduced in 2007 in Hong Kong. Using a Straussian grounded theory method, data collected from 40 parent interviews are coded, analysed and developed into categories. The paper analytically situates the findings within a model, derived from the data, which is based on two properties: orientation and time. Orientation differentiates and emphasises the significance of choice factors in relation to the school versus the family, and time is related to focus on the present versus the future. The paper subsequently presents the data related to these properties and reflects on the intricate dynamic of parents' school choice decisions under the Voucher Scheme.
[© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group]

School choice gives parents greater power over their children's education. But ever since the Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme (PEVS) was introduced in Hong Kong in 2007, school choice has become a hotly debated topic. The scheme was introduced to empower kindergarten parents in choosing a school for their children by offering them direct fee subsidies that, in return, could propel education quality forward. Parents in the private kindergarten sector, however, have long enjoyed the privilege of choice, and they have been preoccupied with an intense interest in their children's academic upbringing, even if it means compromising the holistic development of their children. This runs counter to the principles of a quality education. Therefore, the urge to further promote parental kindergarten choice will likely allow parental academic interests to continue to prevail and hence invalidate the PEVS' promise to improve education quality. The result is a unique dilemma between school choice for parents and the promise of education quality within Hong Kong's unique private kindergarten sector.
[Copyright © 2011 Arizona State University.]

After the resumption of sovereignty in 1997 mother tongue education in Hong Kong, though it began with the good intention of national reintegration, politi-cally, socially, culturally and educationally, has escalated the tensions and contradic-tions of the politics of bilingualism in its implementation. The government policy of bi-literacy and trilingualism addresses, rather than resolves, the problems of hegemonic struggle among different social groups in the society, and between the indigenous elite class and national ruling elites at both the local and national level. A reproduction analysis is conducted to examine the events pertinent to the language shift of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) to Chinese as a medium of instruction (CMI), with particular emphasis on controversial issues such as parental choice, antagonism of elite classes, and group politics in the face of the internationalisation of English under globalised developments of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). English, a colonising language in the past and now a world language for changes in ICT, remains problematic for Hong Kong's language policy undergoing decolonisation and internationalisation in its early post-transitional years. Putonghua, the national lan-guage of China, challenging Cantonese, the regional dialect, as the formal and high Chinese language of the society, has added complexities to the discourse of polemical mother tongue education under the 'one country, two systems' framework practised in Hong Kong.
[Copyright of Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305792032000107786]