Many Hong Kong schools are concerned about the growing number of ethnic minority students. How they are supported and how the diversity of their pastoral needs is fulfilled become critical. This article examines teachers', students' and parents' narratives of the cross-cultural experience of ethnic minority students from India, Pakistan, Philippines, Nepal and Thailand, and the diversity of those students' pastoral needs. The qualitative data were collected from interviews, through which the constructs of 32 teachers and 32 students from three secondary schools were explored. Four groups of focus-group interviews were conducted, in which 15 parents were involved. This article argues that to implement the ethos of caring, it is not only necessary for the school to promote the intercultural sensitivity of all practitioners, but equally important to develop a connected school system where ethnic minority students and parents can be consistently supported in the subsystems of classroom, school and home.
[Copyright of Educational Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03055690903425383]

Hong Kong classrooms are populated by a significant number of culturally diverse students, most predominantly newly arrived students (NAS) from Mainland China. These NAS come to school with the same hopes and aspirations as their Hong Kong counterparts and with a wide range of abilities. The huge diversity presents demands on today's Hong Kong teachers. Too often, the NAS are failed by the educational system because their perceived needs are not being addressed. This essay serves as an exploratory study on teachers' pedagogical effectiveness in response to the challenges of educating the NAS in Hong Kong schools. It draws special reference to the lessons learned from a one-year professional teacher support pilot project for the education of the NAS. Implications are drawn to provide support for the need and value of the integration of the cultural relevant elements in continuous teacher education programmes.
香港學校收納了不少文化多元的學生，他們多是內地新來港的學生。他們擁有不同的能力，然而，他們跟香港本土學生一樣對學校抱有相同的夢想與素求。他們本身的多元性為今日的香港老師帶來了不少的要求。很多時，他們的學業失敗是因為本港教育制度不能照顧他們的學習需要而致。本文是一個為期一年的探索式先導計畫，研究專注於香港老師回應新來港學生教育的挑戰的教學效能。由香港優質教育基金贊助，名為「新來港學童教育專業支援計畫」。本文總結先導計畫成果，並把所得的啟示作為支持在教師持續教育課程中加入文化適切元素的需要和價值。
[Copyright of New Horizons: The Journal of Education, Hong Kong Teachers' Associationl is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Association at http://www.hkta1934.org.hk/]

This study examines the extent to which South Asian students in Hong Kong are gaining fluency in Chinese and the impact of this on their educational outcomes in the postcolonial context of an official shift to a trilingual (Cantonese, English, and Putonghua) and biliterate (Chinese and English) society. It focuses on the teaching and learning of Chinese in secondary schools 'designated' for minority background students. Data are drawn from student language proficiency testing and teacher interviews. The study found low proficiency in Chinese due, in part, to teaching methodologies based on approaches to learning Chinese as a first language. There was evidence of inadequate teacher preparation, inappropriate curriculum, structural issues, and a cycle of low student motivation and performance. The study concludes that educational outcomes for these students will not improve without a seismic shift in policy thinking and improvement of educational provision for minority students.
[Copyright of Diaspora Indigenous and Minority Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15595690903442256 ]

Data from Hong Kong PISA 2003 show that 15-year-old Hong Kong students who have immigrant parents from mainland China are grossly overrepresented in grades below the modal grade attended by most native Hong Kong students. Same-age comparison, when grade level is not taken into account, puts immigrants' children at a disadvantaged position in the mathematics, reading, and science literacy tests. The academic advantage of immigrants' children in Hong Kong is only revealed after grade is statistically controlled. Also, mainland immigrant students who are repeaters outperform native Hong Kong repeaters. Immigrant redshirting is a possible driving force behind these results.
[Copyright of Educational Research & Evaluation is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13803610903087078]