Art educators claim that Visual Culture Art Education (VCAE) can facilitate students' critical thinking skills and creativity. This article explores a study conducted in Hong Kong senior secondary schools that analysed the extent to which VCAE promotes creativity and critical thinking skills using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The discussion identifies the ways that VCAE students made connections between their everyday life experiences, social lives, and culture and in the process developed their creativity and critical thinking skills. Copyright © 2021 Art Education Australia.

In Hong Kong, the Education Bureau (EDB) regularly assesses the quality of services provided by publicly subsidized kindergartens to children aged 3 to 6. Quality Review (QR) reports are written by government officials and published on the EDB's website. This study analyzes the feedback pertaining to Arts and Creativity to better understand the role this learning area plays in Hong Kong kindergartens. Lexical and content analyses were applied on 164 QR reports published between 2017 and 2020. Findings showed that: (1) the role of Arts and Creativity in the QR reports is relatively minor, which suggests that this learning area is somewhat secondary in Hong Kong kindergartens; (2) presence of the various art forms differs significantly, with Music and Visual Arts being more frequent than Drama and especially Dance; and (3) classroom activities seem to be teacher-centered, product-oriented, and reproductive. Findings suggest that the Arts and Creativity pedagogies enacted in Hong Kong kindergartens are not fully consistent with the official kindergarten Curriculum Guide, which draws on a Western conceptualization of creativity in the arts. We argue that this curriculum/practice gap reveals the need for local stakeholders to embrace a "glocalization" paradigm. Limitations, future research, and implications are discussed. Copyright © 2022 Jerry Yeung et al.

The aim of the study is to explore preschool teachers’ folk pedagogy as reflected in music education in Hong Kong by examining how Hong Kong teachers act, think and interact with their students when teaching music, and their response when stimulated by Japanese preschool culture. To illuminate the concept of folk pedagogy, the study investigates the tacit norms, views and values of selected Hong Kong and Japanese music teachers. This research is a multi-case study with an ethnographic design for cultural observation. A meta-aspect of this study is to provide a venue for teachers’ professional development, which consists of sharing videos from other countries, discussing their values and allowing these discussions to enlarge their sense of teachers. Through individual and group discussions and the teachers’ beliefs construction one year later, the teachers’ beliefs, teaching pedagogies and implicit behaviours are identified and analysed. The implications of the study will strengthen music teachers’ evaluations of Hong Kong’s folk pedagogy. All rights reserved.

This study explores how students in Hong Kong perceive the influence of parental support and parental cultural capital on their participation in musical activities. A survey questionnaire was distributed to students attending grades seven to nine at eight Hong Kong secondary schools in the early summer of 2015. The findings from that survey, based on the 1,433 valid questionnaires that were returned, show that parents' cultural background informed their support of their children's musical activities, and could, in turn, enhance cultivation of students' cultural capital. Students in the study also perceived parental encouragement to be more important to their musical activities than the possession of musical competence and knowledge. This study provides a nuanced perspective on the interplay between parental cultural capital and parental support, and students' perception of the influence of parental support on their participation in musical activities in the Hong Kong context. Copyright © 2016 The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups.

The relationship between individuals' possession of cultural capital and their musical preferences has been extensively examined in Western society; however, little attention has been given to it in contemporary Chinese contexts. Based on Bourdieu's (1973, 1986) concept of cultural capital, this study focuses on junior secondary school students' (Grades Seven to Nine) preferred musical listening styles, and their perception of how their parents' and their own cultural capital have shaped their musical preferences in contemporary Hong Kong society. Two research questions are addressed: (1) How does parental cultural capital influence students' cultural capital? (2) To what extent does students' cultural capital shape their musical preferences in contemporary Hong Kong society? A survey questionnaire was distributed to nine Hong Kong secondary schools in the summer of 2015, followed by an interview survey conducted in the spring of 2016. Based on a synthesis of the 1,614 completed questionnaires and 28 in-depth individual interviews, the quantitative and qualitative findings provide nuanced insights into students' perceptions of their musical preferences, and how one's cultural capital shapes one's musical preferences, in a Hong Kong context. This study finds that the students' music listening not only served as an aesthetic and leisure activity, but also as a means of inculcating cultural capital-proficiency of English-that is legitimate in Hong Kong and deemed an influential factor in school performance. The study also shows that through technological advancements, more specifically a readilyavailable platform for accessing comprehensive musical resource databases, a new factor has emerged that weakens the relationship between familial social status and students' musical preferences and leads to more autonomous music listening behaviour. In addition, students' musical cultural capital, which is transformed from their parents' cultural capital, may directly and explicitly

The influence of social factors on individuals' musical preferences has been extensively examined in Western society; however, little attention has been given to social influences on students' musical preferences in the Chinese context. With reference to Hong Kong, China, this study focuses on junior secondary school students' (Grades Seven to Nine) preferred musical listening styles, and how different social factors have shaped their musical preferences in contemporary Hong Kong society. Given its British colonial history, Hong Kong is renowned for its blend of Eastern and Western cultures, and its historical and cultural backgrounds may be reflected in its students' musical preferences. Two research questions are addressed in this chapter: (1) How do students perceive their musical preferences in their daily lives? (2) What are the social factors influencing students' musical preferences in Hong Kong society? A survey questionnaire was distributed to nine Hong Kong secondary schools in the summer of 2015. Based on a synthesis of the 1,614 completed questionnaires, the quantitative findings provide nuanced insights into students' perceptions of their musical preferences, and how social influences have shaped their musical preferences, in the Hong Kong context. The study found that social factors - language proficiency, family socialization, and technological advancement - significantly shaped students' musical preferences, which, to some extent, reflected the social values in contemporary Hong Kong. Moreover, this study showed that music listening not only served as an aesthetic and leisure activity, but also as a means of socialization, while advanced technology influenced students' music listening behavior by providing a readily-available platform for accessing huge musical resources. Copyright © 2018 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

Research shows that kindergarten teachers require support to enhance the way they teach music to children. However, little is known about the professional development (PD) needs of teachers with different profiles. Drawing on survey data from 1,019 Hong Kong kindergarten teachers, we compared the music-specific PD needs of beginning, experienced, and advanced teachers focusing on PD content, facilitators, formats, and activities. Participants demanded PD: (1) centered on how to foster children’s musical creativity via theme-based activities; (2) facilitated by experts in pedagogy and music performance, (3) conducted as workshops and mentoring sessions; and (4) focused on observation, skill acquisition, and practice. Significant differences were found across groups, which indicates that teaching experience must be carefully considered when designing responsive PD. Copyright © 2022 AERA.

The disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic affected education and services geared toward young children and families, including early childhood music programs. While some programs were shut down, others were able to migrate to online formats and outdoor offerings (where allowed). Early childhood music programs are usually collective, with babies and young children often sharing and exploring common spaces, instruments, and props. These programs are also heavily based on singing, a behavior that is celebrated by early childhood specialists for its emotional expressiveness, communicative potential, and relevance for child development. Because the coronavirus can be transmitted via aerosol particles, singing became highly unsafe during the pandemic. Other challenges arose as early childhood music education programs were transferred into new formats, ranging from issues of logistics and access to technology to adherence to everchanging local and national policies, as well as cultural beliefs and behaviors. In this chapter, teachers, researchers, and program directors offer stories of adaptation and resilience in varied early childhood music programs in Kenya, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Brazil, South Korea, and the United States. Accounts are presented first, followed by their juxtaposition, to reveal common themes and implications for early childhood music education in the post-COVID era. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.