本文探討貧窮與教育的關係，指出改善學校教育可以消減跨代貧窮。要打破「出身、教育及成就」的連鎖效應，就必須消減學校對貧窮學生所造成的負面影響。除政府的扶貧教育政策外，訪談資料顯示，老師也是一個非常重要的因素。本文建議老師注重提升學生的學業自尊感，對所有學生都應寄以合理的期望，才能積極地消減因貧窮而引致的教育成效不均問題。
This article discusses the relationship between poverty and education. Improved schooling can combat intergenerational poverty. In order to break through the chain effect of "social background-education achievement," schools must minimize any further disadvantages for students who are already socially disadvantaged. Alongside the role the government's education policy plays in tackling poverty, the findings show that teachers also play an important role. This article recommends that teachers pay more attention to raising students' academic self-esteem and to holding appropriate expectations of all students so as to effectively tackle the unequal educational results caused by poverty.
[Copyright of Journal of Youth Studies is the property of The Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups at http://yrc.hkfyg.org.hk/]

The year 2008 marked the 11th anniversary of Hong Kong's return from the UK to the People's Republic of China. In this decade, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government has repeatedly emphasised the importance of the development of national identity and patriotism in school education, and has at the same time introduced diverse cultural values into the school curriculum. This article explores the dynamics and complexity of the relationships between the state, globalisation and nationalism in Hong Kong that are re-shaping music education in response to contemporary socio-political changes. It argues that Hong Kong school music education has made a gradual cultural shift towards globalism and nationalism, and away from the Westernism that has dominated Hong Kong music education since before the change of sovereignty on 1 July 1997. The article concludes with a discussion of how music education might juggle two pairs of relationships in the curriculum: between global and national cultures; and between the education of cultural values and nationalism in Chinese music. There is pressure to rethink teacher education in terms of the need to be aware of the socio-political environment in which it operates, and within which it makes music education socially relevant.
[Copyright of Music Education Research is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14613800903390741]

This paper explores two current issues in the educational policies and practices of Hong Kong that have been shaped by the emergence of the nation-state and the return of Hong Kong's sovereignty from the UK to the People's Republic of China on 1 July 1997. Since this time there have been two great challenges facing music education. The first concerns how to incorporate diverse cultures, including Chinese music, into a Western-orientated music curriculum; and the second is to find a way to cultivate national identity and democracy through music education. The data presented here were collected via in-depth, semi-structured individual interviews with music teachers, school heads and assistant school heads across 40 primary and secondary schools between 2006 and 2007. The findings can be explained by referring to the shortcomings of multicultural education and the underdevelopment of democracy in Hong Kong's education system.
[Copyright of Discourse is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01596300902809203]