The academic underachievement of ethnic minorities, especially Pakistanis, in Hong Kong is well-recognized. This is stereotypically attributed to Islamic practices that are perceived to impede education, yet the voices of Pakistani parents and children are seldom heard. This research seeks to illuminate how Pakistani Muslim immigrant students and their parents understand the role of religion in education. The key finding highlights how both parents and students rate religion and education as highly important, and maintain that the two complement—rather than contradict—each other. They reject the public perception that Islam discourages the education of females, asserting that Islam upholds equality, including gender equality. Nonetheless, and maybe paradoxically, females interviewed during this research do encounter greater challenges than males in pursuing an education. In the young women's understanding, this comes from gendered cultural practices that are not necessarily endorsed by Islam. In response, both parents and daughters fight against, or conform to, these practices.
[Copyright of Asian Anthropology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1683478X.2015.1025592]

During the past decade, there has been a rapid increase of immigrants from Mainland China to Hong Kong. It is estimated that there will be altogether at least 64,000 children joining in our society before 1997. It requires approximately 60 new schools to accommodate all the new comers. (Ming Pao, 95.3.15). There is no doubt that all immigrants have to face constellation of problems. They have to face a society with completely different norms and beliefs, different political atmosphere and different culture. This research aims to identify the needs of young immigrants from Mainland China, and factors affecting the adaptation process. Besides, it is also our interest to evaluate the effect of the adaptation programmes funded by the Education Department. The samples consists of 1036 new immigrants aged from 6 to 18 who studied in Sham Shui Po district. Data were collected by a self-reported questionnaire administrated in groups. Findings in this research provide a clear picture about the adaptation of the new young immigrants, and hopefully give useful information to policy makers concerned.

Celeste Yuen points out that with their ever increasing migrant populations, diversity is a pressing educational issue for Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai. Teachers’ worldview and intercultural sensitivity link with school effectiveness. This paper presents nine case studies of student teachers with high, medium and low intercultural sensitivity from three teacher education institutions as measured by the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) questionnaire survey. An attempt is made to tease out the life factors that contribute to intercultural development, and implications for teacher education are discussed.

Population of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong has been growing, and many Muslim minorities are now studying in the mainstream kindergarten. In the midst of global wave of Islamophobia and the lack of understanding towards the cultural traditions of local Muslim minorities, this paper explores teaching Islam art as an inclusive attempt of childhood education program. With the example of promoting Islamic art workshop of Hong Kong Islamic schools and madrasahs, this paper foresees broadening Chinese students’ world map and cultural geography through teaching and learning Islamic art. Interacting with ethnic Muslim students, it may help students avoid unintentional insults and errors of etiquette.

在2013/14學年就讀公營學校的非華語學童為25,384人，政府以非華語學童政策來照顧這些少數族裔的教育；而因近年南亞裔學童在香港增加，指定學校的存廢和非華語學童學習中文成為了香港教育的爭議課題。為了剖析香港少數族裔學童的教育情況，本文從少數族裔在香港的教育、政府對非華語學童教育的照顧、非華語學童教育的現況、香港指定學校的興替、支援非華語學童的中文學習、非華語學童的其他需要和挑戰等方面作出分析和討論。
[Copyright © 2015 香港青年協會.]

In many Western countries such as the United States, Britain and Canada multicultural education has attracted the attention of many researchers. The reason is that the tide of immigrants to these countries has produced a more diverse student body. The presence of these immigrant students has generated problems for teachers and school administrators. Promotion of a spirit of tolerance and helping them to adjust has become important goals for teachers in schools in these countries. Authors such as Banks, Sleeter and Grant have documented various aspects of multiculturalism and multicultural education in the context of Western countries. The conceptualisation by Banks(1997) of multicultural education as a broad interdisciplinary field with five interrelated dimensions are quite well known. In Hong Kong the influx of Mainland Chinese to the territory since the early 1990s has been a prominent feature. As similar to the cases in many Western countries, these newly arrived people from Mainland China to Hong Kong have generated problems of integration with local people and of adjustment to the new environment. Lee(1998) has investigated the issue of new immigrants moving to Hong Kong from Mainland China. He found evidence that the new immigrants in the 1990s are no longer as economically vibrant as those in the 1960s and the 1970s and they are more dependent on social welfare provisions. This helps to offer one explanation for the social exclusion of new immigrants. The problem of adjustment encountered by immigrant children has also aroused the attention of many parties, including teachers and social workers. Researchers have documented the life of these children in Hong Kong. Though these children are of the same race as those of the local school children, the background and culture of the former is quite different from the later. For instance in Hong Kong the traditional version of Chinese character is used. However in Mainland China the simplified version of Chinese character

Cultural diversity is an issue of both policy and practice for Hong Kong. In relation to the growing number of ethnic minority students in Hong Kong, many schools are exploring ways to enhance the multicultural competency of teachers and accordingly promote the cultural responsiveness in the classroom, so that the cultural diversity of ethnic minority students could be fulfilled and that their academic achievement could be improved. The paper examines how teachers and students construct the multicultural competency and cultural responsiveness. It specifically focuses on the learning needs of ethnic minority students, who came from India, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, and Thailand. The qualitative data were collected from interview, through which the views of twenty-four teachers from three secondary schools were explored. The themes generated from the interviews will be reported. This paper argues that to promote cultural diversity, it is not only necessary for the school and government to address and fulfill the diverse needs of students, in terms of the emotional, social, cultural and spiritual aspects of their “self”, but equally important to manage the dynamics of the different cultures and accordingly develop a connected ecology of learning in which cultural responsiveness can be made possible.