A significant feature in the Chinese literature concerning giftedness is a deemphasis on natural ability and an emphasis on the impact of nurturing and learning. Through a qualitative approach, this project explores Hong Kong Chinese parents’ understandings and beliefs of giftedness, and their expected parental behaviours with their children. Thirty-two Hong Kong parents of young children are interviewed to examine their understandings of giftedness, and both qualitative and quantitative analyses are employed. The research findings offer insight to parents, educators and policy makers on the education of gifted and talented young children. This research project is the first of a three-phase longitudinal study that has the broad aim of uncovering the relationship between young parents’ conceptions of giftedness toward the education of gifted children, and their subsequent behaviours in the education of their children. In this phase of the project, the specific aims are to determine the conceptions of giftedness among Hong Kong Chinese parents, and their parenting behaviour and practices in relation to their children’s education – given the possibility that their child may be identified (or labelled) as “gifted”. Total of thirty-two semi-structured interviews are conducted with Hong Kong Chinese parents of children age 3-6 years old. This approach will be repeated in the subsequent two phases of the project to uncover any changes in their conceptions, and to characterize their actual behaviours in relations to their child’s education. Against the recent intense public interest in a small number of gifted children in Hong Kong, the findings of the first phase of this project will contribute to our basic understanding of the cultural basis of conceptions of giftedness, help shape future policy initiatives of the Hong Kong government. In the first and subsequent phases of the project, findings are also expected to provide specific advice to schools on how to implement these

The role of fatherhood appeared to change during the last century such as shifting the role as a breadwinner to caregiver and deepening and strengthening father-child attachment. Recent investigators have drawn attention to the importance of fathers in the development of children with various disabilities. Also, fathers are becoming increasingly aware of their responsibility toward their disabled children's educational programmes. However, studies in Asia, especially in Hong Kong regarding the issues related to fathers towards disability, are still limited. There is a need to increase the collection and dissemination of such information regarding the fathers of young children with disabilities. The purpose of this paper was to examine fathers' views about early childhood special education in Hong Kong. Semistructured interviews were obtained from nine fathers whose children had disabilities and were studying either in special or inclusive child care centres in Hong Kong. Their opinions on early childhood special education for young children with disabilities and its implication for the service providers are discussed.
[Copyright © Common Ground Publishing].

家長參與是指家長參加子女教育活動的過程和現象。研究指出，家長參與可以積極促進兒童發展。然而，這些研究大都局限於西方文化背景並集中在中小學年齡階段，因而缺乏對了解香港家長參與早期教育的情況的作用。本文為家長參與作出定義，分析了不同的家長參與模型，並討論其對兒童發展的影響。本文亦探討了影響家長參與的各項因素和現有家長參與評估的優缺點。最後討論了香港家長參與的現況和對香港家長參與實踐和研究的啟示和建議。
[Copyright © 2011 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

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.]

In the past 15 years, educators in Hong Kong have given increasing attention to the research and development of home and community involvement in education. The roles of parents and teachers in educating the children were seen as separate in early eighties (Llewellyn, 1982). Parents mainly served as the “home supervisor” or “home tutor” of children, like those parents in other Confucian influenced regions in Asia (Pang, 2004). In the school premises, parents usually played the role of audience. After the setting up of the Committee on Home-school Cooperation by the Hong Kong Government in 1993, different forms of home-school partnership and diverse roles of parents have emerged. In research, there has been a significant increase in theses, reports and articles published in local and overseas journals. In this paper, via literature review and document analysis, the changing roles of parent and community in school education in Hong Kong will be examined. The consensus, controversies, and challenges of the various types of school-home-community partnerships will be discussed. The Ecological Systems Theory of Bronfenbrenner (1979) will be used to explain some of these developments.