The understanding of oneself has become an important area of study in the school curriculum. This is usually done through the guidance curriculum to enhance children’s self-understanding, empathy, and relationships with others. This is a worldwide trend in a comprehensive school guidance system (Gysbers & Henderson, 2000; Luk-Fong, 2005). This chapter documents students’ active learning about their own selves, as well as the selves of their future students, in a “Self-Personal Identities Module” in a teaching preparation institute in Hong Kong. The learning and understanding of oneself can best be done with other people in a group (in this paper, in a class) in a safe and inviting culture/environment. Grounded in the core values of respect, trust, optimism, intentionality, and care of invitational education, which was founded on democratic values, the perceptual tradition, and self-concept theory, this chapter demonstrates how educators can create an inviting learning culture and environment in a higher education setting to help student teachers to study their own personal identities and learn how to study the identities of their future students. Implications for student teachers’ learning in other higher education settings are discussed.

The development of full potentials of students so that they can play a positive role in community life has been highlighted as a fundamental aim in school education in Hong Kong in the 1990's. The aim points to the need for personal and social education for students in schools. The emphasis on personal and social development of students was marked by the compilation of relevant of teaching materials circulated to all Junior Secondary Schools in 1996. Apparently, whole person development of students is not a new concept to Hong Kong schools. Traditional Chinese values towards an all round education of a child include moral, intellectual, physical, social and aesthetic developments. However, keen academic competition has led to an unbalanced emphasis on intellectual development at the expense of other developments. This paper attempts to trace the development of personal and social education in Hong Kong schools. It examines the wave of official guidelines in moral education, civic education, sex education, environmental education, and guidance and counselling already in circulation from the 1980's. The paper studies what additional concepts are expounded in the call to develop personal and social education in schools in the 1990's. The author further attempts to raise issues concerning conceptual frameworks, approaches and ways and means to accomplish them. Finally, the implications on teacher training will also be discussed.

Teachers may be one major agent in shaping students’ gender identities construction through schooling. This paper reports the rationale, development and evaluation of a “women studies modules” at the Hong Kong Institute of Education which uses teachers’ subjectivities and lived gender experiences in its conceptualization. Post-structural theory of fluid gender identity is used as conceptual framework. Evaluation of the module draws particularly on two cohorts (the 2004 and 2004 year groups). Data were obtained from student teachers’ personal reflections in their end-of-term paper as well as end-of-module open ended evaluation questions. Student teachers reported awareness of gender lived gender practices. Implications of this module to teaching education and gender equity education are discussed.
[Copyright © 2008 Nova Science Publishers.]

This paper presents initial findings from a project which focuses on the changing masculinities of Chinese primary school men teachers in Hong Kong, which is a stage II of the a project on Contemporary Chinese primary women teachers' experiences of changing femininities. In this paper, four life stories of men teachers, representing two generations of teachers, will be presented. Bhabha's (1994) concept of a "hybrid" or "in-between" culture - such as when a predominantly Chinese society experiences western colonization and continuing changes in public spheres and Giroux's (1992) notion of "border crossing" will be used as the guiding framework for this study. The research uses qualitative interviews in constructing life histories of men teachers. The paper will present snapshots of these four men teachers in the ways they navigate and experience their changing masculinities both in the primary school workplace and at home in their lived experiences. The four stories show a lot of hybridities and border crossing, creating both tensions and integrations for these men teachers. Implications of this study to teacher education and gender equity education will be discussed. This study will raise fundamental issues for teacher education and professional development of teachers in contexts of cultural shift associated with globalisation. It will also have implications for pedagogy for teaching of personal, social, sex and civic education in schools in the various Chinese communities.