Career planning plays a salient role in determining the individuals’ goal setting, work engagement, and outcomes. In school settings, helping students to establish good career planning would contribute not only to maximize their potential to learn and achieve based on their personal strengths, but also to suit their career development needs. However, to students with special educational needs (SEN), they are usually the group facing greater challenges in career planning and development compared to regular students. In the Hong Kong context, the present study took the initiativeto examine the aspirations, expectations, and challenges of post-secondary school transition among SEN students and their parents. A qualitative approach through a series of focus group interviews was adopted. Over 70 SEN students from both mainstream schools (n =38) and special schools (n =34) and 37 parents of SEN student participated in this study. The results were categorized into career aspirations, difficulties and challenges, expectations and recommendations of SEN students and their parents. The results draw educators’ attention of the found inadequacy of positive attitude to career planning and low confidence levels to achieve desirable post-school transition outcomes among SEN students. Implications are discussed in relation to SEN students’ needs of career planning training and career development.

Although worldwide practices of inclusive education aim to provide equal learning opportunities for students with special educational needs (SEN) to support their learning performance in schooling, comparatively less is known about these students' competences in preparing and achieving their post-secondary school outcomes. This study extended previous research on testing ordinary secondary students' career development self-efficacy to the population of students with special educational needs. Participants were grades 9 to 12 SEN students in Hong Kong. Eight types of SEN were included. The Career Development Self-Efficacy Inventory (CE-SEI) assessed five key domains of career development self-efficacy (i.e., career planning, career goal setting, training selection, job hunt preparation, and job hunting). The confirmatory factor analysis supported the consistency of internal structure of this instrument in SEN students. The correlation analysis showed statistically significant correlations among the five key factors of career development. This study has practical implications to help school stakeholders to develop effective career guidance to support SEN students by using this validated short form of CE-SEI as a useful screening tool to diagnose pre-existing problems of SEN students' career development self-efficacy. Implications of this study are also discussed in relation to current implementation of career guidance and lifelong education policy in secondary schools.

Based on interview data from a wide range of stakeholders in Hong Kong, this study provides valuable findings of current progress and challenges of Special Educational Needs students’ post-school transition.

By integrating family functioning and parents’ evaluation of self-determination of students with special educational needs (SEN), this study tests parents’ attitudes towards inclusive education in Hong Kong.

A core goal of inclusive education worldwide is to maximize the learning potential of students with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream educational settings. However, little research attention has been paid to SEN children's social and emotional gains from inclusive education compared to their academic performance. This study included social, emotional, and academic variables in a single research design, not only to test their relationships but also to explore the predictive roles of social and emotional factors in academic performance for SEN students. Participants were 515 SEN students in grades 1–6 in mainstream primary schools in Hong Kong. The results showed that the social and emotional competences of children with SEN were significant predictors of their academic performance (p < .001), with emotional competence having the larger impact. Although SEN students' relationships with peers and teachers were not found to be direct significant predictors of academic performance as reported in previous studies; they positively and significantly predicted emotional and social competences of SEN students (p < .001). Implications for establishing a caring campus, as well as developing educational interventions which will increase SEN students' positive emotional experiences and foster and maintain their adaptive social and emotional competences are discussed.
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Parents are key stakeholders in education and their support is pivotal to policy implementation. Through a large-scale survey, the present study investigated the validity of a structural model describing the relationship between attitude, knowledge, and perceived social norm among parents of children with special needs. Results revealed that knowledge and perceived social norm were powerful predictors of parents' attitudes towards inclusion and the two predictors were intercorrelated. Exploratory analyses on the effect of demographic variables on parents' attitudes demonstrated that male parents exhibited more positive attitudes towards inclusion than female parents; and parents of children at a higher grade level indicated less positive attitudes. Cultural issues of parents' concerns about inclusive practice are discussed.
[Copyright of International Journal of Inclusive Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2015.1037866]

Although a substantial body of studies has been focusing on exploring approaches to enhance the learning of children with special educational needs (SEN) in kindergartens, considerably fewer studies have been conducted to test early childhood educators’ confidence levels in early identifying and facilitating the learning and social development of children with SEN. This study took the initiative to conduct a large scale survey in the Chinese context, seeking to develop a good understanding of teacher preparation for identifying and supporting children with SEN. Over 5000 early childhood educators from 519 kindergartens and kindergarten-cumchild care centres (KGs) in Hong Kong participated in this survey study. Specifically, we examined these teachers’ confidence levels in terms of early identification and intervention through a wide range of instructional activities. We also investigated external needs these teachers perceived to be critically important for supporting SEN children. The role of integrated programme (IP) in these surveyed KGs on teachers’ confidence levels in supporting children with SEN was also examined. Implications of findings of the current study to early childhood education, improvements of existing facilities and resources to support teachers’ professional development are discussed.

Although children’s adaptive social and emotional development and academic performance/achievement are important indicators of school effectiveness, considerably less studies have been taken with a special focus on these social, emotional and academic gains among children with disabilities, particularly those integrated in regular classroom. From both perspectives of children with disabilities and parents of these children, this study tested and compared the patterns of the predictive effects of perceived social and emotional competences on academic performance between their perceptions. In total 307 children with disabilities and parents of these children (parents N = 180; children N =127) participated in this study. These children are integrated in mainstreaming primary schools (p1 to p3) in Hong Kong. An interesting finding was emotional competence was the stronger predictor of children’s academic performance compare to social competence. The predictive patterns were consistent based on the results from parents’ and children’s self-reported data (i.e., path coefficients from social and emotional competences to academic performance: β =.37 and β =.28 based on children’s data; β =.37 and β =.25 based on parents’ data, all path coefficients are significant at the .01 level). Similarly, in the results from both parents and children, we found that around 30% variance of academic performance could be explained by social and emotional competences as two predictors. These findings indicated not only a pivotal role of social and emotional competences, but also a more salient role of emotional competence in academic performance of children with disabilities. Both theoretical implications to emotion research in early childhood education and empirical implications to call for school support and practices to foster emotional competence of children with disabilities are discussed.

Early childhood education is the cornerstone of an education system. However, to the population of children at risk of developmental disabilities (CARDD), challenges early childhood teachers need to face are not only early identification of these children, but also development and implementations of productive interventions to reduce influences of existing deficits on their personal development and maximize these children's potential to learn. According to a statistic report by World Health Organization (2011), in a majority of countries in the world, around 14% 36 to 35% of children aged between 2 to 9 years old are at risk of developmental disorders. Seeking to provide a good understanding of teacher preparation for identifying and intervening CARDD, the present study investigated: a) the confidence level of over 3,000 teachers in a wide range of instructional activities (e.g., confidence in facilitating teaching and learning, facilitating social development, collaborating with parents and other related personnel) across 238 kindergartens, and b) the needs of early childhood teachers in supporting CARDD in Hong Kong. The role of integrated programme placing/not placing in these investigated kindergartens is also taken into account in understanding potential differences of teachers' confidence in identifying, teaching and intervening CARDD. Implications to professional development, improvements of existing facilities and resources to assist early childhood teachers in identifying and supporting children with developmental disabilities are discussed.