This study developed and validated an instrument, the Chinese Early Parental Involvement Scale (CEPIS), that can be widely used in both local and international contexts to assess Chinese parental involvement in early childhood education. The study was carried out in two stages: (1) focus group interviews were conducted with 41 teachers and 35 parents in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Teachers and parents were found to hold different perceptions of parental involvement. Responses further revealed that Chinese parents practiced more home-based involvement than preschool-based involvement, and that Chinese parents also have layers of responsibilities that limit their level of involvement in children's early development; (2) items of the CEPIS were developed using focus group responses. To validate the scale, 319 parents were asked to complete the new CEPIS. Results from principal-components factor analyses established that the resultant 26-item CEPIS consists of six parental involvement dimensions. Further analyses revealed that parental involvement differed as a function of parents' marital status and employment status. The major findings, implications and limitations of this research are discussed, together with directions for future research.
[Copyright of International Journal of Early Years Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2012.743099]

Social and emotional dynamics have an impact on students' learning processes in online-learning situations. This study explores university students' emotions and trust levels resulting from collaborative communication behaviors when they interacted as part of a Food and Tourism course in Taiwan and Hong Kong. More specifically, students' emotions and trust levels were investigated and were founded to have varied over the course of the study. Results show that the Taiwan-based participants seemed to express their emotions more strongly than the Hong Kong-based ones. Both the Hong Kong and Taiwan groups generally felt satisfied, excited and curious, whereas they were sometimes perceived to be dispirited, insecure and angry while the project was in progress and at the end of the project. The three sources that caused most emotional comment were "self", "social" and "others". When it came to dealing with emotion, most students tried to solve problems by themselves. They believed that they had the ability to solve the problems and held themselves responsible for dealing with their own emotions. The pair trust survey shows that both groups gave positive responses for all items, but there seemed to be a gap between the perception of pair trust and the reality of dealing with emotion.
[Copyright of TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology is the property of TOJET.
Access via Directory of Open Access Journals: http://www.tojet.net/]

Greater China is used in this article to refer to mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Macao. While a holistic approach is adopted to present and compare the rapid spread of English and development in English language education in these geographically close, and sociopolitically, culturally and economically interrelated but hugely different societies, an emphasis is placed on mainland China owing to its size and diversity of its population. Through describing and juxtaposing English language use and education, this article unfolds the stories of the spread of English in these societies in the past few decades. It draws on the research data and discussions included in the author's recent book English language education across Greater China, with evidence and findings from other recent publications. On the basis of these discussions, this article critiques the frequently cited models and notions used to describe the spread of English in post-modern societies. It argues that there is a need to come up with new conceptual models in order to catch the essence of the phenomena in the contemporary societies.
[Copyright of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2012.661435]

This new century has witnessed the rapid and frequent emergence of many new information and communications technologies (ICTs). On one hand, digitalisation enhances our economic, social and political lives. But on the other hand, it leads to certain negative social impacts. One prevalent problem is digital divide -- the gap between different social groups (namely, the 'haves' and 'have nots') in access to and in their different usages of ICTs. It has been of concern that digital divide will exacerbate existing inequalities, erode traditional community ties, socially exclude the disadvantaged and hinder the growth of the knowledge economy. All these will pose damage to the social fabric internally and international competitiveness externally. This article aims to examine the recent policies and coping strategies adopted by Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong to bridge the digital divide and their economic, social and political implications.
[Copyright of Globalisation, Societies & Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2012.710118]

This article critically reviews the national innovation systems of the four little tigers in East Asia, namely Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea, in fostering R&D and technological research. A national innovation system is characterised by the interactions between the state, industries and universities in promoting innovation. This article attempts to explore such interactions in the four societies, paying particular attention to the role of higher education. Specifically, university-industry collaboration is the main body of analysis. Drawing from comparative perspectives, this article finally maps out the national innovation systems of East Asia.
[Copyright of Globalisation, Societies & Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2012.710120]

Scholars have increasingly sought to understand how the process of school improvement differs among schools operating in different school levels, conditions, and contexts. Using Rosenholtz's (1985) conception of "moving" and "stuck" schools as a framework for thinking about school improvement, this study examines the learning outcomes of 39 Hong Kong secondary schools over a 3-year period. We examine whether features of leadership and school capacity differed with respect to these learning outcomes within the sample of moving and stuck schools. This research in Hong Kong has identified several factors that appear to synergistically contribute to differences in patterns of improvement in learning across different subjects in both moving and stuck schools. These factors include resource management of principals and school capacity in terms of professional learning community; workload of teachers; alignment, coherence, and structure; and resource capacity. This study extends the research on leadership and capacity building as a means of school improvement, in the process elaborating on their impact within a non-Western society.
[Copyright of Peabody Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0161956X.2012.664474]

Drawing on the notions of scale and space, this paper investigates identity construction among a group of mainland Chinese cross-boundary students by analysing their language choices and linguistic practices in a multilingual university in Hong Kong. The research illustrates how movement across spaces by these students produces varying index values for languages and influences their language usage, which becomes emblematic of individual and group identities. The research demonstrates that the values developed in their place of origin may have influences on their identity construction and peer communication in the host context. Finally, it shows that these students use their multiple linguistic repertoires to project multilayered identities and gain legitimacy in peer interactions.
[Copyright of Language and Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2012.663553]