Data from Hong Kong PISA 2003 show that 15-year-old Hong Kong students who have immigrant parents from mainland China are grossly overrepresented in grades below the modal grade attended by most native Hong Kong students. Same-age comparison, when grade level is not taken into account, puts immigrants' children at a disadvantaged position in the mathematics, reading, and science literacy tests. The academic advantage of immigrants' children in Hong Kong is only revealed after grade is statistically controlled. Also, mainland immigrant students who are repeaters outperform native Hong Kong repeaters. Immigrant redshirting is a possible driving force behind these results.
[Copyright of Educational Research & Evaluation is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13803610903087078]

In this paper the colonial history of university education in Hong Kong, and recent changes in the governance of university education driven by global management discourses are discussed. With the systemic penetration of global economic rationalism, Hong Kong university education has gone through structural changes that include funding-linked evaluative policies and practices. Market imperatives and institutionally defined notions of research performance based mainly on English-language, overseas journal publications are exerting strong influence on the cultural practices and life styles of academics and stand to significantly change academic and intellectual culture in higher education in Hong Kong. The long-term consequences of these local interpretations and adaptations of global processes will be discussed in terms of their potential impact on academic freedom, the shaping of intellectual space, the intensification of competitive institutional research output, and the risk of privileging certain forms of knowledge production that puts aside local societal needs, indigenous knowledge and epistemologies. The views of experienced Hong Kong academics in the humanities and social sciences, as expressed in in-depth individual interviews, are also discussed. These are then interpreted with reference to Habermas' notion of different kinds of knowledge-constitutive interests (Habermas 1971) and Foucault's notion of the technology of discipline power to uncover the state's implicit transformation and shaping of the social and epistemological bases of academic and intellectual pursuits and the increasing trend of individualization of intellectual communities into isolated, individualistic, competitive knowledge workers (Foucault 1977).
[Copyright of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14649370902823397]

A teacher shortage in Hong Kong in core subjects, such as English, has led to interest in the recruitment and retention of second-career teachers. Drawing upon Wenger's theory of identity formation and using data from interviews with eight second-career English language teachers in Hong Kong, this article explores how second-career teachers may be better supported in their professional development. The study found that second-career teachers' skills and experiences were not valued within their schools and that this was reflected in a rigid division the participants drew between the institutionally endorsed identity positions made available to them and the type of teachers they wanted to be. In response to this antagonism, second- career teachers used their position of non-participation to establish identity territories that connected aspects of their first-career identities, such as engineers and managers, to their emerging teacher identities. It is suggested that non-participation, a potentially negative experience in Wenger's framework, was deployed by this group of teachers to create the space they needed to enact their own preferred teacher identities. Implications for attracting and retaining second-career teachers are discussed.
[Copyright of Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13598660903052449]

Students' attitudes toward chemistry lessons in school are important dependent variables in curriculum evaluation. Although a variety of instruments have been developed by researchers to evaluate student attitudes, they are plagued with problems such as the lack of theoretical rationale and of empirical evidence to support the construct validity of data. This paper describes a study of students' attitudes toward chemistry lessons in Hong Kong secondary schools. One of the scales in the Test of Science-Related Attitudes developed by Fraser was modified to form an Attitude Toward Chemistry Lessons Scale (ATCLS). The construction of the ATCLS was based on a theoretical model with four dimensions: liking for chemistry theory lessons, liking for chemistry laboratory work, evaluative beliefs about school chemistry, and behavioural tendencies to learn chemistry. The arguments for inclusion of these four dimensions are presented. The final version of ATCLS was administered to 954 students. The results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated that there was a good fit between the hypothesised model and the observed data.
[Copyright of International Journal of Science Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500690802189799]

The qualitative educational research literature is increasingly advocating the use of literary/artistic techniques. This article describes and evaluates educational action researches by three art teachers, and questions why they have not capitalised methodologically on their artistic expertise. Analysis of commonalities in practitioner-based research in education and practice-based research in art and design reveals significant differences in these two paradigms however. Whereas artists and educational researchers both engage in qualitative problem solving and may use the same kinds of materials and tools, they develop different kinds of hypotheses, look for different sorts of evidence and apply different quality controls.
[Copyright of Educational Action Research is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09650790500200305 ]

This study investigated the contribution of school contextual factors and intrapersonal factors to school satisfaction among a sample of Hong Kong Chinese primary school children. A total of 760 children completed the School Satisfaction Subscale of the Multidimensional Life Satisfaction Scale for Children along with self-report measures of intrapersonal factors (self-esteem and hope) and school-related factors (teacher support, peer support, peer conflict, peer victimisation and academic performance). Findings revealed teacher support as the most significant predictor of school satisfaction across grades, followed by academic performance. Hope was found to be a statistically significant mediator of school satisfaction across gender, whereas self-esteem did not act as a potential mediator except in sub-samples of girls and Grade 4 students. The findings lend support to using developmental ecological perspective and cognitive mediation models in studying school satisfaction. The implications of the findings for future research and educational practice were discussed.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410903494452]

This study explores factors affecting the involvement of regular secondary school teachers in the whole-school approach to guidance and counselling by interviewing 12 secondary school teachers in Hong Kong. Emerging themes include teachers' ownership of their role in student guidance and counselling, the alignment of their disposition with education policies, school missions and culture, and their philosophy in education. Findings of what these teachers are actually doing in guidance and counselling are presented. Implications for policy-makers, administrators and leaders for comprehensive guidance and counselling programmes are drawn from constraints that limit interviewees' full potential in assisting students.
[Copyright of British Journal of Guidance & Counselling is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03069881003674962]

This study assessed the dispositional gratitude and its relationships with orientations to happiness and burnout in a sample of 96 Chinese school teachers in Hong Kong and investigated the effectiveness of an eight-week gratitude intervention programme using a pre-test/post-test design with outcome measures of subjective well-being in the same sample of teachers. The results indicated that the dispositional gratitude of teachers correlated substantially and positively with a meaningful life orientation to happiness and with personal accomplishment, and correlated substantially and negatively with the two negative components of burnout: emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation. The effects of the gratitude intervention were evident in the increase in scores on satisfaction with life and on positive affect, especially for teachers in the low-gratitude group. Implications of the findings on the relationships between gratitude and burnout and the effectiveness of gratitude intervention for teachers of different levels of dispositional gratitude are discussed.
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One component of the curriculum reform in Hong Kong focuses on the use of homework in consolidating learning, deepening understanding and constructing knowledge. This study examines the profile of Hong Kong primary school students' homework involvement, and investigates the relationships between time involvement and academic attributes, namely interest in homework, interest in academic subjects, academic efficacy, and efficacy for self-regulated learning. The sample comprised 2,361 primary school students representing all six grade levels in Hong Kong. Data was collected using questionnaires and homework diaries. Results showed heavy homework involvement among primary school students in Hong Kong, especially at the senior primary level. Differential patterns across levels were observed for the relationship between homework involvement and academic attributes. Specifically, junior primary students' study-related interests and efficacies were found to decline with increasing time involvement, whereas inverted U-shape relationships were observed among senior primary students. There was concern for students with high time involvement as they received more homework and they worked slower. They were less likely to perceive the positive functions of homework, and showed poorer study-related interests and efficacy beliefs. The findings of this study provide crucial information for school personnel and educators in Hong Kong in developing homework strategies and policies that enhance teaching and learning.
[Copyright of Asia Pacific Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02188790902859004]

Media education has been around for quite some time in the West (Bazalgette et al. 1990), but it only started to gain acceptance in Asia (Cheung 2005), particularly in Hong Kong, in the last decade. Recently, it has been gaining more attention in Hong Kong thanks to the curriculum reform in which liberal studies will become one of the four core subjects to be taken by students in the New Senior Secondary Curriculum and media is one of the six themes to be studied in the subject of liberal studies. This article argues for the need for teaching media education in liberal studies and shows the many connections between the two subjects that facilitate this integration.
[Copyright of Curriculum Journal is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585170903424997]