Hong Kong educational system has faced drastic changes. In the past few years, there are various reform policies being implemented in view of the changes and needs in the new global economy. Grounded in the perspective of symbolic interactionism, the present life histories research studies the transformation of secondary school teachers' lives in the local context of education reforms, from 1997 to 2005. The results reveal how teachers narrate the teaching profession as pilgrimage, which explains the formation of the moral identity and the frame of reference of the practitioners.
Teachers treasure humanistic values, believe in development of young people through "life-to-life" long-term interaction, and trust in emancipation through education that delivers knowledge, fosters civic development and personal growth. However, in the context of education reforms dominated by the neoliberal, managerial and performativity discourse, the pilgrimage and its heritage have been threatened. The meso context, including the leadership style of principals and the organizational relationship among teachers, has impact on teachers comparable to that of the macro context of education reforms. It is through the meso context that education reforms are mediated, or distorted, in school level. Ontological narratives of teachers have become fragmented, as their character is being corroded in a context of education reforms and school culture that revitalize and redefine professional identity under the hegemonic discourse. Teachers engage in a reflexive project, which is a dynamic interaction of the self and the social context, with a role to be played by self-conscious emotions. Discussions would be made on the need for rebuilding the narrative identity of the teaching profession, together with the implications on implementation of education reforms in the local context.

Academic stress is widely recognized as a prominent source of stress for children in Hong Kong. What can be done to enhance children's resilience to this type of stress? The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between academic stress, children's anxiety, and academic attainment in senior primary school children in Hong Kong. Specifically, the objective is to investigate the moderating and mediating mechanisms through which parental support and children's resourcefulness might modify stress outcomes. To better determine the relationship patterns of these variables, a cross-sectional quantitative research design was used. Proportional stratified sampling, cluster sampling and random sampling methods were employed in various phases to locate suitable informants. Nine primary schools and a total of 1,644 senior primary school students participated in the study.
Three academic stress domains were generated from the Academic Hassles Scale.These were "academic inefficacy and fear of failure", "expectations and demands from significant others" and "academic demands and overload". Domain analysis proved to be more sensitive to gender difference when compared with the global academic hassles measure. Girls were more disturbed by "academic inefficacy and fear of failure" and boys were more affected by "expectations and demands from significant others" and "academic demands and overload". Correlation of the domains with factors in the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale indicated that the manifestation of anxiety was different in these domains.
Time spent by parents communicating with their children, parental emotional, informational and instrumental supports and children's resourcefulness were beneficial to children's emotional and academic adjustment independent of the stressors. When the support was delivered in overprotective and authoritarian ways, adverse outcomes were the result. Interaction effects were found only in the domain "academic demands

This thesis is an attempt to analyze how higher education in Hong Kong has been affected by the sweeping force of globalization. I will focus mainly on higher education, as the implications of globalization for higher education are relatively more substantial, especially in terms of its relation to national development and to academic work within universities themselves. Also, my analysis of the unfolding dynamics of globalization involves chiefly two players/agents: one at the 'top' level, while another at the 'bottom' level. The agent at the top level is represented by the Hong Kong University Grants Committee (UGC), as it has been entrusted by the state to develop a quality assurance and assessment mechanism at all state-funded higher education institutions. The global trends and elements, such as accountability, marketization, commodification of higher education, etc., can well be illustrated by the education policies enforced by the UGC, especially the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), the Teaching and Learning Quality Process Review (TLQPR) and the promotion of self-financed programmes. On the other hand, the agent at the bottom level refers to the higher education institutions and its academics. Through in-depth interviews, the responses and reactions of the academics, faculty members and administrators of universities towards the global practices and the policies of the UGC will be analyzed. I tries to argue that the faculty/institutional response is rather passive, individualistic, and covert, and there has lacked collective response to fight against the globalization forces that emphasize economic norms like productivity, efficiency, cost-effectiveness, etc. There has emerged a paradoxical phenomenon that the traditional values and beliefs seem to be, on the one hand, under threat from global forces, and on the other hand, increasingly pushed toward similarity and homogeneity. On the whole, I hope that this study can raise the issues for universities and