Contemporary processes of globalisation have led us individually and collectively to grapple with affordances and challenges of living, learning, and working on an increasingly interdependent planet. Consequently, developing the dispositions, knowledge, skills, and behaviors to navigate local and global ambiguities that arise from interdependence has become an important task of education. While the affective dimension in developing positive global perspectives seems clear, teaching approaches often prioritise the cognitive component of knowledge. We present preliminary theoretical and empirical work from an EdUHK Teaching Development Grant project, involving almost 20 university teachers across disciplines and the globe, to develop affectively-oriented pedagogical activities for the teaching of internationally-focused course content. Theories of affect tend to resist the reason-emotion binary. Therefore, to assess effects of these affective pedagogies quantitatively, we’ve developed brief pre- and post-class surveys for students measuring how affective engagement in the activity (e.g. experience of curiosity, enjoyment, pity) is related to gains in global affective attitudes (e.g. valuing other cultures, interest in interacting with cultural others), as well as gains in global knowledge (e.g. knowledge of other cultures). This project promises to advance both the theory and application of affective pedagogy in the interest of cultivating students’ affective commitment to being global citizens. Copyright © 2021 The Education University of Hong Kong.

Within the early childhood context, kindergarten teachers encounter day-to-day ethical dilemmas. These relate to the multiple obligations and responsibilities that kindergarten teachers have when working with different stakeholders, such as children, families, colleagues, organizations, and policy makers (Dahlberg & Moss, 2005; Feeney & Freeman, 2007). Although codes of ethics for teaching profession have been developed and applied in the worldwide, understanding professional ethics of early childhood teachers has been an underdeveloped area of study in Hong Kong. Using the ethical codes from three counties as the base, this study attempts to explore and develop the principles of professional ethics for Hong Kong early childhood sector. Those principles are conceived as an essential part of the professional repertoire which helps teachers make judgment and choices of action in the real-life workplace (Campbell, 2000; Mahoney, 2008). However, those principles are not exhaustive nor applicable to every situation. This study reports the suggested principles of professional ethics which are built on reviewing the extant ethical codes from international and regional contexts and collecting qualitative data from the semi-structured interviews with a total of 13 pre-service and in-service teachers. Findings reveals that professional ethics among early childhood education can be conceptualized into five domains. The interview data also reflect that the dimensions and meanings of professional ethics are varied among pre-service and in-service teachers. This study contributes to articulate dialogues about the notions of professional value, moral reasoning, professional autonomy, and teacher identity. Findings of this study reaffirm the responsibilities and obligations of kindergarten teachers, and this could be seen as a source of insights into the ethical base of teacher professionalism in Hong Kong early childhood context. Copyright © 2023 ISA, International Sociological Association

This folio is a collection of three separate research papers which includes one theoretical paper and two other empirical studies and each contribution can also be read as a stand-alone article. The overall aims of the folio are to revise the proposed vocational teachers’ workplace learning model and its practical application into teaching and learning in vocational education and training and to illustrate how vocational teachers enact vocational pedagogy developed from classroom-based learning. Moreover, the folio also further addresses vocational students’ learning in the work-based collaborative learning environment. Following the revised theoretical model of workplace learning, the two empirical research studies reflect on occupational pedagogy and teachers’ work-related knowledge and experiences in collaborative learning and adaptive instructions. The second paper mainly focuses on vocational teaching behaviours in facilitating practice-based teaching pedagogy concerning students’ occupational learning, which implied on the practical importance of collaborative instructions in vocational pedagogy and students’ participation in hands-on activities. The contribution of the third paper relates to the findings of the second paper, and the third paper contributes to vocational students’ learning patterns and learning participation concerning collaborative learning environments and adaptive instructions through dialogic analysis of classroom observations. These findings implies on interactive work-based learning in vocational teaching and learning relating to professional education, the vocational curriculum, and knowledge and experience. All rights reserved.

Worldwide, there has been a proliferation of international schools, defined as schools offering international curricula in a non-native language (most often English). International schooling is also changing as the greatest demand has come from a 'local' base of (upper-)middle-class families. This paper examines why affluent local families choose international schools, the educational advantages accumulated, and the implications for social stratification. As a framework, we apply positional conflict theory (e.g., Brown, 2000) to consider three rules of educational exclusion and inclusion: 'Market', Membership', and 'Meritocratic'. The context was the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. We conducted a multi-site case study of five international schools that serve local students, including 105 interviews with principals, teachers, parents, and students. The findings demonstrate how international schooling first remains exclusionary and second is distinctive in forming global identities and pathways. For 'Market' rules, access to international schooling is constrained by admission practices, high fees, and location. For 'Membership' rules, international schooling experiences focus on cultivating globalised identities, including aspirations, sensibilities, and worldviews. For 'Meritocratic' rules, international schooling provides a privileged position for global higher education. We argue that international schooling may (re)produce a Global Middle Class of cosmopolitan, credentialed, and mobile young people. However, they may face exclusion from their host societies in the context of geo-political tensions and emphasis on national identity. Overall, we discuss how the proliferation of international schools may create new forms of social class advantage for global futures separate from national class structures. Copyright © 2023 World Education Research Association.

Internationalization is known to enhance university capacities in cross-border learning and encourage institutional transformations for improved quality of scholarship and education. Studies on internationalization of research and teaching are, however, under-problematized with regard to asymmetries that pervade different collaborating systems and cultures. This paper addresses this gap by elucidating asymmetries in the Greater Bay Area of China (GBA), which is dealing with differences in legacies and experiences of internationalization in university research and teaching. At a time when the governments in the three constituent jurisdictions of GBA—Guangdong Province, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), and Macao SAR—encourage universities to collaborate across jurisdictional borders, this study applies a bibliographic analysis to shed light on asymmetries and mitigation strategies in internationalization of research and teaching. Copyright © 2024 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Based on critical discursive analysis and empirical studies, this study sheds light on policy initiatives aimed at turning Hong Kong (HK) into a higher education hub. Its findings come from questionnaire surveys distributed to 1060 overseas students who studied in HK universities between 2019 and 2021. Three paradoxical issues are identified: the mismatch between policy orientation and students’ preferences, the segregation of international and local students in university life, and the dilemma of the city's positioning as a talent pool or stepping stone. The case of HK highlights the contrast between the discursive imaginaries and lived realities stemming from its projection as an education hub in non-Western societies. Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In this conceptual paper, we propose a new three-pronged theoretical framework derived from Chinese philosophy: (1) Tian Shi (timing), (2) Di Li (context), and (3) Ren He (human capital). Specifically, we delineate the nature of Tian Shi, Di Li, Ren He required for the successful translation of top-down education policy into practice using Hong Kong as a case example. Applying this new conceptual framework, we conducted secondary data analysis of two cases examining the implementability of U.S.-originated and popular child-centered early childhood models by Hong Kong kindergarten teachers (serving children ages 3–6), with one case focusing on the Project Approach in one kindergarten, and the other on the HighScope Curriculum in another kindergarten. The findings revealed that Hong Kong had not yet attained favorable Tian Shi, Di Li, Ren He to render success in these kindergarten teachers’ adoption of imported early childhood approaches with fidelity due to incompatibility in sociocultural and educational realities as well as professional competence. Instead, the teachers’ implementation behaviors made a case for a hybrid model as a viable and potentially sustainable solution to reconcile these contextual incompatibilities by weaving local and global practices into a conflation. © 2022 Childhood Education International.

As typical innovation organizations, the structure and efficiency of cooperation among universities’ innovation behaviors are important influencing factors for regional innovation sustainable development. In 2019, the Chinese government promulgated the “Outline of the Development Plan of The Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao Great Bay Area”, which directly promotes a sustainable cooperation network of universities in the Great Bay Area. This study used UCINET to visualize the cooperation network of universities in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao based on the cooperation data generated by 35 universities in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Great Bay Area, jointly establishing 37 professional alliances that developed 888 cooperation ties from 2017 to 2022. The results show that the current cooperative network density of universities in the Great Bay Area is high (density = 0.746), but the cohesion trend is not significant (network centralization = 26.92%); a clear circle structure has been formed. The network exhibits a narrow shape at both ends and widens in the middle; the higher the hierarchical position of universities in the region, the more likely they are to enter the core cooperation network and establish more cooperation relationships. Universities in the marginal circles find it especially difficult to initiate cooperative relationships due to their disadvantageous position in terms of limited resources and a lack of administrative intervention. The current cooperation situation still has room for expansion. © 2023 by the authors.

The creation of bay areas is one way to develop economies and culture based on natural characteristics and regional connections; successful examples include the San Francisco, New York and Tokyo Bay Areas. In 2019, China established the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA). As a result of historical and geographical factors, the GBA is uniquely characterised by being subject to ‘one country, two systems’, ‘three customs territories’, and ‘three legal systems’. This study offered ample empirical evidence based on qualitative methods referring to in-depth interviews with academics and managers as well as publicly available policies and literature in the GBA. A thematic analysis was used to explore the context and characteristics of developing higher education (HE) in the GBA. The study emphasised that developing GBA’s HE improved its partnerships from co-operation to strategic co-ordination to resource sharing. This research contributes to HE and its governance in the GBA, a topic on which there is limited information in the extant international research literature. It is also useful to policymakers and scholars as it provides potential strategies and insights regarding the development of regional higher education. © The Author(s) 2023.