This article examines the relation between social class and language attitudes through a triangulated study that analyses the attitudes of 836 secondary school students from different socioeconomic backgrounds toward the 3 official spoken languages used in postcolonial Hong Kong (HK; i.e., Cantonese, English, and Putonghua). The respondents were divided into 3 social class groups (viz. middle, lower-middle, and working class), according to their parents' occupations and levels of educational attainment. This particular group of students started its secondary school education when the mandatory Mother Tongue Education Policy was just implemented after China resumed sovereignty over HK. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey and focus-group interviews. This study was designed to test 2 hypotheses: (a) that the middle-class group would be the most positively inclined toward English and (b) that the working-class group would display the most positive attitudes toward Putonghua due to closer social distance. Although the results from the questionnaire survey appeared to provide a degree of support for both hypotheses, little evidence was found in the interview data to indicate that the working-class group did, in fact, aspire to Putonghua either as an alternative form of linguistic capital or a symbol of preferred social identity.
[Copyright of International Multilingual Research Journal is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19313150903500945]

Background: This study was designed to investigate the relation between health-related physical fitness and weight status in Hong Kong adolescents. Methods: 3,204 students aged 12-18 years participated in the Hong Kong Student Obesity Surveillance (HKSOS) project in 2006-2007. Anthropometric measures (height, weight) and health-related fitness (push-up, sit-up, sit-andreach, 9-minute run) were assessed. Body mass index (BMI) was computed to classify participants into normal weight, underweight (Grade I, II/III), overweight, and obese groups. The associations of health-related physical fitness with BMI and weight status were examined by partial correlation coefficients and analysis of covariance, respectively. Results: More boys than girls were overweight or obese (18.0% vs 8.7%), but more girls than boys were underweight (22.3% vs 16.7%). Boys performed significantly (P < 0.001) better in sit-up (38.8 vs 31.6 times/min) and 9-minute run (1632.1 vs 1353.2 m), but poorer in sit-and-reach (27.4 vs 32.2 cm) than girls. All four physical fitness tests were significantly positively correlated with each other in both sexes, and BMI was only weakly correlated with sit up and sit-and-reach tests in boys. Decreasing performance (P for trend < 0.05) was observed from normal weight to overweight and obese for push-up, sit-up, and 9-minute run in both sexes. From normal weight to Grade I and Grade II/III underweight, decreasing performance (P for trend < 0.05) for sit-up and sit-and-reach in both sexes and for push-up in boys was observed. Conclusions: The relations between BMI and health-related physical fitness in adolescents were non-linear. Overweight/obese and underweight adolescents had poorer performance in push-up and sit-up tests than normal weight adolescents. Different aspects of health-related physical fitness may serve as immediate indicators of potential health risks for underweight and overweight adolescents.
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The purpose of this study was to examine the underlying structure of the second edition of the Test of Gross Motor Development-2 (Ulrich, 2000) as applied to Chinese children. The Test of Gross Motor Development-2 was administered to 626 Hong Kong Chinese children. The outlier test with standard scoring was utilized. After data screening, a total of 614 cases (N = 614) were used for further analysis. The two-factor structure of the Test of Gross Motor Development-2 was tested using confirmatory factor analysis with maximum likelihood estimation to compute parameter estimates and to select the appropriate item for each factor. The goodness-of-fit indices supported that the model was tenable (goodness-of-fit index = .95, root mean square error of approximation = .06, standardized root mean square residual = .04, comparative-fit index = .97). The findings of this study suggested that the two-factor structure proposed by Ulrich (2000) fit the data of Hong Kong Chinese children.
[Copyright of Measurement in Physical Education & Exercise Science is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10913671003726968]