Policies of career education facilitate the sustainable development of young people in aspirations, identities and pathways of their career development in senior secondary education. In Hong Kong, the policy has been implemented in public schools since 2014. Principals are responsible for leading a whole-school participation in career education for all students. However, student population of individual schools is more diverse than where they were due to a large number of immigrants from different parts of mainland China and other Asian societies. Many principals have experienced the challenges of increasing diversity in schools, if not any opportunity. This paper aims to explore principal leadership for whole-school participation in student career development. Two research questions are asked: What are the challenges of whole-school participation facing the principals in diverse contexts of individual schools? To what extent do students with different cultural, religious and social backgrounds experience the importance of career development in senior secondary education? We adopted a case study of three secondary schools located in different school districts in Hong Kong. The principals were invited to individual semi-structured interview, while 4 to 7 students from each grade of senior secondary education were invited to a focus-group interview in each school. The findings unveil discrepancy of the expected outcomes of the education between the principals’ experiences of the challenges from a leadership perspective and the students’ experiences of any opportunity for their career development from a user perspective. Potential for positive change through the participation in CLP education varies depending on individual students’ awareness, aspiration and exploration of personal career goal. Implications of principal leadership for whole-school participation in career education in relation to equal opportunity for all students are also discussed. Copyright © 2019 UCEA

In Hong Kong, career and life planning education facilitates the sustainable development of people, particularly the youth, in exploring career aspiration, identities and pathways at the stage of secondary education. This paper aims to explore career teachers’ experience in support of career development of students in the school. The teachers need to overcome a challenging dilemma between the school structure and limited resources. Improvement of the policy of career and life development education are also discussed. Copyright © 2019 APCDA.

This article examines the cross-cultural experience of immigrant students in Hong Kong and the U.S. state of California and the role of their cultural capital in the cross-cultural identity process. It begins with a review of studies on the challenges of immigrant students in schools. A theoretical framework is then established to examine the cross-cultural experience of these students based on the evidence obtained from the literature. The article concludes with a discussion of the study’s implications for educational provision to immigrant students. Copyright © 2018 [National FORUM Journal]. All rights reserved.

This presentation explores acculturation and identity of ethnic minority students in Hong Kong schools, and how they are associated to their learning needs in schools and to what extend culturally responsive classroom environment has been created for fulfilling their diverse learning and cultural needs. This study was qualitative in nature. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in three secondary schools where large numbers of ethnic minority students from low socio-economic backgrounds were enrolled. With school permission, thirty-two teachers were invited to attend one-on-one interviews. Eighteen were female and 14 were male. The enrolment of ethnic minority students was regarded by the teachers as one of the key factors which made the classroom more diverse and multicultural, with the range of diversity covering race, culture, religion, customs and socioeconomic background. When fulfilling their students’ needs, the teachers struggled with conceptualizing a new rationale for cultural responsiveness to diversity, developing intercultural sensitivity, promoting cultural responsiveness among the students, strengthening the home-school collaboration and broadening ethnic minority students’ aspirations for their education and careers. Copyright © 2019 CiCea.

This paper provides a critical re-examination of prevailing case study approaches that select ethnic minority cases based on racial identities. It revisits the importance of distinguishing between concepts of ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ (Brubaker, 2004 Wallerstein, 1991), and proposes a language-informed approach to reconceptualize these constructs in view of the power dynamics that results in their conflation.I examine the language developments that structure the school context to highlight the power dynamics of Hong Kong’s shifting identity from special administrative region to its eventual integration into Mainland China. A language-informed approach provides an illustrative case of language developments that propel schools into the unintended consequence of enculturating Cantonese-speaking (Hong Kong) students to embrace Mandarin (Mainland). Language developments coalesce into a coherent strategy that elicits the voluntary cooperation of autonomous Hong Kong schools to conflate the race and ethnic identities of Mandarin and Cantonese-speaking students.Lexis Elementary is a school in Hong Kong located near the border of Mainland China. Due to poor school enrolment, it had a close-shave with school closure. The school survived by enrolling students from across the border from Mainland China, where the language is Mandarin rather than Cantonese spoken in Hong Kong. The consequence is a transformation in the school language profile. From juggling between English and Cantonese, Lexis Elementary students are now predominantly Mandarin speakers.The case study demonstrates how the economics of school survival coalesce with language developments to produce trickle-down effects on the conflation of race and ethnic identities. It highlights the need for language-informed case studies to chart the structural racism that underlie the complex webs race and ethnic identities entrenched in language development. I draw attention to how ethnic minorities are sequentially rendered invisible

This paper elucidates a critical reading of language policies that uncovers its racial discourse arising from its intersection of power, equity and diversity, particularly the historical remnants and recent demographic changes in Asia. Home to Asia are a sizeable number of Confucian societies that respond differently to equity and diversity when compared to their Western counterparts. Underlying this response is the Confucian conception of social justice expressed through the idea of impartiality rather than equity (Kennedy, 2011). Such conception invites new challenges on striking a balance among supporting the ethnic identities, languages and cultures of minority groups and avoiding social separation and ethnic conflicts.In this paper, we turn to this challenge in Hong Kong, where Chinese language acquisition is a repeatedly reported concern of ethnic minorities in the local (government-funded) education system. We draw on two studies with ethnic minorities, their parents and teachers that involved a documentary analysis, interviews, and classroom observations. We particularly attend to the interests of the dominant group to unpack the nature of these language policies, several important factors related to complexity, contextuality, complicity, complementarity, and continuity of linguistic capital (Pennycook, 2000, p. 50).By plotting the continuity and transformation of language policies in the pre- and post-handover periods in Hong Kong, the emerging findings suggest how certain Confucian ideologies manifest in past and current policies and linguistic practices in education for ethnic minorities. The paper highlights conflicting educational expectations, policies and practices, revealing how centrism in educational intervention reflects the proclivity towards new-integrationist (assimilationist) approaches to cultural diversity (Gube & Gao, in press). The outcome can be a cultural condition that privileges impartiality and sameness.Going against the “grain” of such

Hong Kong universities offer counselling services for students, but students often do not actively seek such services when they need them. This study used quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the relationship between attribution styles, attitude and other factors that may affect university students’ use of counselling services. The study involved 292 student participants from Hong Kong. Overall, 279 students participated in the quantitative study, and 13 in the qualitative study. For the quantitative study, 56 participants (22 males; 34 females) were from University A and 223 (67 males; 156 females) were from University B. For the qualitative study, one participant (one female) was from University A and 12 participants (three males; nine females) was from University B. The Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) and the Inventory of Attitudes Toward Seeking Mental Health Services (IASMHS) were used in the quantitative part of the current study. The ASQ was used to measure the attribution style of participants in three causal dimensions, including ‘Internality’, ‘Stability’ and ‘Globality’, and the IASMHS was used to measure the participants’ attitudes towards counselling help in three ways: ‘psychological openness’, ‘help-seeking propensity’ and ‘indifference to stigma’. Results from the quantitative study showed that girls had higher ‘indifference stigma’ in their attitudes towards counselling help than boys. Participants who had previously sought counselling help showed higher ‘psychological openness’ in their attitudes towards counselling help than those who did not. Moreover, the students’ study majors and religious beliefs were significant predictors for ‘psychological openness’ in multiple regressions. Participants’ responses in the qualitative study were systematically analysed under three main themes, including ‘Problems faced by university students’, ‘Self and others’ past experiences in seeking counselling help’ and ‘Students’ attitudes and perception

Career and life planning is extremely important for all adolescents in order to enhance transition outcomes, but to date, little attention has been paid to its role in education for students with special educational needs (SENs). There is no specific model in Hong Kong for supporting career and life planning for SEN students, nor has there been any research on the topic. As a result, their needs are easily overlooked and they have had fewer opportunities to explore and develop their vocational interests. To address this problem, a charitable organization in Hong Kong initiated in 2016 a two-year program for junior secondary students with SEN. The program aimed to develop a service model for supporting career and life planning for these students in Grades 7–9. Evaluation of the program included obtaining views from different stakeholders, including parents of the SEN students. In this chapter, we discuss findings from the evaluation study using a qualitative approach with data from parent interviews. Copyright © 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.