Hong Kong’s self-financed taught postgraduate (TPg) programmes have experienced significant growth, primarily driven by mainland Chinese students. The marketisation orientation of these programmes may gradually change these students’ self-identification of seeing themselves as ‘customers’ or ‘students’. This study aims to explore how mainland Chinese students perceive their identities based on their learning experiences in these self-financed TPg programmes. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study collected 303 responses, and 17 of them joined the follow-up semi-structured interviews. The findings suggest that mainland Chinese students are generally satisfied with the self-financed TPg programmes in Hong Kong for their cost-effectiveness compared to similar degrees from Western universities and for receiving internationally competitive higher degrees. In their studies, most mainland students view themselves primarily as students pursuing qualifications for career development, but some have transitioned to seeing themselves as customers due to unsatisfactory experiences and influences from teachers and peers. The study aims to contribute to understanding mainland Chinese students’ learning experiences when studying abroad and provide practical insights for self-financed TPg programme providers in Hong Kong to enhance the programme quality. Copyright © 2025 The Author(s).

Mainland Chinese students' (MCSs') cross-cultural adaptation experiences in Hong Kong have remained under-researched. Our study investigates this phenomenon with a language and social psychology approach and explores the role of Cantonese ability and communication with locals. We invoked Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) to investigate the intergroup communication between MCSs and locals. Thematic analysis of ten semi-structured interviews revealed that MCSs considered self-perceived Cantonese abilities and communication with locals critical for their adaptation. Invoking CAT to investigate this intercultural context provided valuable insights into the importance MCSs place on locals' communicative behaviours when deciding whether to communicate in the local language. Copyright ©2024 Routledge.

Introduction: College transition is often regarded as the most stressful phase of life by college students. Hence, it is necessary to find ways to help them adjust more smoothly to this transition. Hope, as conceptualized by C. R. Snyder, has been widely studied as a predictor of optimal functioning and has been shown to be associated with better adjustment among college students. This study aimed to shed light on the role of hope in college transition by examining its unique reciprocal relationships with an array of important psychosocial resources and emotional well‐being among first‐year college students. Methods: Data were collected from a sample of Hong Kong college freshmen ( N  = 433, Median age  = 18 years old, 63.7% female) at two time points. At each time point, participants completed self‐reported measures tapping into their levels of hope, psychosocial resources, and emotional well‐being. Psychological resources included general and academic self‐efficacy, meaning in life, and optimism. Social resources included secure attachment, perceived school environment, and social support. Emotional well‐being was operationalized as positive and negative emotions. Cross‐lagged panel models were constructed and tested by path analyses. Results: When autoregression and the effects of other variables were controlled, a greater sense of hope uniquely predicted higher levels of general and academic self‐efficacy, greater presence of life meanings, more secure attachment, and more positive and fewer negative emotions. On the other hand, higher levels of meaning in life (both presence and search) and social support uniquely predicted greater hope. Academic hope and presence of life meanings reciprocally predicted one another, whereas other significant cross‐lagged relationships were unidirectional. Conclusions: The findings suggest interventions that promote hope can be useful in helping college freshmen adjust to the new college environment by enhancing their psychosocial

Rising educational inequality is considered as one pressing social problem in many national education systems. There is limited existing literature that examines how youth from different social backgrounds perceive and consider social inequalities and “justice.” This study addresses this research gap by probing the perspectives of different young peoplewho have experienced the competitive Hong Kong education system through qualitative interviews. The findings revealed that youth, despite facing challenges, adopted a relatively “positive” mindset by focusing on what they could change rather than being fatalistic about social reproduction. Both middle-class and working-class young people in the sample did not view differences in family capital as inequalities but believed in education’s role in promoting social mobility within a meritocratic system. The study also suggests redefining “life successes” from traditional measures of status and wealth to the perspectives of students that value job and life satisfaction. Critical analyses that highlight the embedded neoliberalism were conducted on these problematic findings, and the implications for educational policies were discussed. Copyright © 2025 The Author(s).

Life and Values Education (LVE) should be student-centered, life-oriented and culture-based towards the holistic development of the young generation, especially for primary students who are at the most crucial and foundational stage for their psychosocial, cognitive and moral developmental stage of values formation and independent behaviors. To facilitate the delivery of LVE as a life-transforming journey in love, it is essential to connect students’ prior knowledge to attain new insights for reinforcement and consolidation of positive values in life. This preliminary study is endeavored to explore their perceptions of life so as to broaden the knowledge base for designing and implementing LVE activities for the primary students in the local context.The design of this study has undertaken a mixed methods approach in convergent parallel design for data collection and analysis. ‘Draw and Narrate Approach’ and ‘Semi-structured Questionnaire’ have been respectively adopted in the qualitative and quantitative parts of this study as the major research tools.This study has contributed to fill up the research gap by collecting the firsthand information for generating preliminary insights to explore the perceived perceptions and values of life with aspirations from the local primary students for enhancing LVE. This is an exploratory study rather than a correlational study. The research findings collected from a total number of 606 participating students have demonstrated that their perceptions of life are multi-dimensional to address different areas of human needs while their proposed ways in cherishing life are oriented towards various types of relationships.By the sociocultural review of the major findings, this study also sheds light on understanding how sociocultural factors have profoundly affected the perceptions and anticipations of our local primary students. They have developed the awareness of ecological senses even though they live in a highly urbanized city. Students

Over the past two decades Hong Kong's higher education institutions have become favored destinations for students from Mainland China. They find Hong Kong society both familiar and strange. Though Chinese, its political history differs markedly from their homeland's. Since 2010, moreover, conflicts have arisen in Hong Kong between local and Mainland Chinese people, culminating between 2017 and 2020 with clashes over issues of autonomy and governance. This study investigates Mainland Chinese students' experiences in Hong Kong during the 2017-2020 period, and the strategies they developed to cope with the pressures they faced. We found that coping strategies included: active approaches such as learning Cantonese and joining local student societies or campus activities; limiting their friendships to students from similar backgrounds; endurance and acceptance; and 'letting nature take its course'. The study also shows weaknesses in university assistance for Mainland students, and has broader implications for student support and identity formation. Copyright ©2024 SAGE Publications .

Within the context of the multipolar higher education landscape, China in the past decade has emerged as an important destination for Hong Kong students, especially in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). However, little is known about their experiences in Mainland universities. The extant literature on international students moving from the rest to the West, considers individuals’ language barriers and cultural differences as main inhibitors for their academic and social engagement in the destination institution. Little research examined the role of the institutional context, especially for international students who do not head to the West to study. Building on the theory of campus climate for diversity, this study interviewed ten Hong Kong students in the early years of their undergraduate programmes in one Mainland China university, located in the GBA, and interrogated the impacts of inclusive campus climate initiatives, perceived and experienced by these cross-border Hong Kong students. Two salient initiatives, namely mixed residential living arrangements with their Mainland peers and a Hong Kong/Macao student organisation, were identified by participants who indicated that when the initiatives aimed to better integrate Hong Kong students into the host institution/society, they separated them from the domestic counterparts while strengthening their in-group trust and safety nets for navigating the university. This study’s findings have implications for the development and evaluation of institutional strategies for the purpose of embracing Hong Kong and other international/non-local students upon their arrival and supporting their well-being and academic progression in Mainland universities. Copyright © 2024 Educational Review.

Establishing international branch campuses (IBCs) has become one of the key strategies to facilitate the internationalisation of higher education. Researching IBC-related issues (e.g. student experiences, teaching practices, policy and governance) has also become a popular topic in international higher education. However, few studies have explored students’ identity formation in the IBC context. This qualitative study explores mainland Chinese students’ identity formation process in Hong Kong institutions’ intra-country branch campuses within the Greater Bay Area in mainland China. Drawing upon the notions of situated identity and global-national-local imbrications, this study unveils an intricate and nuanced process of identity development among students influenced by the interplay of global, national, and local factors in such an intra-country IBC context. The findings offer new insights into students’ identity formation in cross-border education. It also enhances understanding of the sustainable development of IBCs and strategies for internationalising higher education in the Greater Bay Area. Copyright © 2024 British Association for International and Comparative Education.

This study aims to explore the factors that influence the well-being situation of doctoral students in education from a qualitative perspective and draws on the ecological systems theory as an overarching framework. A total of 18 doctoral students in education from 3 universities in Hong Kong were interviewed. In line with the ecological systems theory, individual influential factors may embed and interact with all layers of systems (i.e., the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, the macrosystem, and the chronosystem) surrounding the doctoral students that hinder or boost their well-being, respectively. These six main areas of concern were identified from a thematic analysis of participants’ responses. The study highlighted several salient influential factors of doctoral students’ well-being, such as coping strategies, social relations, and their living and cultural environment. An interactive effect among specific factors, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and social movements, was also identified. Findings provide theoretical insights and offer recommendations for improving doctoral students’ well-being. Copyright © 2024 by the authors.