Translanguaging has been empirically proven to have constructive and even transformative effects, as it provides linguistic minority learners with access to various educational and linguistic resources. Nevertheless, there is limited research on its use in the context of Chinese writing as a second language and, more specifically, on how it supports the co-construction of knowledge between Chinese teachers and non-Cantonese-speaking (NCS) students. This study examines NCS students' perceptions of and experiences with translanguaging in Chinese writing classrooms while illuminating the role that translanguaging plays in Chinese as a second language (CSL) writing classes in Hong Kong secondary schools. The findings of this ethnographic study indicate that NCS students' attitudes toward and experiences with translanguaging are largely positive, particularly in terms of cognitive and emotional scaffolding. They reveal that NCS students developed more complex thinking skills, metalinguistic awareness and criticality through the translanguaging space that they co-constructed in the classroom. This study also discusses the roles played by both spontaneous and planned translanguaging in NCS students' speech and writing development. Copyright © 2024 Wiley.

Global migration presents a pressing need for teachers and teacher education to become responsive to the changing demographics of schools in many countries. Yet, teacher education has been slow in developing practices to prepare teachers to meet the needs of immigrant students. Using humanizing pedagogy as a lens, this study draws on interviews with 22 teacher educators from Türkiye, the United States, and Hong Kong to examine how they prepare teachers to teach immigrant students. Findings highlight: (1) personal and professional contexts; (2) professional practices; and (3) supports for/barriers to change. Implications for teacher educators and teachers are discussed. Copyright © 2024 Elsevier .

In recent years, there has been a rapid expansion of master's education worldwide. Using a mixed methods research design, this paper explores the factor structure of students' motivation for pursuing a master's degree and their changing expectations of its returns, with a focus on mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong. We first distributed an online survey to students enrolled in various kinds of coursework-based master's programmes; we collected 302 responses. The survey data were subjected to an exploratory factor analysis from which four factors emerged: positional advantage, educational pursuit, intrinsic motivation, and career progression. Twenty-six interviewees participated in follow-up, semi-structured interviews. The content analysis of the interview data corroborated and supplemented the interpretations of the exploratory factor analysis. The declining expectations of economic returns upon graduation suggest that master's degrees were not necessarily viewed as guaranteeing career progression. Furthermore, students' changing expectations of non-monetary returns, including social benefits and self-growth as viewed retrospectively, contributed to students' overall satisfaction level on master's education. The study has implications for understanding and responding to the increasing demand for master's education and rethinking the value of master's education. Copyright © 2024 Springer.

Recent studies on ethnic minority students in Hong Kong have highlighted the difficulties they face when learning Chinese-as-an-Additional-Language (CAL). These linguistic challenges can cause anxiety and hinder their integration into Hong Kong society. Transpositioning is an emerging notion in the field of Applied Linguistics and involves individuals stepping out of their assigned roles and adopting different perspectives through translanguaging. It has been argued that engaging in transpositioning can potentially engage students' learning and participation in classroom interaction. However, there is limited research on how multilingual classroom teachers can suspend their social roles to alleviate students' anxiety while learning a second language in classrooms. This paper seeks to fill this research gap by examining how a Chinese teacher creates a safe translanguaging space for co-learning, which allows him to move beyond his predefined social roles and alleviate ethnic minority students' anxiety in learning CAL. The study uses Multimodal Conversation Analysis to analyse classroom interaction data. The fine-grained classroom analysis is triangulated with the video-stimulated-recall-interviews with the teacher and students which are analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The paper argues for a Transpositioning-Translanguaging-Co-Learning approach to reduce students' anxiety related to CAL learning. By positioning both the teacher and students as equal contributors to knowledge, this can foster student engagement and active participation in classroom interactions. Copyright © 2024 Elsevier.

Research Findings: This study investigated the effectiveness of a home-based intervention in increasing the intrinsic reading motivation and Chinese oral vocabulary of minority South Asian children in Hong Kong. A quasi-experiment was conducted with 78 children (Mage = 51.54 months; control: 37 children, intervention: 41 children) and their parents. Intrinsic reading motivation was measured by parent report and oral vocabulary was measured by child direct assessment. The intervention group received picture books, prerecorded stories, and guidance on carrying out home activities over four weeks. The control group received two wordless picture books. After controlling for sociodemographic factors, Multivariate Analysis of Covariance revealed a significant Group X Time interaction. Follow-up tests revealed that children in the intervention group scored higher in posttest intrinsic reading motivation and oral vocabulary than children in the control group. Practice or Policy: These findings support the development of evidence-based interventions to cater for Chinese language learning of South Asian children in Hong Kong and have the potential to inform the design of future intervention programs that aim to enhance the Chinese language proficiency of minority children in Hong Kong and other settings where Chinese is used as a second language. Copyright © 2025 Routledge.

PurposeDeveloping a sense of belonging among immigrant youth in multicultural contexts has attracted significant attention from scholars during the last few decades. Studies have already underscored how various educational factors hinder or facilitate students' sense of belonging to the school or the larger society. Although most students in Hong Kong schools are ethnic Chinese, a significant number of non-Chinese children make students diversity an essential aspect of schooling. The study investigated how schools can develop a sense of belonging among ethnic minority youth in Hong Kong.Design/methodology/approachAs the education system in Hong Kong lacks a multicultural education policy, how can schools help develop a sense of belonging to the school and the larger society among young ethnic minority people? To answer this question, this paper consolidates the two sets of data originally gathered for two research projects. The data was collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews with nine secondary school teachers (Chinese and non-Chinese) and 15 students (non-Chinese) and analysed thematically.FindingsThe thematic analysis of the qualitative data identified several challenges and opportunities for developing ethnic minority students' sense of belonging in Hong Kong.Research limitations/implicationsResearchers in comparative education can further explore how multicultural education and inclusive education approach together can help ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all and cater to students' diverse learning needs across the education systems.Practical implicationsGiven that the aims of multicultural education and inclusive education resonate with each other, schools can focus on the Whole School Approach to developing a sense of belonging among ethnic minority youth in Hong Kong. However, policymakers and practitioners may need to adopt a multifaceted perspective on inclusive education that strives to ensure equitable quality education

Despite the broadening participation in post-secondary education (PSE) worldwide, the conundrum of disproportionately low PSE enrolments among minority student populations continues to command scholarly attention. Yet, there is a lack of empirical research on the identities of secondary school teachers in the context of minority choice and access to PSE. Taking a critical poststructuralist conceptualisation of teacher professional identity as the complex interplay of macro discourses and policies, school contexts, and individual agency, this study interviewed 11 senior secondary school teachers in Hong Kong and explored the ways in which they perceived and enacted professional identities when navigating dominant ideologies, institutional conditions, and PSE-going possibilities of minority students. The findings revealed their in-situ identity as PSE-for-all educators against the institutional backdrop of the numerical majority of minority students in the study school that also celebrated its demographic and cultural diversity and inclusion. However, the findings also reflected their saviourist tendencies that perpetuated the ethnic, classed, and gendered stereotypes towards minorities in Hong Kong society. Such contradictory identities signified their agentic demarcation from external structural inequalities and ‘minority deficiencies’, thereby seemingly dismissing their responsibility or culpability for the PSE under-representation of minorities. Copyright © 2025 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

This paper reports an intervention study in the teaching of fraction concepts at a village school in Hong Kong. The classes consisted of 60 Grade three students with different cultural backgrounds, including African, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Nepalese, and Pakistani. The study represents one of the relatively few studies that investigate the effectiveness of storytelling in teaching mathematics to ethnic minority (EM) students in the East Asian context. The quantitative analysis in a pre/post-test intervention/control group design shows reduction in achievement gap between EM students in rural settings and their Chinese peers in urban districts, including concepts such as part--"whole interpretation," "fraction language," and "mathematics vocabulary." Analysis of classroom discourse based on the culturally responsive mathematics teaching (CRMT) framework reveals the multimodal features of storytelling provide greater access for EM students in acquiring language-related conceptualizations of fractions. Based on our analysis, we argue that mathematics teaching is inseparable from language teaching, which is often ignored or not planned explicitly in the lesson. Storytelling integrates language with mathematics content authentically and allows students to cope with the language demands in learning mathematics and to encounter the mathematics in real-world context. Copyright ©2024 Springer.

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.

Although motivational variables have been extensively examined in the context of English as a second/foreign language (ESL/EFL), they have received little attention when learning Chinese as a second language (CSL), especially among elementary school students in lower grades. Considering the significant impact of psychological variables on language learning and the dilemma of Chinese reading for non-Chinese speaking (NCS) students from Hong Kong, this study examined the structural relationship between the ideal L2 self and intrinsic motivation, as well as their impacts on the learning engagement and reading performance of 475 Hong Kong first-grade NCS students. Two findings were noteworthy: (1) under the simultaneous consideration of the above-mentioned variables, intrinsic motivation affects learning engagement and Chinese reading performance more than the ideal self; (2) the indirect effects of intrinsic motivation on reading performance through learning engagement are more significant than its direct effect on reading performance. The implications of the findings are discussed. Copyright ©2024 De Gruyter.