In many Western countries such as the United States, Britain and Canada multicultural education has attracted the attention of many researchers. The reason is that the tide of immigrants to these countries has produced a more diverse student body. The presence of these immigrant students has generated problems for teachers and school administrators. Promotion of a spirit of tolerance and helping them to adjust has become important goals for teachers in schools in these countries. Authors such as Banks, Sleeter and Grant have documented various aspects of multiculturalism and multicultural education in the context of Western countries. The conceptualisation by Banks(1997) of multicultural education as a broad interdisciplinary field with five interrelated dimensions are quite well known. In Hong Kong the influx of Mainland Chinese to the territory since the early 1990s has been a prominent feature. As similar to the cases in many Western countries, these newly arrived people from Mainland China to Hong Kong have generated problems of integration with local people and of adjustment to the new environment. Lee(1998) has investigated the issue of new immigrants moving to Hong Kong from Mainland China. He found evidence that the new immigrants in the 1990s are no longer as economically vibrant as those in the 1960s and the 1970s and they are more dependent on social welfare provisions. This helps to offer one explanation for the social exclusion of new immigrants. The problem of adjustment encountered by immigrant children has also aroused the attention of many parties, including teachers and social workers. Researchers have documented the life of these children in Hong Kong. Though these children are of the same race as those of the local school children, the background and culture of the former is quite different from the later. For instance in Hong Kong the traditional version of Chinese character is used. However in Mainland China the simplified version of Chinese character

Cultural diversity is an issue of both policy and practice for Hong Kong. In relation to the growing number of ethnic minority students in Hong Kong, many schools are exploring ways to enhance the multicultural competency of teachers and accordingly promote the cultural responsiveness in the classroom, so that the cultural diversity of ethnic minority students could be fulfilled and that their academic achievement could be improved. The paper examines how teachers and students construct the multicultural competency and cultural responsiveness. It specifically focuses on the learning needs of ethnic minority students, who came from India, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, and Thailand. The qualitative data were collected from interview, through which the views of twenty-four teachers from three secondary schools were explored. The themes generated from the interviews will be reported. This paper argues that to promote cultural diversity, it is not only necessary for the school and government to address and fulfill the diverse needs of students, in terms of the emotional, social, cultural and spiritual aspects of their “self”, but equally important to manage the dynamics of the different cultures and accordingly develop a connected ecology of learning in which cultural responsiveness can be made possible.

Beyond 1997, an immense number of immigrants from mainland China has forced Hong Kong to face a lot of problems. The schooling question of children from mainland China has posed a major concern to the school system of Hong Kong. Nowadays, although several kinds of support can be provided by the Hong Kong Education Department, there are still rooms for improvement. Studies in Hong Kong have shown that educational difficulties are common among these newcomers. These include, for example, getting a school place, being forced to study in a lower level, having to learn complex Chinese characters, speaking and listening to Cantonese. After a brief introduction of the educational difficulties and needs of the school-aged children from mainland China, this paper attempts to propose some suggestions that are useful for social and educational integration of these new-arrival pupils in Hong Kong.
[Copyright © 1998 香港仔街坊福利會社會服務中心]

本文從哲學及社會學角度，就香港教育的篩選性做出批判，並以此為基礎，分析新來港學生在香港教育過程中所面對的困局。最後，筆者將做出相關的建議，以改善香港新來港學生的教育問題。
[Copyright © 2004 師大書苑有限公司]

香港教師持續教育一向都不受重視。政府近年推展多項新的教育改革政策，使教學性質日趨複雜，同時回歸中國後，新來港學生人數大增，對傳統的單元教學模式產生了衝擊，令教師反思個人對不同學生族群的態度外，亦增強了他們探討跨文化教學的動機，這些都使教師重新檢視專業發展的需要和意義。本文以香港教育學院開展的「新來港學童教育支援計劃2000-2001」成果及第二期計劃取向討論香港校本教育持續教育的理念、做法以及經驗。

隨著新來港兒童的增加，政府撥出了額外的資源，以學校為本的方式，為這些學童提供支援，讓他們能夠漸漸適應香港的環境，最終能融入香港的社會。適值香港教育當局大力推行「校本管理」，校方能有較大的自主權去運用資源，有助於推行新來港學童教育。本文透過訪問幾位校長，了解校本管理的配合及校長的領導對新來港學童教育的重要性。
[Copyright © 2004 師大書苑有限公司]