The debate in Hong Kong over which language (Cantonese, Mandarin or English) should be used as the teaching medium in publicly funded educational institutions predates the city's transition from colony to Special Administrative Region in 1997. In the past nine years it has been presented as the cornerstone of the ongoing educational reform process. This paper argues that the issue has become increasingly ideologically motivated since the end of the colonial period, and identifies two factors contributing to the decisionmaking process in Hong Kong: the role of outside vested interests in educational policymaking and the shortfall in specific language teaching expertise. Against the complex background of Hong Kong's official language policy of 'trilingualism and biliteracy', the paper shows how educational policymakers are constrained by these factors and prevented from engaging in substantive educational language planning as a starting point for root-and-branch reforms, and how this may have led them to commission research to support pre-existing executive decisions. The study analyses official statements and policy documents on the medium of instruction issue, in combination with observations of the current situation in publicly funded secondary schools, in an attempt to indicate future directions for Hong Kong.
[Copyright of Language and Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.2167/le633.0]

The literature on postcolonialism covers a diverse set of geographic areas, cultures, timeframes, and economic and political circumstances. Within the context of this literature, this article focuses on two territories which underwent colonial transition right at the end of the twentieth century, and moved not to sovereignty but to reintegration with their motherland. Language in education systems has long been recognized not only as a very significant indicator of power relations in societies but also as a very important instrument for continuity and/or change. Hong Kong's education sector is a complex arena for language, in which English, Cantonese and Putonghua each play different and changing roles. Macao's education sector has all of these factors plus additional complexities arising from the place of Portuguese. The article notes various paradoxes in the ways that patterns developed in Hong Kong and Macao in the initial postcolonial period. It identifies lessons not only from comparison between Hong Kong and Macao, but also from comparison of experiences in the territories as a pair with experiences in other parts of the world.
[Copyright of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305006042000231365]

Facing the trend and pressure of globalisation, the history curricula of Hong Kong and Shanghai have been undergoing reforms in order to better equip the youth for coping with rapid contextual changes. At the same time, there have been attempts to reposition nationalism in the changing contexts. This paper aims to compare and contrast how the forces of nationalism and globalisation affect, and are re-presented in, the contents of the junior secondary history curricula of the two cities, with a view to exploring the convergent and divergent trends of development in the two systems (capitalist and socialist) within one country. It is expected that the findings will shed light on the continuities and changes in the junior secondary history curricula of the two cities, and explore possible alternatives for the improvement of history education.
[Copyright of Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057920601061745 ]