Teaching Chinese to second language learners is a challenge for preschool teachers in Hong Kong so effective teacher professional development programmes are urgently needed to enhance their knowledge and skills. An Integrative Model Teacher Professional Development Programme which incorporates three theoretical underpinnings (i.e., culturally responsive teaching, meaningful and pleasurable learning, and effective teaching of Chinese as a second language) is designed to equip preschool teachers with knowledge, skills, and awareness in teaching Chinese to ethnic minority students. Through qualitative interviews with 15 in-service preschool teachers who joined the Programme, teachers' perceptions and changes in three theoretical areas of teaching Chinese to ethnic minority students were explored. Particularly, teachers increased their awareness of ethnic minority cultures, developed empathy with ethnic minority children and their families, gained knowledge of implementing culturally responsive teaching and meaningful and pleasurable learning of Chinese. The role of teacher sharing in effective professional development was highlighted. Copyright © 2019 National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators.

Present literature concerning ethnic students in Hong Kong has been largely focusing on ethnic students' struggle in identity formation, emotional and behavioral needs, acquisition of Chinese language, disparity of social rights and opportunities as well as academic and career mobility, etc. While perspectives of ethnic students' learning under mainstream teaching in Chinese schools have attracted much attention, voices of frontline educators' learning from everyday teaching ethnic students are not widely addressed. Rather perceiving teacher as a traditional authority figure in a mono-cultural Chinese classroom, this particular case-study argues growing number of frontline Chinese teachers have been undergoing experiential learning and ongoing reflection through daily teaching and interaction with ethnic Muslim students in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2018 Hong Kong Sociological Association 20th Annual Conference.

This qualitative study investigates the interplay between the ethnic and academic identity construction of a group of university students with South Asian backgrounds in Hong Kong. The findings indicate that ethnic identity and ethnic socialization have protective and facilitative effects on learning motivation and academic achievement. It is found that these ethnic minority students receiving tertiary education, holding congruent views of ethnic and academic identity, display a sense of agency and critical reflectivity of both the host society and their heritage communities and see facilitating community uplift and developing a more positive social image of ethnic minorities as their generation’s responsibility. Reconstructing an ethnic identity and developing new social images therefore motivate them to pursue academic success. The findings indicate that the South Asian students figured out ways in which to interact with the outer world and set up new roles and spaces (i.e., a heritage community with more positive social image). The findings shed light on how to provide better opportunities for and assistance to ethnic minority students when they pursue higher education. Copyright © 2019 Springer Nature B.V.

This chapter explores different factors that contribute to the school failure of ethnic minority young people in Hong Kong. It draws on a case study approach based on 15 in-depth interviews with 11 “out of school” ethnic minority young people, of whom 6 were dropouts, 4 were at risk of dropping out, and 1 never attended a school. It was also augmented with an additional 22 in-depth interviews with 20 other stakeholders related to ethnic minority education including 3 principals, 6 teachers and support staff, 3 school social workers and NGO professionals, 2 government officials, 3 ethnic minority community leaders, and 3 parents. Several themes were created using schema analysis that help explain different factors making them “out of school.” It has been common to attribute school failure for ethnic minority students in Hong Kong to problems with Chinese language education, yet this study shows that a number of other interrelated factors contributed to their lack of successful schooling. The key influences are multilevel – with individuals themselves, within families, within schools, and within the community. Implications are drawn at the levels of policy, practice, and theory to better support ethnic minority young people’s schooling success in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Ethnic minorities (EM) comprise 5% of Hong Kong's population of 7 million. In schools 3% (14,000) are ethnic/linguistic minority students whose poor achievement in senior secondary years is evidence of disproportionate educational outcomes compared with those of Chinese speaking students. The government has rolled out support measures to meet the learning needs of EM students. Research reported here gathered perceptions of the impact of these support measures in achieving the stated objectives - minimising language and cultural barriers to school achievement, and facilitating smooth integration of EM students into Hong Kong society. Findings reveal that the singularly focused pedagogical provision for Chinese language acquisition is too narrow and exposes the role language policy plays in the construction of social inequality in Hong Kong. There are absences; unacknowledged culture diversity; unaddressed discrimination, and unrecognised pedagogical challenges emanating from teachers' calls for more support. Copyright © 2013 International Society for Teacher Education.

We examine school choices made by western expatriate parents in post-colonial Hong Kong in order to understand the essence of imagined global citizenship and its implications for existing ethnic and class inequalities in the education system. Responding to changes in the global job market, a small but increasingly visible group of parents are seeking to challenge what they see as the constraints of expatriate life by developing global opportunities for their children through Cantonese language acquisition in the local education system. Drawing on the sociological literature on school choice and middle-class identity, we argue that these parents are negotiating for themselves a global imaginary in which cultures can easily be traversed and social class is levelled. But such global desires, we suggest, can also replicate colonial privilege in a way that marginalises poorer schools and other ethnic minorities in the education system.
[Copyright of British Journal of Sociology of Education is the property of Routledge.]

Through the experiences of Pakistani-migrant families in Hong Kong, this paper explores ethnic minority students' aspirations for education, work and the future in a context where education is highly valued but also extremely competitive. The first part depicts how Pakistani youth and their parents articulate their aspirations and opportunities and investigates the sociopolitical changes in education that are creating new opportunities for young Pakistani students. The second part considers the challenges from the larger Hong Kong society and within the Pakistani community that may hamper aspirations. The last part examines transitions and promises and the ways Pakistani youth negotiate for better futures. This article delineates the intertwining dynamics of cultural consensus, cultural dissonance and children's agency as the youth navigate the terrain of education and career.
[Copyright of Children's Geographies is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd.]

Much of the existing literature on social capital and university choice processes postulates that family networks of underrepresented students from poor and minority backgrounds are disadvantaged in university resources and in turn deficit in social capital returns. The literature implies that school-based networks are essential to fill the university information voids at home. Less research, however, poses questions about whether the university resources occupied by school personnel are automatically available to less-privileged minority youths. To grasp the dynamic interplay between ethnicity, class and school-based social capital, this study drew on Lin's conceptualisation of homophilous and heterophilous social networking and explored the university choice and application processes among poor and working-class South/Southeast Asian minority students in Hong Kong. The participants' accounts uncovered the restrictions of school networks on norms, expectations and accessibility of information sources. The research results raise concerns about how to activate both homophilous and heterophilous ties for minority youths' widening access to higher education.
[Copyright © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.]

The literature on acculturation illustrates that a bulk of non-dominant ethnocultural minorities consider themselves bicultural, involving both dominant and ethnic cultures. Yet, little is known about how bicultural individuals perceive and construct dual cultures, and how their two cultural identities are played out in daily interactions. While these issues are under-researched, they are vital to policy and practice initiation towards ethnocultural minorities’ integration and upward mobility as well as for the receiving society’s social cohesion and economic competitiveness. To this end, this study used the concept of bicultural identity integration and tapped into the processes of biculturalism among 16 secondary school students coming from South and Southeast-Asian groups in Hong Kong. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to unearth the internal construct of bicultural identity and the trajectories of adapting to dual cultural influences across space. The participants’ accounts displayed a high level of cultural harmony yet low blendedness in choosing to separate affiliations into cultural domains. This internal complexity reflects the contradictory juxtaposing of ‘cultural diversity’ in the host society and its segregated schooling for minority student population.
[Copyright © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.]