This paper will describe a project that was designed to encourage dialogue and exchange between students taking courses in Special Education at the University of North Texas and The Hong Kong Institute of Education via the Internet. The project was designed for the to develop a peer mentoring relationship sharing their experiences, increasing their cultural awareness, and examining their philosophy. Information will be presented on the manner in which the project was designed. Details of the mechanics of the project, samples of the exchanges and the evaluation of the project as well as future plans will be presented.

The increasing number of Mainland Chinese immigrant children with difficulties in Hong Kong schools mandates understanding of the complex interactions between cultural-linguistic differences and disabilities. This case study adopted narrative inquiry to probe deep into participants' lived experiences to reveal that the special education teacher was primarily concerned about the student participant's difficulty associated with his disabilities, totally unaware of the impact of her limited proficiency in the child's first language. Researchers called for government policies to integrate special and multicultural teacher education.
[Copyright © Elsevier Ltd.].

A core goal of inclusive education worldwide is to maximize the learning potential of students with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream educational settings. However, little research attention has been paid to SEN children's social and emotional gains from inclusive education compared to their academic performance. This study included social, emotional, and academic variables in a single research design, not only to test their relationships but also to explore the predictive roles of social and emotional factors in academic performance for SEN students. Participants were 515 SEN students in grades 1–6 in mainstream primary schools in Hong Kong. The results showed that the social and emotional competences of children with SEN were significant predictors of their academic performance (p < .001), with emotional competence having the larger impact. Although SEN students' relationships with peers and teachers were not found to be direct significant predictors of academic performance as reported in previous studies; they positively and significantly predicted emotional and social competences of SEN students (p < .001). Implications for establishing a caring campus, as well as developing educational interventions which will increase SEN students' positive emotional experiences and foster and maintain their adaptive social and emotional competences are discussed.
[Copyright © Springer].

This paper reports the final development of a scale to measure pre-service teachers' perceptions in three constructs of inclusive education, namely, sentiments or comfort levels when engaging with people with disabilities; acceptance of learners with different needs; and concerns about implementing inclusion. The Sentiments, Attitudes, and Concerns about Inclusive Education Revised (SACIE-R) scale was developed from an initial 60 items and administered through a series of refined surveys. A final 15-item scale was validated using 542 pre-service teachers from nine institutions in four countries including Hong Kong, Canada, India, and the United States. It is posited that the SACIE-R scale will yield valuable information for assisting universities and colleges in preparing more specific training to address the needs of pre-service teachers for working with diverse student populations.
[Copyright © Western University].

This article, written by Meng Deng of Beijing Normal University and Kim Fong Poon-McBrayer of the Hong Kong Institute of Education, reviews and analyses the reform of special education in China, the challenges confronting Chinese special education provisions, and how the Chinese inclusive education model, namely 'Learning in Regular Classrooms', has been shaped by the pragmatic needs aligning with the nation's economic and social developments. In an effort to provide wider school access, the current inclusive education model has become the form of educational placement that serves the majority of students with disabilities in China. The authors conclude that reforms in the last two decades have resulted in dramatic changes and progress in many facets of special education service delivery, school structure, administrative monitoring mechanism, and instructional practices. However, the current Chinese special education service structure is still shaky, with inadequate resources, personnel preparation and support at the local level. Fundamental changes to the examination-oriented mainstream education system are still needed, to enhance the quality of education for students with special needs.
[Copyright © Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd.].

因應社會重視平等機會的理念，香港學校自上個世紀末便開始關注照顧特殊學生的需要；為了鼓勵主流學校照顧這類學生的學習，特區政府十多年來在中小學推行融合教育。此文除了回顧香港政府相關教育政策的發展外，亦會分享一所小學在這方面的實踐，以剖析香港融合教育政策的演變及其最新的發展。
[Copyright © 2013 優質學校教育學報.]

在香港，無論是融合教育的前線工作人員，還是社會人士，對融合教育的發展情況都是褒貶不一。在此背景下，結合"教育機會平等和個別差異認同"中的"平等"概念，總結香港融合教育發展過程中的利與弊，無論是對香港融合教育的發展，或是其它地區融合教育的發展，都具有啟迪意義。
[Copyright © 2010 中央教育科學研究所.]