It has recently been asserted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that “education is a basic right, one that is vital in restoring hope and dignity to people driven from their homes. It helps them to get back on their feet and build a better future” (A Basic Right for a Better Future, UNHCR, 2016, p.1). Asylum seekers, both here in Hong Kong and elsewhere, struggle to be self-sufficient, and it is education that can equip them with the necessary skills and knowledge. Education empowers refugees and is the key to better future that helps bring stability and hope. The study to be reported here asses explores refugee family responsibilities and the Hong Kong SAR Government’s responsibility for educational provision in relation to refugee children in Hong Kong. The preliminary findings indicate that refugee children in Hong Kong encounter many difficulties and problems (such as financial, psychological). Many of them, however, embrace their education opportunities and excel academically with support from teachers and schools. This study highlights issues which refugee children encounter and also provides a narrative in understanding the complicated and extraordinary childhoods of refugee children and youth in Hong Kong. While the study is set in the Hong Kong context, the findings are likely to be of interest of other countries which to improve educational provision for refugees.

Drawing on in-depth interview data from 31 mainland Chinese (MLC) students in a Hong Kong university, this article conceptualises MLC and Hong Kong higher education as two dissonant but interrelated subfields of the Chinese higher education field. The article argues that these MLC students' habitus, one that possesses rich economic, social and cultural capital, prompts a strong sense of entitlement to anticipated privileges. However, this sense of entitlement is disrupted by the differential capital valuations across these fields. There is thus notable habitus-field disjuncture, which, exacerbated by the hysteresis effect, gives rise to a sense of disappointment and ambivalence. This article demonstrates how the Hong Kong education credential, which these students initially set out to pursue as a form of capital, can become a disadvantage at multiple levels; the article illustrates that capital valuation and conversion in a transborder context is not a straightforward, but rather a complicated and sometimes contradictory, process.
[© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group]

While a class gap remains in obtaining a degree despite an expansion of higher education, a variety of second chances have become available. How class matters in receiving parental assistance for seeking a second chance is of increasing importance to understanding educational inequality in an altered context of higher education, but it is under-researched. This article seeks to fill this gap by referring to a qualitative study of 85 community-college students in Hong Kong for illustration. First interviews with respondents recruited from a community college were conducted between the year 2006 and 2009 where they discussed how they desired a second chance option by studying an associate degree in community college. Encouragement and emotional support to seek this new, costly, and risky second chance was provided by parents of most respondents. And yet, as a deficit approach would have us believe, middle-class respondents received more relevant information and academic advice with financial support from their parents than working-class respondents. In spite of that fact, it seems to remain whether the middle class are indeed better able than the working class to get transferred to university through the transfer of an associate degree in Hong Kong. This illustration suggests that the availability of a second chance does not immediately imply that the middle and the working classes are equally capable of taking advantage of it to rectify their previous educational failure. This article will be concluded by discussing the implications of this study for educational inequality.
[Higher Education is a copyright of Springer, 2017]

香港作為一個亞洲國際都會，香港的高等教育一向重視培育國際化人才。為了剖析香港高等教育國際化現況，這篇文章將回顧教資會的政策，並就各院校的國際化措施、境外生來港升讀、高等教育學生交流等方面作出分析和討論。

Few studies have investigated the causal spillover effects of compulsory education on children's siblings. Using a regression discontinuity method, I find that Hong Kong's 1971 free compulsory primary education policy reduced the dropout probability for the eldest siblings of full policy beneficiaries, especially for children in low-income families. Having younger brothers who were full policy beneficiaries did not affect the elder child's educational attainment. Having younger sisters who were full policy beneficiaries increased the eldest child's educational attainment, especially for the eldest sister. The results shed light on how sibling sex composition might affect intra-household resource allocation of human capital investment among children.

This chapter examines the relationship and effects of perceived discrimination on the integration among new arrivals from mainland China and its implications to the Hong Kong community. It also explores how perceived discrimination, which may affect the integration process of migrants, would mean to higher education in Hong Kong. By exploring the relationship between perceived discrimination and integration, the chapter argues that discrimination or perceived discrimination significantly influences the immigrant’s prospect of successful immigration, which, in turn, affects the future development of society.
[Copyright © 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Singapore]

The present study investigated the relationships between socioeconomic status (SES) and word reading in both Chinese (L1) and English (L2), with children's cognitive/linguistic skills considered as mediators and/or moderators. One hundred ninety-nine Chinese kindergarteners in Hong Kong with diverse SES backgrounds participated in this study. SES explained unique variance in English word reading even after age, phonological processing, vocabulary and working memory were controlled. However, the effect of SES on Chinese word reading became nonsignificant when these control variables were included. Moreover, phonological awareness showed a full mediating effect on the relationship between SES and Chinese word reading. Both phonological awareness and vocabulary were found to partially mediate the association between SES and English word reading. These findings complement our understanding of the relation between SES and reading development in Chinese societies and may have policy or intervention development implications.
[Copyright © 2015 UKLA.]

In the 2011 Hong Kong population census, 26.4% of domestic households were in the poverty category, and one in every four children (26.4%) lived in low-income households. Children in low-income families face financial and material barriers, and these barriers leave them trapped in a cycle of disempowerment. The present study has invited 1,622 children aged three to six and 152 teachers in ten kindergartens in the top five child-poverty-rated districts in Hong Kong to participate in the study (a) to validate the psychometric properties of the culturally and developmentally appropriate Preschool Play Behavior Scale (PPBS) with a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) model, (b) to assess social withdrawal in three subtypes – reticence, solitary-passive, solitary-active and social play among preschoolers in low-income families, (c) to investigate gender difference in social withdrawal and social play, (d) to investigate age difference in social withdrawal and social play, and (e) to inform early childhood intervention to children in low-income families. The PPBS has adopted 18 items assessing five factors: reticence, solitary-passive, solitary-active, rough play, and social play. The “back-translation” procedure – a commonly used procedure in the translation of cross-cultural research instruments – was adopted. Results indicated that the five-factor model of the PPBS statistically fits the results of the Hong Kong samples. Girls exhibited greater social competence (social play) less socially withdrawal behavior. Social play behavior increased with age, while social withdrawal decreased with age. Cultural contexts (emic consideration) on scale items were received attention in future research. Recommendations for cultural understandings on shyness, social withdrawal and social disinterest, and concurrent validation of the PIPPS (Hong Kong version) were made in the study.
[Copyright © 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.]

Teachers' beliefs in human values significantly affect their interaction with students in effective classroom learning.! Whether a teacher has taken a humanistic approach or behavioral approach in the classroom is a curious question especially in a culturally mixed Hong Kong society. In response to this question, the researcher attempted to find out what the teachers believed in human values and how they practiced their beliefs in the classroom. As part of the major research,! this paper aimed to elaborate on the teachers' beliefs and practice during teacher pupil interaction and whether their] beliefs and practice were affected by the East and West educational philosophy. Education values and beliefs in whole child development underpin the aims of education in the 21st century. Literature! showed that a teacher's belief in humanistic approach in bringing out the holistic development of a child plays an important role in fulfilling the education ideology. The study of a group of 35 in-service primary school teachers in Hong Kong was launched in 1999/2000 regarding their teacher-pupil interaction. The research methods mainly included in-depth interviews, questionnaires and classroom observations. The research findings revealed that the participant teachers] practiced both humanistic and behavioral approaches, and the cultural perspective on humanistic or behavioral approach] was not prominent. Although a considerable number of them believed in the affective approach, they had technical] difficulties in the implementation owing to the constraint of time and resources. The research outcome implied that further] teacher development in affective education is essential to facilitate student learning in the current educational change.