Moving towards the end of colonial rule and socio-political transition, educational practitioners and researchers have witnessed unprecedented challenge and rapid development of education in Hong Kong and Macau. This symposium, conducted by HKIEd colleagues with experience in teaching and research in Macau and Hong Kong institutions, will examine and compare some recent patterns of development and school problems and related issues within/across the two systems of education in terms of curriculum changes in early childhood and primary education, teacher education, school administration and policy, nature and equivalence or recognition of academic qualifications, juvenile delinquency, expenditure and improvement of equity and quality in education, etc.

This study investigated various aspects of the Social Information Processing Model, in particular, young children's emotional behavior regulation and negative emotionality, in Hong Kong. The sample was N=628 from 12 schools. Using Rasch measurement, linear unidimensional scales were constructed for Emotion and Behaviour Regulation (10 items) and for Negative Emotionality (10 items). The well-known Short Temperament Scale was Rasch analyzed too, but a linear scale could not be created – it had initially been designed under the True Score Test theory paradigm. The children were divided into Type A (high on negative emotionality and low on emotion and behavior regulation, N=27 and Type B (low on negative emotionality and high on emotion and behavior regulation, N=31). The children's teachers were given conflict situations and asked to state what strategies the Type A and Type B children would adopt in each conflict situation. The first conflict situation was about the child who was being accidentally pushed by a peer. The second conflict situation was about the child who is being excluded from a game that has enough participants. The third conflict situation was about the child being called "a baby" because he/she was playing with baby toys. The fourth conflict situation was about a peer criticizing and putting marks on a child's picture. The fifth situation was about a peer pushing ahead and taking a toy that a child has been waiting for a long time. The Type A and Type B children were also asked to state what strategies they would adopt in each conflict situation. When the teachers' views were compared to the children's views, it was clear that the teachers did not know their children's thought processes very well. For both Type A and Type B children, Rasch analysis was used to create a calm/angry scale and a sad/happy scale. Conflict situation two (being excluded from a game) is very hard on the calm/angry scale and both Type A and Type B children need to have a very