Rising educational inequality is considered as one pressing social problem in many national education systems. There is limited existing literature that examines how youth from different social backgrounds perceive and consider social inequalities and “justice.” This study addresses this research gap by probing the perspectives of different young peoplewho have experienced the competitive Hong Kong education system through qualitative interviews. The findings revealed that youth, despite facing challenges, adopted a relatively “positive” mindset by focusing on what they could change rather than being fatalistic about social reproduction. Both middle-class and working-class young people in the sample did not view differences in family capital as inequalities but believed in education’s role in promoting social mobility within a meritocratic system. The study also suggests redefining “life successes” from traditional measures of status and wealth to the perspectives of students that value job and life satisfaction. Critical analyses that highlight the embedded neoliberalism were conducted on these problematic findings, and the implications for educational policies were discussed. Copyright © 2025 The Author(s).

The pursuit of equitable education is key to a government’s regulation and allocation of life-chances, which enables social integration. Yet, evidence of the diminishing returns of degrees and of the “skills mismatch” between higher education training and labour market requirements casts doubts on the role of higher educational institutions in facilitating social mobility. This paper draws upon the findings of 40 qualitative interviews with young people conducted in 2018 in Hong Kong to shed light on the micro-level processes in which higher education training is translated into graduate employment outcomes. Findings comparing two sets of higher education graduates’ interview narratives are presented. Assumptions of the logic of human capital theory are questioned from the “positional” and the “processual” perspectives on graduate employability. The discussion unpacks the meanings of “skills mismatch” and “graduate employability,” and foregrounds the assumptions of the differential values assigned to skills and knowledges of different kinds in the local higher education system. With the insights drawn, this paper concludes with a reflection on the relevance of higher education to our understanding of social mobility and social integration in post-Covid-19 Hong Kong. Copyright © 2024 China Perspectives is the property of French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC).

This chapter surveys the state of the field and presents a rigorous account of the core and cutting-edge concepts, timely and novel issues and pioneering theories related to the subject of entrepreneurialism and higher education policies. Apart from conceptualising the linkage between higher education policies and entrepreneurialism, it will also use the empirical example of Hong Kong and illustrates a contextual approach to understand the role of higher education policies in an attempted capitalist restructuring from a finance-led model to an innovation-led model (Baark & So, 2006). The case of Hong Kong demonstrates the state level response, by cities, instead of firms, to the interurban competition and capitalist restructuring in the global knowledge economy (Jessop 1998; Jessop and Sum 2000), particularly through capitalising the academic profession and scientific capital (Tang, 2020). The contextual approach expounded by this chapter will offer international readers a lesson learned for the function of higher education policies in reconsidering academic entrepreneurialism and rejuvenating innovation in the post-COVID precarious 21st century. Copyright © 2023 Gerard A. Postiglione, Christopher J. Johnstone and Wesley R. Teter.

In Society 5.0, Education 5.0 enables economic development with the resolution of social problems through advanced technologies and manages technological power appropriately in terms of a humanistic perspective. Education 5.0 is a future education model aiming to encourage student ownership to form a contemporary student-participatory curriculum with teacher mentoring. While STEM education as an Education 5.0 enabler is the key to realizing Industry 5.0 to personalize and rehumanize the manufacturing process, this paper will look at the need to better align secondary STEM education with Vocational and Professional Education and Training (VPET) initiative by transdisciplinary integration to facilitate Hong Kong better transiting to Industry 5.0. The objective is to examine the secondary STEM education development and its potential role and benefits of creating a foundation of transdisciplinary STEM secondary education in overcoming the current shortcomings of the vertical division of academic disciplines. It seeks to restore the VPET nature in the STEM scholarship and emanate from the secondary STEM curriculum renovations and transformations to tackle social and economic challenges, so the processes of STEM pedagogy will be changed significantly to adapt humanization empowerment by adjusting the methods and approaches to achieve new industrialization and help align with the call of Education 5.0 in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Self-financing higher education institutions (SfHEIs) in Hong Kong help boost the local higher education participation rate, but they are labeled as second-tier opportunities for those with academic weaknesses. Students at SfHEIs may develop a negative self-concept that deteriorates their academic performance and psychological wellness. Therefore, it is critical to understand their self-concept and how it is built. From the narrative perspective, a self-concept is the storied experiences or stories that are lived; therefore, this study employs narrative inquiry using 15 SfHEI students to represent the general pattern of the participants’ experiences. This study proves that students at SfHEIs tend to view themselves as losers or inferiors based on their low self-evaluations of their Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (HKDSE) results, SfHEIs, and career futures. Additionally, this study sheds new light that the loser identity is historically developed from childhood during interactions with parents and teachers, as parents and teachers continuously reinforce the message that enrollment at a publicly funded university is the only way to achieve success in life. Copyright © 2022 by the authors.

In Hong Kong, improving STEM education has become timely since the government launched policy initiatives in 2016, which substantially impacted STEM education practices. Teacher education is of special importance in constructing the aspirations of pre-service teachers and offering professional training for a more gender equitable future in the era of STEM. Professional teachers are believed to be crucial for inspiring future students to use science and innovative technology with global and ethical awareness and for building student aspirations for STEM-related occupations and professions.This paper reports on a study that used educational ethnography methods to examine the life stories (as cross-case studies) of eight pre-service, women teachers majoring in STEM-related programs at the largest teacher training university in Hong Kong. We applied a conceptual framework that explains the socio-cultural construction of STEM teacher identity. The iterative processes of thematic coding discovered 4 themes from the qualitative data of educational autobiography and follow-up interviews. They are (1) motivations for aspiring to become STEM teachers, (2) gender stereotyping and STEM performance, (3) gender and aspirations for teaching STEM, and (4) gender and STEM teacher identity.Empirical findings of this study show that although gender inequalities within STEM education and the local education system are not readily apparent, gender stereotyping in STEM fields still exists in the society and schools of Hong Kong. Despite the availability of opportunities and resources for STEM education and teacher training, students in Hong Kong still hold subjectivities about gender disparities in science performance. Such gender biased perceptions of Hong Kong women students affect their everyday interactions and personal observations about gender differences and inequality. This paper illustrates how stereotypes about women in STEM can sometimes be perpetuated by everyday interactions

This study aims to explore how East Asian flagship universities develop understanding of academic entrepreneurialism, reconsider forms of scholarship and transform the strategic planning of university missions. This study collected data from government and institutional documents related to academic entrepreneurialism and “scholarship of engagement” of University of Hong Kong (HKU) and Seoul National University (SNU) during 2011-2020. This study applied the Critical Discourse Analysis, which explores the relationship between academic entrepreneurial discourse and social structures as dialectic. We found that HKU and SNU present a hybrid image while they are reconsidering the scope and forms of scholarship. Portraying themselves as public institutions, the two East Asian flagship universities emphasize community engagement and social contribution in their pursuit of academic entrepreneurialism. Copyright © 2022 AERA.

Concerns of equity with respect to the community college model in East Asia persist in educational research. In this study, we described and analysed students’ “lived experience” in community colleges in Hong Kong in terms of the “warming up” or “cooling out” of their educational desire. Semistructured interviews with 14 graduates of community colleges in Hong Kong were conducted to determine how their experiences at community colleges affected their educational expectations and the extent to which community colleges help students reconsider their educational disadvantages in a competitive, meritocratic and massified higher education system. The qualitative interview data were inductively thematised into four aspects of college experience in relation to their educational expectations. The data revealed that Hong Kong’s community colleges help some students develop their capabilities and change their educational expectations through democratic admissions, liberal pedagogic environments, learner-centred formative assessment and student services for strategic university articulation. Rather than cooling-out students’ educational desire (characterised by gradual disengagement, objective denial, alternative achievement), community colleges in Hong Kong provide a second chance for failing and disadvantaged students to pursue a university education, but this warming-up function applies only to students who benefitted from the liberal mode of assessment and discovered and developed their academic capabilities in their college experience. The paper ends with a critical analysis of the problem of such warming up of educational desire and the extent to which community colleges can empower disadvantaged students for a good life. Copyright © 2022 The Australian Association for Research in Education, Inc.