Beginning teachers encounter new challenges as the role system in contemporary society has become more and more demanding. By means of the life history method, role management strategies of four Hong Kong beginning teachers employed to cope with role demands and intra-role conflicts were located in their biographical, workplace and wider social-historical contexts. The study shows that strategies such as qualification matching, definition searching, strategic compliance and strategic redefinition were adopted in the professional socialization process. The employment of certain role management strategies, which was related to the novices' human agency, the structure and culture in the workplace as well as the rewards and punishment embedded in the wider social context, had an impact on the development of beginning teachers' professional identity.
[Copyright of Teacher Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530500200260 ]

This paper proposes an initial model for the care and support of primary school children coping with family situations and family changes. The model is built on existing counselling literature, incorporating the perceptions of teachers, children and parents on their needs for support and a small empirical study by the author on teachers' perceptions of the roles and functions of the personnel involved in supporting children in changing familial situations. In proposing the model for schools the author argues for the need for a multi-systemic approach which emphasises involving home-school cooperation and acknowledging the unique 'East meets West' hybrid context in Hong Kong. The use of the model in relation to teacher education, counselling practice and research is discussed. Implications of this model for other locales having similar hybrid contexts, particularly a mix with a Chinese cultural heritage, are also discussed.
[Copyright of Pastoral Care in Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02643940802472221]

This article explores how Hong Kong Chinese engineering students with low English language proficiency manage to cope with their lectures given in English. An ethnographic case study approach was used with multiple sources of data triangulated to provide a picture of the lecture event from both the students' and the lecturer's perspectives. One of the outcomes of the study, as described in this article, is that lectures have specific genres and that these genres need to be seen as more than linguistic events. By way of a case study into lecturer behaviour/intention and students' perceptions, lectures can be viewed within the wider, socially constructed context.
[Copyright of Studies in Higher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075070701685163]

The relationships among emotional intelligence, social coping, and psychological distress were investigated in a sample of 624 Chinese gifted students in Hong Kong. A mediation-effect model specifying that emotional intelligence had an effect on psychological distress mediated by social coping was hypothesized and tested using structural equation modeling procedures. For comparison, a direct-effect model and a direct-and-mediation-effect model were also fitted to the data. The results indicated that the mediation-effect model provided an adequate and good fit, suggesting that the effects of self-relevant and other-relevant emotional intelligence on psychological distress were mediated by avoidant coping and social-interaction coping, respectively. Implications of the findings for enhancing emotional intelligence of students and in promoting the use of adaptive social coping strategies for their psychological well-being are discussed.
[Copyright of High Ability Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13598163060617589]

Emotional intelligence (intrapersonal and interpersonal) and general teacher self-efficacy were assessed to represent personal resources facilitating active and passive coping in a sample of 273 Chinese prospective and in-service teachers in Hong Kong. Intrapersonal emotional intelligence and interpersonal emotional intelligence were found to predict significantly active coping strategy, but teacher self-efficacy did not contribute independently to the prediction of active coping even though there was some evidence that teacher self-efficacy might interact with intrapersonal emotional intelligence in the prediction of active coping, especially for male teachers. The implications of the findings for preventive intervention efforts to combat teacher stress through teaching to enhance emotional intelligence are discussed.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410701668372]