This study examines changes in attitudes, teaching efficacy, and concerns about inclusive education in a sample of 2361 teachers in Hong Kong who took a professional learning course about inclusive education. Participants completed a questionnaire seeking demographic information and their perceptions about these three aspects of inclusive education both before and after their course. Items were selected from the Sentiments, Attitudes, and Concerns about Inclusive Education Scale Revised and Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices scales that were of relevance to the objectives of this study. The results indicate that in all three areas of acceptance, teaching efficacy, and concerns about inclusive education, positive improvements were made as a result of training, although generally this improvement was strongest in areas that teachers felt were under their direct control. The small amount of change in areas that teachers felt were not under their control may indicate that whatever change initiatives are put in place, they need to be holistic and systemic.
[Copyright of Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1359866X.2014.906564]

In this article, the authors compare two prominent examples of the East Asian middle-class transnational split family (TSF) form of international migration in which typically the mother accompanies children abroad while the father stays home to economically support the family: the "astronaut families" (taikong) in Hong Kong in the 1990s, and the "geese families" (kirogi kajok) in South Korea in the 2000s. Many scholars have located the origin of this migration form in shared East Asian cultural values of familism; moreover, what appears to unite these East Asian TSFs is their shared instrumentalism. The authors argue, however, that the construct of cosmopolitanism-in which citizens share a deep-seated interest in membership in the global community of developed, liberal nations-allows for the appreciation of the distinctive characteristics of TSF migration in Hong Kong and South Korea. The authors analyze Hong Kong and South Korea's respective popular media representations of the rise and wane of the TSF migration pattern in order to elaborate on their particular cosmopolitanisms. During the rise period, Hong Kong's migration was a strategy to secure the region's foundational cosmopolitan identity, while South Korea's was motivated by the search for a newfound cosmopolitanism. In the wane period, the authors suggest that Hong Kong and South Korean cosmopolitanisms are converging. First, in both locations people have begun to question how effective sojourn abroad is for either acquiring or securing cosmopolitanism. Second, in both areas people have begun to recognize the possibility of living cosmopolitan lives at home.
[Copyright of Critical Asian Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14672715.2014.898454]

Despite the wealth of theoretical literature on globalization and global citizenship, empirical studies on the topic are lacking, especially in the context of pedagogical needs in relation to global citizenship education. In order to address this gap, a study was conducted in Hong Kong to investigate the attitudes of university students towards various dimensions of globalization and global citizenship. The initial results indicate that Hong Kong university students are generally quite aware of globalization's impact on the economy and personal consumption choices and that while there is considerable apathy towards international affairs, there is also a great interest in cross-cultural service learning opportunities that is not being met by the available programmes. Moreover, this study finds almost no association between age, gender, and religion and any of the measured dependent variables on attitudes towards globalization and global citizenship, the only exception being the factor of past intercultural experiences, where a significant difference in measured attitudes was found between respondents who had and respondents who had not participated in such experiences before. Explanations of the findings and the implications of findings for policy and future research are discussed.
[Copyright of Asia Pacific Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2013.810143]

This article reports the findings of a one-year longitudinal study that investigated the impact of group work on the development of students' critical thinking in Hong Kong secondary schools. It explores whether the participation of teachers in a group-based teaching intervention adapted from an earlier study conducted in the United Kingdom (UK) facilitated students' use of critical arguments in Liberal Studies lessons. In addition to examining students' critical thinking skills through test performance and the use of reasoned justifications in written class-work, the article also discusses the applicability to the Hong Kong context of the programme on which the intervention was based. In general, the results of the study indicate that group work is more effective than whole-class instruction in developing students' critical-thinking skills and that students make better progress in 'teacher-supported' than 'student self-directed' group work.
[Copyright of Cambridge Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2014.897685]

Evaluation of teaching in higher education has drawn much attention due to the need for greater accountability and improvement in student learning. Our review of literature on Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) surveys suggests that considerable controversy and criticism have surrounded its use, fairness, and validity. Yet, many universities in Hong Kong are depending primarily on student feedback in SET surveys to provide evidence for their improvement of teaching and learning, and for their decisions made on teachers' pay-rise and tenure. If universities are to continue to use SET surveys as the main source of mechanism for measuring teaching effectiveness, teachers will have to understand and be aware of its purposes. But how much do we know about teachers' perceptions of teaching and learning and, consequently, their opinions of using SET surveys as the primary standardized evaluation mechanism of teaching for promotion and tenure and for teaching effectiveness?
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