Despite the ongoing global financial crisis, there is an increasing deployment of migrant workers across the globe, and in Hong Kong the foreign domestic worker occupies a ubiquitous presence in the lives of many families. Seven domestic workers from Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand were interviewed to gain insight into their role in providing education and care for children in Hong Kong. This exploratory study focuses on the educational and care aspects of the work of foreign domestic workers. It considers the nature of their work and their relationship with the mother of the family. Findings reveal the difficulties of maintaining coordinated education and care of children in a culture where the dynamics of the unequal power relations are clearly demarcated. We raise new possibilities for interdisciplinary work to re-theorise the ways in which foreign domestic workers act as educators of young children and we call for new methodologies to enable their potential.
[Copyright of Globalisation, Societies & Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2013.807079]

The article discusses a study on educational research assessment in Australia in context of Excellence of Research for Australia (ERA) done in Hong Kong. Topics include combination of expert review and indicators for research assessment, methodology of University Grants Committee (UGC), and introduction of research scholarship. It mentions that emphasis of international benchmarking for producing quality profiles of Hong Kong-based UGC-funded institutions.
[Copyright of Australian Educational Researcher is the property of Australian Association for Research in Education. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13384-013-0110-3]

The rationale for this study is that students' views on their own learning play an integral part in their educational journeys. Students' voice has been gaining recognition as a vehicle for cultivating ownership of learning, restoring classroom dialogue, and developing strategies for school improvement. These benefits echo the pedagogical purposes of drama education. This study examines how a group of primary students in Hong Kong relate drama pedagogy to their learning in two curriculum subjects: Chinese Language and General Studies. Working with a group of primary students introduced to drama as a medium of learning for the first time, the researcher seeks to find out what aspects of the drama programme is seen by the students as pertinent to their learning in these subjects. The students generally found the Process Drama units more closely related to the learning in General Studies than Chinese Language. Factors influencing their views include the learning focus of the Process Drama work, students' beliefs about learning in these two school subjects, and the pedagogical approaches previously adopted in their school.
[Copyright of Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13569780902868770]

Data from Hong Kong PISA 2003 show that 15-year-old Hong Kong students who have immigrant parents from mainland China are grossly overrepresented in grades below the modal grade attended by most native Hong Kong students. Same-age comparison, when grade level is not taken into account, puts immigrants' children at a disadvantaged position in the mathematics, reading, and science literacy tests. The academic advantage of immigrants' children in Hong Kong is only revealed after grade is statistically controlled. Also, mainland immigrant students who are repeaters outperform native Hong Kong repeaters. Immigrant redshirting is a possible driving force behind these results.
[Copyright of Educational Research & Evaluation is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13803610903087078]

Students' attitudes toward chemistry lessons in school are important dependent variables in curriculum evaluation. Although a variety of instruments have been developed by researchers to evaluate student attitudes, they are plagued with problems such as the lack of theoretical rationale and of empirical evidence to support the construct validity of data. This paper describes a study of students' attitudes toward chemistry lessons in Hong Kong secondary schools. One of the scales in the Test of Science-Related Attitudes developed by Fraser was modified to form an Attitude Toward Chemistry Lessons Scale (ATCLS). The construction of the ATCLS was based on a theoretical model with four dimensions: liking for chemistry theory lessons, liking for chemistry laboratory work, evaluative beliefs about school chemistry, and behavioural tendencies to learn chemistry. The arguments for inclusion of these four dimensions are presented. The final version of ATCLS was administered to 954 students. The results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated that there was a good fit between the hypothesised model and the observed data.
[Copyright of International Journal of Science Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500690802189799]