This article examines the relation between social class and language attitudes through a triangulated study that analyses the attitudes of 836 secondary school students from different socioeconomic backgrounds toward the 3 official spoken languages used in postcolonial Hong Kong (HK; i.e., Cantonese, English, and Putonghua). The respondents were divided into 3 social class groups (viz. middle, lower-middle, and working class), according to their parents' occupations and levels of educational attainment. This particular group of students started its secondary school education when the mandatory Mother Tongue Education Policy was just implemented after China resumed sovereignty over HK. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey and focus-group interviews. This study was designed to test 2 hypotheses: (a) that the middle-class group would be the most positively inclined toward English and (b) that the working-class group would display the most positive attitudes toward Putonghua due to closer social distance. Although the results from the questionnaire survey appeared to provide a degree of support for both hypotheses, little evidence was found in the interview data to indicate that the working-class group did, in fact, aspire to Putonghua either as an alternative form of linguistic capital or a symbol of preferred social identity.
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Following the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region developed wide-ranging curriculum reforms, including project learning. A recent survey has indicated that over 80% of Hong Kong primary and secondary schools have adopted project learning as a curriculum task. Such an outcome is hard to reconcile both with the culture of Hong Kong schools and the generally bleak picture that pervades the literature on educational change.In seeking an explanation for this apparent success we focus attention on the policy instruments that were used by government agencies to facilitate the process of implementation. Our analysis revealed that teachers were caught in a pincer movement that involved voluntary activities promoting project learning and coercive measures that monitored and evaluated successful implementation. Teachers' views of these policy instruments differed markedly from those of policymakers. This confluence of mixed approaches, while apparently successful, is also shown to be problematic. Finally, the paper is located in a theoretical framework with its origins in recent policy theory that to date has not been applied to educational contexts.
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Background: The Education Commission (EC) of Hong Kong, the advisory body set up by the government on the overall development of education in Hong Kong, began developing a policy of education reform in 1998 and published its blueprint in 2000. In 2006, the EC published its fourth official report on the progress of the reform -- Progress Report on the Education Reform (4).
Discussion Focus:The policy document developed in 2000 contains a paragraph that summarises the 14,000 public submissions received by the EC at that time. The EC has adopted this summary as its reform priority. It contains four sociopsychological elements -- joy in learning, effectiveness of communication, creativity, and sense of commitment -- and points out that education for lifelong learning should emphasise more on the inner qualities of a person than personal skills. The policy also recognises for the first time that human knowledge is constructed.
This paper analyses the texts of the 2006 progress report and the 2000 policy document and discovered that the progress reported has essentially neglected the priority stated in the policy.
In parallel with the textual analysis, the paper explores the meanings of the four socio - psychological elements from the perspective of personal inner qualities.
Suggestions: The paper is a reminder that the priority stated in the policy is what the public want and what the EC has promised to act on. It would be undemocratic and negligent for the EC to bypass it quietly. The paper suggests that the deep meanings of the four socio-psychological elements should be explored, to be followed by modification of the strategies of the reform so as to fulfil what the public want. The paper also suggests supplementary empirical studies involving educational professionals to validate the results.
背景：教育統籌委員會（教統會）是政府成立的咨詢團體，以提供教育整體發展的意見。它從1998年開始制訂教育改革的政策，並於2000年公佈了藍圖。2006年，教統會公佈了教育改革進展的第四份正式報告。
討論焦點：2000年的政策文件中有一段，總結了教統會當時從公眾所收到的14,000