PurposeDeveloping a sense of belonging among immigrant youth in multicultural contexts has attracted significant attention from scholars during the last few decades. Studies have already underscored how various educational factors hinder or facilitate students' sense of belonging to the school or the larger society. Although most students in Hong Kong schools are ethnic Chinese, a significant number of non-Chinese children make students diversity an essential aspect of schooling. The study investigated how schools can develop a sense of belonging among ethnic minority youth in Hong Kong.Design/methodology/approachAs the education system in Hong Kong lacks a multicultural education policy, how can schools help develop a sense of belonging to the school and the larger society among young ethnic minority people? To answer this question, this paper consolidates the two sets of data originally gathered for two research projects. The data was collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews with nine secondary school teachers (Chinese and non-Chinese) and 15 students (non-Chinese) and analysed thematically.FindingsThe thematic analysis of the qualitative data identified several challenges and opportunities for developing ethnic minority students' sense of belonging in Hong Kong.Research limitations/implicationsResearchers in comparative education can further explore how multicultural education and inclusive education approach together can help ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all and cater to students' diverse learning needs across the education systems.Practical implicationsGiven that the aims of multicultural education and inclusive education resonate with each other, schools can focus on the Whole School Approach to developing a sense of belonging among ethnic minority youth in Hong Kong. However, policymakers and practitioners may need to adopt a multifaceted perspective on inclusive education that strives to ensure equitable quality education

While extensive research has illustrated the importance of translingual practices in multilingual education, there is limited understanding of how language teachers develop the knowledge to teach L1 and L2 simultaneously. This paper seeks to conceptualise teacher professional knowledge through narrative inquiry, focusing on Chinese language teachers in Hong Kong’s mainstream schools who teach both native Chinese and non-Chinese-speaking (NCS) students. This study explores how L1 Chinese teachers develop their professional competencies to aid L2 Chinese learning among NCS students in multilingual settings requiring multiple teaching roles. Drawing on in-depth narrative interviews with ten Chinese language teachers who instruct Chinese as both an L1 and an L2, this study identifies, systematises, and theorises the professional repertoire of translingual practice. The data reveal a multifaceted professional repertoire comprising three trans-dimensional areas of expertise: transpedagogical knowledge, translingual dispositions, and transprofessional capacities. This paper emphasises the need for a ‘translingual teacher cognition’ perspective, grounded in translanguaging scholarship, to provide a deeper insight into how teachers build their professional knowledge in schools serving diverse student groups. Copyright © 2025 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Awareness of culturally diverse young people’s rights and needs to sexuality education has been raised internationally. However, existing literature has generally focused more on how culturally diverse young people navigate western mainstream societies, leaving the Asian context underexamined. This paper explores the experiences and views of South Asian minority youth of sexuality education at home and in school in Hong Kong, informed by rights-based and cultural competence perspectives of sexuality education, and using a qualitative descriptive methodology. The findings identified four themes: (1) the double silence experienced at home and school; (2) marriage within the same religion and caste; (3) gender role expectations to be caring women and protective men, and (4) the need for culturally targeted sexuality education. This paper contributes to scholarship on sexuality education by advancing the knowledge base by means of a case study conducted in Hong Kong, an Asian multicultural context that differs from western multicultural societies. It elucidates the meaning of cultural sensitivity and cultural competence by stressing the negotiability of cultural norms and taboos and identifying the practical implications for conducting sexuality education in a multicultural city like Hong Kong. © 2022 Informa UK Limited.

There is a growing literature including popular media articles reporting many issues about the current education provision for the ethnic minority students in Hong Kong. The Equal Opportunity Commission has also formally noticed Education Bureau of its concerns about the education of ethnic minority students. It especially recognized an issue with reference to the disproportionately low participation rates of ethnic minority children in upper secondary and post-secondary education compared to the majority ethnic Chinese children. This paper uses two important frameworks to focus on the extent of ‘out of school’ ethnic minority children in Hong Kong i.e. ‘Five Dimensions of Exclusion’ by UNICEF and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and ‘Seven Zones of Exclusion’ by Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE). An analysis of 2006 census data confirms that a good number of ethnic minority children are not within the school; this includes the pre-primary, lower secondary, upper secondary and post-secondary age-group children. This paper concludes with suggestions concerning a research and policy agenda in the area of ethnic minority education in Hong Kong. Copyright © 2013 Comparative Education Society of Hong Kong (CESHK).

This article reports on a qualitative study investigating the teaching experiences of ESL teachers of ethnic minority students from South Asian countries. Eight ESL teachers from two secondary schools in Hong Kong were interviewed. Informed by the concept of neoliberal governmentality, this study explores the shaping effect of neoliberal education on these teachers’ professional development, their negotiation with the current examination-oriented educational policy, and the overall neoliberal discourse in education. The teachers were found to be ambivalent in their contradictory positions regarding whether to encourage or prohibit the use of heritage languages in English learning, whether to conform to the curriculum or develop new materials and try out new ways, and how to unravel social responsibility for ethnic minority groups’ development. This study has implications for the importance of awareness of the impact of macro-level neoliberalism on micro-level educational practices among teachers, principals, and policy makers, and for the necessity of developing teacher education programmes to prepare teachers with a particular concern about the well-being of children (especially those in underprivileged communities), and enable them to think critically about scripted curriculum packages and to work within more diverse and challenging contexts. Copyright © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Ethnic minority parents often appear to be less involved in school functions and activities than their culturally dominant counterparts. Their invisibility is usually assumed due to a lack of either interest or parental capacity to oversee their children's education. However, the simplistic equation between parental involvement in children's education and their participation in school is largely informed by middle-class cultural norms that ignore diversity. Data drawn from home visits and in-depth, semi-structured interviews amongst Pakistani parents and children in Hong Kong reveals that the involvement of these parents only seems less visible because it is largely based at home rather than in schools. The parental involvement of this ethnic minority is influenced by socio-economic and cultural factors that separate school from home, divide parental responsibilities by gender, and set expectations for children with primary reference to the parents' own experiences. These research findings on how such characteristics shape the outcomes of parental involvement can inform school practices to build more effective home-school collaboration and enhance children's academic achievement.
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This qualitative study investigates the interplay between the ethnic and academic identity construction of a group of university students with South Asian backgrounds in Hong Kong. The findings indicate that ethnic identity and ethnic socialization have protective and facilitative effects on learning motivation and academic achievement. It is found that these ethnic minority students receiving tertiary education, holding congruent views of ethnic and academic identity, display a sense of agency and critical reflectivity of both the host society and their heritage communities and see facilitating community uplift and developing a more positive social image of ethnic minorities as their generation’s responsibility. Reconstructing an ethnic identity and developing new social images therefore motivate them to pursue academic success. The findings indicate that the South Asian students figured out ways in which to interact with the outer world and set up new roles and spaces (i.e., a heritage community with more positive social image). The findings shed light on how to provide better opportunities for and assistance to ethnic minority students when they pursue higher education. Copyright © 2019 Springer Nature B.V.

This qualitative study investigates the language ideology of a groups of Chinese language teachers working in Hong Kong’s secondary schools when they teach ethnic minority students. Drawing on interview data, this study reports on how these teachers’ language ideologies are in accordance/discordance with dominant discourse, and in what ways their ideologies impact their teaching approach and attitudes towards the students’ heritage language and culture. Key findings indicate that instead of promoting homogeneity as a prerequisite for success, the teachers hold a pluralistic language ideology and outline the potential for ethnic minority students to become linguistic and cultural brokers between the heritage communities and mainstream society. An inconsistence was found between the teachers’ positive language attitude towards heritage language and their self-distancing from the heritage language learning and use in school contexts. The findings implied that teacher education courses could enable teachers, as active agents, to re-negotiate the separate language ideology of the language policy at the macro level, deconstruct it in classroom settings and develop knowledge and beliefs to challenge and resist the ideologies that sustain the marginalisation of heritage language and culture. Copyright © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

School participation rates in Hong Kong are acknowledged to be high but not always for the city’s ethnic minority students. Case study was used to portray the ‘out of school’ phenomenon for ethnic minority students at a secondary school in Hong Kong through the experiences of one such ethnic minority student. Morshed, a Pakistani student, participated with the researchers in an unstructured in-depth interview. In addition, interviews were also conducted with the principal, two teachers, and one support staff from the school. The study showed the complex interaction of school contexts and personal life issues that influenced Morshed’s dropping out of school. Implications are drawn for providing better school support that can facilitate more positive schooling experiences for Hong Kong’s ethnic minority students.
[Copyright © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.]

There is a growing body of literature highlighting issues concerning current educational provision for ethnic minority students in Hong Kong. The popular media is also featuring these issues. In addition, the Equal Opportunities Commission has formally notified the Education Bureau of its concerns about the education of ethnic minority students. This article reviews a range of issues and concerns that have been raised regarding educational provision for ethnic minority students in Hong Kong. It particularly raises the issue of "out of school" ethnic minority children in Hong Kong. To date, most of the existing literature has been on ethnic minority students who are already in the school. Yet a careful analysis of the reports and tables published from the 2006 census data suggests that a good number of ethnic minority children are probably not in school, including pre-primary, lower secondary, upper secondary and post-secondary age groups. Despite the fact that some legislation is in place to protect the educational rights of ethnic minority children in Hong Kong, they are nevertheless facing a number of issues and challenges inside school. In addition, the fact that ethnic minority children are "out of school" raises new issues about access and equity in Hong Kong's education system.
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