The University of Hong Kong (HKU), following its establishment in 1911, has assumed the mission of bridging British and Chinese cultures, to prepare European and Chinese elite youth for political and other professional careers, and thus to improve Britain's cultural influence in competition with other western powers with regard to China. Dominated by its colonial character and pragmatic orientation, Chinese education at HKU was confined to no more than a supplementary subject at the initial stage. However, colonial crisis and cultural changes in the 1920s and 1930s, together with the endeavours of local cultural and commercial elites, made advanced Chinese education at HKU necessary and possible, and led to an independent unit for Chinese education and Chinese studies being established and strengthened. Organisational and curricular reforms before the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941 led to further modernisation and solidified the structure of Chinese education at this university, laying the essential foundation for its post-war recovery and development. The evolution of Chinese education at HKU demonstrated well the subtle entanglements of education, culture and politics in a colonial context, through which coexistence and tensions between tradition and modernity, between China and the West, and between the imperial and republican intellectuals were also vividly revealed.
[Copyright of History of Education is the property of Routledge.]

The Catholic Church, the largest school-sponsoring body in Hong Kong, is a major provider of religious schools and educational programmes. In 2006, the Catholic Diocese released its first centralised and comprehensive curricular document concerning religious and moral education (RME) in Catholic schools. Taking this programme as a reflection of the Church's response to the challenges of a changing social milieu, severed church–state relations and shortcomings in Catholic education in post-1997 Hong Kong, this article reviews the framework and principles of the new curriculum. While retaining strong religious elements in its curriculum, the Catholic Church has widened and re-oriented its programme, and re-designed the contents and pedagogical methods. The new programme is characterised by adjustment and differentiation, upholding Christian faith, and selective absorption of Chinese culture. This article also discusses problems in the implementation of the new programme, including organisational compartmentalisation and an underdeveloped political dimension in the content.
[Copyright of Journal of Beliefs & Values: Studies in Religion & Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13617672.2015.1099940]

Since the retrocession of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, the Hong Kong SAR government and key curriculum developers have been determined to make use of the school curriculum (formal and informal) and in particular, the two history subjects, 'Chinese History' and 'History,' to promote a national identity among students. This study shows that a Chinese national identity in ethnic, cultural and historical terms has been promoted through 'Chinese History.' At the same time, through the other history subject, 'History,' a Hongkongese identity that includes both an international and a national dimension has also been made possible. However, it is argued that in promoting a sense of national identity through the school curriculum, the government has turned the curriculum to a form of nationalistic propaganda. In addition, the emphasis on national identity would create tension between Hong Kong students, students from China and ethnical minority students.
[Copyright ©2014 National Academy for Educational Research.]

This study modeled the associations between extrinsic demographic factors and children's speech acquisition in Hong Kong Cantonese. The speech of 937 Cantonese-speaking children aged 2; 4 to 6; 7 in Hong Kong was assessed using a standardized speech test. Demographic information regarding household income, paternal education, maternal education, presence of siblings and having a domestic helper as the main caregiver was collected via parent questionnaires. After controlling for age and sex, higher maternal education and higher household income were significantly associated with better speech skills; however, these variables explained a negligible amount of variance. Paternal education, number of siblings and having a foreign domestic helper did not associate with a child's speech acquisition. Extrinsic factors only exerted minimal influence on children's speech acquisition. A large amount of unexplained variance in speech ability still warrants further research.
[Copyright of Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics is the property of Informa Healthcare. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/02699206.2013.763385]

In December 2009, Hong Kong hosted its largest ever multi-sport event, the East Asian Games (EAG). Overshadowed initially by the excitement of the 2008 Beijing Olympics - and Hong Kong's part in hosting the equestrian events - the Hong Kong public was slow to appreciate the significance of the EAG. This essay examines the history of sports development in Hong Kong and the relatively 'underdeveloped' sporting culture, the expectations of the Hong Kong government and sporting community, and the impact and legacies of the EAG in terms of social change, economic costs and benefits, national prestige and pride, and education and culture. It argues that, for all the collective euphoria over Hong Kong winning the football gold medal, the EAG brought only limited - and short-term - economic benefits and attitudinal changes regarding sport. However, it did demonstrate that Hong Kong could, albeit with some assistance from China, host a multi-sport event and it did encourage some within and without government to seriously consider bidding for the much larger Asian Games.
[Copyright of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2011.626692]

The present study examined longitudinal changes in Asian (i.e. Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan) school students' national identity before, during and after the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Participants were 946 secondary students aged 12-17 years from Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. This study revealed that residence, especially the hosting city, acted as the most significant factor in longitudinal changes and contribution to the national identity among the three regions. The time factor (before, during and after the Games) was only significant when it interacted with residence. These findings suggest that residence (hosting city) provided the greatest contribution in national identity before, during and after the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
[Copyright of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2012.692248]