This article reports on a case study of a Hong Kong undergraduate student's lived experiences of second language (L2) investments and identities across different contexts, including inside and outside the classroom on the university campus, in the professional workplace, and during study abroad. Findings indicate that the student's differential L2 investments across contexts appear to be closely intertwined with the different identities constructed in specific circumstances and mediated by the perceived likelihood of yielding a good return on the investments. His selective L2 investments were also found to be driven by a desire for membership in an imagined international community and an imagined identity associated with a cosmopolitan lifestyle in the projected future. The article argues for the importance of a holistic understanding of individuals' L2 learning experiences both inside and outside the classroom in order to appreciate the complexities of their variable L2 investments and identities across contexts.
[Copyright of Journal of Language, Identity, and Education is the property of Routledge.]

Numerous educational change and school reforms have been conducted to pursue educational effectiveness and educational quality in different parts of the world. Unfortunately, most of the past educational reforms with focus on fragmentary improvement and remedial treatment are not sufficient to bring holistic school development and long term effectiveness, and inevitably many of them have experienced serious frustration if not failure. This paper aims to propose a new direction including ten important tendencies for ongoing and future educational reform and school reengineering in Hong Kong and international contexts. The tendencies are: (1) Towards multiple school functions from simplistic purposes; (2) Towards school autonomy and self-initiative through school-based management; (3) Towards school healthy functioning through a knowledge-based profile; (4) Towards school continuous learning and development through strategic management; (5) Towards human initiative through multi-level self management in school; (6) Towards school multiple effectiveness through a dynamic process; (7) Towards holistic education in school through layer management; (8) Towards synergy and effectiveness through congruence in school; (9) Towards total home-school collaboration and community support for resources, ideas, and legitimacy; (10) Towards school driving force through transformational leadership. The educational reforms in this new direction can support schools to facilitate continuous development of students and staff, increase support of parents and community, improve technology in education and management, and pursue multiple functions more effectively at different levels of our society. Hopefully, all those concerned particularly our students and teachers can benefit from the coming educational reforms.

This longitudinal study examined the relationship between pedagogical continuity in literacy education and early literacy development by comparing Chinese children in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Stratified random sampling was used to select 24 preschool and Primary 1 classes in four communities catering to middle-class families in each city. The 24 teachers were interviewed about their teaching methods and views on pedagogical continuity in individual sessions. Further, their teaching activities were videotaped over a period of a week. Their students (n = 758) completed a Chinese literacy attainment test at the beginning and at the end of the same academic year. Analyses indicated that Hong Kong students outperformed their Shenzhen counterparts in Chinese literacy attainment, at both preschool and primary levels, concurrently and longitudinally. This suggests that the holistic approach followed in Hong Kong might have a more positive impact on childrens literacy development than the approach followed in Shenzhen. Implications of the findings for early childhood curriculum reform are discussed.
[Copyright of Early Years: An International Journal of Research and Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2010.515944 ]