The authors report on the findings of a case study of parent-teacher conferences in a secondary school in Hong Kong. They explored through interviews parents' and teachers' perspectives of parent-teacher conferences. They noted that parent-teacher conferences were sources of stress for teachers and embarrassment for parents. Parent-teacher conferences were useful for problem-clarification. The building of mutual trust was the most important conferencing skill. They drew out some practical guidelines which were useful to teachers of the case study school but are also valuable to all teachers who wish to work effectively and positively with parents.
[Copyright of Pastoral Care in Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-0122.00186]

Thinking skills are critically important for later success in school. However, teachers and parents may have different perceptions of what constitutes thinking skills and the extent to which thinking skills should be taught in the classroom. Their views on their respective roles in fostering thinking skills may also differ. Such disagreements about both pedagogy and curriculum reflect differences in beliefs concerning the value of thinking skills. A survey questionnaire was administered to forty teachers and forty parents of Hong Kong preschoolers. Teachers and parents revealed their ideas about: (1) what constitutes thinking skills; (2) their perceptions on the importance of thinking skills in the lives of children, within and outside the classroom, for the present and in the future; (3) what strategies they employ to foster thinking skills in young children; and (4) their perceived roles in facilitating thinking skills. Whether from teachers or parents, the responses revealed the need for more adult understanding and support for children's thinking as a process. Responses were analyzed according to the coding system developed by Leah Adams. Implications for teacher and parent education are discussed.
[Copyright of Early Child Development and Care is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0300443022000022495]

A total of 378 Hong Kong adolescents estimated their own and their parents' IQ score on each of Gardner's 10 multiple intelligences: verbal (linguistic), logical (mathematical), spatial, musical, body‐kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, existential, spiritual and naturalistic. They answered three simple questions concerning intelligence and intelligence tests. There were sex differences in eight of the 10 self‐estimates except for verbal and interpersonal. Male participants gave higher scores than female participants. Factor analyses of the 10 dimensions yielded a two‐interpretable‐factor solution: personal–social–spiritual intelligence and academic–arts–kinesthetic intelligence. There were consistent sex differences in the estimates of the academic–arts–kinesthetic intelligence factor for oneself, but not for parents, while there were sex differences in the estimates of the personal–social–spiritual intelligence factor for oneself and for mother, but not for father. The two factor scores were predicted by both gender and belief about intelligence.
[Copyright of High Ability Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13598130600618009]

Eighty-six Hong Kong Chinese kindergarten children were pretested on the Preschool and Primary Chinese Literacy Scale (PPCLS) and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - Third Edition (PPVT-III), and assigned randomly within schools to 1 of 3 conditions, dialogic reading, typical reading and control. After an 8-week intervention, the children were posttested. Results indicated a significant main group effect for performance on both the PPCLS and the PPVT-III, with children in the dialogic reading group benefiting significantly from the intervention. These results indicate that early literacy-related activities in the home have strong and direct effects on both children's literacy growth and language development in Chinese. The success of the dialogic reading technique in this study contributes to the goal of raising global literacy standards and educational achievement.
[Copyright of Early Education & Development is the property of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15566935eed1402_6 ]

The present study investigates the views of Hong Kong parents on kindergarten education. A questionnaire was designed to examine the reasons for parents to send their children to kindergartens, their concept of kindergarten education, their views on kindergarten teachers' work and training. There were 14,328 returned questionnaires. The findings indicate that parents had positive attitudes towards kindergarten education; they thought that kindergarten education was important for their children and that well qualified teachers were necessary for kindergarten education.
[Copyright of Early Child Development and Care is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0300443991590103 ]