With more non-local (Mainland China and overseas) students admitted into the universities of Hong Kong, the student population on campus is becoming much more diversified. This study was a phenomenological inquiry into the social engagement experiences of local and non-local Chinese students in their first year at a university in Hong Kong. Qualitative data was obtained from 10 focus groups. The findings suggested that the majority of the students in the study were active in social engagement and most achieved a sense of belonging to the university or its sub-communities. The culture in student communities played an important role in students' social engagement. It pushed students to become intensively involved in out-of- class activities and challenged them to reflect on the direction in which they would carry this historical legacy forward in the diversifying campus.
[Copyright of Higher Education Research & Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2010.549462 ]

This article reports on a qualitative study that investigated the experiences of one group of English language teachers from the Chinese mainland who completed their teacher training in Hong Kong and have taken up full-time teaching positions in secondary schools within Hong Kong. Using the concept of teacher identity construction, and drawing upon the work of Wenger (1998) and Fairclough (2003), the study traced the trajectory of the participants' identity formation from their experiences as students in mainland China and as preservice teachers in a teacher education program in Hong Kong, to their employment as English language teachers in local secondary schools. The study examines the participants' discursive and participative practices to illustrate how their experiences, both as students in the Chinese mainland and as preservice teachers in Hong Kong, shaped their construction of teacher identities, as well as to show that their employment in Hong Kong schools represented a challenge to this identity formation process. Implications for attracting and retaining teachers for the Chinese mainland in Hong Kong are considered and implications for future research outlined.
[Copyright of Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1359866X.2010.540893]