This paper examines the role of specific and place-based social capital in the recognition and evaluation of international credentials. Whilst research on labour market segmentation has contributed towards an understanding of the spatial variability of the value of human capital, very little attention has been paid to the ways in which the credentials of more privileged social groups may in certain local contexts become valorised. At the same time, an increasing body of work in sociology has drawn attention to the globalisation of credentials and labour market competition. This paper brings together these perspectives, demonstrating how transnational social connections are put to work in the valourisation of 'overseas credentials' within a particular local labour market - Hong Kong's financial services sector. It reveals the extent to which social capital, which is at once transnational and locally embedded, confers value upon particular international credentials, with consequences for individuals' employment prospects. The paper stresses the continuing need to examine international academic credentials in localised contexts.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14767720902907895]

The present study aims at further examining an interesting finding of a recent empirical research on Hong Kong adults' participation in African drumming from a sociological perspective by adopting some Bourdieuan concepts. Results of the semi-structured interviews with 82 informants with diverse musical backgrounds and occupations concur that African drumming was hardly evident in Hong Kong before 1991, but related learning programmes have burgeoned in recent years. This study finds that the rise of African drumming among adult music learners over the past two decades in Hong Kong where the African residents only amount to a very small proportion (less than 0.3%) of the total population is the consequence of the two-phase habituation of a receptive attitude towards the ethnic musical tradition. The new habitus has been gradually formulated by highly acknowledged individual and group, first in the field of professional education of percussionists and later in the field of community music, where the cultural capital of African drumming has been increasingly convertible into symbolic capital and economic returns.
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Learning plays a key role in ageing societies as it can help to address many of the related challenges and opportunities. Opportunities to learn should be given to senior citizens through appropriate local lifelong learning programmes. There is a need to improve research and development on learning tools and approaches designed to meet the different needs of older people. ICT has an important role to play in developing learning opportunities for older people both as a topic in its own right and as a means of learning in the so called knowledge society. This paper reports on a Hong Kong case survey understanding the role of ICT in lifelong learning for elderly and its impact of learning activity. The survey results suggest numbers of areas should be taken into consideration for older people as both learners and mentors.
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