As in most countries, human rights education (HRE) in Hong Kong has never been high on the educational agenda. In 2009, a compulsory subject, Liberal Studies (LS), which could be used as a platform for HRE, was introduced. The Hong Kong Institute of Education launched a research and development project which, as one of its objectives, studied LS teachers' attitudes towards human rights and Rule of Law. This article first provides a brief overview of HRE. Then, the potential of HRE in LS will be discussed, followed by an introduction of the research project. Subsequently, the research design and findings will be presented. The findings reveal that there is a large gap between teachers' understandings of human rights and international human rights standards. Since LS teachers' attitudes are crucial for effective HRE, the findings are quite striking. The paper ends with recommendations for further research, policy formulations, and teacher preparation.
[Copyright of Intercultural Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2012.716725]

The field experience component in a teacher education programme serves both a gate-keeping function and a formative purpose that supports student teacher development. The authors were members of a research team which took care of the re-design of the assessment instrument for the field experience component of a teacher education programme, as well as conducting a pilot implementation test. The new assessment instrument, referred to as a Professional Development Progress Map, was developed with reference to the professional standards formulated by an official teacher education policy advisory body. This paper looks into the comments of the users, that is the supervisors and the student teachers (or participants, as in-service teachers were involved in the pilot implementation test) after the pilot implementation test. Findings suggest difficulties in using the Progress Map as a summative assessment instrument regarding the determination of grades and levels, making judgements based on observable performance and collection of evidence, and difficulty in assessing the domain 'Involvement in Education Community'. The discussion highlights the dilemma related to the use of professional standards as summative assessment instruments, and how users may be re-orientated to enhance the formative purpose. The paper concludes with suggestions on prudent use of the Progress Map.
[Copyright of Teacher Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530802259289]

Following initiations in educational reform that began in the 1990s, Hong Kong continues to experience considerable pressure for educational reform. On the surface many of these initiatives parallel reform policies/movements in Asia and indeed, globally. The success of any reform is dependent on how it is contextualised prior to and at implementation. In this article, an exploration is made into how reforms in four particular sareas, namely: professional development of principals, higher education, English language standards, and inclusion of students with learning difficulties have been conceived, contextualised and managed in Hong Kong, as it moves gradually toward increased adoption of education reforms. These areas are linked in that each describes and critiques contextualization with reference to areas such as accountability, co-operation and professional control.
[Copyright of Education Policy Analysis Archives is the property of College of Education, Arizona State University.
Access via Directory of Open Access Journals: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/]

This study uses data collected from children in Hong Kong for the PIRLS international reading survey of 2001. A total of 4867 students aged 9 to 10 years from 147 primary schools were assessed. The aim of the study is to investigate the observed differences in comprehension skills displayed in the test results from students at three ability levels. Affective factors (attitudes and reading self-concept) are also compared for the three groups. Results indicate that the lower-ability students performed very poorly in all four processes of comprehension even at the most basic level of retrieval of facts. This weakness at the lower level greatly impaired the students' ability to operate at higher levels of comprehension involving inference, prediction, integration of ideas and critical evaluation. The weakest readers had extreme difficulty with test items requiring an extended written response. Even on simple multiple-choice items their performance was inferior to the average and higher-ability groups. Data from the supplementary questionnaires indicates that across all ability groups the children's attitude toward reading is correlated positively with reading achievement. However, data collected on the students' reading self-concept produced anomalous results that cast some doubt on the feasibility of using self-evaluation and self-report questionnaires with this age and cultural group. Practical implications from the findings are discussed.
[Copyright of Australian Journal of Learning Disabilities is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19404150509546781]