This cross-cultural study examines early childhood professionals' perceptions of their social status, working conditions, and public appreciation in seven countries/territories: Guatemala, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Mexico, Peru, and the United States of America. One hundred eighteen participants, consisting of preschool and elementary school educators, program directors, child psychologists, and professors of early childhood education, responded to six questions through electronic, printed, and face-to-face contacts. The cross-cultural data revealed a high degree of agreement on these professionals' perceptions of their social standing, income, work responsibilities, and public appreciation. Results indicate that participants felt discouraged and underappreciated in their current circumstances and aspired to additional financial and emotional support, as well as greater respect from their governments and society.
[Copyright of Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10901020701366764]

The study examined goal orientations, perceived parenting styles, and their relationships in a sample of Hong Kong teacher education students. It was found that students adopted both learning and performance goals but tended to be more performance goal-oriented. Females were more performance goal-oriented than males. As well, students perceived their most influential parents to be authoritative. In terms of gender, authoritativeness was more effective with females and authoritarianism worked better with males. It was found that perceived parenting styles predicted goal orientations. Authoritativeness was significantly and positively related to learning goals, whereas authoritativeness and authoritarianism were significantly and positively related to performance goals. Besides main effects, there were interaction effects between gender and parenting styles on goal orientations. Cultural and contextual factors were considered in interpreting the findings.
[Copyright of Educational Psychology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443410601066636]

In this short paper, we review the geographical education research carried out in Hong Kong and discuss their relevance to teacher education. The methodologies used in these reviewed studies will also form part of our discussion here.
[Copyright of International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10382040308667538]

This article first reviews important issues of language, power, and testing. It then examines in critical fashion a particular instance of the use of language testing by the Hong Kong government, namely, the Language Proficiency Assessment for Teachers (LPAT). Treating the LPAT developments as a form of narrative rather than debate, it presents analysis through a context-events-problem-solution-evaluation discourse sequence that perpetuates nonresolution. This procedure permits ongoing reference to and evaluation of the political, educational, and language setting, the schizophrenic position of English, government language policy documentation, the test itself, and media coverage of the results. It indicates the detrimental effects of the LPAT for test-takers, for learning, and for the community at large, advancing and justifying some alternatives and explaining why such lines of resistance lie beyond the purview of most teacher victims. It concludes that the LPAT examination should be heeded both as an early sign of increasingly illiberal political tendencies and as a warning example of bad educational practice.
[Copyright of Journal of Language Identity and Education is the property of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15327701jlie0403_2]

A number of studies have indicated that the successful pedagogical use of technology depends on teachers' attitudes and acceptance towards technology. In order to predict and understand teachers' technology use and acceptance, a well- defined framework is essential. The purpose of the present paper attempts to explore a model to understand teacher acceptance of e-learning technology. A self-reported questionnaire was designed to examine teacher acceptance and attitude towards an online learning platform. Data were collected from 152 in-service teachers who were studying in a part-time teacher education program in Hong Kong. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used as the core framework for analysis while additional constructs were added in order to find a better model to understand teacher acceptance of e-learning technology. A composite model including five constructs, namely, intention to use, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, subjective norm and computer self-efficacy, were formed and tested in the study. LISREL was used in the data analysis. It was found that subjective norm and computer self-efficacy serve as the two significant perception anchors of the fundamental constructs in TAM. However, contrary to previous literature, perceived ease of use became the sole determinant to the prediction of intention to use, while perceived usefulness was non-significant to the prediction of intention to use. Altogether, subjective norm, computer self- efficacy and perceived ease of use were able to explain 68 percent of the variance observed in users' intention to use the e-learning system. Implications to teacher education and teacher professional development are discussed.
[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/10.1080/13598660802232779]

A survey study was conducted to investigate the epistemological beliefs of 352 student teachers of the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Schommer's 63-item questionnaire was used in the survey study with Schommer's 12 conceptual subscales as variables in Principal Axis Factoring (PAF) analysis followed by varimax and oblimin rotation. Three factors were generated with an eigen value of 1.00 as cut-off. Some features distinct from Schommer's studies were identified. The three factors were complex, with two to three subscales representing different dimensions loaded together. The subscale concerned with Omniscient Authority, which was not reported in Schommer's findings, substantively loaded in one of the factors. Social-cultural factors were suggested to account for the apparent differences in factor structure obtained in this study, with implications drawn for teacher education. Revision of Schommer's questionnaire was suggested to study epistemological beliefs for local context.
[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/10.1080/135986600750034841]