This article examines whether the later development of awareness of gender issues in Hong Kong compared to Australia is reflected in patterns of gender representation in the English language textbooks published in these two places. A comparison of 10 currently-used Australian books with 10 Hong Kong books revealed that such awareness has impacted most on the use of gender-inclusive terms and symmetrical phrases in both places. The Australian writers tended to use generic they while their Hong Kong counterparts preferred either the coordination he or she or 'generic' he. Both sets of writers maintained the convention of male-first presentation, depicted women in a more limited range of social roles, and presented stereotyped images of women as weaker and more passive than men, and as operating primarily within domestic domains. The visual representations also reinforced traditional gendered roles. Hong Kong textbook writers, nevertheless, paid more heed to the inclusion of females visually. Controversy persists over whether textbook writers should reflect reality or whether they should lead social change and strive for gender equality.
[Copyright of Journal of Gender Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09589231003695856]

Two scales of mothers' mediation of their children's writing based on Aram and Levin (2001) were developed and tested in 67 mother-child Hong Kong Chinese dyads in three grade levels - second-year kindergarten, third-year kindergarten, and first grade. With children's ages, grades, and non-verbal IQs, as well as mothers' education levels statistically controlled in a regression equation, the four strategies of the 'Print Mediation' scale, a measure of mother-child joint writing productions, explained a unique 10% of the variance in children's word reading. These four strategies tended to change with age such that higher autonomy was more common among older children and lower autonomy was more prevalent among younger children. In a separate hierarchical regression equation, the 'Literate Mediation' scale, tapping specific writing strategies, explained a unique 8-11% of the variance in children's word reading. A prevalence of copying strategies tended to be negatively associated with reading skill and a prevalence of morphologically based strategies tended to be positively associated with reading skill, even apart from age and grade level. Findings demonstrate some strong developmental trends in the writing process but also suggest that a more analytic approach to Chinese character writing may be helpful for literacy development, even among the youngest children.
[Copyright of Language and Cognitive Processes is the property of Psychology Press. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01690960801970615]

This study investigated the fundamental motor skill proficiency of Hong Kong children ages 6-9. Ninety-one male and 76 female Chinese students (mean age = 7.6 years) from six local primary schools in Hong Kong participated in this study. The Test of Gross Motor Development-Second Edition (TGMD-2) was administrated to assess the mastery of gross motor skills by an experienced physical education instructor. The performance was videotaped, and it was rated by the same physical education instructor again (1 week apart) to show the reliability (0.88-0.97). Results showed that the participants were in general superior to the normative samples from the TGMD-2 manual, scoring a gross motor quotient (GMQ) of 56.8-80.9. Overall, 24% of the participants were rated as superior, 36% as above average, 47% as average, and 2% as below average. Excellent proficiency (>80% in every subitem) was observed in running, galloping, leaping, sliding, catching, and throwing skills. In comparing the results with other studies, we found that the participants were superior to the data reported in previous studies in United States, Brazil, and Australia. This study added valuable information to the establishment of a worldwide normative reference for the comparison of future studies in other countries.
[Copyright of Research in Sports Medicine is the property of Taylor & Francis Inc.. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15438620902897516]

This study aimed to compare the adaptation of two groups of migrant Chinese adolescents with their nonmigrant peers. The migrant adolescents included 55 Chinese migrant adolescents who migrated to Australia (Chinese-Australian) and 111 China-born adolescents who migrated to Hong Kong (Chinese-Hong Kong). The nonmigrant adolescents included 157 Anglo-Australian adolescents residing in Australia and 456 Hong Kong-born Chinese adolescents residing in Hong Kong. There were three research questions in this study. First, would there be any differences in the adaptation of Chinese migrant adolescents in different societies of settlement? Second, would migrant adolescents experience more adaptation problems than nonmigrant adolescents? Third, would there be any differences in the adaptation of adolescents in the two societies, Australia and Hong Kong? It was hypothesized that: (1) mainland Chinese migrant adolescents in Hong Kong would experience more adaptation problems than Chinese migrant adolescents in Australia; (2) migrant adolescents would report better adaptation than nonmigrant adolescents; (3) adolescents in Hong Kong would report poorer adaptation than adolescents in Australia. The participants were requested to complete a questionnaire on various adaptation outcome measures including life satisfaction, self-esteem, psychological symptoms, academic satisfaction, and behaviour problems. The results indicated that Chinese-Australian adolescents reported better psychological adaptation but Chinese-Hong Kong adolescents reported better sociocultural adaptation. Adolescents resident in Australia reported higher psychological adaptation but lower sociocultural adaptation than those in Hong Kong. Migrant adolescents reported better psychological and sociocultural adaptation than their nonmigrant counterparts. The results were discussed in relation to the social and educational systems of the two societies.
[Copyright of International Journal of Psychology is the property

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between learning preferences of East Asian and American higher education students. A review of the literature revealed a body of qualitative studies suggesting a stereotypical perception of an Asian learning preference influenced by cultural variables and the historical roots of Confucianism. The pedagogical implications of this stereotypical perception are obvious to faculty engaged in teaching and learning with Asian international students in America or abroad. The authors surveyed 233 higher education students from Hong Kong and America using the VARK Questionnaire. The authors used a two-way contingency table analysis and chi-square statistical tests to conduct their cross-cultural comparison on their variables of interest including age, gender, and country.
[Copyright of Journal of Criminal Justice Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10511250903200485]

In a time of mass schooling in most parts of the world, the discourse of the owoman primary teachero is often the subject of discourse. Yet most stories of these women teachers emerge from other (Western) contexts, with little known about how changing education processes affect the gendered identities of women in other cultural settings. This paper explores how women teachers negotiate their gendered identities in Hong Kong, where modernization has already mingled with the indigenous Chinese culture. It provides the stories of four Chinese women teachers as they engage in ongoing construction and negotiations of gendered identities over their life histories in Hong Kong. All are ethnically Chinese, of different ages and at different stages of their personal and professional lives, and all have grown up in Hong Kong. A framework of post-colonial concepts of hybridity and border crossing helps to suggest how identity resources develop in relation to a range of contemporary practices which are experienced as both pressures and opportunities. These Chinese women teachers' identities are seen to be complex, fluid and multi-faceted, continually under construction in their daily lives, with changes experienced in both work and family settings.
[Copyright of Asia Pacific Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02188791003721978]