The phenomenological qualitative study was conducted to present the in-depth and collective individual experiences in this study. The aim of the study was to uncover the essences of lived experiences of the caregivers with rearing their children in secondary school.Due to the nature of studying a marginalized community, purposeful sampling was adopted to recruit the informants who have the experiences of bringing up a child with diagnosed with dyslexia, and their child had experienced in local secondary schools in Hong Kong. Over the period 2017-19, twelve parents were invited and finally involved in the in-depth interviews. Consent form was conducted before the interview, and the researcher informed all informants the interview processes and the purpose of the study before the interviews through the phone and/or email.Qualitative data analyses through a software package Nvivo. Seven overarching themes were yielded, 1) Feeling frustrated in parent-school collaboration; 2) Feeling discriminated about their children’s experience; 3) Facing emotional difficulties in care-taking; 4) Feeling relieved and be more reflective; 5) Feeling powerless but critical to the education system and Confucian culture; 6) Feeling stressful in financial support; and 7) Feeling resilient in difficult time. The result revealed that parents of children with dyslexia were quite common to have unpleasant experiences in collaboration with schools, encountered misunderstandings and conflicts. They often felt worried, stressful, helpless, powerless, and discriminated in school, even in society, but resilient at the end. In the process of collaboration, although they have not much positive experience in cooperation with schools, most of them finally become stronger to face various difficulties in their lives.The current findings should be a signal to the education bureau to review their policy who promote the inclusive education in Hong Kong. In addition, educators, parents, school counsellor, school

This study contributes to the Western-normed whole-day versus half-day kindergarten debate with Asian-focused evidence from a longitudinal study on parental perceptions, needs, and decisions in the privatised kindergarten marketplace in Hong Kong. The parents of children attending the whole-day and half-day programmes were surveyed in the first two years of kindergarten. Both programmes were perceived to possess distinctive qualities and parents reflected an effortful quest for an optimal home–work–life balance. Two-step cluster analysis identified three parent profiles – the Slightest Needs, the Moderate Needs, and the Urgent Needs – differentiated by family income, parents' occupation and education, and residence ownership. Finally, logistic regression analyses predicting parental decisions found a shift from a socioeconomic orientation to an educational orientation. The findings indicate that the ‘either or’ thinking in this debate is problematic as what parents need is not the ‘best’ programme but the best ‘fit’. The 4As approach – allocation, affordability, availability, and accessibility, was proposed for policy refinement to cater for evolving societal, familial, and educational dynamics.

本研究旨在深入瞭解個案幼稚園並深入分析其幼兒生命教育課程的特色， 明白其具體的教學情境脈絡， 及其家長參與的方式和成效，藉此瞭解家長參與到校本幼兒生命教育課程的意義所在。 目的在於探討以下問題： 課程的設計理念是如何發展而來的？其具體實施歷程是如何進行的？課程的成效如何？ 以及對各方面的意義及其影響為何？本研究使用混合研究方法，以質性個案研究為主，量化分析為輔， 透過文本分析、實地觀察、問卷分析、訪談記錄等方法，蒐集撰寫論文所需的資料， 對象包含個案幼稚園的幼兒、家長、老師和行政人員，從多角度探究個案幼稚園讓家長參與到校本幼兒生命教育課程的具體實施過程、 成效及其意義所在。綜合研究發現，本研究獲得以下結論： (一)課程的實施歷程是一個互動感染的過程； (二)課程的成效顯著； (三)課程的舉辦對不同持分者均產生影響：讓幼兒有更多機會從日常生活中學習到生命教育議題；讓家長明白不要把所有重心放在子女身上，應該先要懂得愛自己，才有足夠能力愛子女；讓老師得到成長的機會，擴闊人生智慧和視野；可以讓幼稚園與家庭及幼兒連繫在一起，共同達到生命培育的目標。綜合上述研究結果，研究者分別對幼稚園、老師、家長及未來的研究方向提出了相關建議。All rights reserved.

This article reports the findings of a multi-site qualitative study of 31 Chinese homeschooling families in Taipei and Hong Kong. Homeschooling, a significant source of inspiration for school innovation, has been growing around the globe in recent years, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighting the challenges facing mainstream schools. The findings reveal that the families under study chose to homeschool their children mainly because they were dissatisfied with mainstream schools in the Chinese context, which, as they described, were not sufficiently child-centric. Notably, their homeschooling practices were highly diversified and hybridised, including a variety of organisational methods, actors, and materials. Based on lessons learned from homeschooling, the findings indicate the need for mainstream schools to reimagine their relations with families and the outside world in terms of pedagogic time, space, relations, and resources to better respond to every student’s unique needs as well as the challenges ahead in the post-pandemic world. Copyright © 2023 Educational Review.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought challenges to families around the world. The prolonged school closures in Hong Kong have forced young students to stay at home and adapt to remote learning for over a year, putting their mental health conditions at risk. Focusing on primary school students and their parents, the main objective of our research is to investigate the socioemotional factors and their associations with mental health conditions. Methods: A total of 700 Hong Kong primary schoolers (mean age = 8.2) reported their emotional experiences, loneliness, and academic self-concept via a user-friendly online survey; 537 parents reported depression and anxiety, perceived child depression and anxiety, and social support. Responses from students and parents were paired to account for the family context. Structural Equation Modeling was used for correlations and regressions. Results: The results of students’ responses showed that positive emotional experiences were negatively associated with loneliness and positively related to academic self-concept among students. Furthermore, the paired sample results showed that, during the one-year societal lockdown and remote learning period, the socioemotional factors were associated with mental health conditions among primary school students and their parents. Among our family sample in Hong Kong, evidence supports the unique negative association between students-reported positive emotional experiences and parents-reported child depression and anxiety, as well as between social support and parents’ depression and anxiety. Conclusions: These findings highlighted the associations between socioemotional factors and mental health among young primary schoolers during the societal lockdown. We thus call for more attention to the societal lockdown and remote learning context, especially since the social distancing practice could be “the new normal” for our society to handle the future pandemic crisis. Copyright © 2023 The Author

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about an unprecedented challenge to global education. It has changed how many of us, especially our children, learn and gain valuable insights into parenting needs concerning online learning, and digital literacy is more important than ever. However, the digital divide and educational equity have been sharpened amidst the ongoing pandemic; people without access to Information and Communications Technologies are even more disadvantaged than before. In Hong Kong, remote learning has increased exponentially since the outbreak in early 2020, and it has been continued under the “new normal”- which students and educators need to manage and integrate technology into their everyday teaching and learning cycle. When it is specifically essential to ensure equal and inclusive access to remote learning for students, parental involvement should arouse more prominent attention. The emerging problem has been shifting from the opportunity of access to technology to digitally illiterate parents. Hence, this paper will discuss the long-lasting issue between the digital divide and education inequality in Hong Kong, and recommend bridging the digital divide should focus more on nurturing parental digital citizenship and literacy so they can appropriately facilitate the co-learning process with their children in this “new normal” era effectively. Copyright © 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

In Hong Kong, which transitioned from a colonial to post-colonial One Country-Two Systems structure, sustainability implementation rests on two institutional pillars: education, which drives the city’s knowledge-based economy, and family system. In light of the recent policy demands to strengthen higher education and family systems by capitalizing on the unique advantages of the post-colonial era, the purpose of this study was to: (1) describe and analyze sustainability values of the first-year university students; and (2) investigate roles of family and educational systems in the process of their formation. The mix-method study stressed the importance of discerning and analyzing sustainability value formation in order to create in-depth understanding of the curricular adjustments that align the sustainability mindset of Hong Kong students in the context of the One Country-Two Systems under the pressing demands of global economy. The study relied on the use of two systems theoretical frameworks employed within sustainability education (Sterling, 2003) and family (Bowen, 1957/1974) fields. Data sources included questionnaires of 4985 Hong Kong first-year university students; and 31 semi-structured interviews of Liberal Studies teachers. The quantitative findings showed that 85% of the students believed that their family influenced their environmental values; reported a significant negative coefficient (-0.044) between the two student cohorts in relation to family influence; and showed that family influence on students’ sustainability values differed by gender. The qualitative results revealed the overarching themes of Family Income, Role Modeling, and Shared Responsibility as three major descriptors of family influences on sustainability values of Hong Kong students. Copyright © 2022 Springer.

Developing and maintaining good family relationships is associated with higher levels of wellbeing in children. This may be particularly the case in Hong Kong, where the state of children's mental health is poor, community services are limited, and help-seeking is stigmatized. School counselors, however, are well placed to facilitate parenting programs. Five Hong Kong Chinese parents who had completed a parenting course based on humanistic counseling principles in a school setting were interviewed. The data were analyzed using an interpretive phenomenological approach. Participants developed a repertoire of new skills and experienced a change in perception of their parental role, which they associated with improved child-parent relationships. A small, cohesive, and culturally validating group enabled them to develop and sustain new behaviors consistent with this new conceptualization of parenting. Offering parenting programs in a school setting with Asian parents may be an effective way for school counselors to work with parents. Copyright © 2022 Korean Counseling Association.

Using a content analysis method, this study develops a culturally based inventory of play categories from parents and children reports and explores how such types of play varies in environment and time. A total of 171 parent–child dyads from 13 Hong Kong kindergartens participated in the study. Results reveal that play practices reported from Hong Kong parents and children are categorised into four types. Data from parents and children show that a high frequency of symbolic and sociodramatic play is arranged on weekdays, whereas place-specific activity is the most frequently arranged in weekends. The qualitative quotes from parent and children interviews share the consistent view which reflects symbolic and sociodramatic play as the most liked activities. However, findings exhibit the inconsistent view on the most wanted play activities. Implications of these findings and suggestions about parental involvement and play facilitation for children are discussed. Copyright © 2022 Routledge.

The aim of this qualitative study is to understand how children aged between three to four years of age acquire the identity of a “pre-school” student within a Chinese context. By drawing on Foucault’s work in relation to various related discourses, as well as Actor Network Theory (ANT), this ethnographic study also tries to appreciate the role and place of objects in terms of children becoming “preschoolers”.The fieldwork that underpins this study took place at three Hong Kong preschools. These schools were selected because of their differences, as well as their similarities, in terms of approaches in delivering the curriculum. Qualitative methods, including observations and interviews, were used to capture children’s interactions with one another, with adults, and, importantly, with objects. A journal was kept throughout the study period and this, together with photographs of classroom life, enabled me to critically reflect on the study, so as to make sense of the lived experiences of the preschool students.This study stems from the poststructuralism and posthumanism premise that there are no universal or absolute truths in relation to acquiring a preschool identity. As a consequence, there is no attempt to produce “findings” in a scientific sense. However, the study does add to our knowledge and understanding of the process by which children acquire a preschool identity, and explores the profound role that objects play within these processes.By drawing on two theoretical frameworks, I was able to make two significant moves. First, Foucault’s work enabled me to appreciate how children are disciplined and regulated into what constitutes the “normal” or “ideal” preschooler. Foucault also allowed me to recognize how children themselves can undertake three practices: “refusal”, “curiosity”, and “innovation”, so as to experience alternative modes of being.Second, ANT allowed me to appreciate that objects have agency and are therefore actors. As “lively matter”, objects