This study used interviews with three important groups of stakeholders in kindergartens, namely principals, teachers, and parents, to explore their perspectives on, and practices of, home-school partnership in early childhood education. The participants were six kindergarten principals, 12 teachers, and 12 parents, from six Hong Kong kindergartens. The study reveals that principals, teachers and parents have consistent perceptions of the importance of home-school partnership. They also show a wide range of home-school partnership activities have been implemented, even though the establishment of a parent-teacher association (PTA) is not common. Participants saw time limitations and the parents' lack of knowledge relevant to home-school partnership as the main barriers to its implementation. While strategies have been suggested to tackle time barriers, no strategies were discussed to overcome educators' and parents' worries over parents' lack of competency. The findings suggest that more teacher training should be provided to focus on skills that enable educators to better communicate and work with parents from diverse backgrounds to overcome barriers related to parents' lack of competency perceived by principals and teachers. Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Background: Teachers' subjective well-being (SWB) has received much attention, in the light of the major increase in sick leave as well as job quitting among teachers across different cultures and countries. Studies on SWB of kindergarten teachers are still scarce, since most of the academic literature is focused on teachers of primary and secondary schools.Aims: The purpose of this study was to analyze and compare kindergarten teachers' SWB in Hong Kong and Italy.Methods: 367 Hong Kong and 243 Italian kindergarten teachers completed a self-report questionnaire containing: the Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES), and the General Health Questionnaires-12 (GHQ-12). The questionnaire collected also socio-demographics data.Results: Hierarchical regression analysis showed that country belonging plays the strongest predictive role on self-esteem and mental health. Moreover, the independent t-test showed higher levels of job satisfaction among Italian teachers, while Hong Kong teachers were more satisfied in pay and promotion, but less in supervision, operating condition, co-worker relationship, nature of work, and communication.Conclusion: Results are interpreted in the light of the differences between the two contexts considered, in terms of cultural values and educational systems. Copyright © 2018 Benevene, Wong, Fiorilli and De Stasio.

Decoding and language comprehension skills have been found to be the core components of reading comprehension across many writing systems. The present study examined the contributions of vocabulary and some discourse-level skills to reading comprehension in Chinese in addition to that of decoding. One hundred and seventeen Chinese second and third graders in Hong Kong were tested on decoding, vocabulary, discourse-level skills, and verbal working memory. Results of multiple regression analyses showed that the discourse-level skills contributed an additional 5% of variance to reading comprehension over decoding, vocabulary, and other control variables, and all factors accounted for a total of 70% variance in reading comprehension. Further path analysis showed that all the direct paths of word reading, vocabulary, text-structure knowledge, and topic knowledge to reading comprehension were significant. Vocabulary also contributed to reading comprehension through indirect paths to discourse-level knowledge. The present findings support the simple view of reading with elaborations on the language comprehension component, namely, (a) vocabulary is a foundational language skill for text comprehension through its role on discourse-level knowledge, and (b) some discourse-level knowledge also plays an important role in passage comprehension. Copyright © 2018 Cambridge University Press.

Under-examination of the notion of competition between schools has created a considerable asymmetry between the reality and the literature of schooling. Therefore, this study investigates the validity of school competition and verifies the propositions regarding the effects of school marketing practices in literature, particularly DSS and aided schools in Hong Kong. It tests the relationships between student intake and school academic performance and school marketing practices. It also compares the pattern of the relationships between the Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS) and aided secondary schools. Secondary data from 441 secondary schools were retrieved from a popular secondary school admission magazine in Hong Kong and from the schools’ websites. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the school’s academic performance was positively related to discretionary student intake. In addition, marketing school academic performance, but not marketing school features, was positively related to student intake. Lastly, it was found that marketing school academic performance intensified the relationship between the school’s academic performance and student intake in aided schools but not in DSS schools. The results were interpreted as demonstrating that school competition in Hong Kong is a battle of lifting academic performance. Copyright © 2019 Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

閱讀和評賞中國古典詩歌，對現今的學生頗有挑戰。畢竟在語言、生活經驗和社會文化方面，古今都有很大差異；李商隱詩，也一向被認為較難閱讀。本研究團隊以香港教育大學中文選修科目「專家詩」為平台，選講李商隱詩，借用台灣學者簡錦松研究唐詩時提倡的「現地研究法」，利用衞星地圖、網上資源局部還原詩歌的寫作場景。導師以之實踐「情景教學」，並引入「混成學習」元素，引導學生利用高端科技結合傳統箋評，進行古典詩歌的評賞。本研究採用量化和質化方法，分析教學過程收集的數據，評量這種嶄新詩歌教學方法的效果。最後對其優勢和限制作出評估，並提出應用上的可行建議。 Reading and appreciating classical Chinese poetry is challenging for students nowadays. It is because the language used, life experience and social culture are greatly different between ancient and modern times. Moreover, Li Shangyin’s poems had always been considered difficult to read and understand. The research team used “Works of Major Poets” as a research platform, which was an elective course in Chinese major undergraduate programmes in The Education University of Hong Kong, to teach Li Shangyin’s poems. The team used a research methodology named “On-site Studies”, which is used by a Taiwan Scholar Prof. Chien Chin Sung while studying Poetry of Tang Dynasty. Also, satellite maps and online resources were used to partially restore the poetry writing scenes. At the same time, the Instructor embedded “Situation Teaching” and introduced “Blended Learning” elements, to guide students combining high technology with traditional interpretation method during poems appreciation. This study applied quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the data collected during the teaching process and evaluated the effectiveness of this new poetry teaching method. Finally, an assessment of its strengths and limitations was made and provided feasible recommendations for this new teaching strategy. Copyright © 2018 The Education University of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong, along with other Asian societies with universities with top world rankings, has in recent years attracted an increasing number of international students, mainly from Asia. Previous research in English-speaking Western countries has indicated the importance of resources, including language proficiency, positive intergroup relations, and social support, in understanding international students’ stress and coping in cross-cultural adaptation. Guided by a similar acculturative stress and coping framework, we investigated predictors of psychological and sociocultural adaptation in a survey sample of 726 international students (62% female and 73% Asian-born) from Hong Kong public universities. We found that English language proficiency, social support, and a low level of perceived discrimination fostered both types of cross-cultural adaptation, while contact with local students and proficiency in the local dialect further enhanced sociocultural adaptation. Implications for future acculturation research and higher education internationalization policies and practices are discussed. Copyright © 2019 European Association for International Education.

Physical education in Hong Kong has gone through considerable changes over the past 50 years. Still, the pace and the status were relatively slower and lower compared with other subjects. The 1990s saw a gradual shift from sport-oriented to health-focused sports culture. This shift was chiefly highlighted when physical education became one of the eight key learning areas in the millennium year education reform. This article summarizes the major changes over the past 50 years of school physical education in Hong Kong, and anticipates the positioning of the future physical education.香港的體育在過去的五十年經歷了相當大的變化。不過，變化的步伐相比其他科目還是較慢，其地位也相對較低。從九十年代的競技運動面向逐漸轉向較注重健康的體育文化。這種轉變，促使體育在千禧年的教育改革之中成為了八大學習領域之一。本文總結這五十年來的香港體育的轉變情況，並為體育教育的未來定位作一展望。 Copyright © 2014 Hong Kong Baptist University.

The Tier 2 Program of the Project P.A.T.H.S. (Positive Adolescent Training through Holistic Social Programmes) aims to provide tailor-made programs to adolescents with greater psychosocial needs. Based on the subjective outcome evaluation data collected from 196 schools, the program implementers were asked to write down five conclusions in the evaluation reports. Results demonstrated that most of the conclusions pertaining to perceptions of the Tier 2 Program, instructors, and perceived effectiveness of the programs were positive in nature. Nevertheless, there were also conclusions that reflected the obstacles encountered and suggestions for improvements. Congruent with the previous evaluation findings, the current study suggests that the Tier 2 Program was well received by the stakeholders, and the evaluation findings generally suggest that the program was beneficial to the development of the program participants. Copyright © 2010 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin New York.