This paper is based on research investigating Hong Kong Chinese teachers' and students' perceptions of junior secondary students' concerns and of the causes of students' difficulties. Responses from 2,045 secondary students and 214 teachers revealed that both students and teachers had similar systems of beliefs about students' concerns and the causes of students' difficulties. As dimensions of most students' concerns, both groups referred to study and educational future; friendship; physical appearance; relationships at home, with peers and at school; and psychological well-being and maladjusted behaviour. Both groups in various degrees attributed students' difficulties to students themselves, the family, school or peers. Employing Moscovici's theory of social representation as a conceptual framework, the findings illustrated that students' concerns and causal attribution are social representations shared by both student and teacher groups. Mismatch between students' and teachers' perceptions was more a divergence of views than a disparity. Students' and teachers' different social identities and their protection of group self-esteem are offered as an explanation for the mismatch in perception.
[Copyright of Educational Research is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00131880110081044]

This study is part of a cross-cultural investigation that was initiated in Sweden followed by studies in Australia and Singapore. This paper shows how a phenomenographic approach may be used to reveal the qualitatively different ways in which 40 students in Hong Kong primary and secondary schools experience and understand the phenomenon of graphic representations of quantitative data. An outcome space depicting four variations of the children's understanding are revealed.
[Copyright of Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0031383990430102]

Using data gathered directly from over 100 executive MBA students in Hong Kong, this article reveals the reasons why executives decide to pursue an MBA and highlights significant differences in motivations by gender, age, educational background, and working experience that have important implications for MBA course and program developers.
[Copyright of Journal of Education for Business is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08832320009599021]

Promoting social integration and meaning derived from activities can be effective approaches to facilitating basic and advanced development among young participants in the Summer Youth Program of Hong Kong. Its rationale rests on the humanist perspective, which emphasizes the individual's deriving meaning and maintaining affiliation with people. To examine the effects of these experiences in the program, the study employed a pre-post design to survey 799 adolescent participants' experiences with the program and their basic (more emphasis on potential. skill, and social well-being) and advanced (more emphasis on civic responsibility, volunteerism, and transcendence) development. Results reveal that experience of the social integration approach tended to increase young participants' basic development, whereas experience of meaning in program activities appeared to induce advanced development.
[Copyright of Journal of Social Service Research is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J079v31n02_01]