Conceptions of learning and preferred learning approaches have been suggested to vary cross-culturally. The extent to which learning is 'student-centred' or 'teacher-centred' also appears subject to cultural variation. This has led some to conclude that particular cultures exhibit learning preferences more suited to distance learning than do other cultures. This article examines the strategies that students from varying cultural backgrounds use to manage the experience of the isolation of distance learning. Two distinct isolation experiences emerge that reflect differences in the perceptions of the student-teacher relationship. These, it is argued, can be classified as a 'surrogate teacher' model in the Asian cultures of Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia and a 'student identity' model in Europe.
[Copyright of Open Learning is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0268051032000131035]

This paper presents a comparative study of extra-musical learning in the music classes of the schools of Hong Kong and Taiwan, where education is geared towards democracy and citizenship at a time of unstable national identity for both communities. Taiwan has been undergoing a process of indigenisation since 1945, whilst Hong Kong's sovereignty was returned to the People's Republic of China after 1 July 1997. This paper argues that the transmission of extra-musical learning is essentially a response to the particular needs of these two Chinese historical-social contexts, which require their music curricula to be securely grounded in the ideology of a culturally based education for 'citizenship'. Despite different approaches to western-based musical knowledge in schools, Hong Kong and Taiwan attempt to promote a sense of national identity and an essentially Confucian set of moral values as a central goal of school music education. The promotion of ethno-cultural nationalism in Taiwan's music education is regarded as a democratic goal for the Taiwanese state, though in practice, the educational systems of both Taiwan and Hong Kong are coloured by the global context.
[Copyright of Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305792032000070066]

This study considered curricular and instructional influences on early Chinese literacy attainment in Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore. The participants included 198 pre‐school children, their teachers and parents. Children were administered the Pre‐school and Primary Chinese Literacy Scale at the age of either two or three years, and again one year later. Teachers were asked to report on their beliefs and practices related to literacy education, and classroom observations were conducted to determine the extent to which directives issued by the Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore governments were implemented. Investigation showed that there were marked differences across the societies in curriculum guidelines and approaches to literacy teaching. Results indicated that by the age of four, pre‐schoolers in Hong Kong and Singapore had significantly better Chinese literacy attainment than those in Beijing. Although age was the best predictor of attainment, location, teachers' qualifications and classroom experience also significantly contributed to children’s literacy attainment.
[Copyright of International Journal of Early Years Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09669760500295870]

Cross-cultural analysis of the effects of transformational leadership on organizational learning in elementary and secondary schools in Hong Kong, Western Australia, Canada (Manitoba), and Taiwan.
[Copyright of School Leadership & Management is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1363243022000053448]

Writers on colonial education have generally assumed that colonial curricula were tools of metropolitan political and cultural 'hegemony'. In particular, it is alleged that colonial history curricula neglected or ignored the histories of indigenous populations. Through analysing the case of Chinese History in Hong Kong, this article demonstrates that these assumptions are highly misleading. Far from exercising 'hegemonical' authority over the school curriculum, the colonial government was to a large extent the prisoner of its local collaborators. For reasons of political as well as educational expediency, in the post-war years the government initiated a conservative Chinese History curriculum to be taught alongside the separate subject of 'History'. Subsequently, a strong Chinese History subject community evolved, who by appealing to nationalist sentiment were able to resist successfully the calls for reform. As a result, efforts by both the colonial and post-colonial administrations to resolve the anomaly of having two history subjects have proved fruitless.
[Copyright of Oxford Review of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305498032000045386]

A group of Mainland Chinese engineering students were asked to respond to 12 questions by indicating their design conventions and expectations about operations, directions-of-motion, and descriptions of movement for items such as doors, keys, taps, and knobs. Chi-square tests demonstrated strong response stereo- types for tasks of all 12 questions. A comparison of the stereotype strengths found here with that of Hong Kong Chinese and American engineering students reported earlier indicated that stereotype strengths of engineering students from the three regions were generally different. For some cases stereotype characteristics of two regions were more alike than the other, and also for some subjects in the three regions performed similarly. The Mainland and Hong Kong Chinese were more alike in making their choices on questions of conceptual compatibility, while more consistent preferences on movement compatibility and spatial compatibility were noted between the Mainland Chinese and American students than Hong Kong Chinese.
[Reproduced with permission of author(s) and publisher from: Yu, L. R. F., & Chan, A. H. Comparative research on response stereotypes for daily operation tasks of Chinese and American engineering students. Perceptual & Motor Skills, 2004, 98, 179-191. © Perceptual & Motor Skills 2004 Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://ammonsscientific.com/link.php?N=3812]

After World War II, Chinese residents of Singapore demanded the establishment of local Chinese universities. The ruling regime, however, which was under the shadow of the neighboring Malay-dominated Malay Peninsula, was forced to suppress the development of such schools. In Hong Kong, the British needed to install a Chinese university to counter Beijing's and Taiwan's campaigns for recruiting students from the colony. As Hong Kong was a monoracial Chinese society, the government, not having to worry about the reaction of other indigenous groups, met this challenge by founding a fully recognized Chinese university. This research demonstrates that under diverse backgrounds of racial politics, state authorities have unequal latitudes to accommodate the educational institutions of subordinated racial groups. It also reveals that state education policies in small and dependent settings, unlike those in big and sovereign nations, are more susceptible to pressures from external powers and influences from the metropolis. These findings urge scholars to pay more attention to the factor of race and use comparative methods when employing the theories of state and hegemony to investigate education and power.
[Copyright of British Journal of Sociology of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0142569042000294174]