Home economics has been a school subject in Hong Kong for over fifty years. It stayed mainly as a female subject until 1999 when a survey on Equal Opportunity in Education was carried out by the Hong Kong Equal Opportunities Commission. The report of that survey revealed that boys were generally deprived of the opportunity in learning home economics in the curriculum. Schools were alert to the situation and home economics has subsequently been offered to both boys and girls in a co-educational environment in most schools in recent years. However, the participation of boys in home economics has caused some concerns in the field. Teachers are particularly anxious of their interaction with boys in a once female-dominated learning environment. Despite they understand that gender bias can be a serious detriment to learning, many are aware that they lack the ability to foster a more equitable teacher-student interaction in the classroom in order to meet the learning needs of both genders. Studies which looked at teacher interactions with boys and girls in different subject areas are abundant, such as Mathematics and Science. However, published studies on interaction in home economics classes are rare particularly in Hong Kong context. This may due to the fact that its history in co-educational learning environment is still short in Hong Kong. This study is a pioneer work which aims to find out whether home economics in Hong Kong co-educational classes supports patriarchal patterns of domination by males as researched in many studies. It also examines whether classroom processes in home economics lessons sustain or break down barriers between the sexes. It is hoped that useful strategies can be generated from this study to help all students participate equally in the classrooms in general, and within home economics lessons in particular.

Few studies have attempted to study the perception of physical education of secondary school girls with 'non-participation' behaviours during physical education lessons. This paper tries to explore the differences of attitudes of 'non-participation' and 'ordinary' senior form school girls toward physical education in a single-sex school. Six students were purposely selected in the study. They were interviewed and invited to give comments on physical education in their school. Their behaviours in three physical education lessons were observed and recorded. Data in the study indicated that most students held 'sex stereotyped beliefs', however, only the 'non-participation' students showed alienated behaviours from the physical education lessons. Possible reasons for these were the difference between the 'non-participation' and 'ordinary' students on the perceived status and values of physical education within school. School administrators and physical educators should revise the school physical education curriculum and instructional behaviours in order to maintain the students interest and positive attitude toward physical education.
[Copyright © 1998 Department of Physical Education, Hong Kong Baptist University.]

Gender equality has long been an issue for gender and language research from as early as the 1970s to the contemporary era in the 2010s, and gender stereotyping in textbooks is an issue in many different countries (Davis, 1995; see also Blumberg, 2007, 2008). While secondary English Language textbooks published in Hong Kong have already been investigated by Lee and Collins (2008), primary English Language textbooks have rarely been investigated (but see Au, 1992; Au, 2004). Therefore, the present study investigates gender representation in two widely-used primary English Language textbook series, Step Up and Primary Longman Express, by examining two subgenres that can be widely found in all language textbooks: reading passages and dialogues, and visuals. In other words, textual (lexis and grammar), discourse and visual representations of gender are analysed. A combination of different methods is used in this study. First, to answer the research question of how gender is represented in the reading passages in the Step Up and Primary Longman Express series in terms of lexis and grammar (Research Question A), content, linguistic and discourse analyses are conducted. Then, pragmatics and conversation analysis are used to analyse how the discourse of males and female speakers is represented in the dialogues in the two textbook series (Research Question B). Finally, to analyse the representation of gender in the visuals in the two textbook series (Research Question C), the method of visual analysis is used. To make sure that the quantitative results obtained are significant, the chi-square test is also used and log-likelihood values are calculated. The results of this study are encouraging in that males and females are represented similarly and fairly, and show in improvement over previous textbook studies in gender representation. In textual representation of gender, at the lexical level, though males were represented more often than females in terms of having a higher frequency

This paper provides a new gender-based analysis of survey data collected on Hong Kong academics in 2008. First, it illustrates the gender differences that exist in the Hong Kong academy. Second, it discusses possible explanations for these differences as informed by the data. And third, it offers a novel argument, again informed by the data, for the importance of addressing these differences, particularly with respect to the issue of women and academic leadership.
[Copyright of Higher Education Research & Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2013.864618]

Drawing on data gathered from British Council seminars in Hong Kong, Tokyo and Dubai on Absent Talent: Women in Research and Academic Leadership (2012-2013), this paper discusses academic women's experiences and explanations for women's under-representation as knowledge leaders and producers in the global academy. Participants from South and East Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, Australasia and Europe shared experiences and identified desires for future action in the form of a Manifesto for Change. The paper combines empirical data on enablers, impediments and attractions with consideration of debates on women's exclusions and disqualifications from academic leadership and knowledge production. A key question is whether women are desiring, dismissing or being disqualified from senior leadership positions in the global academy.
[Copyright of Higher Education Research & Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2013.864611]

This article seeks to investigate whether the improvement of the status of women in Hong Kong in recent decades, effected through various efforts to promote the values of equal opportunity concepts, is reflected in patterns of gender representation in primary school textbooks used in Hong Kong. A comparison of a popular series of primary school English-language textbooks that was published in 2005 with the same series published in 1988 (12 books in total) revealed increase in gender equity in the more recent books, including increased visibility of women both visually and textually. Nevertheless, the findings also revealed a perpetuation of some stereotyped images of the two genders and portrayals of women in a more limited range of social roles than men. The 'male-first' phenomenon and the visual and textual under-representation of women were still prevalent in the contemporary textbooks. The potential impacts on children of unbalanced gender representation in textbooks are discussed within the framework of social cognitive theory.
[Copyright of Gender & Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2014.916400]