This paper reports significant findings from an exploratory investigation of factors influencing kindergarten teachers' perceptions of holistic early childhood education (HECE) following the release of a recent policy document relating to Early Childhood Education by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. A comprehensive four-page survey questionnaire was completed by 165 teachers, in 22 Kindergartens across three Districts in Hong Kong. The questionnaire sought responses on demographics (including spiritual well-being); six aspects of ECE detailed in the HKSAR document; teachers' expectations of HECE; and their perceptions of parental involvement in their young children's development. This study revealed that kindergarten teachers' spiritual well-being was a key demographic factor contributing to their expectations of holistic early childhood education. Copyright © 2022 Routledge.

This paper reports significant findings from an exploratory investigation of factors influencing kindergarten teachers’ perceptions of holistic early childhood education (HECE) following the release of a recent policy document relating to Early Childhood Education by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. A comprehensive four-page survey questionnaire was completed by 165 teachers, in 22 Kindergartens across three Districts in Hong Kong. The questionnaire sought responses on demographics (including spiritual well-being); six aspects of ECE detailed in the HKSAR document; teachers’ expectations of HECE; and their perceptions of parental involvement in their young children’s development. This study revealed that kindergarten teachers’ spiritual well-being was a key demographic factor contributing to their expectations of holistic early childhood education. Copyright © 2022 Informa UK Limited.

Mindfulness-based intervention with adults has been found to be highly effective and as such it has been the subject of much research in the past few decades. However, the study of mindfulness-based approaches with adolescents, especially in the Asian context, is still under-explored. This paper reports findings from a pilot controlled trial assessing preliminary outcomes of a mindfulness-based programme in schools in Hong Kong. Fourteen to 16-year-old adolescents with low academic performance from two secondary schools were invited to take part in intervention and control groups (n = 48). It was hypothesised that a six-week mindfulness-based programme would increase well-being, reduce stress and symptoms of depression. Well-being, stress and depressive symptoms of both intervention and control groups were assessed at baseline and post-intervention. The findings showed that there was a significant decrease in symptoms of depression and a significant increase in one dimension of well-being among both groups. Qualitative data reflected that the mindfulness programme was beneficial and feasible to adolescents at schools. The results support conducting a randomised controlled trial with a larger sample and a long term follow-up.
[Copyright of Roeper Review is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1364436X.2011.639747]

This paper is the report of a study that uses qualitative methods to examine the religiosity of Hong Kong Buddhist adolescents. Twenty-two Buddhist adolescents aged from 13 to 17 studying in Buddhist secondary schools took part in semi-structured interviews. The interviews were voice-recorded and transcribed verbatim, first into Chinese and then partly into English for quotations. Content analysis was carried out to delineate the religiosity of the Buddhist adolescents: (1) the sources and resources of religiosity, (2) religious beliefs, (3) religious practices, (4) positive consequences of religiosity, and (5) predictions on the future development of religiosity. The results show that the religiosity of Buddhist adolescents in Hong Kong exhibits some special features that distinguish it from the more common understanding of religiosity in the West.
[Copyright of International Journal of Children's Spirituality is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13644360903565466]

At the turn of the millennium, the term 'spiritual' began to gain more prominence in the educational discourse in Hong Kong, both in official policy documents and in religious schools' descriptions of their own mission. Addressing each of these two cases in turn, a description of the context in which the increased use of the term has occurred leads on to the question of the extent to which this increased rhetorical emphasis on the spiritual is matched by the actual substance of education policy and the reality of religious education. It is found that the match is much less than perfect, and the reasons for this are explored.
[Copyright of International Journal of Children's Spirituality is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13644360500347359]