Hong Kong's Liberal Studies curriculum (implemented in 2009) aims in part to teach young people about diversity in society, including cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity. This essay considers how religions and religious diversity are represented in Liberal Studies, analyzing how minority forms of religion are visible and invisible in the four most popular Liberal Studies textbook sets. The analysis will answer the questions of (1) how Hong Kong's religious diversity is expressed in the textbooks and (2) how different religions are depicted in relation to the society overall. Textbooks are the primary source material teachers use, particularly in new subjects, as reflections of prevalent attitudes, beliefs, and norms, and as formal sources of curriculum content. This essay therefore provides a glimpse of the latent knowledge about religious diversity in the educational publishing and decision-making community of Hong Kong, relating gaps in text coverage to the subject's aim of developing student understanding and appreciation of diversity.
[Copyright of Asian Anthropology is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1683478X.2015.1025595]

To prepare children for the globalized world, General Studies, an integrated subject in the primary curriculum stresses on the provision of “learning experiences that enable them to construct knowledge and develop a global perspective, and develop life-long learning skills” (CDC, 2002, p.2). A separate strand, Global Understanding and the Information Era has been incorporated into the curriculum to strengthen the global dimension of the subject. However, the literature shows that citizenship education has long been an underdeveloped curriculum area in Hong Kong. The development of global citizenship, a core area of study in citizenship education, has also been affected by the great emphasis on the fostering of children's national identity in the post-colonial period. Being a contested concept, global citizenship causes great confusions to teachers in developing and implementing global studies in schools. To evaluate the role of General Studies and its effectiveness in enhancing global citizenship, this paper reviews the global learning elements in the General Studies curriculum in a primary school. This paper further seeks to describe the "lived curriculum" on global learning based on the results of a critical examination of selected classroom practices in the related strands of study. Building on the initial findings, this paper discusses the tensions in promoting global education through General Studies and the possible ways for further developing this integrated subject as a vehicle for enhancing global citizenship in Hong Kong primary schools.

課室情境的研究資料能助教師評估課室的氣氛，發揮他們的教學潛能，改善或改變課室的氣氛，有助教師的專業發展。Fraser (1986) 提議老師可在各學科和各年級的課堂中反思課室的情境，了解課室的氣氛，以提高教學效能，達專業發展，這對常識科教師尤其重要。自一九九六年九月開始這一新課程已成為香港的小學的共同核心課程中的一科。教師除了設計「以兒童為中心」的學習活動以輔助兒童學習 (香港課程發展議會1994)，亦應不斷評估課室的氣氛，以改善自己的教學，提高教師的成就感 (Fraser, Barry J. & Walberg, Herbert L. 1991)、作終身教育的一環。本研究邀請在香港教育學院接受在職訓練的常識科教師和學生，利用課室情境量表反思他們的常識課課堂氣氛，藉所獲資料評估反思常識科的教與學，供其他常識科教師作不斷評估、專業發展之參考。

In the era of education reform in Hong Kong, on various government documents, different concepts and functions of assessment were introduced to the community. Formative assessment is stressed as a way to improve teaching and enhance the learning of pupils. Formative assessment takes place in classrooms. It provides short term feedback to teachers so that learners' strengths and weaknesses in relation to their progression can be identified. Then teachers can use the feedback in planning what to do next in order to facilitate pupils' learning as well as promote teaching effectiveness. In response to the education reform, the researcher, as a teacher educator, wanted to study how formative assessment can be implemented in local General Studies classrooms. Fifteen student teachers were invited to be co-researchers of the present study. During their student teaching, they implemented formative assessment, collected data on their teaching and reflected on the implementation. The lessons videotaped by each of the co-researchers show the extent of the implementation of formative assessment in the classrooms. There were variations in terms of rich questioning, effective feedback, self- and peer assessment, as well as regulation of activity. Some of the assessment practices were either diluted or corrupted, though most of the co-researchers proclaimed that they successfully implemented formative assessment in their student teaching. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher attempted to make suggestions for the practising teachers so that they may initiate, implement and sustain this educational change in their subject classrooms.

This article mainly addresses the Hong Kong new Information Technology in Education policy to have further integration of information technology into the learning and teaching process, particularly on the design of IT-supported inquiry learning in the primary General Studies. The article focuses on the collaborative effort of the teacher educators from the Institute of Education and the curriculum developers of the Hong Kong Education City in the design of a web-based learning unit on "Earth Movement" to support pupils' inquiry learning of science. The article discusses the different modes of inquiry learning with the web-based learning unit in primary General Studies

The Primary General Studies Syllabus consists of four major content areas, namely Healthy Living, Living Environment, Natural World and Science & Technology. When these content areas are examined, discrete and rather independent elements are found in the topics of Science, Health Education and Social Studies, although a high degree of flexibility exists with respect to integration of these elements in teaching different themes of General Studies. The area of Living Environment is heavily social oriented whereas the areas of Natural World and Science & Technology are heavily science oriented. Furthermore, within the area Healthy Living, there is a high proportion of biology and health-related content knowledge associated with the topics covered. Given the significance of science and health components in the General Studies syllabus, a study has been initiated by our group of HKIEd Science Department staff to investigate the teaching competency of primary teacher trainees in science and health education components of General Studies. The study is a continuous one and is divided into several stages. In the initial stage of the project, a teaching competency self-evaluation questionnaire was designed and administered to representative groups of full-time and part-time HKIED teacher trainees to seek their self-evaluation feedback on their competency to teach science and health components of the General studies curriculum (Lui, Chan & Tsang, 1996). The competency questionnaire was composed of 3 major parts: a) Knowledge, b) Pedagogy, and c) degree of mastering specific General Studies science and health education topics (knowledge/ pedagogy). The teacher trainees felt that they needed to be better equipped with science and health knowledge for the teaching of science and health aspects of the General Studies curriculum. Furthermore, they felt there was not enough treatment of pedagogy as well as pedagogical content knowledge in science and health related components in HKIEd

In the era of education reform in Hong Kong, in various government documents, different concepts and functions of assessment were introduced to the community (Education Commission, Sept, 2000; Curriculum Development Council, 2001). Assessment is proclaimed as an integral part of the education process. Formative assessment is stressed as a way to improve teaching and the learning of pupils. It takes place in the classrooms, and provides short term feedback to teachers so that learners' strengths and weaknesses in relation to their progression can be identified. Then teachers can use the feedback in planning what to do nest in order to enhance learning and to promote teaching effectiveness (Black, 1993). Thus, in the lessons, teachers can provide pupils with various learning activities in line with the inquiry approach, have more interaction with the pupils, and carry out different assessment tasks to evaluate individual pupils' knowledge and understanding, skills, as well as values and attitudes (Curriculum Development Council, 2002). The aim of this paper is to study the student teachers' implementation of formative assessment in local primary school classrooms. It is hoped that the present study will provide some insight for the practicing teachers when they plan to conduct formative assessment in General Studies lessons in order to enhance the learning of the pupils and promote the effectiveness of their own teaching. In response to the education reform, the researcher invited fifteen student teachers of the Postgraduate Diploma of Education (Full-time)(Primary) Programme to be co-researchers of the present study. They were to implement formative assessment in General Studies lessons during their teaching practice. They collected data and reflected on the implementation of formative assessment practice in their classroom teaching by writing weekly reflection reports, videotaping a lesson, interviewing their pupils and being interviewed by the researcher. When preparing