When multilingual learners traverse across cross-border and study-abroad contexts, they enter different sociocultural spaces, negotiate conflicting identities, and may or may not invest in these identities. Addressing the lacuna, this longitudinal case study draws upon the model of investment to conduct a long-term, systematic investigation of the identities and investment of Miranda, a multilingual learner, and a pre-service teacher—as she studied, over seven years, as a university student (B.A.) in mainland China, a taught postgraduate student (M.Ed.) in Hong Kong, and a research student (M.Phil. and Ph.D.) in New Zealand. Findings reveal how Miranda negotiated, constructed, and performed multiple identities in shifting contexts and how the way her capital was valued shaped the way she positioned herself and was positioned by others. Attending to the fluidity and complexity of identities, this study provides educational authorities and teachers with implications for helping to chart the path for empowering students across contexts. Copyright © 2024 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Multicultural awareness is crucial for teachers to promote equity in culturally diverse classrooms (Cherng & Davis, 2019). Positive attitude towards diversity predicts stronger cultural sensitivity in teaching (Abacioglu et al., 2020). In Hong Kong where it lacks any policy towards multiculturalism, despite the growing number of non-Chinese multicultural learners, empirical support as to how pre-service teachers develop multicultural awareness and beliefs remains scant. This study analysed preservice teachers' perception of multicultural classrooms qualitatively to elucidate their multicultural awareness. It addressed two questions: 1) how do pre-service teachers understand cultural diversity in classrooms?; and 2) How do they perceive teachers' roles in responding to culturally diverse learners' needs? Nine ethnic Chinese pre-service teachers who joined an informal multicultural education programme in a Hong Kong teacher education university were interviewed. The data were transcribed, and coded with NVivo 12 based on the above questions. The analysis showed that preservice teachers demonstrated awareness of cultural differences in Hong Kong schools, suggesting that the intercultural contact and experiences the programme facilitated were effective. Cultural cliques among students, they believed, can promote quality of learning through co-ethnic peer interaction. Yet, they anticipated the need to go "out of their comfort zone" to teach in English, a language they regard as essential in meeting the learning needs of ethnic minority students more fully, especially those who were less proficient in Chinese language. Implications for research and teacher education for enhancing multicultural awareness in Hong Kong schools will be discussed. Copyright © 2023 World Education Research Association.

This article analyses the study-abroad identity of Central Asian undergraduate students in a Hong Kong university. It draws on the narrative data to explore the intercultural tensions and challenges they faced in the higher education context, as well as the impact of their study-abroad experiences on their identity-making when integrating into the receiving society. Drawing on Herzfeld’s (2005) concept of cultural intimacy, this article explains the students’ limited participation in local Hong Kong communities and their strong connection to the small, diasporic Central Asian network. It also reveals the co-existence of post-Soviet national identities and a cohesive Central Asian identity in the participants’ identity-making processes. Copyright © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

跨文化敏感度指在跨文化交際中應對文化差異的情感能力。提高國際漢語教育專業學生的跨文化敏感度對於他們未來有效教授多元文化背景的學生至關重要。本研究以針對國際漢語教育專業碩士生（准教師）的修訂版跨文化敏感度量表（ISS）為研究工具，調查了132位就讀於香港、北京、珠海三所大學的國際漢語教育碩士生的跨文化敏感度及其影響因素。結果表明：參與研究的國際漢語教育專業碩士生跨文化敏感度整體處於中高水平。香港地區被試跨文化敏感度顯著高於北京、珠海兩地。年齡、過往跨文化培訓經驗、國際漢語教師教齡、學生國籍、境外旅行次數與國外生活時長、外國朋友數量與聯繫頻率對跨文化敏感度有顯著影響。 Copyright © 2023 香港教育大學.

This article reports the findings of a multi-site qualitative study of 31 Chinese homeschooling families in Taipei and Hong Kong. Homeschooling, a significant source of inspiration for school innovation, has been growing around the globe in recent years, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighting the challenges facing mainstream schools. The findings reveal that the families under study chose to homeschool their children mainly because they were dissatisfied with mainstream schools in the Chinese context, which, as they described, were not sufficiently child-centric. Notably, their homeschooling practices were highly diversified and hybridised, including a variety of organisational methods, actors, and materials. Based on lessons learned from homeschooling, the findings indicate the need for mainstream schools to reimagine their relations with families and the outside world in terms of pedagogic time, space, relations, and resources to better respond to every student’s unique needs as well as the challenges ahead in the post-pandemic world. Copyright © 2023 Educational Review.

This paper aims to provide comparative insights into the psychosocial well-being of Hong Kong and Kazakhstan undergraduate students, focusing specifically on the role of ethnicity and gender. The existing body of literature on students’ health-promoting lifestyle has shown how age, gender, income level, sociability, and knowledge of health can shape one’s perception of physical and mental well-being. Much lesser attention, however, has been paid to the ways in which students from diverse ethnic origins differ from each other in cultivating different dimensions of psychosocial well-being. To address this issue, this study delivered questionnaires to 284 undergraduate students from Hong Kong and 281 undergraduate students from Kazakhstan. Developed from the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile II, the questionnaire is designed to measure undergraduate’s psychosocial well-being threefold. Using independent sample t-test, this paper shows that Hong Kong undergraduate students have higher levels of psychosocial well-being in terms of “interpersonal relations” and “stress management” whereas Kazakhstan undergraduate students are stronger in another dimension of well-being – “spiritual growth”. Results show that the influence of gender on students’ psychosocial well-being varies in different contexts. One of the important implications of these findings suggests that school administrators and students from different countries may benefit from cross-cultural exchange, co-promoting all dimensions of psychosocial well-being. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s).

Disadvantaged students increasingly confront ruthless competition for higher education degrees, while losing out on opportunities for social mobility. Some of Hong Kong’s low-income households defy the trend: families take on risk, including considerable debt, to send their offspring abroad, rather than test their chances at home by dealing with competitive learning silos, stratified schooling, social status anxiety, and failing employer support. Drawing on stakeholder theory, the “glonacal agency” heuristic and the existentialist perspective, this paper examines how some low-income families break the cycle of disadvantage by tapping into the powers, legitimacy and urgency of “important others,” allowing them to harness local and global resources to achieve social mobility. Copyright © 2015 James Nicholas Publishers.

This edited book highlights the identities and practices of ethnically diverse families and schools in contexts where multicultural policies are not always a priority. In an era of globalization and ensuing population mobility, it places a focus on Asia-Pacific, a continent with diverse customs, populations, and languages, but grapples with what it might mean to be multicultural.The book features studies and frameworks that illustrate how minoritized communities engage with the diversity they live in and strategies in adjusting and adapting to their sociocultural environments, including practices that might support these efforts. This book represents initiatives and interdisciplinary scholarship from Japan, Hong Kong, mainland China, Australia, South Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan, which underscore the intersection of identities, cultural values, efforts, conflicts, and religions in making diversity work in their contexts. Collectively, these works make a unique contribution by invigorating debates on the flows and evolvement of cultural values and practices within and across families and institutions.This book will appeal to researchers, practitioners, and readers with interest in the current state of cultural diversity among minoritized families in Asia-Pacific and beyond. Copyright © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Jan Gube, Fang Gao and Miron Bhowmik; individual chapters, the contributors.

升讀專上教育（專教）一直被視為香港青年上游的途徑，不同社經背景的學生所面對升讀專教的挑戰各有差別。近年，香港教育政策推動多元發展並提供多項支援和計畫，以提升中學生畢業後的發展路向，但不同學生組群在升學上都遇到不同障礙和不同程度的教育不均情況。由於學生的社經和族群背景影響他們對升學與就業的價值觀、期望和目標，他們追求專教面對的障礙和成功因素各有不同，惟香港對此問題的系統化探討不多。為此，本實證研究探討香港主流、內地來港和少數族裔（南亞／東南亞裔）高中生升讀專教所面對的障礙和成功因素，於2018年10月至2019年5月期間在23所香港中學進行問卷調查，合共成功收回5,014名高中生的問卷，發現主流學生雖然在經濟障礙和其他封頂因素的評分均低於少數族裔及新來港學生，但同樣地在多項有利升讀專教的成功因素上的評分亦較後兩者低，而少數族裔則比華裔群體樂觀。本文討論了當中原因，並提供相關的政策建議。Copyright ©2021 香港中文大學香港教育研究所.

Limited research has been conducted on community college (CC) transfer students' (TS) experiences in four-year universities, particularly in Asian contexts. To fill this research gap, in this qualitative study, 124 TS from various disciplines in a Hong Kong university participated in 39 focus groups and seven individual interviews. Unlike their Western counterparts, our TS were relatively better prepared and more academically adaptive. Nevertheless, their social integration was restricted by a lack of time for extra-curricular activities, a sense of inferiority and incompetence, and restricted social circles that did not enable interaction with non-TS. These challenges and their implications are discussed. In particular, this study has highlighted differences between the special education systems for CC transfer in Hong Kong and those in Western CC models. The study has also highlighted the study-induced stress, and poor self-perceptions that TS experience, despite their academic abilities. Copyright ©2021 MDPI.