The present study looks at how family processes and the classroom norms influence students' employment of learning strategy in junior secondary schools in Hong Kong. It employed an ecological perspective to look at how family factors and classroom factors uniquely and combined to influence students. Nineteen secondary schools with 948 Secondary 2 students and their family members participated in the cross-sectional survey for the research. Findings of the study suggest that peer victimization norm in the classroom plays a moderating role in the association between socioeconomic background and students' use of achievement strategy in learning Chinese. The result of the research is suggested to have important implications for home-school relations in Hong Kong, as well as the restructuring of the school process to create a more supportive and nurturing environment for learning and teaching.
[Copyright of Journal of School Violence is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J202v07n01_04]

This cross-cultural study examines relations between parents' socialization goals and child-rearing practices, as well as their impact upon peer competence during early childhood. Participants were sixty-three Hong Kong-Chinese mothers, sixty-one English mothers and their preschool-aged children. Mothers completed questionnaires measuring socialization goals and practices. Their children took part in sociometric interviews. Results indicate both similarities and differences in child-rearing practices and in their impact on children's peer competence across the two cultures. Among both Hong Kong and English mothers, significant correlations were found between (i) socialization towards Filial Piety and Authoritarian practices, and (ii) valuing Socio-emotional Development and Authoritative Parenting. However, Chinese mothers reported stronger emphasis on socialization for Academic Achievement and Filial Piety, as well as greater use of Authoritarian Parenting practices, than English mothers. The use of Authoritarian practices among English mothers was, in accordance with past research, negatively correlated with peer competence among preschoolers. Findings highlight the influence of cultural values upon child socialization and upon the way that these values are translated into practice.
[Copyright of Early Child Development and Care is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0300443022000022486]

The author tested a model hypothesizing that students' self-perceived academic support (from parents, teachers, and peers) is related to their achievement directly and indirectly through their own perceived academic engagement. The participants were 270 adolescents (M age = 15.41 years, range = 14–20 years) from 3 grade levels (Forms 3–5, equivalent to Grades 9–11 in the United States) in a Hong Kong secondary school. The school principal and teachers helped to collect data based on these adolescents' responses to a self-report questionnaire, consisting of a demographic profile and 4 scales assessing their self-perceptions of the extent of parental, teacher, and peer support, and their own academic engagement. Academic achievement was measured by self-reported grades in math, English, and Chinese. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that adolescents' perceived parental, teacher, and peer support were all indirectly related to their academic achievement mediated by their own perceived academic engagement. The strength of the relationships, however, varied by support system, with perceived teacher support to achievement being the strongest, followed closely by perceived parental support, and then perceived peer support. In addition, both perceived parental support and perceived teacher support were directly related to academic achievement. However, perceived teacher support made the most total (direct and indirect) contribution to student achievement. Perceived peer support had the smallest, nonetheless significant, indirect relationship to academic achievement. However, the negative, direct influence of perceived peer support canceled out its positive, indirect influence on academic achievement.
[Copyright of Genetic Social and General Psychology Monographs is the property of Routledge . Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/MONO.131.2.77-127 ]

Eighty-six Hong Kong Chinese kindergarten children were pretested on the Preschool and Primary Chinese Literacy Scale (PPCLS) and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - Third Edition (PPVT-III), and assigned randomly within schools to 1 of 3 conditions, dialogic reading, typical reading and control. After an 8-week intervention, the children were posttested. Results indicated a significant main group effect for performance on both the PPCLS and the PPVT-III, with children in the dialogic reading group benefiting significantly from the intervention. These results indicate that early literacy-related activities in the home have strong and direct effects on both children's literacy growth and language development in Chinese. The success of the dialogic reading technique in this study contributes to the goal of raising global literacy standards and educational achievement.
[Copyright of Early Education & Development is the property of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15566935eed1402_6 ]