Archiving queer feelings in Hong Kong

Abstract

This article argues for the revitalization of a productive tension between ‘queer’ and ‘theory’ and underscores its necessity for a study of ‘local queer theory.’ While there is an apparent lack of academic queer theory in Hong Kong, there are numerous examples of writings that advance theoretical positions, albeit in unfamiliar guises. The article analyzes three examples of queer writings by Hong Kong authors, penned between 1984 and 2000. Focusing on the texts’ archival effect and affective expression, the analysis demonstrates that these writings form an archive of queer feelings. As a repository of the discomfort and anxiety that are constitutive of queer lives, these writings can offer fruitful interventions into current theoretical debates. The article concludes with a call for more creative and irreverent – in short, queerer – ways of localizing the global phenomenon of queer theory.     

Challenges and management frameworks of residential schools for students with severe emotional and behavioural difficulties in Hong Kong

This study by Stella Suk‐Ching Chong, an assistant professor, and Ka‐wai Leung, a teaching fellow, both at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, focuses on the perspectives of hostel staff from six residential schools for students with severe emotional and behavioural difficulties. Individual or focus group interviews were conducted to explore the range of challenges perceived by staff and the strategies they employed to address the needs of the students. The software N‐Vivo was used to analyse both qualitative and quantitative data. This study finds that staff met a multiplicity of challenges, of which 67.9% were management‐related rather than student‐related (32.1%). In relation to effective strategies for staff, co‐ordinated and concerted efforts are frequently used between different stakeholders, such as intra‐hostel‐staff‐student collaboration (84%), inter‐hostel‐community collaboration (8.6%), inter‐hostel‐home collaboration (5.1%), and finally inter‐hostel‐school collaboration (2.2). In summing up the findings of various approaches deemed favourable by different residential staff, a residential school management framework is conceptualised and presented in this article. Implications and future research directions are also highlighted.     

Distinguished Paper Series

The second in the Distinguished Paper Series is ‘Communication d'un savoir scientifique en classe: de la verbalisation au concept d'équilibre chimique’ by Nathalie Evrard, Anne‐Marie Huynen and Cecile de Bueger‐Vander Borght. It first appeared in the French‐language journal Didaskalia, 6, 9‐37 and appears by kind permission of the Editor, M. Michel Jezierski, De Boeck Université, Paris, Bruxelles. Translation is by Dr Veronica Heath, Department of French Studies, at the University of Reading.     

A Reflection on Some Meanings of ‘Interdisciplinarity’ and ‘Integration Among the Sciences’

Summaries

English

‘Integrated science’ as an aspect of curriculum development is now well established world‐wide and has become the subject of international meetings. This article tries to put forward for discussion some ideas about the meaning of integration among the sciences.

Integration is first discussed in its relation to common culture and disciplinary knowledge. Disciplinarity, recognized as the way in which scientific knowledge has been organized, is seen as the only real possibility for the growth of knowledge. To understand the meanings and the importance of different disciplinary fields, is a didactical objective to be reached through an articulated educational process starting in the primary school. However, another objective of the same importance is the development of the capacity to recognize and utilize disciplinary knowledge for the solution of ‘real’ problems.

In this perspective, an important problem for educational research is the definition of a ‘scientific knowledge for all’ which should enable people to confront real problems with a knowledge of the meanings of science, and of where to find and how to use scientific information.     

Power dynamics in teaching and learning practices: an examination of two adult education classrooms

The purpose of this research was to determine the ways in which power relations that exist in the wider social context are played out in the teaching and learning dynamics of adult education classrooms. The research design was a qualitative comparative case study of two courses taught by the authors in a university setting. Data sources included students’ evaluations, teachers’ observations, interviews with students, interviews with both teachers, and conversations with similarly situated faculty members. The themes of mastery, voice, authority and positionality found in previous research were used to organize the results. The results showed the many complex ways in which power relations based on race, class, gender, disability and sexual orientation played out across all four themes and how these dynamics directly influenced the teaching and learning process. The positionality of the teachers and learners, in particular the racial category of whiteness, emerged as a key power relationship mediating classroom dynamics. We suggest that the facilitation model of teaching does not account well for these dynamics and that further efforts are needed to better understand how societal power relations affect teaching and learning efforts and what responses adult educators can make to negotiate these issues.