Back to Square One: The “Re‐depoliticizing’ of Civic Education in Hong Kong

This article argues that the development of civic education in Hong Kong can be divided into three phases chronologically: (1) before 1984: “depoliticization” by the state and the school; (2) 1984‐1997: “politicization” of the intended curriculum; and (3) 1997 onwards: “re‐depoliticization” of civic education and official confirmation of nationalistic education. In general, for phases one and two, the development is described as moving from de‐politicization to politicization, in response to the political development of Hong Kong from a British colony towards the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of People's Republic of China. The article continues by exploring the third phase in detail with reference to the official document: Learning to Learn: Life‐long Learning and Whole‐person Development and the official speeches of the Chief Executive, Tung Chee Hwa. A phenomenon of re‐depoliticization of civic education is identified, together with a strong upheaval of nationalistic education. This leads civic education “back to square one"—"re‐depoliticized”. The article concludes by highlighting that the development of civic education in Hong Kong is a typical example of how civic education reflects the political context of the society.     

Answering the New SAT Reading Comprehension Questions Without the Passages

It has been reasonably well established that test takers can, to varying degrees, answer some reading comprehension questions without reading the passages on which the questions are based, even for carefully constructed measures like the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). The aim of this study was to determine what test-taking strategies examinees use, and which are related to test performance, when reading passages are not available. The research focused on reading comprehension questions similar to those that will be used in the revised SAT, to be introduced in 1994. The most often cited strategies involved choosing answers on the basis of consistency with other questions and reconstructing the main theme of a missing passage from all of the questions and answers in a set. These strategies were more likely to result in successful performance on individual test items than were any of many other possible (and less constructrelevant) strategies.     

Trait procrastination,self-efficacy and achievement goals: the mediation role of boredom coping strategies

Limited research has examined the mediational role of coping strategy in students’ motivation and procrastination. In this study, we examined the relationships among self-efficacy, achievement goals, boredom coping strategies and procrastination with 506 Chinese college students. Data were collected via questionnaires. Structural equation modelling results showed that both self-efficacy and approach goals significantly predicted approach-oriented coping strategies, and avoidance goals significantly predicted avoidance-oriented coping strategies. Among the different types of boredom coping strategies, only behavioural avoidance coping strategy significantly predicted procrastination. Hence, the mediating link was only found between avoidance goals, behavioural avoidance coping strategy and procrastination. Implications of the mediating role of behavioural avoidance coping strategy in the goal-procrastination relationship were further discussed.     

Struggling in the Mainstream: The case of Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, children with special needs who are studying in mainstream schools are struggling for integration amidst the competitive and elitist culture of the educational environment. The purpose of the present study is to examine the accounts of parents of students with special needs and their children's experiences, and also to compare the integration experiences of children with different types of special needs in mainstream schools. Data was collected through a structured questionnaire, of which 515 valid examples were returned and analysed. Academic requirements were found to be a great burden to children and parents. Children with intellectual impairment, autism, and hyperactivity encountered more problems in peer relationships. These results suggest there is a need to devise target-specific strategies and supportive measures for children with different types of special needs.     

Identifying individual- and family-level coping strategies as sources of resilience and thriving for undocumented youth of Mexican origin

Drawing from resilience theory, we explored the strategies that Mexican immigrant youth used to cope with stressors from being undocumented. On the basis of semi-structured interviews with 30 high school students who emigrated from Mexico to the United States, we identified several stressors from being undocumented, including having limited opportunities, fear of deportation, and exposure to negative reminders of their undocumented status. To manage such stressors, students utilized individual coping strategies (e.g. diversion, reframing, normalizing). In addition, the families of undocumented youth employed various coping strategies to help buffer their children against stressors from being undocumented (e.g. protecting the family unit, positive future, emotional support, limited communication). From our findings, we developed a preliminary model that describes the stress and coping of the undocumented youth in this study, which can extend past theorizing on resilience and thriving, as well as inform the design of community-based programs and policies for undocumented youth and their family.     

Syllable,Phoneme, and Tone: Psycholinguistic Units in Early Chinese and English Word Recognition

Tasks of word reading in Chinese and English; nonverbal IQ; speeded naming; and units of syllable onset (a phoneme measure), syllable, and tone detection awareness were administered to 211 Hong Kong Chinese children ages 4 and 5. In separate regression equations, syllable awareness was equally associated with Chinese and English word recognition. In contrast, syllable onset awareness was uniquely associated with English reading only, whereas tone detection was uniquely associated with Chinese reading only. Results underscore both the universality of first-language phonological transfer to second-language reading and the importance of different psycholinguistic units (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005 Ziegler, J. C. and Goswami, U. 2005. Reading acquisition, developmental dyslexia, and skilled reading across languages: A psycholinguistic grain size theory.. Psychological Bulletin, 131(1): 3–29. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) for understanding reading acquisition: Tone units are integral to Chinese character recognition, whereas phonemes are more strongly associated with English word recognition, even within the same children.     

Students’ geometrical perception on a task-based dynamic geometry platform

This paper describes a task-based dynamic geometry platform that is able to record student responses in a collective fashion to pre-designed dragging tasks. The platform provides a new type of data and opens up a quantitative dimension to interpret students’ geometrical perception in dynamic geometry environments. The platform is capable of generating a collective image map of student geometrical perceptions for a pre-designed dragging task. This map is interpreted as students’ qualitatively different ways of perceiving a geometrical phenomenon under the drag mode, ways which are quantified and categorized in a collective way. The idea of task perceptual landscape is proposed to facilitate discussion on the pedagogical significance of this platform. Specifically, a task case is presented and analysed in which a methodology is developed that provides a way to classify students’ geometrical perceptions with respect to the task. The task perceptual landscape is interpreted as a collective example space of student perception of a task. Furthermore, an idea of personal example space is developed through the findings from a qualitative study for the same task. This brings about discussion on possible pedagogical correlation between the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the platform.     

The Influence of Culture on Students’ Mathematics Achievement Across 51 Countries

The results of international large-scale assessments have shown that countries vary considerably in their mathematics performance. Culture has been suggested as a possible cause for the national difference, but insufficient empirical research has been conducted to investigate the effect of culture on mathematics achievement. Based on Hofstede’s conceptualization of culture, the present study examined the relationship between national culture and students’ mathematics achievement by analyzing data from 51 countries using two-level hierarchical linear modeling. The results showed that national culture played an important role in shaping mathematic achievement. It accounted for 23.89% of the country differences in mathematics performance after controlling for student gender, family socioeconomic status, and national GDP per capita. One cultural dimension “long-term orientation” had a strong positive association with mathematics achievement. The implication of the findings is discussed, followed by a discussion of issues regarding employing culture dimensions theory in mathematics education.     

The mathematics classroom in Beijing,Hong Kong and London

This paper reports a classroom observation study which intends to characterise the instructional practices in junior secondary mathematics classrooms in Beijing, Hong Kong and London, focusing on the different cultural beliefs pertaining to mathematics and mathematics teaching and learning between the Chinese and Western cultures. The results show that there are striking differences in classroom practices between the three places, and the differences seem to be related to the differences in attitudes towards mathematics and mathematics teaching and learning. The findings point to the potential of the cultural perspective in interpreting results of comparative curriculum studies.     

Implementing Effective Group Work for Mathematical Achievement in Primary School Classrooms in Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Education Bureau recommends that primary school pupils’ mathematical achievement be enhanced via collaborative discussions engendered by group work. This pedagogic change may be hindered by Confucian heritage classroom practices and Western-dominated group work approaches that predominate in Hong Kong. To overcome these obstacles, we introduced a relational approach to group work in a quasi-experimental study. Our sample included 20 teachers randomly allocated to experimental (12) and control (8) conditions and their 504 mathematics pupils (aged 9–10). The relational approach focused on the development of peer relationships in a culturally appropriate manner and was implemented over 7 months. Pupils were pre-/post-tested for mathematical achievement and systematically observed, and the teachers were assessed for subject knowledge and pre-/post-tested for pedagogic efficacy. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) results show enhanced mathematical achievement, supported by improved peer-based communication skills and time-on-task for the experimental pupils. Experimental teachers raised their pedagogic efficacy. Results indicate the potential of the relational approach for boosting academic achievement via enhanced child-peer-teacher interaction and the need to reassess the role of peer-based latent collectivist learning in Confucian heritage classrooms.