Education and competitive economy: how do cultural dimensions fit in?

Globalization has changed the way people behave in different aspects of life. One of the significant differences is that people are now competing with everyone around the world, not just people within or near their own regions. A good way of remaining competitive is to provide quality education that can help students meet the needs of the competitive economy. However, not all nations are responding in the same way. Using a quantitative approach, this explorative study seeks to discover if, and how, cultural dimensions fit into the process of meeting the demands of the competitive economy by means of education across regions. Forty-three regions with different ratings on the Power Distance Index (PDI), Individualism (IDV), Masculinity (MAS), and the Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) are included in this study. The results show that UAI, PDI and IDV are significant factors relating to this issue.     

Technology-Enhanced Physics Programme for Community-Based Science Learning: Innovative Design and Programme Evaluation in a Theme Park

Journal of Science Education and Technology - In this study, a new physics education programme is specifically developed for a famous theme park in Hong Kong to provide community-based science...     

Education and Socio-Political Transitions in Asia: Diversity and Commonality

This article sets a framework for this special issue of the journal by providing an overview of the topic and a commentary on the ways in which the papers in the special issue may be linked to the theme and to each other. The article is built around the identification of diversity and commonality. On the one hand, the Asian region contains countries with widely varying circumstances and socio-political transitions; but on the other hand are a number of common patterns. Among the commonalities are colonial transitions, interrelationships between education and economic changes, and transitions involving international forces and the changing role of the state.     

Is student-centered pedagogy impossible in Hong Kong? The case of inquiry in classrooms

Hong Kong has been actively promoting a student-centered approach to teaching since the 1980s. Despite this effort, students in Hong Kong still tend to be traditional learners who rarely experience and gain from real student-centered learning. While teachers hold a “quantitative” concept of learning and focus on transmitting declarative knowledge to students (Biggs and Watkins, Classroom learning: Educational psychology for the Asian teacher, 1995), students generally practise “rote learning.” Constructive learning models such as inquiry remain little used by students in most Hong Kong classrooms. This article reports a study that examines the feasibility of implementing inquiry method in Kong Kong’s primary classrooms. It analyses the implementation and some outcomes of an inquiry-based project conducted in two local primary schools—a traditional elite Catholic school and a progressive, less-privileged school. Finally, it discusses the contextual factors as well as cultural issues on teachers’ perception and implementation of inquiry in teaching. These factors include the following: impacts of prevailing ideology in the community of Hong Kong, and the top-down policy-making and management by the government.

Student contribution in asynchronous online discussion: a review of the research and empirical exploration

The increasingly prevalent use of Internet in schools and homes has resulted in asynchronous online discussion becoming an increasingly common means to facilitate dialogue between instructors and students, as well as students and students beyond the boundaries of their physical classrooms. This article is organized into two main sections. In the first section, we review 50 empirical studies in order to identify the factors leading to limited student contribution. Limited student contribution is defined as students making few or no postings, or students exhibiting surface-level thinking or low-level knowledge construction in online discussions. We then identify the various empirically based guidelines to address the factors. In the second section, we discuss three potential guideline dilemmas that educators may encounter: (a) use of grades, (b) use of number of posting guideline, and (c) instructor-facilitation. These are guidelines where previous empirical research shows mixed results when they are implemented. Acknowledging the dilemmas is essential for educators and researchers to make informed decisions about the discussion guidelines they are considering implementing. Finally, we report two exploratory case studies on student-facilitation that we conducted. Using students as facilitators may be an alternative solution to educators who wish to avoid the instructor-facilitation guideline dilemma.     

An exploratory study on collaborative modes of professional development and learning for teachers of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

This study aims to deliver a school‐based mode of training for in‐service teachers of students with ASD in Hong Kong. The training is delivered following the phases of implementation science, namely, exploration, installation, and implementation. The project team used the theory of mind approach, which enables teachers to engage with students with ASD and to focus on recognizing and reacting to emotions. Participants in this study included four educators from a teacher education institution, three expert teachers, and 19 in‐service teacher trainees. The most salient responses came from trainees who were provided with the opportunity to apply learned skills in their own classrooms immediately and to share the knowledge and skills in dealing with students with ASD in the post‐conference meetings.     

The Social Stratification of Cultural Consumption: Some Policy Implications of a Research Project

The paper briefly describes a recently completed research project on the social stratification of cultural consumption, presents some major findings from this project, and considers their implications for public policy in relation to the arts. A central theme is the inadequacy of the ‘homology’ argument, claiming that social hierarchies and cultural hierarchies map closely onto each other. This argument is shown to be empirically unsound and to underestimate the complexity of the relationship between social stratification and cultural consumption, as this is determined by the combined effects of income, education and social status. One question that then arises is what policy response, if any, is required by the fact that many individuals do not participate extensively in the arts even though they have the economic and cultural resources required to do so (self-exclusion rather than social exclusion). And a second is that of how far, in attempts at increasing participation, status-linked motivations might be exploited.     

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.