Through interviews and observing day-to-day classroom practice, this study explores the beliefs of 10 music teachers in elementary schools in Vancouver and Hong Kong. The results demonstrate that the music teachers of the two localities hold similar cognitive beliefs about the essential elements of music education. However, they hold different…

Overviews factors that influenced school consolidation and the development of centralized elementary schools in rural Hong Kong since the mid-1980s, including changes in urban development, population redistribution, and government policy on rural education. Also describes the context of rural school consolidation in the Wimmera, Victoria,…

Uses a detailed qualitative case study to explore the implementation of task-based teaching in three primary school classrooms in Hong Kong. Reviews six issues that were found to impact how teachers approached the implementation of communicative tasks in their classroom. Themes addressed are teacher beliefs, teacher understandings, the syllabus…

Explains how the education system in Hong Kong has helped to shape Hong Kong's past diglossia and how the country is preparing to face the changes inherent in the new political context in which Putonghua will be another element. Reports on the status and use of Cantonese and Putonghua (the national language of the People's Republic of China). (33…

Major visuospatial and verbal abilities were assessed for 197 10-year-olds in Hong Kong and 170 10-year-olds in the United Kingdom. The Hong Kong subjects resembled their Japanese counterparts in having high Searman's "g," exhibiting abstract reasoning ability, high spatial ability, high perceptual speed, and low word fluency. (SLD)

Three articles examine the Asia Youth Health Related Fitness Test proposed by the Asia Regional Board of the International Council for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, Sport and Dance. The articles look at test results on fitness levels and knowledge from Japan, China, and Hong Kong. (SM)

This article argues that changes of gendered attitudes towards IT among students may be related to recent educational reforms focusing on incorporating computers into the classroom. Data are drawn from an interview survey with 430 students attending 26 primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong. The results reveal no significant differences…

The degree of parental awareness of their children's homework style and homework behavior and its effects on academic and homework achievement and homework attitude were investigated in 329 Chinese fifth graders (172 boys and 157 girls) and 244 seventh graders (130 boys and 114 girls) and their parents in Hong Kong. Parental awareness of their…

Draws on official documents and teaching materials to trace the growth of Putonghua (the official language of China) in school curricula in Hong Kong (where Hong Kong Cantonese and English predominate). Although promoting Putonghua is logical, tensions arise from the already heavy bias toward language subjects in school curricula and shortage of…

Although language specialists do not always agree about the best age at which to introduce English language instruction, policy changes are increasingly mandating earlier introduction of English in foreign language (EFL) settings worldwide. In this volume, language educators and program implementers from various countries describe programs and…

Describes and analyzes the perceptions and reactions of a well-qualified, positively oriented primary-school English teacher to Hong Kong's target-oriented curriculum (TOC) initiative, a major government-sponsored innovation. The analysis encompasses teacher attitudes, teacher training and support, teachers' understanding of an innovation, teacher…

This study reports on the impact of a 2-month classroom intervention that sought to alter the learning environment of two Hong Kong Primary Year 3 general studies classrooms. Mixed methodology, employing quantitative and qualitative data-gathering strategies, was used to investigate changes to the learning environments, including changes to the…

152 elementary students age ranged from 8 to 11 were studied on their affective and social domains in a school with an inclusive policy in Hong Kong. Five questionnaires from the Assessment Program for Affective and Social Outcomes (APASO) [EMB (2001) Manual for Assessment Program for Affective and Social Outcomes. "Quality Assurance…

Three case studies of changes in civics education, social studies, and liberal studies (emphasizing critical thinking about controversial issues) demonstrate that Hong Kong's political transition to Chinese sovereignty has significantly affected the intended curriculum but not the implemented curriculum, which has been strongly influenced by…

Measures of Chinese character recognition, vocabulary, and interest in reading were administered to 92 second grade children in Hong Kong, while questionnaires on parental literacy practices were administered to their parents. In a hierarchical regression equation, maternal education, children's age and vocabulary skill predicted 18% of the…