This book offers a unique focus on the well-being of Chinese and South/Southeast Asian students in the context of Hong Kong, and in particular the experience of integrating these young people into its schooling system. Yuen uses a narrative method that captures and offers a vivid insight into the actual experience of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, whilst providing fascinating comparisons between students coming from Mainland China and those whose parents are South/Southeast Asian immigrants. Readers will be particularly interested in the attention given to spiritual well-being and how religious participation and affiliation make a difference in giving meaning to life and in creating a positive mindset, as viewed and explained by students themselves. This well-organised volume begins by laying out the major themes relating to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, followed by a richly elaborated theoretical chapter which defines core concepts and their interconnection. This is followed by substantive chapters where the voices of each of the different diverse groupings of students, Chinese Mainland immigrants, Chinese Cross-boundary youth, South/Southeast Asian ethnic youth and mainstream HK youth from underprivileged backgrounds, are heard and interpreted in relation to themes of inclusion and well-being. It then builds upon the narratives to provide bottom-up solutions and pathways towards the inclusion and well-being of all students, as well as the professional development of teachers who can take up the challenge of ensuring that all young people are nurtured to fulfil their potential. Providing readers with practical implications and takeaways for education practice, this must-read work will appeal to a wide range of education practitioners and students involved in providing or researching inclusive education relating to mainstream and non-mainstream Chinese, South Asian, and other ethnic minority students.

In this book, the authors embark on a critical investigation of the complex field of Chinese language education, with a particular focus on exploring new trends and teaching and learning. They delve into the intricacies of language, education and its effectiveness in teaching Chinese as a first language. The book has three objectives: establishing a field of study in Chinese language learning and teaching, providing critical discussion and progressive insights on language education, and offering relevant pedagogical perspectives of learning and teaching Chinese as L1 and L2. The chapters investigate learning and teaching of Chinese in different aspects, including four skills, culture, literature, technology-assisted learning, and learners’ identity. By focusing on the teaching practices of Chinese at different levels, it sheds light on teaching Chinese as a first language. Theoretically, it broadens the linguistic and geographical reach of previous works on language education that mainly examine English as a lingua franca or children’s first language acquisition. Drawing upon theories in language learning, the book demonstrates the applicability of language theories in the first language and Chinese as a non-alphabetic language and examines the impact and effectiveness of some theories in Chinese learning and teaching. Academic researchers, teacher educators, teachers and students interested in Chinese language and education will find this a highly relevant text for its focus on curriculum, pedagogy and assessment of teaching Chinese as a first language.

Individuals and systems are rife with prejudices, leading to discrimination and inequities. Examples of this include rejection of stigmatized groups (e.g., Black Americans, Indigenous people in Canada, Roma peoples in Europe), structural racism (e.g., inequitable distribution of resources for public schools), disenfranchisement of women employees (e.g., the “glass ceiling”), barriers to higher education (e.g., biased admissions requirements), heterosexism, economic oppression, and colonization. When we take a closer look, we find the core of the problem is imbalance in the distribution of power and its misuse.

This book recognizes microaggression as a pervasive issue in colleges and universities around the world and offers critical analyses of the local and institutional contexts in which such incidences of violence and discrimination occur. Authors from Egypt, Barbados, South Africa, Canada, and the United States explore the origins and forms of microaggression which impact students, faculty, and staff in higher education and address issues including xenophobia, sexual violence, linguistic discrimination, and racial prejudice. Drawing on a range of theoretical frameworks and utilizing empirical, qualitative, and ethnographic methods to consider microaggressions perpetrated by both students and staff, each chapter proposes practical ways to prevent violence through education, student agency, policy, and leadership. This book offers a contemporary global dialogue with educators and is vital reading for educators and administrators in higher education.

Following closely behind the global pandemic’s recent forced challenges to schools and teachers, Xu gives an overview of how educational researchers and schools in Asia respond to challenges in times of change. Her research focuses on how they adjust or change curriculum policy and practice to find a balance between developing innovation in response to fast-changing societal needs and maintaining the existing education systems that traditionally predict success for students. In this book, curriculum innovation is documented in three themes: 21st-century skills and competency-based curriculum, technology-supported curriculum and equity in curriculum. Xu includes three types of chapters: (1) case studies that provide detailed analyses of curriculum innovation at the school or country level, (2) conceptual analyses that deepen our understanding of curriculum issues using a new lens and (3) literature reviews that provide an overview of research in particular topics. The volume will be of great interest to researchers and educators interested in the role of curriculum innovation in times of change. In particular, it focuses on the ways innovative curriculum provides opportunities for individual students to maximize their potential while also acknowledging the constraints of local education systems.

Foregrounding diverse lived experiences and non-dominant forms of knowledge, this edited volume showcases ways in which narrating and sharing stories of pain and suffering can be engaged as critical pedagogy to challenge oppression and inequity in educational contexts. The volume illustrates the need to consider both the act of narrating and the experience of bearing witness to narration to harness the full transformative potentials of counternarratives in disrupting oppressive practices. Chapters are divided into three parts - "Telling and Reliving Trauma as Pedagogy," "Pedagogies of Overcoming Silence," and "Forgetting as Pedagogy" - illustrating a range of relational pedagogical and methodological approaches, including journaling, poetry, and arts-based narrative inquiry. The authors make the argument that the language of pain and suffering is universal, hence its potential as critical pedagogy for transformative and therapeutic teaching and learning. Readers are encouraged to reflect on their own lived experiences to constructively engage with their pain, suffering, and trauma. Focusing on trauma-informed non-hegemonic storytelling and transformative pedagogies, this volume will be of interest to students, faculty, scholars, and community members with an interest in advancing anti-oppressive and social justice education.

This edited volume is about diversifying the teaching profession. It is unique in its inclusion of multiple dimensions of diversity; its chapters focus on a wide range of under-represented groups, including those from lower socio-economic groups, Black and minority ethnic groups, migrants, the Travelling community, the Deaf community, the LGBTQI+ community and those of mature age. The book includes contributions from Australia, England, Iceland, Portugal and Scotland, as well as a number of chapters from the Irish context, mostly emanating from projects funded under Ireland’s Higher Education Authority’s Programme for Access to Higher Education (PATH): Strand 1—Equity of Access to Initial Teacher Education. The book also critically engages the rationale for diversifying the profession, arguing not only that representation still matters, but also that ultimately teacher diversity work needs to encompass system transformation to achieve a diverse, equitable and inclusive teaching profession.