Title: How Can We Equip Teachers in Hong Kong With Cultural Awareness?
Stream: Educational Policy, Leadership, Management & Administration
Presentation Type: Live-Stream Presentation
Authors:
Jocelyn L. N. Wong, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Abstract:
Ethnic minority students have long been identified as a disadvantaged group in education. Hong Kong has no exception. Since the early 2000s, several educational initiatives have been implementing by the Hong Kong government to ethnic minority students with the aim of improving their learning performance. However, these measures only partially address the learning difficulties of ethnic minority students. Studies also argued that teachers in Hong Kong generally lack cultural sensitivity and awareness that may become an obstacle to implement multicultural education. Viewing this, this study intends to discuss what kind of supports for teachers who have been teaching ethnic minority students would like to gain in order to help them perform their role properly. 33 semi-structured interviews with teachers who have experiences in teaching ethnic minority students from both primary and secondary schools were conducted to address the following two issues. Firstly, problems encountered when teachers teach ethnic minority students, particularly in local mainstream schools. Secondly, supports teachers would like to have in order to enhance their cultural responsive competency. Findings show that the lack of government supports in local mainstream school, particular in curriculum guidelines becomes an obstacle for teachers to craft a relevant curriculum for ethnic minority students. It also hinders teachers to develop their sense of multiculturalism. Furthermore, a revisit of the existing teacher education programmes seems to be necessary.
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