Background of this Research

II Work done by others

The situation of ethnic minorities and their educational opportunities is an issue of international concern ( The National Coalition of Educational Equity, 1994, Department of Education and Skills, 2002, Luciak, 2006 Wan, 2008 ). Across national boundaries ethnic minorities seem to do less well than mainstream students. One exception appears to be Asian students in societies such as the United States (Braxton, 1999) and Australia (McInerney, 2008) where studies consistently indicate that East Asian student outperform local students. Yet even this phenomenon supports the view that cultural background – whether it is family values and expectations or indiviudal acheivement motivation – cannot be ignored when it comes to teaching and learning. A key issue for this study, then , is how do Hong Kong teachers respond to diversity representedby ethnic minority students in order to faciliate their learning?

 

In the Hong Kong context, there has been a great deal of research on the cultural dimensions of learning (Chan and Wakins, 1994; Watkins and Biggs, 1996; Dahlin and Watkins, 2000; Huang and Leung, 2004). The assumption of this research is that learning in Hong Kong classrooms takes place in a monculutral context. This focus should not be surprising. A distinctive Chinese culture has been identified in Hong Kong society, government bureaucracy and individual values (Lau & Kuan,1995). In the realm of education, Chinese culture was found to influence policy implementation at different levels of the education reforms in Hong Kong. Dimmock and Walker’s (1998) study found that the imported westernized reforms did not synchronize with the current feature of the Hong Kong education system that was dominated by Chinese culture. In classroom practice, it has been found that Chinese culture plays a role in teachers’ beliefs and their development (Chan & Fok, 2000; Chan & Lam, 2003).

 

While there has been some criticism of this cultural view of both teaching and learning ( Morrison 2006), it does not entirely discount the influence of these cultural values in Hong Kong classrooms. For the purpose of the present study, however, the impact of such cultural homogeneity becomes the focus of investigation. In culturally diverse classrooms, such as those found in selected Hong Kong schools specially designated for ethnic minority students, do teachers modify their practices to meet the needs of a broader range of students? There are good reasons to expect that they should.

 

Pajares (2007) , for example, has called for ‘culturally attentive’ classroom practices that can meet the needs of different students. Multicultural educators have highlighted the need for a “culturally relevant teaching” ( Ladson-Billings 1994), “culturally responsive teaching” ( Gay 2000) and for authentic and performance based assessments that have the potential to cater for the needs of ethnic minority students ( Nieto 2008, p.126). From a different perspective, McInerney (2007, p.189) has pointed to the need for “strong teacher support, positive peer group interactions, a mastery orientation and praise from others” to be characteristic of multicultural classrooms. The importance of teacher support in relation to ethnic minority students has also been identified in the United States ( (Blumenfled 1992, Hudley 1998) especially in light of the finding that very often the way teachers regard students is influenced by the ethnicity of the student ( Gollinck 1992).

 

There is some evidence, too, from outside Hong Kong (Ferguson, 2003) that teachers’ expectations of students are influenced by race (Ferguson, 2003). This is a sensitive and controversial issue but Ferguson, 2003, p.483) has pointed out that the “ ways that teachers communicate about academic ability, especially in integrated schools where the performance of Whites is superior, can affect the degree to which Black students disengage from the pursuit of excellence or stay engaged and aim for mastery”. This is not to say that teachers are explicitly racist but rather that in mixed race classrooms there are many ways in which teachers can send signals to different students. Given the mixed race nature of Hong Kong’s designated schools, this issue remains to be explored.

 

Based on this Western literature, it seems clear that significant accommodations are called for in multicultural classrooms if all students are to benefit from schooling. This proposition, however, has not been tested in Hong Kong classrooms where uniformity rather than diversity is likely to characterize both the make-up of classes and teachers’ approaches to them. Yet in those designated schools where ethnic minority students are now concentrated the issue of diversity remains to be addressed. The purpose of this research, therefore, is to investigate the extent to which these needs are met through the assessment environment provided by teachers to monitor and provide feedback on student learning. The problem of assessment regimes in general as militating against learning has been highlighted by Murphy and Torrance ( 1990). Specific problems of assessment in different cultural contexts have been investigated by Salili, Maher, Sorenson and Fyans (1976). The unique assessment perspectives that characterize Chinese classrooms have been highlighted by Biggs (2001) and Tang and Biggs (1996) who characterized the examination oriented norm referenced approach as “the dark side” of the teaching/assessment system. In such a context Brockhart and De Voge (1999), p.411) have pointed to the importance of student self efficacy in constructing task demands and determining the “ effort, persistence, and performance” needed to accomplish the task. As Brookhart and Bronowicz (2003, p.240 concluded, “what matters to the student affects how a student approaches an academic assessment”. The cultural influences on student self efficacy have also been highlighted making it a relevant variable in the current study where the values, responses and behaviors’ of students from different cultural groups are of particular interest (Oettingen and Zosuls, 2006) That is to say, students themselves perceive the assessment environment that is designed to monitor their learning and they respond to it either positively or negatively.

 

The issues of how schools and teachers construct assessment environments in Hong Kong schools and how ethnic minority students’ learning is influenced by such environments is both an educational and a social issue that has not to date been addressed in the literature. It is, therefore, the focus of this proposal. In doing so, the current policy concern with ethnic minority students in Hong Kong ( Ku, Chan, & Sandhu, 2005, Loper, 2004, Ho, 2001) will move in a new direction to address at the school and classroom level major issues of equity and social justice.

 

 

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