Markets, choice of kindergarten, mothers' care responsibilities, and the voucher scheme in Hong Kong

Habitus, affordances, and family leisure: Cultural reproduction through children’s leisure activities

“… Diane : I didn’t enroll her in nursery classes; I don’t like it when kids don’t have time to be kids.Placing happiness versus ‘pressure’ and ‘homework,’ and resituating well-being and happiness of their children above academic readiness in their ethical disposition (Bourdieu, 1978), these working-class parents adjust their educational expectations and take a lax stance towards education. Their acts are consistent with Yuen’s survey (2015) that working-class parents choose to enroll their children in ‘ordinary’ and ‘mediocre’ pre-schools and primary schools close to home (within walking distance) for convenience instead of academic achievement. Similar to Ng, Ng and Chan’s findings (2009), they have not articulated a vision for child development, such as aspired teaching and learning approaches.…”

Crime Costs to the Public in Hong Kong

“…According to economic theory, such government performance benefits from government knowledge about the public to supply resources to meet its demand (Holcombe 1985;Welsh et al 2015). This performance is notable in Hong Kong, whose government consults the public from various channels to take care of the public (Cheung 2011;Yuen 2015). Such consultation and knowledge thus explain good government performance in combatting and lessening crimes (S. Lo 2012).…”

“…Apart from government documents, surveys of the public generally and professionals working against crime specifically provided data for public crime cost estimation in the Chinese metropolis of Hong Kong. Whereas the documents covered government expenditures and victimization from 2006 to 2015 (Financial Secretary 2006-2015Police Force 2006-2015, the surveys collected data in 2016. To be comparable, all monetary data were in terms of the price in 2016, in either Hong Kong or US currency.…”

Kindergarten Education Scheme in Hong Kong: Policy measures, rhizomatic connections and early childhood teacher education

“…Advocates of the previously mentioned movement have argued for a free, quality provision of ECE with the overarching goal of ensuring educational equality for children of all backgrounds in terms of access, process and outcome, through a coherently built infrastructure of public education that covers 3 years of ECE and 12 years of school education (AFFFE, 2014; WGFFE, 2012). Their demands respond to issues of accessibility, quality and affordability linked to the voucher scheme (Yuen, 2015; Yuen & Grieshaber, 2009; Yuen & Lam, 2017), impoverished support for SEN children (Eq ual Opportunities Commission, 2012a) and larger societal issues, such as discrimination of and limited opportunities for ethnic minorities (Eq ual Opportunities Commission, 2012b, 2020) and prolonged poverty, with a Gini‐coefficient consistently above 0.5 (Oxfam, 2018). Given the little attention paid to student diversity in ECE, the new measures indicate some degree of government willingness to attend to these issues.…”

“…They have come a long way from colonial times to serve the community. Their benevolent values and comparative advantages over FPM kindergartens in terms of offering a stable and quality provision have been subject to insurmountable tests by neoliberalism (Yuen, 2015). The reterritorialised ECE illuminates the difficulty of attaining high levels of professionalism in privatised and marketised work environments, as suggested by Urban et al.…”