The consensus, controversies, and challenges of home and community involvement in Hong Kong

In the past 15 years, educators in Hong Kong have given increasing attention to the research and development of home and community involvement in education. The roles of parents and teachers in educating the children were seen as separate in early eighties (Llewellyn, 1982). Parents mainly served as the “home supervisor” or “home tutor” of children, like those parents in other Confucian influenced regions in Asia (Pang, 2004). In the school premises, parents usually played the role of audience. After the setting up of the Committee on Home-school Cooperation by the Hong Kong Government in 1993, different forms of home-school partnership and diverse roles of parents have emerged. In research, there has been a significant increase in theses, reports and articles published in local and overseas journals. In this paper, via literature review and document analysis, the changing roles of parent and community in school education in Hong Kong will be examined. The consensus, controversies, and challenges of the various types of school-home-community partnerships will be discussed. The Ecological Systems Theory of Bronfenbrenner (1979) will be used to explain some of these developments.