Stalactite cave adventures : developing a holistic model of parent education programmes in Hong Kong

Within the context of parent education, the existing parenting programmes in Hong Kong are either drawn from contexts that are less sensitive to the local one or imbued with Confucian and High Context culture (HC) values of social hierarchy and group harmony. Within such cultural values educators and learners are expected to behave in adherence to the expected social role wherein the educator is the knowledge transmitter whereas the learner is the knowledge absorber or the approaches to parenting that permeate the programmes are inappropriate to the context. The impracticality and cultural insensitivity of these existing parent education programmes, together with news related to adaptation of both new arrivals and Hong Kong locals in terms of adapting to the increasingly diverse sociocultural population in Hong Kong, alert the parent education field to a dire need to develop a model for parent education programmes that caters for different family unique needs within the diverse sociocultural context. With an aim to explore the essential components that are needs and cultural sensitive, the study adopted narrative inquiry as the research methodology to explore the three research questions: (I) To what extent do sociocultural factors affect group interaction among members from diverse backgrounds in Hong Kong? (2) What mechanisms affect group interaction among people from diverse backgrounds in parent education programmes in Hong Kong? (3) How can one formulate a model of parent education programme to suit families having diverse backgrounds, values, and beliefs in the Hong Kong context? The findings of these three research questions emphasise the vital role played by the group facilitator in creating a mutual supportive and need sensitive context to engage learners in mutual learning. Also, a critical analysis of the Subjective Group Dynamics model (SGD) is discussed in the light of group formation among members with diverse sociocultural background within the Confucian and High Context culture (HC) oriented context culture in Hong Kong. The findings of the research questions and analysis of SOD build the foundation for the Family-centred Mutual Support Model of parent education programmes in Hong Kong that emerged from this study.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo