Student Aspirations and Futures

My interest in this topic began in 2011 when I started my PhD, around which my thesis is based. My initial research was focused on interviews with senior students from public secondary schools in Hong Kong. Since 2021, and given my higher educational curriculum responsibilities, my focus has turned towards exploring the aspirations of Hong Kong university students.

My approach is very much sociological, exploring how broader socio-political, economic, cultural, and educational conditions and imaginaries shape students’ future aspirations for work, education, mobility, and a good life. Empirically, I rely on surveys and individual and focus-group interviews for my data collection.

Projects

  1. Future Readiness: Leadership, Work, & Global Citizenship. UGC Teaching Development and Language Enhancement Grant 2022 – 2025 (completed).
  2. Future Readiness Capacities in a Postdigital AI Age. UGC Teaching Development and Language Enhancement Grant – ongoing.

Publications

Tsao J., Hardy I. & Lingard B. (2021) Schooling in Hong Kong, youth aspirations, and the contesting of Chinese identity, British Journal of Sociology of Education https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2021.1882836

Tsao J., Hardy I. & Lingard B. (2018) Aspirational ambivalence of middle-class secondary students in Hong Kong, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 39:8, 1094-1110 https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2018.1456904

Tsao, J. (2013, 17 Aug) The imagined futures of Hong Kong English Medium of Instruction Students. The University of Queensland School of Education Postgraduate Research Conference: Cosmopolitan Conversations, St Lucia, Australia.