Economic Resources of Educational Inequality in Hong Kong High Schools: A Qualitative Study of Student Perceptions Across School Types

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-511-9_101How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Educational inequality; Hong Kong schools; public; private; and international schools; parental involvement

Abstract

This study scrutinizes how economic resources shape educational inequality across public, private, and international high schools in Hong Kong. Drawing on qualitative questionnaire with 33 students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, the research reveals how institutional arrangements, family resources, and parental involvement shape perceptions of fairness, aspirations, and agency within the education system. Findings reveal that while international and private school students benefit from abundant resources, public school students often face systemic disadvantages due to limited access to extracurricular activities, private tutoring, and technology. It is the Direct Subsidy Scheme (DSS) schools—initially intended to expand choice—that are perceived as reinforcing stratification by privileging wealthier families. The study challenges the dominant narrative of Hong Kong achieving “high performance with equity” by showing that equity is conditional on socioeconomic background, rather than being universally realized. Theoretically, this research contributes a student-centered perspective to debates on educational inequality. At the same time, it underscores the practical need for redistributive policies and inclusive practices that address structural disparities and ensure fairness across different school types.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Sam Huang
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/31
TI  - Economic Resources of Educational Inequality in Hong Kong High Schools: A Qualitative Study of Student Perceptions Across School Types
BT  - Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 867
EP  - 876
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-511-9_101
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-511-9_101
ID  - Huang2025
ER  -