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Students in East Asian locations often obtain high academic results in international high-stakes testing, but lower results on affective aspects of their schooling, such as sense of belonging. These findings indicate the need for more holistic research into children's lifeworlds, including their experiences of school. In this article, we draw on a survey with 627 Year 4 students in three global cities in the Asia Pacific (Hong Kong, Singapore, and Melbourne), exploring dimensions of their perceptions of school. Responses from students were generally positive in terms of sense of school belonging and student identity. Students who responded positively in terms of belonging and student identity were more likely to want academic activities to occur more often. The article adds to the existing literature by offering an exploratory consideration of the relationships between sense of belonging, student identity, and school activity preferences of Year 4 students in Hong Kong, Singapore and Melbourne. It is argued that all of these are essential factors that need to be considered and incorporated in policy planning and curriculum development.

Purpose: This article reflects on the adaption of Sarah Pink's video re-enactment methodology for exploring children's out-of-school lifeworlds. Design/methodology/approach: Video re-enactments originate in the work of Sarah Pink who developed the methodology to study everyday routines, including activities associated with people's energy consumption at home. This article discusses the adaption of this methodology for exploring 9-10-year-old children's out-of-school lifeworlds in their homes in the global cities of Hong Kong, Melbourne and Singapore. Findings: The article reflects on the practical ways in which the video re-enactment methodology was adapted to explore children's out-of-school activities in the three different locations. In terms of activities, the findings highlight that children's out-of-school lifeworlds included regular routines across a week that contribute to and constitute their everyday activities, with varying time spent on leisure, homework and scheduled activities. Originality/value: The authors discuss and reflect on the implications of adapting a methodology in order to make it relevant and innovative in a new research context. The use of video re-enactments with children to explore their out-of-school activities gives greater insights into their lifeworlds and their engagement in various activities and the opportunity for children to reflect on their everyday lives.

There has been much discussion about the high performance of East Asian students in international high stakes testing, but little attention has been paid to their lifeworlds beyond school. In this article we explore findings from a survey of 627 Year 4 children (nine and ten years old) in three global cities (Hong Kong, Singapore, and Melbourne), focusing on their out-of-school activities as one aspect of their lifeworlds. The findings indicate that the most common activities in each location were comparable. Since the activities in the three locations were largely similar, the findings problematise East/West binaries which have been a feature of research and discussions in this area.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to contribute to the research methodology literature that arose out of the (new) sociology of childhood and the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (1989) with regard to conducting ethical research with children rather than on children. In particular, this article reflects on the development of a method (learning dialogues). Design/methodology/approach: Learning dialogues were designed to enable children to share their responses to prompts about specific aspects of their lifeworlds. This was one method used to produce the data corpus which also included a large-scale survey, classroom ethnographies and (video) re-enactments of children's lives after school. Findings: The piloting of the learning dialogues took place in several iterations and a particular form was used for the main study. The original idea and development of the learning dialogues highlights they were both a rich source of data that complemented the other data sources in the study and an activity that children indicated that they enjoyed. The authors discuss the practicalities involved with adapting a qualitative method to different settings and to projects with large numbers of children. Originality/value: The conceptualisation of the learning dialogues as sources of personal documentation about aspects of children's lifeworlds was unique to this research. In thinking about the learning dialogues as one source of data within a broader project, the research aimed to be more inclusive of all participants in contributing to the findings produced in the project.

There has been much discussion about the high performance of East Asian students in international high stakes testing, but little attention has been paid to their lifeworlds beyond school. In this article we explore findings from a survey of 627 Year 4 children (nine and ten years old) in three global cities (Hong Kong, Singapore, and Melbourne), focusing on their out-of-school activities as one aspect of their lifeworlds. The findings indicate that the most common activities in each location were comparable. Since the activities in the three locations were largely similar, the findings problematise East/West binaries which have been a feature of research and discussions in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]