This case study research investigates the effects of study tours to Mainland China on Hong Kong students’ identity and motivation to learn Putonghua. It is always assumed that study tours to Mainland China by Hong Kong secondary school students would bring about positive outcomes in terms of development of their sense of belonging to the country and their motivation to learn the language. Despite heavy investment in these tours by the government and many Hong Kong schools, there has been no systematic study conducted to (dis)prove this assumption. Through a combination of research methods such as personal observations, interviews, learning journals and questionnaire surveys, it has been noted that after participating in the school organized study tours, the integrative and instrumental motivation of many Hong Kong students were indeed enhanced. The sense of belonging to the motherland was also enhanced culturally and economically through Mainland study tours. It is interesting to note that the identity of many participants was transformed gradually. The students in general showed greater awareness of the Hong Kong culture as well, which in turn created a new perspective for themselves and their identity orientation. Furthermore, life inspirations were exhibited in their ethnographic learning journals. Although ethnographic interviews proved difficult for most of the incompetent Putonghua speakers, practicable strategies were used by themselves to keep the conversation going. By using ethnographic interviews, the participants began to understand the way of life, were more willing to learn from the people in various Mainland places and their target language competence was also strengthened. Based on the research findings, pedagogical and practical recommendations are made towards the end of the thesis.

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In a time of growing awareness of the climate change crisis, cities are revisiting their policies and practices to align with sustainability aspirations.   Transportation and cycling policies offer a way forward. On visits to best practice cities, policymakers, practitioners and decision-makers learn from local experts in an effort to take ideas home and implement them. The activity of finding out about policies, known as policy transfer, can be explored as a type of experiential learning when it takes place as a bicycle study tour. The policy transfer framework provided by Dolowitz & Marsh (1996, 2000, 2012) and the experiential learning theory of Kolb (2015) can serve as starting points in exploring how policies are transferred during learning activities and interpersonal interactions that involve hosts and visitors during bicycle study tours. The case study of Amsterdam, which has over 500km of separate cycle lanes and 53% of all daily trips made by bicycle (van der Horst, 2014), offers a working, observable example of an alternative future for cities wanting to change their transportation situation. More than 150 groups visit the city annually to find out about its bicycle culture and underlying policies (Sargentini, 2017).  While policy transfer and learning in Amsterdam may be initiated by visitors that take steps to travel to the city, the local hosting situation is made up of different institutions and actors that interact in various ways. Some attention to the governance of urban cycling in Amsterdam to understand the role of the private sector and the responsibilities of different organizations and actors can partially respond to Oldenziel’s (2016) call for research on this topic throughout Europe. Interviews and document research about the hosting situation in Amsterdam reveal several players with varied backgrounds, a rich variety of learning activities, and a loosely governed hosting landscape. Recommendations are made for Amsterdam institutions, hosts, visitors and future research.