U.S. and Non-U.S. Scholars

Fulbright New Century Scholars Program
Overview • Previous NCS Programs • NCS Scholar List • NCS Brochure • 2004-2005

Fanny Mui Ching Cheung

Chair, Psychology Department

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Research: Work-family balance for women in Chinese and American societies: Implications for enhancing women leadership

Dr. Fanny Cheung received her B.A. from University of California, Berkeley, and her Ph.D. from University of Minnesota. She is currently Professor of Psychology and Chairperson of the Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, where she has taught since 1977. She has been the Dean of the Faculty of Social Science. She pioneered the field of gender studies in Hong Kong by founding the Gender Research Programme in 1985. She also initiated the Gender Studies Programmes at the graduate and undergraduate level in mid 1990s. She is currently Director of the Gender Research Centre at the Chinese University. She also established the Assessment and Training Centre as a joint effort between the Department of Psychology and the Faculty of Business Administration to promote evidence-based practice in assessment to organizations.

Dr. Cheung is a Fellow and past President of the Hong Kong Psychological Society (1984-85), a past President of the Division of Clinical and Community Psychology of the International Association of Applied Psychology (1990-94), and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. Her research interests include personality assessment, psychopathology among the Chinese people, violence against women, and gender equality. She has developed the Chinese (Cross-Cultural) Personality Assessment Inventory, an indigenous personality measure appropriate for the Asian cultural context.

Since the 1970s, Prof. Cheung has been active in promoting women's development and services. She spearheaded the War on Rape campaign in the late 1970s and founded the first community women's centre in the early 1980s. She mobilized women's groups to advocate for the establishment of a women's commission and the extension of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to Hong Kong. From 1996-1999, she took leave from the University to serve as the founding Chairperson of the Equal Opportunities Commission of Hong Kong. She is currently a member of the Women's Commission of the Hong Kong SAR Government.

Prof. Cheung has served in many government committees and advisory bodies. For her contributions to the community, she was awarded the Badge of Honour in 1986, appointed as Justice of Peace in 1988 and awarded the Honour of Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1997. She received the Distinguished Leadership Award for Internationals from University of Minnesota in 2003, in recognition of the outstanding accomplishments of an alumna in post-university career.

Her academic publications include 7 books and over 100 journal articles, chapters and monographs. She recently co-edited a Special Section on Psychological Assessment in Asian Countries for the international journal, Psychological Assessment

Work-Family Balance for Women in Chinese and US Societies: Implications for Enhancing Women Leadership

The potential conflicts between work and family roles pose as implicit barriers for women's advancement to leadership positions. The importance of domestic roles in women's identity is particularly prominent in traditional Chinese culture. My proposed study will explore how women leaders in Chinese and American societies perceive and negotiate work-family balance. To construct a model of work-family balance, I will adopt a combined emic-etic approach, incorporating universal as well as indigenous domains that are relevant to the local cultural context. The study will include literature review of relevant studies in the West and in Chinese societies, and the design of a protocol for in-depth interviews of women leaders in China, Hong Kong and the United States. I intend to visit Prof. Diane Halpern, Director of the Berger Institute for Work, Family, and Children at Claremont McKenna College in California. We will explore the meaning of work-family balance for women leaders in a cross-cultural context. I will also interview Asian American and European American women leaders during my visits to the United States. One of the deliverables of the study is the development of a paper-and-pencil measure based on the interview results, which can be used for quantitative analyses in future research. The information derived from this study will also highlight the organizational and social context in which the women leaders operate and illustrate the institutional structures and policies that facilitate or impede work-family balance. The study will advance our understanding in the cross-cultural perspectives of an important constraint for women's advancement in leadership positions, and inform policies on the empowerment of women.