This paper points out that political transition of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty has significant influence on the intended curriculum. The three case studies of variations in civic education, social studies, and liberal studies as reported in the paper show the influence of political changes.

The focus of this paper is on four rapidly developing East Asian nations. It is found that their educational similarities include strong national curricula and highly competitive selective systems. Further, the nations differ in educational funding sources; access to education, particularly tertiary education; extent of state control; relative emphasis on general and technical education; nature and role of the school curriculum; and overall role of education in development.

This article traces the processes for encouraging and/or ensuring the accountability of teachers in Hong Kong. It is argued that, if examined historically, the nature of teacher accountability has been determined by the government, whose approach has been ambivalent and paradoxical. Up until the mid-1980s, through inertia and non-decisions, the low level of professionalization of teaching was reinforced. Subsequently, from the late 1980s onwards, the government resisted and diluted attempts by the professional community to regulate itself. Most recently it has sought to introduce systems to allow the government to scrutinize teachers in an ostensible attempt to promote the level of teacher professionalism, whilst at the same time attempted to maintain the low status of the main institution dedicated to teacher education. These are analysed in terms of the differences between professionalism and professionalization, the government's own legitimacy and the changing political context.
[Copyright of Research Papers in Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0267152032000177007]

This article uses the case of the Target Oriented Curriculum (TOC), a major curriculum reform introduced into Hong Kong primary schools, to explore the interaction of cultures and curriculum reforms. It is argued that the reform emerged from, and was adapted and enacted in contexts or arenas that exhibited very different cultures. We focus on three distinct arenas that affected the reform, and examine within each of these the key interest groups and their shared understandings. The article thus provides an analysis that stresses the fragmented, pluralistic and changing nature of culture within Hong Kong society.
[Copyright of School Leadership & Management is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13632430050011416]

This article explores the changing educational landscape in Hong Kong prior to and following its transition to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. It does this through an analysis of the rise and fall of a specific curriculum reform, the Target Oriented Curriculum (TOC), which straddled the political reunification. The article draws on a range of published research and evaluation projects and the analysis focusses on the four key elements of public policy, namely the origins, the nature, the policy actions used and its impact on practice.
[Copyright of Journal of Education Policy is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680930110100036]

Chinese history (a subject entirely separate and distinct from 'history') has long been the most politically sensitive subject in Hong Kong's school curriculum. Previous studies have analysed the policies of the colonial and postcolonial Governments towards this subject. Here, we examine the role played by the Chinese history subject community (comprising teachers, academics and officials in the Government's educational bureaucracy), and look at the way in which this has operated as an autonomous interest group. We conclude that the influence of this subject community has been a key factor limiting the extent to which the local educational authorities have been able to develop a coherent policy in relation to history education in general, and the teaching of national history in particular. Specifically, advocates of the maintenance of Chinese history as a separate subject within the school curriculum have been able, by associating themselves with the post-1997 agenda of 'patriotic education', to effectively hoist the local educational bureaucracy with its own petard.
[Copyright of Cambridge Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03057640701372525]