STEM education is an important approach for preparing students for a competitive workforce with essential skills in the 21st century. However, successfully implementing STEM education in primary and secondary schools presents a variety of challenges. The study suggests that a neglected challenge in the literature is how to sustain teachers’ positive emotions toward STEM educational work, which may cause teachers to be more engaged in, motived by, and committed to STEM education. Therefore, the study aims to contribute to the literature by investigating the mechanism of the construction and suitability of teachers’ emotions toward STEM educational work based on a single case study conducted in Hong Kong from the social constructionist perspective. The major findings of the study indicate that (1) positive emotions toward STEM educational work may be constructed by the teacher’s positive interpretation of the work, i.e., STEM educational work as the facilitator of students’ overall development and that (2) positive emotions toward STEM educational work may be sustained by enabling school institutions to have the elements of shared power, administrative support, and the value of a whole-person education. Copyright © 2021 MDPI AG

Hong Kong has publicly declared its intention, via its cultural policy, of becoming an international cultural metropolis. This has been matched, on the part of its educational reforms, by a commitment aimed at ensuring that students are fully prepared to meet the multifarious work and life challenges of the future. Forming a potential bridge between the two sectors is arts education, formally recognised as fostering the necessary skills of appreciation, creativity and expression and of enriching the cultural literacy of individuals and society, thereby providing the soil, nutrition and impetus for cultural development. This study adopted the analogy of cultural policy and arts education policy as the two wings of the same bird which, when working in unison, have the power to yield rewards at both a sectoral and at a stakeholder level through the occurrence of mutually-beneficial synergies, in order to investigate the degree to which this was presently taking place. Via an ecological research perspective characterised by a focus on the layers of interconnectedness and interrelatedness among the various stakeholders within and across Hong Kong’s cultural and arts education sectors, the methodology drew on the salient features of both the “ecological worldview” and the “interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary” types to more fully understand perceptions as they related to the policies’ fundamental elements of “conceptualisation”, “communication” and “operationalisation”. As a means of answering the three research questions guiding the study, the data gathering and analysis stage was concerned with the collection of the relevant policy documentation, an online cultural and arts education policy questionnaire, and a series of semi-structured, in-depth interviews. The findings revealed that while evidence exists of a variety of intra- and inter-sectoral partnerships, this is not being matched by a strategic vision at a policymaking level that clearly demonstrates how such collaborations

An overview is presented of a three-year project aimed at helping Chinese language teachers in Taiwan refine ways that Chinese, an ideographic language that differs markedly from alphabetic English, is taught in primary schools. Guided by university staff in Taiwan, Hong Kong University and a Taiwanese non-government social enterprise, 20 experienced Taiwanese Chinese language teachers visited Hong Kong, observed literacy lessons, held in-depth discussions with principals and teachers, and engaged in seminars that helped them reflect on ways to modify practice in Taiwan. Back in Taiwan, they tried out techniques witnessed in Hong Kong, shared their experiences with colleagues in and beyond their own school, and evaluated their relevance for language teaching in Taiwan. Experiences were exchanged via practical demonstrations of techniques, video-recordings of lessons, accounts of new ways to teach Chinese, interviews and progress reports on an Internet forum. The outcomes are an example of positive teacher change.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530.2012.722439]