This editorial discusses the issues and experiences of beginning teachers. The experience of reality shock for beginning teachers can be profound, influencing feelings of belonging to the profession, capacity to teach effectively, and levels of teacher retention. This editorial of Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education (A-PJTE) brings together a themed collection of articles focussed on the experience of entering the field of teaching or teacher education for the first time. The range of emotional responses beginning teachers have in response to their early experiences in classrooms comes through clearly in this collection of papers, in particular the effect that access to appropriate support and mentoring for adjusting to life as a teacher has on the confidence of a beginning teacher. With research reported from Hong Kong, New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia, the Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education provides insight into what it is like to be a beginning teacher, and reminds readers that learning to belong and contribute to a profession can be a difficult journey.
Copyright of Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1359866X.2014.969415

In Hong Kong, except for Art and Craft and Physical Education, official proved school textbooks for pupils and teacher's handbooks are widely adopted by all primary school subjects. When Art and craft primary teachers in Hong Kong schedule their lessons, they can only follow the official curriculum prepared by the Curriculum Development Council of the Education Department of Hong Kong. Thus, the official curriculum plays a very important role in guiding the primary Art and Craft teachers in planning their taught curriculum. In this paper, the writer tries to examine the developmental trend of the aims of the planned Hong Kong Primary Schools Art and Craft Curriculum from 50's to 90's.

At present, it is very difficult to retrieve relevant and comprehensive literature on the historical development of PE teacher education in Hong Kong. One of the problems might be due to the fact that in the past PE teacher education was offered by the college of education which was run by the government. Under civil regulations, PE lecturers were not encouraged to conduct any research or projects. In order to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the PE teacher education history, there is a need to develop enriched, empirical teaching resources to strengthen this area. The purpose of this project is to study the historical development of PE teacher education in Hong Kong since the 1930s, focusing on the areas of physical education teacher education and physical education development at school levels. To collect primary empirical data about programmes, pedagogy, curriculum changes, school-based curriculum development, and professional development of PE teachers, 19 retired and serving PE lecturers and 10 secondary and primary schools PE teachers were invited to participate in interviews. The results of this study will provide a comprehensive reference for teaching and learning purposes to be used in teaching PE history and other contexts.

Competitive anxiety (CA), task and ego orientation (TEO), and extrinsic and intrinsic motivation were studied in 1086 secondary school children from Hong Kong (HK), Britain, Hungary, and Romania. Statistically significant nation by gender interactions emerged for TEO as well as extrinsic motivation. Apart from HK where the highest scores for TEO were recorded, boys generally scored higher than girls on all dependent measures except CA for which the inverse results emerged. Children in the four nations showed statistically significantly different response profile in the studied measures. This research substantiates the need for local/cultural research data in developing sport education programmes.

The purpose of the study is to identify the rationales and notions for music education in Hong Kong and China. This study investigates the practice of music education in Hong Kong and China under the impacts of Westernisation and colonization particularly since the late 19th century. It also highlights the features of music education, and current issues in education in Hong Kong and China with regard to the two recently issued music curricula. The curricula reveal various resemblances and differences in the design of the music curricula, which bring to light recommendations that could be shared among other countries.

The establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has brought about enormous structural, social, economical, political and cultural changes to society. To cope with these multi-faceted changes, there is a need to review the existing systems and policies as to provide information for improvement or reform. Education is undoubtedly within the criteria for revision. Art education, that forms part of the core curriculum of general education, plays a role for developing an all-round being should invite certain amount of attention. This study tended to obtain a thorough picture on the changes of the philosophy and rationale of art education in the recent forty years by a descriptive study on the aims of art education in the official art syllabuses of junior secondary schools.

The purpose of this study was to compare attitudes of final year students in teacher preparation program and in-service physical education teachers toward including students with disabilities into regular settings between Hong Kong (HK) and mainland China (MC), and to further examine the influences of attitudes on development of adapted physical education program. Total 152 participants (53 4th year students and 43 in-service teachers) from HK, and 56 students from MC participated in this study. A survey was conducted regarding students' attitudes toward inclusion (type disability can be included, type of experience and skills they need for inclusion), and opinions and concerns about inclusion (open questions). The results of survey indicated that both students and in-service teachers in HK and MC philosophically support inclusion, however, there were many concerns and different opinions regarding inclusion when they answered open-end questions. For question #1 "Students with disabilities should be taught in RPE classes" 65% (HK) and 62% (MC) students disagreed. For question #3, "Students with severe disabilities should be taught in separate classes (APE classes)", 77% (HK) and 85% (MC) agreed. The survey indicated that students from HK and MC thought special school and teachers with special training will provide better education for students with disabilities than general teacher. Survey results also indicated from question #13, "to be prepared to teach students with mild to severe disabilities, it is important that I receive training on activities that includes ideas on lesson planning for a variety of abilities levels", that 95.5% students from both HK and MC agreed and strong agreed on "need more academic preparation" for inclusion. There were no significant difference between 4th year students and in-service teachers on these items. Other results indicated that, in addition to government policies, attitudes and lack of special education training for current teachers