作者指出，踏進90年代，世界各地紛紛對數學課程作出了重整，但與新數學運動截然不同者，基礎數學之內容，可謂萬變不離其蹤，但其定位、取向與著眼點方是最決定性的。此文章即以10地區之數學教育目的作比較，檢討其異同，希望藉此得出去蕪存菁之端倪。

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.

作者匯報其研究對香港及台灣兩地的小學語及社會課本進行量化分析，結果顯示課本的現代性多於傳統性，亦有二者相抗衡的現象。香港課本的現代性較強，台灣課本的傳統性較強，反映兩地課本均發揮「再生產」社會既有文化意識的功能。

作者嘗試比較中、港、台三地的九年義務教育的實施，描繪出三地政府對教育效能的看法，並說明三地政府在其中所探取的措施。整體而言，雖然三地的客觀條件不同，社會經濟發展的模式亦有差異，但三地均為中國人的社會，故其基礎教育的發展，可互相參考。

作者首先嘗試探討義務教育的源與背景，並說明香港與廣州發展義務教育的社會、經濟、文化的背景。其次，作者亦描述了香港及廣州義務教育的實施概況。第三，作者總結了兩地實施義務教的成果與經驗，亦探討了其困難和問題。最後，作者再思義務教育探索新的教育模式實施的理念和經驗，提出了不少新的想法。

The author points out that Hong Kong and Macau share some commonalties: they are geographically close, and share a common cultural heritage; both of them have scheduled for reintegration with the People's Republic of China. In contrast, the author underscores, the education system of Hong Kong is in most aspects centralized, while in Macau is decentralized. The author then tries to account for the differences and in turn comments on the implications with a focus on patterns of curriculum development for secondary schools.

The purpose of this study was twofold: to examine how attitudinal and instructional variables differentiated 4th-grade students in Cyprus, Hong Kong, and the USA; and to determine how those variables were related to math performance on the TIMSS test. A discriminant analysis was performed to examine how those variables differentiated the students in the 3 countries. The most striking result was that the students from all 3 countries, who were similar to the average students in Cyprus, had the highest achievement within their countries. Thus, 4th-grade students who liked math, who thought it was important to do well in math for their friends, who did not need private instruction, and who had not been taught using computers or small group procedures, tended to be the better students. However, students who were similar to the average USA student had the lowest achievement within each of the 3 countries.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1076/edre.8.1.129.6919 ]

Teachers beliefs about their ability to affect students' performance is an important part of professionalism. This study compared 725 Hong Kong and 575 Shanghai primary in-service teachers on their teacher efficacy. Two Chinese versions of the 12-item Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale were used in this study since some wordings of the Hong Kong version of the Scale (HK-TSE) were different from the Shanghai version (STSE) as a result of cultural differences. Basically, the Shanghai teachers reported significantly higher efficacy than did the Hong Kong teachers. After reviewing these quantitative results, 86 follow-up questionnaires from Shanghai in-service teachers who also participated in the first part of this study were collected. Results of this qualitative part showed that the three most commonly cited factors for the contribution of teacher efficacy were: respect and confidence placed in them by students and parents, the training they received from universities and the experience they gained from daily teaching practice. Though Hong Kong in-service teachers had lower efficacy scores than the Shanghai counterparts.
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