New teachers enter schools with already established beliefs about principals.This paper reports on the nature and primary influences on what a group of Hong Kong pre-service teacher participants believe about principals. The nature of beliefs reflect underlying personal constructs that relate to interpersonal communication and management. Influences include past school principals, school leaders and parents. Beliefs were attained using a modified personal construct interview and analyses of participant stories. Findings highlight a close association between the leadership/management style of the principal whom participants would like to beand mothers, and the interpersonal behaviour of fathers and the principal whom participants would not like to be. The authors argue that reforms are needed in the course design of teacher education, teacher induction and programmes of professional development for principals. These reforms must address the influence personal history has on an individual's thinking about teaching, interpersonal communication and leadership - a reform process that begins with teacher educators and principals reframing their beliefs and associated practices.
[Copyright of Educational Research is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0013188011040931]

This article aims to contribute to an understanding of principalship in Hong Kong through probing the formation and preservation of the deep leadership structures that shape its practice. Deep structures are formed partly through a dynamic relationship between constitution and culture which forms bounded "codes" of understanding, conduct and behaviour which combine to shape principalship in Hong Kong and power relationships within schools and collections of schools. After providing a brief historical snapshot of Hong Kong education development since 1945, the paper explores the recent context of principalship and how this influences its shape in schools. Discussion of context focuses on the interconnected elements of constitution and traditional culture. These factors are illustrated using the issues of principal selection and teacher and parent empowerment to show the influence of deep leadership structures on the principal and the system. Depending on the perspective taken, these can be understood as either supportive or obstructive to better school leadership.
[Copyright of Discourse is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0159630042000178491]