This study is concerned with aspects of decentralization of curriculum development, a complex educational phenomenon, in Japan and Hong Kong. By introducing fieldwork and the case study research method, it hopes to yield a general understanding of the above phenomenon as reflected in the contexts of selected programs in curriculum reform, namely, (1) Project Learning and SBeD in Hong Kong, and (2) Integrated Learning in Japan, at junior levels of secondary school. In its research design, the objectives are to investigate and compare the broad trends and features in the rationale, practices and processes, and implications of reform in the locations studied. Trends of decentralization of curriculum development, in recent curriculum reforms in Japan and Hong Kong, indicated a strong policy interest in promoting specific essential skills and qualities through partial devolution of curricular control to schools. Most of these programs have multiple educational aims directed at either particular policy emphases or local school conditions, or both.
The practices and processes designed to bring about this change toward decentralization of curriculum development differed in the cases of Japan and Hong Kong. At the policy and system level, the levels of government involvement and commitment were not the same. Japan, through a combination of direct measures at the initiation stage and a longer-term policy of minimalist intervention, legitimized schools' autonomy over curriculum development decisions in the reformed programs, while Hong Kong, being traditionally less centralized and less effective with the power-coercive approach in curriculum planning, adopted more indirect strategies of exhortation and inducement while allowing schools full freedom over their own approach and priorities toward the specific reformed school curricula. In terms of school support systems, Japan seemed to be less prepared with the provision of practice guidelines, professional support and