The present study adopted a qualitative approach through in-depth individual and focus group interviews to study the attitudes of the early childhood teachers in Hong Kong. The goal of the study is to reveal the lived experience of real people in real contexts. The first part of the study looks at how satisfaction/dissatisfaction of early childhood teachers was experienced by teachers and the principal, in the process of a top-down curriculum implementation at a local kindergarten in Hong Kong. Building on the findings of this case study, the need for pedagogical skill and knowledge to enhance the job satisfaction of early childhood teachers was addressed. By means of an action research, thirty student teachers at the In-serve Qualified Kindergarten Teacher Education Course were involved in learning ways of understanding and implementing an art project. The ability to help children learn was reported by the student-teachers as the main source of satisfaction when implementing a revitalized process for a more child-centred approach in art projects for children. However, the opinions towards the bottom-up scenario on innovative learning and teaching approach were diverse. The lack of positive supporting context at the organizational level was identified to be the main obstacle to teachers' improvement and satisfaction. Besides the professional/pedagogical development of the teachers, the attitude of the administrators/principals and parents were vital factors in promoting the satisfaction of early childhood teachers in Hong Kong.
[Copyright of Early Child Development and Care is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0300443022000022413]

This paper draws conclusions from a pioneering project that has offered a systematic institute-school support scheme for the education of newly arrived students from mainland China (NAS) in six Hong Kong primary schools. It begins with an overview of the monocultural nature of Hong Kong education and its early experience in educating the NAS. An analysis of the project is then given, highlighting the way in which the six schools have responded to the challenges and opportunities for managing the diverse learning needs of the NAS, with particular emphasis on professional development for teachers. Finally, the project has served to clarify a future direction for teachers to facilitate their work in the intercultural classroom, with regard to the specific nature of Hong Kong.
[Copyright of Intercultural Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1467598042000225014]

This article traces the processes for encouraging and/or ensuring the accountability of teachers in Hong Kong. It is argued that, if examined historically, the nature of teacher accountability has been determined by the government, whose approach has been ambivalent and paradoxical. Up until the mid-1980s, through inertia and non-decisions, the low level of professionalization of teaching was reinforced. Subsequently, from the late 1980s onwards, the government resisted and diluted attempts by the professional community to regulate itself. Most recently it has sought to introduce systems to allow the government to scrutinize teachers in an ostensible attempt to promote the level of teacher professionalism, whilst at the same time attempted to maintain the low status of the main institution dedicated to teacher education. These are analysed in terms of the differences between professionalism and professionalization, the government's own legitimacy and the changing political context.
[Copyright of Research Papers in Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0267152032000177007]

At the turn of the millennium, the term 'spiritual' began to gain more prominence in the educational discourse in Hong Kong, both in official policy documents and in religious schools' descriptions of their own mission. Addressing each of these two cases in turn, a description of the context in which the increased use of the term has occurred leads on to the question of the extent to which this increased rhetorical emphasis on the spiritual is matched by the actual substance of education policy and the reality of religious education. It is found that the match is much less than perfect, and the reasons for this are explored.
[Copyright of International Journal of Children's Spirituality is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13644360500347359]

The authors examined the confidence of teachers from Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, and the United States (N = 1,375) to address civic topics with their students. The authors also used differential item functioning models to examine responses to items from the Teacher Confidence Scale of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement's Civic Education Study (J. Torney-Purta, R. Lehmann, H. Oswald, & W. Schulz, 2001; J. Torney-Purta, J. Schwille, & J. Amadeo, 1999). National case-study data explained findings within each context. Results revealed that the confidence of teachers varied when they addressed civic topics. Furthermore, teacher confidence varied as a function of country of residence. Case studies supported quantitative findings. Society-based factors, school-based factors, and public discourse illuminated effects of national context on teacher confidence.
[Copyright of Journal of Educational Research is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/JOER.101.3.177-188 ]