This article highlights findings from a case study research investigating factors that foster the academic achievement of community college students in Hong Kong. Data was collected from in-depth interviews with six community college students in a middle-sized, self-funded community college. The findings illustrate nuanced facets of teacher care that are conducive to students’ academic and personal development, including (i) teachers as important transmitters of knowledge; (ii) teachers as care-givers; (iii) pedagogical care; (iv) teachers as advice-givers, and (v) teachers as role models. The research has practical implications for practices within community colleges and teacher training in the sub-degree sector. Copyright © 2019 NAPCE

In Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) programmes, students are expected to master content knowledge and language simultaneously. The worldwide popularity of this kind of programme has called for professional development, particularly for content subject teachers who have to shoulder some responsibilities of language teaching in CLIL. There have been several frameworks or proposals for professional development of CLIL teachers. Yet, empirical studies investigating the effectiveness of CLIL professional development programmes remain scarce. This gap is particularly important, since the relationship between professional development and teacher change is complicated and there are various factors affecting whether and how teacher would change. This study implemented a 6-month professional development programme for a group of content subject teachers in CLIL in Hong Kong. With data gathered with questionnaires, interviews, lesson observations and post-lesson reflections, this paper reports the trajectory of three case teachers who seemed to experience different degrees of changes in beliefs and language awareness. These differences could be explained by the influence of such factors as school context, learning experience and subject discipline. This study yields important implications for teacher education in CLIL and teacher change.
[Copyright of International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism is the property of Routledge.]

This study examined the relationships between teachers' perceptions of faculty trust, professional learning communities, and their professional learning among a sample of 2106 Hong Kong kindergarten teachers. It analysed the differences between the effects of faculty trust in various stakeholders (i.e., colleagues, parents, and the principal). The results show that while trust in colleagues exerted a positive effect on teacher professional learning, the direct effects of trust in the principal and trust in parents were non-significant. Meanwhile, professional learning communities positively mediated the effects of teachers' perceived faculty trust on their learning. Implications for teacher learning in kindergartens are presented.
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Research suggests that teachers’ self-efficacy improves student learning and academic achievement (Caprara, Barnabelli, Steca, & Malone, 2006; Woolfolk, Hoy, & Davis, 2006) by enhancing students’ sense of efficacy (Lin, Gorrell, & Taylor, 2002) and strengthening their motivation to learn (Midgley, Feldlaufer, & Eccles, 1989). Within the context of citizenship education (CE), teachers’ self-efficacy generates many benefits, which take on different meanings. Recently, many youth in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea have been become radically active citizens. The question remains as to what roles schools and teachers play in students’ political socialization. Combining ICCS 2009 teacher and student data, this study is to examine on teacher self “efficacy have affected student civic learning, participation in school activities and intention to participation in future among these countries. According to the primarily findings, in Hong Kong, teachers’ participation in school governance has affected students’ civic knowledge; gender has affected students’ civic participation in the wider community and students’ expected adult participation in political activities, and teachers’ perceptions of social problems at school have affected on students’ expected adult electoral participation. In Taiwan, teacher self-efficacy has not affected student civic learning, participation in school activities and intention to participation in future. In Korea, teachers’ perceptions of students’ activities in the community have affected on students’ civic knowledge. Teachers’ perceptions of social problems at school have affected students’ participation in school activities. Copyright © 2017 13th citized International Conference.

Previous studies that have found changes in the teaching motivations of student teachers assumed that these changes resulted from the field experience, without actually examining whether this was indeed the case. The mixed method study described in this chapter sought to cross-sectionally compare the teaching motivations of first- and fourth-year student teachers in an initial teacher education (ITE) programme, and at relating their differences in teaching motivation to the ITE programme, particularly the field experience. In this study, 319 first-year and 460 fourth-year student teachers in Hong Kong completed a teaching motivations questionnaire, and 35 and 12 from each group, respectively, then volunteered to participate in follow-up interviews. Both year groups were high in intrinsic, altruistic, and extrinsic teaching motivations (adaptive motivation) and low in teaching as a fallback career (maladaptive) motivation, although the fourth-year student teachers had lower adaptive and higher maladaptive teaching motivations compared to the first-year students. Interview data from the fourth-year student teachers clearly revealed the importance of the field experience in shaping teaching motivations. While the reality of the heavy workload and gloomy job prospects as experienced in their field experience lowered the teaching motivations of some, their negativity can be partly offset if they have high perceived teaching competence. The implications for teaching education are discussed. Copyright © 2018 selection and editorial matter, Kerry J. Kennedy and John Chi-Kin Lee; individual chapters, the contributors.

In recent years, many teachers suffered different kinds of negative emotions in the context of education reforms. A typical explanation was that the education reforms disempowered teachers in teaching, so teachers were forced to do much non-instructional work. Teachers considered their work meaningless but were powerless to change it, and eventually indulged themselves in negative emotions. However, the present research suggested that this explanation had neglected teacher agency and might be incomplete. Arguing from the perspective of social constructionism, the research showed that teachers in Hong Kong experienced negative emotions in education reforms because, on top of the disempowerment, the reforms structurally displaced teachers' educational goals with administrative goals. The goal displacement impeded teachers' evaluation of the instructional values of their work. Thus, teachers perceived their work as inconsistent with their major purpose of teaching (i.e. making a difference) and they felt negative towards work.
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Social diversity is now commonplace in many communities in today's globalised world. This diversity can be seen in any classroom of learners, and international studies have shown the complex ways in which disabilities, race, ethnicity, gender and social class can determine a child's opportunity to succeed or fail in the education system. In Hong Kong, like in many educational contexts around the world, teachers are grappling with increasing diversity amongst their students, including teaching students with special educational needs (SEN) and non-Chinese speaking students (NCS) living in Hong Kong. This paper examines how three primary TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) teachers are constructing identities as inclusive practitioners as they grapple with enacting the inclusive education policy recently introduced into Hong Kong schools. The data are drawn from a small-scale collaborative reflective inquiry for teacher professional development. Drawing upon a sociocultural and critical framing of identity theory, we trace the three teachers' identity construction as EFL teachers and inclusive education practitioners. We view the role of discourse, self-positioning and social context as key processes in teacher identity formation. Implications for furthering the development of inclusive education in EFL classrooms are offered.

Traditionally, the role of teachers is largely confined to the context of teaching in the classroom. Recently, teacher as the agents of change is increasingly viewed as a key factor determining the quality of modern schools. This paper aims to offer insights into how teacher leaders act as the change agents for school development in a Chinese educational context. Early childhood education in Hong Kong is selected as a research site for study. The local early childhood education sector has historically been characterized by minimum training and a modified form of apprenticeship. With the public call for quality early childhood education, the Hong Kong government has been increasing investment in teacher professional development. Given that, the qualifications of early childhood teachers have been improved in the last decade. Therefore, preschool teachers have identified themselves as professionals. Adopting a case study approach, the study reported in this paper is to examine the changing role of teacher leaders for school development. Semi-structures interviews were conducted with preschool principals, key stage coordinators (also known as student cohort coordinators), and classroom teachers to investigate their perspectives on teachers as the agent of change. The findings indicated that the key stage coordinators who are teachers holding functional posts took on leading roles beyond classroom in various areas including curriculum and pedagogy, teacher professional development, home-school collaboration, and community-school involvement. Meanwhile, the classroom teachers mainly acted as followers in the change process. The practice of teacher as change agents is emerging in early childhood education in Hong Kong where hierarchical power and structure is a pervasive source of influence. However, the practice of change agency was largely operated in hierarchical structures. That was different from the form of change agency can be created within a non-hierarchical collaborative

Following Grandey's integrative model of emotional labor, this study examined the relationships between teachers' emotional labor strategies, the emotional job demands of teaching, trust in colleagues, and teacher efficacy. The results from a sample of 1115 Hong Kong primary school teachers showed that surface acting played a dysfunctional role, but deep acting and expression of naturally felt emotion facilitated teacher efficacy. Trust in colleagues was found to be an organizational resource for teachers that helped them to cope with the challenges brought about by the emotional demands of teaching. The results indicate that teachers should perform emotional labor wisely.
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