This is a narrative study to inquire the experiences of my inner self through my life journey in teaching and learning of dance. Stemming from my experience as a student, a secondary school PE teacher, and a PE lecturer I have become critically aware of the need for learning of dance. Dance, probably more than games and gymnastics, offers many opportunities for integrating movement experiences with various aspects of the curriculum. The Hong Kong Curriculum Development Council (1995) states that at least two periods per week should be allocated to physical education and the teaching of dance should be included if the teacher aim to produce a balanced program. However, dance tends to receive less attention in physical education program, and most male PE teachers are found reluctant to teach dance. The inclusion of dance certainly depends on whether teachers consider it important for children to become skillful in and knowledgeable about expressive movement forms. The value we place on dance is personalized and revealing text in attempt to help others to rethink and recreate the meaning in learning and teaching of dance.

Similar to an international trend, Hong Kong girls have either caught up with or surpassed boys in access to education and academic performance. Such progress has been confirmed with systemic census and education participation data. However, there is little knowledge on how it has happened. Much has yet to be studied in two dimensions of the problem – girls’ subjectivities in terms of their gendered identity formation and its interaction with the public discourse on gender relations and educational provision, and the epistemological issues of gendering in knowledge acquisition and assessment. In this paper I examine girls’ participation in education in the context of policy and social development. Their gains in education are an incidental product more of uncoordinated policy and social developments than an ideology of gender equity. On the other hand, studies comparing gender difference in education tend to focus on the extent to which girls are catching up in enrollment and academic performance scores. A review of these studies raises questions on what is being compared, why, and whether numerical gender parity or a deeper sense of fairness is the ultimate objective of intellectual inquiry into the issue. There is a need to shift attention from the structural to the personal, such as the gendered nature of values and identity formation of boys and girls which impact on their educational participation, and the ways in which they negotiate with the social constraints as well as potential on gender roles.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine gender identities of Chinese male and female middle leaders in secondary schools and how gender dynamics play in the leadership process and impact on career aspirations and career development. Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws on the data of a larger qualitative study conducted using the life history approach. Cases of four male and female middle leaders, which are able to demonstrate the “efficacy” of life stories to enhancing our appreciation of the process of gender negotiation and the impact of gender dynamics on leadership behaviour, are reported. Findings – Evidence suggests that traditional Chinese gender identities played out in the leader-follower relationships although signs of hybrid gender identities were also evident in some cases. Gender identities and the family role perception of the middle leaders have impact on their career aspirations and development. Research limitations/implications – Findings yield implications for the professional development needs of Chinese middle leaders not only regarding their professional role but also their personal understanding of how gender identities and family role perception impact on their career development. Further study with overlapping and complementary methods to a larger sample could be more illuminating to this complex and multifaceted issue. Originality value – In the context of global concerns about the shortage of leader talent, the present study illuminates gender identities and the dynamics of the interactions between Chinese superiors and subordinates of different sexes and adds perspective to the leadership development literature.
[Copyright © 2013 Emerald Group Publishing Limited.]

The present study examines how gender is represented in the visuals (or illustrations) of two English Language textbook series used in most primary schools in Hong Kong. Instead of conducting frequency counts of the occurrence of male and female characters in illustrations or the spheres of activities they engaged in as in previous textbook studies, this study involves qualitative analyses of how visualised male and female characters are represented in the selected illustrations of the analysed textbook series in terms of their hair length and clothing. The results show that human females were more often portrayed having long hair than short hair and wearing dresses than trousers in both line drawings and photographs. For the colour of clothing, although blue and pink are generally considered ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ colours respectively, less than half and only a small percentage of the human males and females were portrayed wearing blue and pink respectively. For non-human characters, again, colour is not always a reliable cue to their sex. Yet, they can be recognised as males and females by the generally accepted ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ colour and clothing items.