Introduction: Understanding the sources and the effects of collective teacher efficacy has been one of the central interests to many educational researchers and practitioners, because it is critical to understand how teachers can shape, and are shaped by, the educational processes in schools. Following the social cognitive perspective on the sources and consequences of efficacy beliefs, this study examined how school support influences collective teacher efficacy which in turn affects teachers’ organizational commitment. Method: The participants included 969 teachers sampled from 28 primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong. To appropriately address the nature of collective teacher efficacy and school support as school-level variables, the doubly latent multilevel structural equation modeling approach was used to analyze the data. Results: The results revealed the mediation mechanism played by collective teacher efficacy in explaining the effect of school support on teachers’ organizational commitment. Discussion: Schools are suggested to consider fostering a supportive school environment as a strategy to improve teachers’ collective efficacy beliefs if it is wished to enhance teachers’ commitment to schools. Copyright © 2023 Zhang, Lee, Yin and Yang.

Developing and maintaining good family relationships is associated with higher levels of wellbeing in children. This may be particularly the case in Hong Kong, where the state of children's mental health is poor, community services are limited, and help-seeking is stigmatized. School counselors, however, are well placed to facilitate parenting programs. Five Hong Kong Chinese parents who had completed a parenting course based on humanistic counseling principles in a school setting were interviewed. The data were analyzed using an interpretive phenomenological approach. Participants developed a repertoire of new skills and experienced a change in perception of their parental role, which they associated with improved child-parent relationships. A small, cohesive, and culturally validating group enabled them to develop and sustain new behaviors consistent with this new conceptualization of parenting. Offering parenting programs in a school setting with Asian parents may be an effective way for school counselors to work with parents. Copyright © 2022 Korean Counseling Association.

A five-year-old kindergarten girl who died of maltreatment in 2018 shocked Hong Kong, bringing up the recommendation on the legislation of “Failure to Protect” offence. The unprecedented increase in domestic violence globally since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic made the United Nations Women describe it “shadow pandemic”. The paper aims to explore the new school practice for protecting children from maltreatment under the “shadow pandemic” and “failure to protect” offence from the perspective of teacher education. This paper contributes cutting-edge views on the unprecedented issue. The views of this paper are based on the author’s comparison and professional interpretation. Comparison is made between the 2020 newly revised “Protecting Children from Maltreatment – Procedural Guide for Multi-disciplinary Co-operation” and its previous version. Professional interpretation is generated from the author’s professional experiences. The implication is that school personnel have not effectively reported these cases mainly because of insufficient knowledge to recognise the signs of abuse. It is recommended to strengthen the Family-School-Community Collaboration training of protecting children from maltreatment. Copyright © 2021 International Conference on Learning and Teaching.

This study examined the relationships between faculty trust, professional learning communities and teacher professional learning among a sample of 2120 kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong. Faculty trust was examined through trust in colleagues, trust in the principal and trust in parents to explore the effects of organizational factors in details. The results showed that professional learning communities significantly mediated the positive effects of faculty trust on teacher professional learning. However, while trust in colleagues exerted a positive effect on teacher professional learning, the effects of trust in parents and trust in the principals were found to be negative and having no significant effect respectively. Kindergartens are recommended to promote teacher learning through enhancing faculty trust and professional learning communities. Copyright © 2019 All Academic, Inc.

This study adopts a social capital perspective to explore the characteristics of “Family-School-Community” partnership model in the kindergarten settings and how these partnerships influence play-based learning implementation. Data were collected through curriculum documents and focus group interviews with 49 participants. Findings revealed that bonding social capital was resided in teacher groups and exhibited in form of various professional development activities. Bridging and linking social capitals where those relationships are developed through the collaborations between home, kindergarten and society. Such partnerships bring about important resources facilitating play-based learning curriculum practices in the kindergartens. The proposed explanatory model may shed a light of providing early childhood practitioners and researchers with a social capital perspective of how to develop an effective play-based learning. Copyright © 2020 All Academic, Inc.

Based on a case study of a faculty at a university in Hong Kong, this chapter examines how a grassroots approach to professional development enhances the capacity of the teaching staff for blended learning. Professional development plays a pivotal role in supporting the teaching staff to adopt blended learning in their courses to enhance the quality of learning and teaching. However, professional development policies and practices do not always meet the professional learning needs of staff, and many of them do not feel supported in their blended learning practices after attending the professional development sessions. This chapter first discusses how the grassroots approach to professional development in blended learning was developed and implemented in the faculty. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analysed to document the impact of the professional development on staff’s adoption of blended learning in their courses. Based on the key findings from this set of data from the faculty, the grassroots approach is refined and customised for each faculty at the university as part of the scaling-up process. Copyright © 2021 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Purpose - Knowledge sharing, the most important process in knowledge management, enables knowledge-intensive organizations to foster innovations and to gain competitiveness. Universities, the best contemporary embodiments of knowledge-intensive organizations, nowadays face fiercer competition in the changing world. Knowledge sharing is the key for academic departments to gain competitive advantages through innovation. However, limited studies examined the relationships between top management support, knowledge sharing and affiliation and trust. Based on the literature review, this study developed a research model which aims to examine the relationship between top management support and knowledge sharing, and the mediating role played by affiliation and trust.Design/methodology/approach - A questionnaire survey was conducted in eight universities in Hong Kong. Data gathered from 109 professoriate staff (including chairs, professors and [research] associate/assistant professors) were used to test the four hypotheses in the research model with partial least squares structural equation modeling.Findings - The results showed that top management support has a positive impact on affiliation and trust, and that affiliation and trust also have a positive impact on knowledge sharing. However, this study showed an insignificant linkage between top management support and knowledge sharing. Therefore, this study confirmed the mediating role played by affiliation and trust.Practical implications - Based on the results, this study provided recommendations on how academic management and knowledge management consultants increase the faculty members’ affiliation and trust, for instance, mentoring, performance appraisal system, social interactions and communication pathways.Originality/value - The findings of this study contribute to the literature in two ways. First, affiliation and trust are two interplayed elements of team climate that should be considered together. Second, this study

This article conveys the results of a reflexive investigation of the managerial practices and entrepreneurial discourses that shape the academic trajectories of early career scholars. Beginning with the experiences of early career scholars in research‐intensive universities in Canada and Hong Kong, the authors explore some of the social and political‐economic relations that are reshaping higher education systems across the world. Drawing on experiences navigating university governance, funding and performance management processes, the authors explore how participation in the marketised relations of higher education inserts people into competition with colleagues within and beyond a single university context, instrumentalises and constrains relationships with civil sector collaborators, and produces a shared sense that nothing one does is ever enough. In this way, the article illuminates some of the ways a new global knowledge economy conditions academic life.本文探討學術管理主義和企業論述如何塑造新晉學者的學術軌跡, 並匯報相關反思性研究的結果。本文以任職加拿大和香港研究型大學的早期新晉學者為例, 開始探討一些正在重塑全球高等教育體系的社會和政治經濟關係。作者利用新晉學者如何探索大學治理、資金和績效管理流程的經驗, 從而了解高等教育界的市場化關係如何將競爭意識植入在大學界的同事之間、令到與公民社會的協作關係工具化、並產生一種感到工作慣常不達標的意識。通過上述的方法, 本文闡明了新型全球知識經濟影響學術生活的一些方式。 Copyright © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

This chapter aims to examine the unique challenging policy environment confronting Hong Kong schools from the perspective of neoliberal discourse and to reveal the reactive, as well as strategic responses of school leaders and teachers in coping with these challenges. As we argue, driven by the global trend of striving for international competitiveness in education and economy, Hong Kong's schooling is no exception to other systems that manifest signs of neoliberal normalization. Based on a systematic and critical analysis of the history and socio-political context of Hong Kong's public schools, this chapter discusses the major challenges faced by these schools which are inflicted by neoliberal discourses of reform, namely school governance, privatization, budget cuts, and performativity. The results of our analysis show that Hong Kong has not followed suit the western trajectory of neoliberal development but has developed its own path in response to its unique historical, cultural, and economic context. Copyright © 2021 Taylor & Francis.

Research on principals' practice of democratic leadership for inclusion in schools has been undertaken in many parts of the world. This paper explores four principals' leadership journeys in response to social justice issues in increasingly diverse settings within public schools, in relation to demographic and cultural changes in Hong Kong. This research aims at exploring the issues in schools arising from contextual changes in the society, contextualising characteristics of principals' practices in relation to an emergent conception of democratic leadership practice in addressing the issues and identifying practical roles of democratic principal leadership in school transformation for diverse students' learning development. I adopted a cross-case study of the principals' leadership journeys through a theoretical lens of democratic leadership. The changes of demographic structure and cultural context and pressure from the central administration were the conditions of facilitating alternative practices of democratic principal leadership in a multicultural school context which evolved from the hybrid of Western and Confucian cultures in the city. These findings contribute to an international account of contextualising democratic leadership practices in a diverse Chinese school community. Copyright © 2020 The Author(s).