This article is an academic commentary on the concept of sociology of education. The authors have ventured through the lens of Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition and discuss its impact might have had if the corresponding mode of education and pedagogy be carried out in reality according to what Arendt had inspired her readers. A cross reference has been made on the recent 2017 early childhood reform document in Hong Kong on Play with the anticipated forms of education which the authors have perceived in Arendt’s The Human Condition, namely the ‘labor’, ‘work’ and ‘action’. Since “free play” is highly promoted in the latest early childhood reform document and is tempered by the role of the teacher. As teacher is endorsed to perform the role of “feedback-giver” in the process of play, it has matched precisely with Arendt’s perception of “works of art” and eventually paving the way to “action-vita-activa” as forms of education for the promotion of democratic collaborative learning. Since “Sociology” has an intimate connection with politics, it is anticipated that following the implementation of free play for young children in the early childhood classroom and by the tactic guide of the teachers, the educational landscape of the early years education in Hong Kong will be changed significantly. The impact of this on the society at large has yet to be examined in the long run. Copyright © 2018 INASED.

Early childhood education in Hong Kong has experienced drastic changes since 1982 following the criticism made by the Llewellyn visiting panel and a western style play-based curriculum was recommended. The Curriculum Development Council in 2006 stated that curriculum development is a continuing process of renewals that should devetail with the development of education system globally. The curriculum renewal, however, has been based on continuous fostering the play-based approach of the 1980s, despite that in the Western world, there have been calls for a reversion to the traditional teacher-centered education paradigm in recent years. Is there a double standard in designing curriculum in this respect? Copyright © 2018 CESHK.

A lot of literature has been written about education as the transmission of cultural knowledge yet the way in which culture, as ritual action, constitutes and fosters religio-cultural ideological myth remains largely unexplored in the context of ritual pedagogies in school settings. In Hong Kong, the government had initiated an educational reform promoting the play-based child-centred approach to replace the traditional mode of teacher-centred approach aimed at meeting the changing world at the start of 21st century. However, there are great variations when these principles and approaches are implemented in classroom practice. Even though the school voucher scheme1 providing support for parents to choose kindergartens that adopt the approach has been introduced in 2006, there is no significant impact in the field of early childhood education. This study aimed to identify the extent to which how different ritual pedagogies had reflected the mythical values that the teachers held by examining the forms and practices of ritual in two early childhood classroom settings. Data was collected through observational records and interviews to examine how the mythical values of the two teachers concerned had underpinned their ritualistic practises. The findings suggested that teachers using different ritual pedagogies had reflected entirely different mythical values that they held respectively. The implication for this study is that schools should not ignore the mythical values of their teachers if they are to realise their school missions and cultural values that they cherished. The study might give insight to early childhood practitioners and policy makers on how the ritualistic practises of the teachers could make a big difference to the realisation of their ideological goals. On the academic side, light might be shed for an understanding of the puzzled gap between the traditional teaching mode and the recommended approaches.
[Copyright © 2013 Grace LAU, Kwok Keung

The twentieth century saw great hopes but also great failures. Philosophy, however, by its timeless truth, might confront the ever changing fashion by giving people a pointer through its philosophical application in the realm of education. In this paper, the authors argue that many philosophical teachings from the famous Greek philosophers are indeed influential when their teachings are applied to the early childhood classrooms in Hong Kong. Their sphere of influence has extended from the British colonial period to the present era in Hong Kong as far as early childhood education is concerned. For Plato, his theory of Forms and his emphasis on the search of Truth will be compared with Aristotle empiricist views in his study of nature. While analyzing the theory of Forms and the idea of the Good, the authors found that Plato's approach could be traced back to Xenophanes who proposed a monotheistic theory of God and is religiously related to Christianity. Their applications in the top-down teacher-directed play-based curriculum were valid in the early childhood educational mode during the early colonial period to the 1980s in Hong Kong. Since Aristotle was found to have a different approach to Forms as compared to those of Plato, Aristotle's argument for Forms was mentioned and its relevancy to the prevalent hybrid mode of the play-work-based curriculum in early childhood education is explored. Following the most recent reform in early childhood education in Hong Kong, free play is recommended in the reform document. Heraclitus's doctrine of ‘flux' could apply most suitably in the free play condition as ‘flux' signifies an ever changing condition just as the nature of free play does. A final touch of this paper is on exploring the divergent views of Plato and Aristotle and their impacts on education today so as to provoke further thoughts of the readers in the areas explored.
[Copyright © 2017, Grace LAU & Kwok Keung HO.]

Since two decades ago, the Hong Kong Curriculum Development Council started to promote the Integrated Curriculum in Early Childhood Education in resonance with the global curriculum change. By engaging young children in the integrated curriculum, young children can obtain an informal learning experience in the school that helps prepare them for a more active involvement with peers, thereby fostering the spirit of democracy and social change in their young hearts. Three types of integrated curriculum with their matching pedagogies and their possible social impact on early childhood classroom will be discussed in this paper.

Background: Collaborative Action Research has been a popular form of research method conducted by the BEd (Hons) in-service and pre-service students studying the early childhood education at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. With a thorough understanding of the theory and practise of the collaborative action research by these novice teachers in this form of research methods, they could be benefited by an understanding on how they might develop a genuine school-based curriculum for an educational change in their schools. Aims: This paper aimed to provide guidelines on how to conduct a Collaborative Action Research for facilitating school-based Curriculum Development by theory and practise. A case study on how to carry out a collaborative action research is quoted for reference of those who would conduct this kind of research for the first time. The insertion of this case study is to highlight the meaning of 'collaborative' in an action research; it is not suffice to provide chances for teachers to voice out their opinions. What needs more to be done is to incorporate voices of teachers when formulating the plan in next action research cycle. With a thorough understanding of the theory and practise underpinned the Collaborative action research, it is anticipated that the novice teachers would gain in knowledge of what a "child-centred" curriculum and its pedagogic application would be like. In view of the variation in practices among today's teacher researchers, the theoretical and philosophical perspectives of Action Research will be reviewed to inform practitioners of the historical roots of their practise. What has been mentioned by Coulter (2002) as the essence of what constituting an authentic education "action' research would be revisited. Arguments: Allied with Coulter's argument in his What Counts as Action in Educational Action Research (2002), the author of this paper is keen to reiterate the differentiation of the three forms of Action research. In order

This paper reports data from a study about the challenges of educational reform through play carried out by three in-service preschool teachers in Hong Kong. Intending to abide with the new paradigm shift to quality teaching and learning originated from the West, these teachers tried to adopt the Vygotskian social constructivist theory and the Deweyan learning theory through the application of scaffolding technique to foster a democratic child-centred classroom through play. Case study methodology is employed in the study. The findings highlighted the differences and similarities between the types of scaffolding techniques employed and the situation on which to apply respectively by the West and those adopted in the East in the case of Hong Kong. The paper concludes with a discussion that education is a complex and complicated endeavour involving a plethora of judgments, ideologies and belief system which will affect diverse people and the "meaning" of their experiences, lives and Institutions. Implications are drawn through some reflections gained in this study. Future research work on the comparative studies on the belief system of the teachers and its relationship with the application of pedagogic approaches for a 'democratic' early childhood classroom between the East and the West is recommended.
[Copyright © Comparative Education Society of Hong Kong.].