This study is designed to investigate the impact of a curriculum leadership project financially supported by the Quality Education Fund on teacher development and pupil learning, within the tradition of school-based curriculum development in a primary school in Hong Kong. Teacher and pupil interviews are used to evaluate the extent to which teacher engagement in curriculum decision-making processes within a school-based structural approach has led to teacher professional development. Pupils’ perspectives about how the innovation is perceived were collected in order to extend understanding of the underlying principles in implementing curriculum changes in schools, in particular the role of pupil feedback. Qualitative evidence has revealed positively that participating teachers have developed themselves professionally through the process of planning, experimenting and reflecting (PER model) upon curriculum practice and innovation under certain conditions. However, the complexity of these conditions – the structures and processes that were established for involving teachers in curriculum decision-making processes needs further empirical and theoretical work. This chapter reports only the findings from the semi-structured interviews with teachers and pupils taken before the tryout lessons and after the reflection meeting of the mathematics curriculum development team together with the data from the videotaped meetings and lessons for triangulation and further illumination purposes in the second action cycle of the project.
[Copyright © 2008 The Chinese University Press, Hong Kong Institute of Educational Research.]

In recent years international trends towards teacher empowerment and leadership have gained increased attraction in East Asia's education policy and practice. Yet, as scholars have noted, the values underlying these practices often conflict with traditional cultural norms of East Asian societies which stress hierarchical and status differences. This study explored the efficacy of an approach to developing distributed curriculum leadership among school teachers. The research employs discourse analysis of video-taped meetings of teachers in a mathematics curriculum development team in order to explore the leadership and teacher learning. The results provide initial support for strengthening school-level capacity for teacher leadership as a means of fostering teacher learning in East Asian schools. Implications include the need for incorporating programmes that build leadership and team development into more general staff development for teachers.
[Copyright © 2011 Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business.]

This paper will report on the mediation effects of the key artifacts upon teacher participation in two school-based leadership development projects in schools in 2005 and 2006 respectively. This structural approach to taking up more curriculum responsibilities by the schools in Hong Kong was recommended by the Government in 2001, and yet there is little empirical evidence about its implementation and effectiveness. The projects will collaborate with two active schools, setting up two curriculum development teams in each to bring about planned innovations in pedagogy. The teams will conduct a cycle of curriculum activities in the first and second semesters, reviewing the current curriculum, planning an innovation, and designing and implementing it in classroom settings. Afterwards, each team will conduct reflection for further improvement. All participating teachers will be interviewed 4 times during participation. All meetings and tryout lessons will be video-taped. The interview data will be analyzed by identifying and classifying key emerging themes which will illuminate our understanding of the participating teachers' experiences in the curriculum process. The meeting data will be analyzed using activity theory to identify the key factors that facilitate or constrain the effectiveness of the teacher participation. The findings will deepen our understanding of the effectiveness of teacher participation in school-based curriculum development.

This study was designed to investigate the theory and practice of curriculum leadership within the tradition of school-based curriculum development. A case study methodology was used to evaluate the extent to which teacher engagement in curriculum decision making processes within a school-based structure of curriculum development had led to professional development. Evidence revealed positively that participating teachers had developed professionally through the process of planning, implementing and reflecting curriculum practice and innovation. However, the complexity of the structures and processes that were established for the implementation of the concept of teacher curriculum leadership needs further empirical and theoretical work. This article reports on the activities and preliminary findings in the first action cycle of the project, which focused on developing teacher leadership in curriculum theory and practice in the period September to December 2004.
[Copyright © 2006 James Nicholas Publishers.]

This study is designed on the basis on the key premises of Activity Theory, in the development of curriculum leadership among a group of primary teachers in two innovation engaged schools in Hong Kong China in April 2005 and 2007. Three curriculum development teams were formed and their membership and leadership were manipulated to create internal tensions and contradictions among members in a flattened leadership context. The aim is to investigate the extent that teacher participation in curriculum decision making processes is mediated by the artifacts such as hierarchical power, roles and leadership styles. The findings based on the analysis of the interviews as well as the video taped meetings of the Mathematics and Chinese curriculum teams point to the varying mediation effects of the two artifacts, namely the roles of the consultants and the leadership styles upon teacher participation. On the effects of the roles of the consultants, two types of professionality were asserting different influences on the mediation processes. The restricted professionality focused on closed discourse between participants and the leadership style was power coercive. The extended professionality however, generated an open discourse with evidence of multi-structural interaction pattern. The nature of the former is didactic while the latter is more negotiable among members. On leadership styles, the personality of the subject head and its degree of domination was having effects on the discourse styles and participation nature, though the distributed leadership was in function in the curriculum development teams. Assertive subject head constrained the interaction pattern of the meetings while the less assertive one opened opportunities for exploration and experimentation by the members of the teams. In conclusion, various artifacts assert their influences in the mediational processes of the interaction among members of the curriculum teams and these mediational effects have either constrained

This study aims at investigating the effectiveness of the establishment of the school based curriculum development teams as a response to the challenges of the school performance and student learning. A theoretical framework is derived from the various assumptions about school leadership, patterns of dissemination and teacher development. This framework will then be used to evaluate the extent that school based curriculum development teams contribute to teacher development and school improvement. The findings will shed light on the necessary conditions for successful implementation of school based curriculum development in a policy context of decentralizing curriculum decision making. Two case schools from two different socio-cultural milieu, Hong Kong and the Netherlands, are chosen for comparison. A mixed method approach of investigation is adopted and methods include interviews of teachers and students, analysis of video taped meetings and questionnaires.