This study aims at elaborating the reform policy effects on school leadership practices for quality educational development in the evolving hybrid of Western and Confucian cultures in Hong Kong. Why were education reforms and changes intensified in Hong Kong's education system in the post-1997 decades? How were these reform policies effectively implemented to bring about the changes in the school community? What insights into educational development can be drawn from the policy effects of school-based improvement on school leadership in the changing cultural context? The findings derived from the content analysis of the meanings of the articles selected by a systematic review approach show an urgent need for success in the political and cultural shift in alignment with the international trend of neoliberal-driven educational outcomes in the post-1997 period. School leadership was turned into collaborative whole-school participation in policy indigenising for improvement in a highly accountable context. These insights inspired us to conceptualise a framework of quality education development in policy borrowing/indigenising in school-based improvement. Copyright © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Policies of career-planning education have been developed and implemented in different societies over the past decades. The policy facilitates the sustainable development of people, particularly the youth, in exploring career aspirations, identities and pathways at different stages of their development. In Hong Kong, the senior secondary school curriculum has been revised to incorporate career-related learning for all students. A teacher in the position of career master/mistress is responsible for the coordination of student career development in each ordinary public school. The teacher has specifically experienced increasing learning diversity in the school setting where integrated education is provided for students with special educational needs (SEN). This paper aims to explore the teacher’s experience in support of career development of students with or without SEN in the school. We adopted an interview method to capture three teachers’ experiences in three schools located in different districts in Hong Kong. What were the teachers’ experiences of implementing the policy of career-planning education for senior secondary students in the schools? What effects on the students’ career development did the teachers perceive? The findings can unveil the challenges facing the teachers for coordination of career-planning programmes in the schools. Although the programme can generally awaken the students’ self-understanding and career competencies, more resources and intense support for SEN students’ career development are needed. This seems to be an agenda missing in the current policymaking. Implications of the education for positive whole-person development of students are also discussed.過去數十年，不同社會都實施職業規劃教育政策。該政策有助於人們，特別是青年人的可持續發展，於不同階段中探索職業志向、專業身份和發展方向。香港的新高中學課程亦為所有學生提供多種職業相關的學習，而學校亦增設職業輔導主任及教師為高中學生制定職業規劃課程。不過，教師也要面對在融合教育環境內，不斷增長的學習多樣性。本文旨在探討職業輔導教師支援學生職業發展的經驗（包括有特殊教育需要學生）。透過面談，研究問题包括：學校為高中學生實施職業規劃教育，教師有甚麼經驗？職業規劃教育對學生的職業發展有何影響？調查顯示教師在統籌學校職業規劃教育活動所面對的挑戰。雖然職業規劃教育活動可以喚醒學生的自我理解和職業能力

Little research has explored the challenges of difference and difficulty to principal leadership in changing school contexts. This paper explores two Chinese principals’ journeys to enact different leadership approaches to overcome these challenges during a time of massive education reform. Three specific questions are asked: What challenges do the principals face in diverse student populations? What leadership practices do the principals adopt to support the learning development of these students? What support do the principals need most to enact this leadership? This cross-case study, conducted in Hong Kong, finds that principal leadership that focuses on inclusion is important in efforts to overcome these challenges, with innovative and flexible interventions to ensure equality in student learning development. Despite this, they need support from every part of the school community: the school sponsoring body, the teaching team and parents. The implications of these findings for interpreting the meanings of principal leadership for inclusion are also discussed. Copyright © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Understandings of social media and its pedagogical potentials remain controversial. Teachers tend to integrate social media in their teaching, which may bring about considerable impacts on their pedagogies in practices. In fact, this is an imperative issue which teacher educators in Hong Kong and those in other places are concerned. This paper reports a multi-case study about preservice teachers’ pedagogies when using social media in teaching. A classification of the social media landscape is called for due to confusion regarding the meanings of such terms as social media, Web 2.0 and user-created content. Two research questions were addressed: (1) What social media did the preservice teachers prefer to use in during their practicums; and (2) what pedagogies did the teachers adopted while involving social media in teaching in the placement schools? A total of 33 preservice teachers (N = 33) from a higher education institution in Hong Kong voluntarily participated in this study after open invitation. YouTube was the most popular standalone social medium and was also used in combination with other social media and non-social media websites to reflect the teachers’ practices in kindergartens, primary and secondary schools. Despite this, the preservice teachers mostly adopted didactic pedagogy with high frequencies of social media use during teaching practicums. This study contributes the salient understandings of pre-service teachers’ pedagogical orientations in using social media. Implications for teacher education are discussed. Copyright © 2018 ADTEL. All Rights Reserved

Developing early-career teachers' leadership is a part of teacher learning both inside and outside schools. Teachers' learning processes have not yet been explored in relation to principals' delegation and teachers' recognition of leadership roles in a culturally hierarchical structure. This article discusses a cross-case study of four early-career Chinese teachers' experiences of leadership development in the Hong Kong school system. After teaching for five years, the teachers' leadership capabilities are reflected in their functional roles, membership, and promotion in their schools as approved by their school principals. Implications for teacher leadership development through teacher learning are also discussed. Copyright © 2017 Education Pub.

Little research on preservice teachers’ pedagogies in Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) across subjects has been conducted. Broad and in-depth understandings of the teachers’ TPACK patterns are imperative to enhance subject teaching in schools. This article aims to explore preservice teachers’ pedagogic practices of integrating technology for teaching. By examining their pedagogies through the TPACK framework, the key question is: What pedagogic patterns do the preservice teachers interweave into their subject teaching? We explore preservice teachers’ pedagogies across subjects in Hong Kong as a cross-case study. The findings suggest that the teachers preferred to use technology as various pedagogic strategies and representations for teaching. The majority preferred to integrate technologies in teaching in support of students’ understanding and construction of subject knowledge. Implications of preservice teachers' TPACK practices for policymakers and teacher educators aiming to enhance teacher education are also discussed. Copyright © 2017 The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology.

Purpose: Empirical research on leadership for social justice is in progress in many parts of the world. The purpose of this paper is to explore principals' school-leadership journeys in response to social-justice issues caused by specific contextual changes at times of uncertainty. It seeks to answer the following key questions: What social-justice issues do principals identify as arising from their schools' transformation due to contextual changes? How do principals practise leadership for social justice in response to these contextual changes at different levels? Design/methodology/approach: This paper is based on qualitative data from a cross-case study of two principals' school-leadership journeys. The authors pay particular attention to the understanding of leadership for social justice grounded in principals' efforts to foster equality in learning development for a diverse student population. Findings: Timely adverse conditions may be required to foster leadership for social justice in schools. The principals reacted to contextual changes at several levels, planning and implementing innovative and flexible interventions to ensure equality in students' learning development. These findings contribute to international accounts of educational leadership. Research limitations/implications: This study of leadership for social justice in schools is contextually specific. Therefore, more empirical comparisons of school leadership are required in future studies, as principals' practices vary between education settings. Originality/value: This paper offers insights into the evolution of leadership for social justice in schools in response to contextual changes. Principals' leadership strategies can be reoriented and their actions reshaped to overcome threats to social justice in schools. Accordingly, although leadership for social justice in school communities is culturally and pedagogically inclusive, it is also socially distinctive.
[Copyright © 2017 Emerald Publishing

This study examines changing nature of school leaders’ work during education reform in complex settings. We adopted a case study of investigating how two Hong Kong principals’ work was changed in responding to the 10-year education reform and demographic changes. Multiple qualitative data were collected. The results show that the principals’ scope of work had been changing and expanding to identify new opportunities for school development. Implications for school improvement and effectiveness are discussed.

Over the past 15 years, digital technology has ubiquitously penetrated societies around the world, while e-learning is a key driver of widening participation and knowledge transfer in Chinese higher education. As a vibrant, Chinese society in Asia, Hong Kong's new generation of university students, perhaps digital natives, have been learning with e-learning since their basic education. So far, primary to secondary education has embraced the advantages of e-learning capacity to advance learning of different subject knowledge. E-learning capacity in higher education is yet to be fully examined in Hong Kong. This project reviews the government's policy of Information Technology in Education which has largely been put forward since 1998. The study reported in this paper is the findings of the policy analysis as a qualitative case study of Hong Kong on potential e-learning capacity to be developed in higher education. In respect of the e-learning capacity developed in schools, this study focuses on: 1) the ICT settings in institutional learning environment; 2) the pedagogic responses to e-learning; and 3) the potential use of e-learning for learning. The findings will inform university senior management, enabling them to effectively enhance institutional e-learning capacity for effective learning and teaching and new knowledge acquisition. Policymakers will be aware of potential development of e-learning capacity for the preparation of future talents for new opportunities in the twenty-first century.