It has been estimated that over 37,000 students with special educational needs (SEN) study in ordinary mainstream school in Hong Kong, with an average of 37 students with SEN in a school. Since 1997, inclusive practice in Hong Kong has been implemented with great determination and wide school coverage. The Chief Executive of Hong Kong, in his 2015 Policy Address, further announced a HK$200 million three-year programme titled "Provision of funding for ordinary schools to arrange special educational needs coordinators (SENCOs)". Taken together with the previous policy implemented by the Education Bureau in 2008, of funding additional leadership positions in shaping school-wide development in inclusive education, it has become clear that the SENCOs will play an increasingly important role in strengthening the implementation of inclusive education (IE) in Hong Kong. By using qualitative semi-structured interviews of the SENCO, school principal and six students from each participating school in this pilot study, this paper explored effects of the new SENCOs’ role on and values added to inclusive practices in support of special educational needs in the pilot schools in contrast to the current practices in non-pilot schools. The contextual difference in support of SEN by the pilot and non-pilot schools was particularly noted. Preliminary findings that have a direct bearing on the effectiveness of SENCO’s role, responsibilities and support in the pilot schools that could provide empirical evidences of defining value-added inclusive practices will be discussed.

This case study examines preservice teachers' integration of technology in teaching various subject domains. It aims to gain in-depth understandings of preservice teachers' pedagogical patterns for teaching through the theoretical lens of technological pedagogical and content knowledge. Multiple data sources were collected in a teacher education institution in Hong Kong. The teachers' pedagogical patterns vary depending on their instructional decisions affected by individual preferences, various subject cultures, and individual school settings. The patterns reflected various forms of technological pedagogical and content knowledge development in teaching different subjects. Implications for preparation of preservice teachers' pedagogy, teacher preparation, and development are also discussed.
[Copyright © 2016 The Author(s).]

This article explores novice teachers’ perspectives on their teacher leadership roles and their principal’s facilitation of their leadership development. A cohort of 20 novice teachers teaching in Hong Kong participated in this study. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and documentary evidence during a two-year period. The results show that six novice teachers performed principal-delegated and teacher-initiated teacher leadership roles facilitated by principals’ practices. Interplay of the teacher’s and principal’s roles as an interface of developing teacher leadership is evidenced. This has important implications for the roles of teachers and principals in fostering teacher leadership in schools. Teacher educators are also informed for enhancement of initial teacher education.
[Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd.]

The nature of social justice leadership in schools lies in principals’ practice. However, there is still a lack of clarity in the understanding of social justice across various societies. Stories of principals’ practice are imperative to illuminate social justice leadership in schools while different macro-, meso- and micro contextual elements are shaping principals’ socially-just leadership. What social justice challenges to the schools did the principals face? How did the principals cope with the challenges with different strategies that realized social justice leadership practices? What were the effects of the principals’ practices on the students’ learning and development? This chapter examines two principals’ practices in Hong Kong schools with an analytical framework developed by the International School Leadership Development Network (ISLDN). The findings of these stories indicate that the principals exercised timely school leadership and turned challenges into opportunities for equitable student development. The implications of these stories for understanding social justice school leadership are also discussed.

Enacting social justice is an imperative issue concerning educators around the world. Like many countries, Hong Kong schools serve a diverse mix of students and many face the challenges of complex socio-cultural changes such as low birth rate and a hybrid of Western and Confucian cultures. This study aims to examine three Hong Kong principals’ perception of social justice and how they enacted social justice by (re)shaping multicultural education in high-needs schools

Similar to other places in Asia, Hong Kong is deeply rooted in a typical hierarchical structure of Chinese society that power distance between the teachers (lower position) and principals (higher position) exists in schools. Practice of teacher leadership seems to be a distant future for beginning teachers. This paper examines the development of beginning teacher leadership through teacher-principal interactions. What effects of the interactions have on beginning teachers’ leadership development? How do principals’ leadership practices infuse beginning teacher leadership in the interactions? The findings are derived from interviews and collected documentary evidence of twelve beginning teachers teaching in primary, secondary and special schools. The teachers provided detailed accounts of their interactions with school principals over the past two years through which the teachers’ leadership development was directed and situated in specific school cultures. Results unveil that different school cultures could affect the teachers’ aspiration for and development of leadership in curriculum and instruction. Influences of principal-teacher interactions on development of teacher leadership are identified in four types of school cultures. The effects of the influences are then contextualized as “higher-power distance”, “policy-driven”, “hierarchical” and “individualistic”. Implications for development of teacher leadership are discussed.

Little research has examined the multi-faceted transformation of higher education by information and communications technology (ICT) in detail. ICT is also perceived to change the ways learners learn but not teachers teach such that its impact on pedagogy is not fully discussed. This paper examines new possibilities of learning and teaching in a networked virtual learning environment where both learners and teachers transform. It is based on a cross-institution collaborative research project on virtual pedagogy conducted in the City University of Hong Kong. Qualitative data were collected from the simultaneous teaching of face-to-face and non face-to-face students who were in an engineering laboratory and at a remote site, respectively. This paper presents the findings of a comparison of the two groups of students' learning with the teacher's reflections on his teaching. The significance of this study is also discussed.
[Copyright © 2011 Common Ground, Elson Szeto.]

Teacher leadership ties in the heart of school improvement while principal plays a salient role in fostering teachers’ leadership. This study aims to examine a group of beginning teachers in Hong Kong to address research questions: (1) To what extent are the teachers’ developments of teacher leadership? (2) What are the teachers’ perceptions of principal-teacher interactions? (3) How principal-teacher interactions attribute to the teacher leadership development? Multiple data sources, including interviews, documentary evidence and questionnaires were collected. Results show that principal-teacher interactions that reflected trust, value communication and encourage professional development are key to facilitating teacher leadership. Three types of impact illustrating principal-teacher interactions attribute to teacher leadership development are identified. Implication for school leaders and teacher educators are discussed.