After considering colonialism and the transition of Hong Kong, this article explores the state of curriculum management now at the micro- level, through a case study of two secondary schools, It provides a picture of the tensions, compromises and evolution of the educational system.
[Copyright of Curriculum Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14681369800200024 ]

This article aims to contribute to an understanding of principalship in Hong Kong through probing the formation and preservation of the deep leadership structures that shape its practice. Deep structures are formed partly through a dynamic relationship between constitution and culture which forms bounded "codes" of understanding, conduct and behaviour which combine to shape principalship in Hong Kong and power relationships within schools and collections of schools. After providing a brief historical snapshot of Hong Kong education development since 1945, the paper explores the recent context of principalship and how this influences its shape in schools. Discussion of context focuses on the interconnected elements of constitution and traditional culture. These factors are illustrated using the issues of principal selection and teacher and parent empowerment to show the influence of deep leadership structures on the principal and the system. Depending on the perspective taken, these can be understood as either supportive or obstructive to better school leadership.
[Copyright of Discourse is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0159630042000178491]

Personal and social education has become an important area of development in education in Hong Kong. Given that much of the literature on personal and social education is Anglo-American or European, what is the influence on the largely Chinese settings in Hong Kong? This paper will examine some of the debates of what constitutes personal and social education. The significance of competing contexts in the development of personal and social education will be analysed in detail. Comparisons will be made between Western and Chinese (especially Confucian) views on personal and social education. Attempts will be made to come up with a notion of personal and social education which is suitable for the Hong Kong context
[Copyright of Comparative Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03050060020020435]

It has been observed that Asian, in particular Chinese students frequently outperform their Western counterparts in international academic comparisons. However, it is still open to doubt as to whether they actually possess a deeper conceptual understanding than their Western counterparts and as to whether they would perform as well in non-routine mathematical problems (such as open-ended problems). The reason for such queries owes as much to the students' as to teachers' conceptions of mathematics. When mathematics is regarded as an absolute truth or a set of rules governing symbols, students tend to consider doing mathematics as the memorisation of algorithms and learning mathematics as a process of transmission. We posed certain hypothetical situations to students in Hong Kong and China and found that they possess a relatively restricted conception of mathematics. Later, we investigated this phenomenon at greater depth by the use of open-ended problems. We found that students usually approached a mathematical problem by searching for a rule that identifies what is given, what is being asked and the category of topic for the problem. Evidence has also shown that this approach to mathematical problems is largely shaped by the way they experience learning, their response to task demands, and the classroom environment. In other words, such a restricted conception of mathematics which exists both within the students and in the classroom culture has led students to tackle mathematical problems by searching for rules rather than approaching them through a conceptual understanding of the context. It is well known that students' conception of mathematics is closely related to their problem-solving behaviour. This conception is shaped by a number of factors, in particular, by the space of learning in which they 'live'. Of particular significance is the finding that the teachers' conception of mathematics could contribute to the shaping of this 'lived space'. These inter-relationships

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to compare the predictive effects of acculturative stressor and meaning of life on negative affect in the process of acculturation between Chinese international students in Australia and Hong Kong.
Method: Four hundred mainland Chinese students studying at six universities in Hong Kong and 227 Chinese international students studying at the University of Melbourne in Australia completed a questionnaire that included measures of acculturative stressor, meaning of life, negative affect and demographic information.
Results: The Australian sample was found to have a higher level of acculturative stressor and negative affect than the Hong Kong sample. Acculturative stressor had a positive impact on negative affect in both samples, but the impact of different domains of acculturative stressor on negative affect varied between the two groups. Finally, meaning of life partially mediated the relationship between acculturative stressor and negative affect in the Hong Kong sample, but no such effect was found in the Australia sample.
Conclusions: Acculturative stressor is a critical risk factor for negative affect in acculturation for Chinese international students in Australia and Hong Kong. Meaning of life acted as a protective factor that mitigated negative affect for mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong, but not for the Chinese international students in Australia. The theoretical and practical implications for resilience-based and meaning-oriented intervention for Chinese international students are discussed.
[Copyright of Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry is the property of Informa Healthcare . Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00048670701517942 ]