The global trend of decentralisation in education empowers schools and teachers to have more autonomy in making instructional decisions. Influenced by the implementation of the new curriculum reform (NCR) and the three-level curriculum management policy in China, teachers supposedly have more authority in curriculum decision-making. Although many studies on curriculum leadership (CL) have been conducted, there is still a scant amount of studies focusing on understanding of teachers’ engagement in CL. This is especially the case in the Chinese setting. This research thus aims to explore principals’ and Teaching Research Group (TRG) leaders’ perceptions of TRG leaders’ engagement in CL and compare their perceptions to explore similarities and differences. TRG leaders are the backbone teachers chosen from the corpus of front-line teachers, therefore, it is critical to investigate their engagement in CL.A qualitative research approach was deployed using interviews, observations, documents and field notes. Interviews were adopted as the main source of data to investigate how 10 principals and 20 TRG leaders understand TRG leaders’ engagement in CL in secondary schools in Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, China. Content analysis was employed to analyse the data in Nvivo 10.The findings are grouped into five major categories, namely, general understanding of CL; enacting CL at the organisational level; at the classroom level; at the social relationship level; and at the personal level. The study identified that the term CL is rather new to some principals and to most of the TRG leaders. In particular, findings show that TRG leaders’ autonomy in taking initiatives for curriculum matters is limited at all levels although they have been assumed to be taking the role of TRG leader. Importantly, this research developed a conceptual model of TRG leaders’ engagement in CL in the Chinese context which consisted of four dimensions: (1) framing/planning goals at the organisational level

本文旨在探討香港新高中通識教育科的校本課程由誰來決定。本研究在2010年的暑假進行，透過半結構性的訪談以探索不同中學發展通識課程所採取的策略。研究者發現校長在通識科的課程決策上佔主導地位，通識科主任才是正真的課程領導，而科任教師多扮演追隨者的角色。 This paper aims to explore the position of different stakeholders in the development of the New Senior Secondary curriculum of Liberal Studies. This research was conducted in the summer of 2010 to investigate the curriculum development strategies used by different schools. It is found that subject panel heads are the authentic curriculum leaders even though school principal is the core person who makes the final curriculum decisions in school. Teachers prefer to act as the followers and often play passive roles. Copyright © 2011 華東師範大學.

Hong Kong has been considered as one of the world’s best performing school systems. Among the six factors attributing to the success of the educational system, three are related to decentralization of pedagogical decision-making and empowerment of school leadership and teachers. Teachers’ voices and their wisdom in decision-making processes in schools has become a prominent topic among policy makers and educators. In the last 40 years, international literature suggests that teacher leadership practices in school-based curriculum development (SBCD) as a form of school capacity building enhances teachers’ empowerment and their professional capabilities, which in turn may result in more effective student learning. This chapter reports a portion of the findings based on the interview data of a case study of school-based curriculum leadership in an elementary school in Hong Kong in 2007. The study adopted a design-based approach. Participating teachers engaged in cycles of planning the objectives of learning, experimenting on redesigning the lesson plans, and reflecting on practice lessons. Multiple data collection methods were adopted. Our findings show that a systematic approach in organizing curriculum development activities based on problem-solving approaches and a distributed leadership style among teachers can be effective in enhancing teacher learning in both curriculum leadership skills and powerful learning.

Integrated curriculum mainly covers three Key Learning Areas (“Personal, Social & Humanities Education”, “Science Education” and “Technology Education”) in Hong Kong primary schools. Six primary schools were involved in a curriculum project which aimed to promote the development and implementation of integrated curriculum. Six sets of integrated curriculum with different themes from primary one to primary six were developed and implemented in the schools; and the contents of individual themes included the rationale of curriculum development, curriculum concept map, and scheme of teaching. The purpose of implementing the integrated curriculum was to provide feasible approaches to humanities- science-technology education, which other school curriculum leaders may apply, with reference to the school-based considerations, in their schools. It is anticipated that individual curriculum leaders can, after implementation, obtain valuable experiences of nurturing students for “learning to learn” and “whole person development” by means of humanitiesscience- technology education. As a consequence, six curriculum leaders from the six primary schools were invited to share their experiences of implementation; and the comments provided are discussed and analyzed according to the following focuses: 1) rationale and characteristic of curriculum design, 2) achievement of and challenge to curriculum implementation, 3) review of the integrated curriculum.
[Copyright © 2008 Common Ground, Wai Lun Anthony Leung.]

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 article aims to investigate teacher insights on curriculum integration in liberal studies (LS), particularly under the existing Advanced Supplementary Level (ASL) Curriculum, which is to be phased out in Hong Kong 2012, and the New Senior Secondary (NSS) Curriculum, which has been implemented since September, 2009. In comparing the existing ASLLS curriculum with the NSSLS curriculum under the “334” curriculum reform, interconnectedness in learning is highlighted, and learning linkages within and beyond LS are emphasized (Curriculum Development Council and Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority, 2007). Studies have suggested the importance of curriculum integration in LS (Maritain, 1971; Henderson and Smith, 2002; Lacy, 2002; Graham, 2004). ASLLS panel heads from six secondary schools in Hong Kong were interviewed in 2007/2008 academic year to investigate the concepts and practices of curriculum leaders regarding LS curriculum integration. Finally, teacher concerns over NSSLS curriculum integration were identified.
[Copyright © 2010 Common Ground, Wai Lun Anthony Leung.]

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.]

Surprisingly little is known about the micro-leadership and management of the curriculum within schools. This study first applies a purpose-designed set of research instruments to penetrate the micro-workings of school decision-making in curriculum, teaching and learning. Second, it reports the findings from an application of the instruments in six Hong Kong primary schools. In regard to the principal's influence on curriculum, teaching and learning, in four of the six case-study primary schools, the principal's influence was deemed to be direct. This finding stands in contradistinction to the existing body of evidence - gathered mainly from secondary schools - that emphasises the indirect effect of principal leadership. In regard to the second question, concerning the general patterns of within-school curriculum decision-making, leadership and management, there appears to be a high degree of conformity across the six case-study primary schools.
[Copyright of Curriculum Journal is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585170902763973]

This study was originally designed to explore the impact of a distributed approach to developing curriculum leadership among schoolteachers. Previous papers have focused on reporting evidence of teacher learning in the process of engaging teachers in various types of curriculum decision-making in an innovation project based on interview data. This article reports a discourse analysis of the interactions based on the visual data in videotaped meetings between teachers in a Chinese curriculum development team and shows that teacher participation is constrained by the leadership styles of the positional leaders in the team in the second action cycle in the project. The mediational effects of the leadership styles invite policy-makers and school management to rethink the effectiveness of school-based approaches to curriculum development in enhancing teacher learning and development.
[Copyright of Curriculum Journal is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585176.2010.504577]

Background: The "Primary school curriculum leadership" scheme was first introduced to Hong Kong primary schools by the Education Bureau in year 2002/03. An additional teaching post which was known as Primary Schoolmaster/Schoolmistress (Curriculum Development) – or PSM(CD), had been created to help the school head to lead internal curriculum development in primary school. This scheme was considered to be a pioneering initiative in Hong Kong as well as the Chinese culture societies.
Aims: The paper reviews the curriculum leadership development in Hong Kong primary schools by examining the impacts of the work of PSM(CD) on internal curriculum development and school development in the context of curriculum reform, the challenges and difficulties faced by the PSM(CD)s in discharging their responsibilities, their successful experiences, and provides implications for future development.
Comments: PSM(CD)s claimed that to carry out their responsibilities, they needed to perform different roles such as co-worker, mentor, innovator, role model, and leader. Furthermore, the most important factors that would hinder their work were school organizational factors, supports of school heads and colleagues, readiness of the school as a whole for change, and personal limitations.
Conclusion: This paper argues while some achievements had been made since the introduction of the PSM(CD) scheme, it is also worth our attention to note that this scheme promoted teacher leadership development at the school sites, which eventually contributed positive impacts on whole school development. On the other hand, it is noted that PSM(CD)s would encounter many difficulties and challenges in discharging their duties. There is urgent need to find out solutions to help the newly appointed PSM(CD)s to develop their competences and become a "successful" curriculum leader. This paper also concludes the successful criteria of the work of PSDM(CD) which should be a useful reference for the