Research Findings: Western ideas and progressive pedagogies have been introduced to China (including Shenzhen), Hong Kong, and Singapore to replace traditional Chinese pedagogy. But these imported ideas are not congruent with traditional Chinese culture and thus have encountered resistance from Chinese teachers. The present study observed and analyzed 18 early childhood classrooms in the 3 localities and questioned the class teachers about their respective teaching practices to see how those ideas were actually turned into practice. Whole-class direct instruction was found to be the predominant Chinese pedagogical mode. This indicates that Chinese traditional pedagogy still dominated those Chinese preschool classrooms. Slight societal differences in classroom practice were also found, reflecting the spectrum of openness and Westernization of the 3 cities.
Practice or Policy: The findings suggest that people should adapt rather than adopt those pedagogical innovations developed in other sociocultural milieu, as different societies have different social, cultural, and educational traditions. Cultural appropriateness should be seriously considered when choosing the pedagogies to be adapted. Moreover, influences from the culture, language, teachers, parents, resources available, and the prevailing education system should also be taken into consideration when planning for pedagogical reforms.
[Copyright of Early Education & Development is the property of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2010.536441]

Achieving equality remains a major challenge in schools globally. In Hong Kong, the current education policy has a core value that all students have the right to learn. Policy-makers and school personnel are struggling to find ways of catering for diverse learning needs in schools. Early in 2006, a self-initiated inclusive educational project has linked one mainstream school and a special school. Their project can be seen as a pioneer in the field of education, for it provides concrete recommendations to other education practitioners on initiating whole-school participation and joint-school partnerships, integrating such collaborations into the culture of the school, and encouraging teachers committed to student voice and engagement. This article records the qualitative case study comprising the teachers' self reports to demonstrate how teachers re-shaped their perceptions, beliefs and behaviours as they developed and implemented a school-based inclusion project. It is expected that the findings of this study will assist educators to further understand present challenges in the school system regarding managing diversity and attaining inclusive education goals. In particular, local schools are now facing the challenge to implement inclusive education.
[Copyright of International Journal of Inclusive Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2010.495792]

After China resumed the sovereignty of Hong Kong, the Curriculum Development Council encouraged schools to experiment with Putonghua as a medium of instruction (PMI) to teach the Chinese language. A review of the literature indicates that there have been problems in implementing the switch to the new medium of instruction (MOI). The aim of this exploratory case study is to investigate in more detail the problems that teachers and administrators of a secondary school face in implementing the new policy. Based on interviews, classroom observation, and documentary analysis, it is shown that conflicts and tensions have arisen from the incongruent beliefs of teachers and administrators regarding the rationale and impact of the PMI policy. Moreover, inadequate knowledge of Putonghua among teachers and students, a shortage of appropriate teaching resources, and the absence of helpful support from the government create further barriers to effective teaching and learning in the new programme. This paper argues that it is problematic for schools to translate any MOI policy into action if policy-makers fail to address the challenges that teachers and administrators encounter in switching to a new MOI.
[Copyright of Language, Culture and Curriculum is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2011.626863]

As in most countries, human rights education (HRE) in Hong Kong has never been high on the educational agenda. In 2009, a compulsory subject, Liberal Studies (LS), which could be used as a platform for HRE, was introduced. The Hong Kong Institute of Education launched a research and development project which, as one of its objectives, studied LS teachers' attitudes towards human rights and Rule of Law. This article first provides a brief overview of HRE. Then, the potential of HRE in LS will be discussed, followed by an introduction of the research project. Subsequently, the research design and findings will be presented. The findings reveal that there is a large gap between teachers' understandings of human rights and international human rights standards. Since LS teachers' attitudes are crucial for effective HRE, the findings are quite striking. The paper ends with recommendations for further research, policy formulations, and teacher preparation.
[Copyright of Intercultural Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2012.716725]

In recent years, the Western discourse on distributed leadership has attracted increased attention in Chinese societies that have traditionally relied on highly centralized administrative systems in which power is located in the person of the school principal or other unit leader. This article explores the implications of applying the concept of distributed leadership in a Chinese context and outlines a research agenda for future work in this area. The article focuses specifically on teacher leadership in early childhood education in Hong Kong as an illustrative case. It suggests that change agentry, collaboration, collegiality, power, and authority are key aspects of discourse on teacher leadership in a Chinese, policy-driven context. It is argued that existing studies of leadership have failed to recognize the complexity of employing teacher leadership in hierarchical, policy-driven, high power distance, collectivist cultural contexts.
[Copyright of School Effectiveness and School Improvement is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09243453.2012.678861]

Hong Kong's higher education system is undergoing an enormous change. At great cost, higher education and the school systems that feed into it are moving from a three-year university system that favored early specialization within a discipline and very few conversations across disciplines to a four-year university system to be fully implemented with the beginning class of 2012. This move will provide a framework in which disciplinary study is grounded in broader knowledge that encourages self-directed learning, critical thinking, and an understanding of the role of individual in society. So what are the cultural challenges to attaining these far-reaching goals? This essay attempts to delineate some of them, make some comparisons to the US, and also present some suggestions for meeting the challenges.
[Copyright of Teaching in Higher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2012.658565]