The present study was aimed at investigating the perception of teaching and learning of kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong. Despite the philosophical vision of early childhood education, a firm traditional kind of instruction, with emphasis on planning, preparation and external judgment, was perceived as an important indicator for good teaching. Moreover, teachers tended to focus on and describe their own actions as teachers rather than the actions of pupils. There was a shift from children's agenda to the teacher's agenda. A very different role of the teacher, in contrast to the philosophy of early childhood education, was recorded. The vision of developmentally appropriate early childhood education has not been well acknowledged by kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong. It is argued that challenge to their prior beliefs on teaching and learning will facilitate their future professional development.
[Copyright of Early Child Development and Care is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0300443022000022396]

Research literature has long indicated that action research may stimulate practitioners themselves to actively evaluate the quality of their practice. This study is designed to report the use of action research for the development of early years professional practice by analyzing the pre-project and the post-project video-filmed teaching events. The finding was that action research might support knowledge development in the teacher profession. However, the teacher's ability to accommodate outside knowledge might be limited by one's inside knowledge. The study helps to clarify the assumptions and potentials of action research for teachers learning to teach.
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This study investigated how a set of newly developed indicators of early learning and teaching by the government, which was based on western ideology of child learning, was implemented in a Chinese context like Hong Kong. Twelve early childhood settings of 5747 children and 284 staff volunteered to implement the indicators within two years and the processes were observed and analysed. A multi-method, multi-source data collection strategy was used to document the self-evaluation and improvement process. All the participating settings went through the five stages of the evaluation cycle: understanding the Performance Indicators, assessing learning and teaching, formulating an action plan for improvement, implementing the action plan, and reflection. The results indicated that: (1) implementing a quality assurance cycle took time, resources and commitment; (2) the implementation helped to enhance practitioners' professionalism; and (3) teacher professionalism was the key to the success of this quality assurance mechanism. The socio-contextual factors and the educational implications of these findings are discussed.
[Copyright of International Journal of Early Years Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09669760701516942]

Transition from home to kindergarten is the first and major ecological transition in children's educational lives in Hong Kong. In this transition, children cross a cultural boundary from home to kindergarten and start to learn about 'school' as a place to learn and about themselves as 'pupils' in kindergarten. The conceptual framework of this paper is developed from sociocultural theory and select literature on rites of passage and pupil career. Descriptive data were mainly collected from participant observations, semi-structured interviews, photovoice and review of documents. Utilising the conceptual framework, this paper describes and analyses the story of a three-year-old girl's playing and learning experiences, strategic actions and adaptation outcomes during the transition from home to kindergarten in Hong Kong. Her pattern of strategic actions fell into the dimensions of non-conformity, redefinition and adaptation, but most often fell into the dimension of non-conformity, that is, being independent with respect to formal school expectations. Her preferred strategic actions included watching, being slow to respond, ignoring, withdrawal, gentle refusal, operating in alternative ways, negotiating and following the practice and expectation of the class.
[Copyright of European Early Childhood Education Research Journal is the property of Routledge . Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13502930802689095]

The idea of active learning was first introduced to kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong in 1981 when they received their in-service teacher education. In a two-year, school-based project, 60 teachers in five schools were asked to create collaborative videos about models of good practices after sharing "effective" teaching episodes with peer teachers who were experimenting with "desirable" learning activities in their classrooms. This study reports on the planning, implementation, classroom ethos and adult support displayed in the project deliverables (videos) so as to portray the kinds of emergent innovations that were being adopted. The findings of the study suggest that there was some significance to the use of collaborative reflection to activate teachers' creativity and sensitivity in giving children's learning first priority in their pedagogy. As well, it points toward using collaborative reflection as an element of teacher education.
[Copyright of Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10901020701634864]