Studies on school leadership in Hong Kong have mainly focused on primary and secondary schools, with only a handful of studies looking at leadership in early childhood education. This paper aims to report the findings of a study on strategic leadership in Hong Kong's kindergartens. It discusses the challenges that Hong Kong kindergarten leaders are facing and the need for practising strategic leadership. It then reports the findings of practices valued by the leaders of Hong Kong kindergartens. The findings of this study reveal, that apart from the abilities to exercise sound planning and management in school, leaders' reflective, flexible and systems thinking and their willingness in continuous professional and network development are crucial to leading today's kindergartens. This study also indicates that leaders' contextual intelligence is important for exercising strategic leadership. The significance of this study lies in its contribution to the investigation of leadership practices in early childhood education, the need to further explore how well kindergarten leaders are practising strategic leadership and the implications for the development of principal preparation programmes.
[Copyright of Educational Management Administration & Leadership is the property of SAGE Publications Ltd.]

Purpose – Over the past decade, studies of school leadership effects have increasingly aimed at identifying and validating the paths through which principal leadership impacts key teaching and learning processes in schools. A recent meta-analysis by Robinson and colleagues identified principal practices that shape teacher professional development experiences in schools as the highest impact path used by instructional leaders. The purpose of this paper is to examine relationships between principal leadership, dimensions of school capacity, and teacher professional learning in 32 Hong Kong primary schools. Design/methodology/approach – The study employed a cross-sectional research design and quantitative methods to analyze teacher perceptions of principal leadership and key school conditions. The research employed hierarchical linear regression analysis to explore survey data collected from a sample of 970 teachers. The surveys covered a range of principal leadership and school capacity dimensions, as well as a measure of teacher professional learning. Findings – Results indicated that multiple dimensions of principal leadership made significant contributions to both school capacity and teacher professional learning. The presence of cooperation, trust, communication, support for students, and alignment, coherence, and structure in schools also affected teacher professional learning. Research limitations/implications – These findings contribute to the global discourse on leadership for learning. The study addresses the need established by multiple scholars (e.g. Leithwood, Hallinger, Heck, Robinson, Witziers) for research that further illuminates “paths” and “intermediate targets” through which leadership impacts teaching and learning. The findings elaborate on the means by which leadership can enhance school capacities that directly impact teacher classroom practice and student learning. Consistent with other scholarly research (e.g. Bryk and Schneider, Louis and colleagues

Over the past 30 years, school principals have been exhorted to articulate a clear vision as a key tool for stimulating the improvement of teaching and learning in their schools. Over the past decade, as school systems have sought to distribute leadership more broadly within schools, the same imperative has applied to middle-level leaders. Indeed, a key assumption underlying the move towards sharing leadership responsibilities more broadly has been the belief that this would strengthen collective efforts and reduce the gap between goals and outcomes. Yet, to date, there have relatively few investigations of the extent to which middle-level leaders are contributing to school improvement efforts. This study sought to understand how shared vision within school management teams (SMTs) impacts teacher commitment and teacher support for students through school alignment and coherence. Dyad survey data were collected from 411 SMT members and 559 teachers at 32 primary schools in Hong Kong. Results indicated that shared vision in SMTs is positively related to teachers' perception of school alignment and coherence, teachers' commitment and teacher support to students. Theoretical and practical implications of findings are discussed.
[Copyright of School Leadership & Management is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2014.938039]

This study aimed at providing explanation and prediction of principals' inclusive education intentions and practices under the framework of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). A sample of 209 principals from Hong Kong schools was surveyed using five scales that were developed to assess the five components of TPB: attitude, subjective norm, perceived behaviour control, intention, and behaviour. Rasch analysis was utilised to examine the psychometric quality of the scales and generate principals' measures, which were subsequently subjected to path analysis to investigate the relationships among the five components. The results revealed a good model-data fit. Principals' attitude and perceived subjective norm were strong and significant predictors of their intention to implement inclusive education. The predictive power of perceived behaviour control on intention was not significant. Intention and perceived behaviour control were found to have significant predictive power for principals' reported inclusive practice. The implications of the findings are discussed.
[Copyright of Cambridge Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2014.934203]

Background: This paper discusses a leadership model grounded in an investigation of the phenomenon of principal leadershop in Hong Kong Protestant Christian secondary schools of one denomination, two years after the change of sovereignty to China (1st July, 1997).
Focus of discussion and comments: Using a hermeneutic phenomenological methdology, 9 principals and 16 senior teachers were interviewed to gather their perceptions about the principal's leadership role, and collect relevant documents. Subsequent analysis and interpretation of data indicated the complexity of the leadership role. Based on research findings and comparison with the literature, the emergent model comprises four broad leadership roles (in italics) which were correspondingly informed by leadership concepts: (1) Christian leadership-administering Christian education; (2) Instuctional leadership-teaching and learning; (3) Transformational leadership-transforming the school community; and (4) Leadership for school-baesed management-SBM and development.
Conclusion: As the principal leadership role was enacted on Christian principles, the discussion of the model and implications drawn may advance school leadership and infrom practitioners locally and internationally.
背景：回歸香港（九七年七月一日）之後兩年，作者調查香港基督教其中一派別中學之校長領導角式，本文討論研究資料分析歸納出來的領導者模式。
討論焦點及論點：作者採用「現像推測」之研究方法，訪問了九位校長及十六位資深教師，收集他們對校長領導式的看法，這有了甚麼轉變，以及有關文件，然後根據資料加以分析及推測，發現這個式複雜。將研究發現與文獻作出及比較後，浮現出一個包含了有四個範疇的領導模式：（一）基督教領導－基督教教育行政；（二）教學式領導－教學與學習；（三）轉化式領導－轉化學校社群；（四）「校本管理」之領導－「校本管理」之發展。
總結：因校長照聖經原則去實踐領導，討論這個領導模式及表達其潛在意義，或可推進學校領導及為本地或其他國家之同行者提供資料。
[Copyright of New Horizons: The Journal of Education, Hong Kong Teachers' Associationl is the property of Hong Kong Teachers' Association at http://www.hkta1934.org.hk/]