Argumentation has been considered one of the priorities in education. This paper will examine the functions of argumentation from different disciplines and the reason why argumentation should be a part of the curriculum in Hong Kong. The paper's focus is on various conceptualizations and some of the key concepts of argumentation as critical thinking. The paper involves a critique of some theoretical frameworks for the study of argumentation. A brief comparison will be made between Chinese and Western conceptualizations of argumentation in order to suggest a comprehensive theory to inform curriculum practices. Some student texts, which were taken from my qualitative research, will be used to illustrate some key concepts in argumentation and the need for adequate evidence and critical thinking in the construction of effective writing. The pedagogical implications for the teaching of argumentation are discussed.

Environmental education has been widely promoted in Hong Kong schools since the 1990s. Teachers have a crucial role in educating students to be well-informed, environmentally aware and responsible green citizens. The environmental literacy and tendencies of teachers are seen as having far-reaching influences on the development of environmental education in Hong Kong. This paper aims to elucidate teachers' competence in implementing environmental education in schools through their narrative dialogues regarding their engagement in classroom practice and thinking about environmental education. The teachers were selected from a pool of teacher respondents categorised according to their scores for environmental knowledge, attitude and behaviour in a territory-wide survey of Hong Kong primary school teachers. Follow-up interviews with three teachers of varying levels were conducted to explicate their personal stories, focusing on how the teachers' knowledge-attitude-behaviour associations influence their implementation of environmental education in schools. The teachers' experiences and perspectives behind their stories provide crucial, specific baseline information, informing the development of more relevant teacher education programs in environmental education, and subsequently, enhancing environmental education in schools.
[Copyright of International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10382046.2014.967111]

隨配合香港資訊科技教育的發展，教育局已於 2007 年之第三個資訊科技教育策略及 2009 年之課本及電子學習資源發展專責小組報告中提出以電子學習配合 Web2.0 應用技術的新學習環境來促進多元化學習模式，使教學的互動更普遍及快捷；當中主要有兩方面內容，包括透過互聯網進行協作和分享及在教學上應用流動科技進行隨時隨地學習。在應用透過互聯網進行協作和分享方面，可應用不同的互聯網平臺進行，如社交網站、即時通訊系統及網上分享網站等等，這樣學生能把研習檔案放在個人網誌中，不但可把學習過記錄及成果分享，而可以隨時隨地與同學討論研習問題，發揮創協學習的精神，有助進行協作學習及分享知識，達至互動，以發展學生的探究學習技巧。在應用流動科技作教學應用方面，亦可應用課室回應系統(iTALC)、配備標準軟件的流動裝置、無線網絡裝置、電子白板及快速回應碼裝置等等工具，提升師生在課堂內的互動空間，提高以便隨時隨地學習。但是，如何有效運用 Web 2.0 應用技術在電子學習呢？本專題研討會透過使用本地教師利用在 Web 2.0 應用技術於常識科的探究學習設計為主題。讓學生學習如何利用 Google 地球及檔、網誌、Do Do Code (QR Code) 快速回應碼、 Ubuntu、osTube、Facebook 及 WebQuest 等網上工具來進行探究學習。有關研究以十多個不同形式的課堂設計，在本地約五間不同的小學進行相關常識科的實踐教學，蒐集應用案例及教學法，如合作學習、網路探究及探究學習等等的元素，使 Web 2.0 應用技術及資訊科技教育能有效融入教學及學習層面，鼓勵常識科及其他學科教師使用不同形式的學與教材料，加以實踐和配合應用，迎接電子學習 2.0 的教學新趨勢。

According to the Olympic Charter, "Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining into a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles". Sport is viewed as a mini society where participants experience the success and failure; the joys and tears; and the ups and downs of life. For children, the overall aims of education for the 21st Century in Hong Kong should be "To enable every person to attain all-round development in the domains of ethics, intellect, physique, social skills and aesthetics according to his/her own attributes..." (Education Commission, September 2000, p.30). In the early childhood curriculum, physical education is integral in fostering young children's total development. Early childhood educators always provide an educationally appropriate program to enhance young children's whole person development. This paper serves two purposes. First, it demonstrates how Olympic sports are highly related to Civic Education for young children. Secondly, it suggests educationally sound strategies for early childhood educators to develop a preschool physical education curriculum with emphasis on the development of young Hong Kong children's civic capacities.

'Liberal Studies' has been fervently promoted as an initiative aiming at redeeming the quality of education in Hong Kong for the past year. This paper is the result of a critical analysis of its discursive formation process and particularly explores how teachers' role has been defined. An extensive study based on government documents and media both printed and electronic will be conducted and analyzed. It is observed as revealed by the current discourse that the role of teachers has been shaped within a positivist paradigm, which conceptualizes knowledge construction and the notion of teaching and learning within an input-process-output model. Consequently, teachers only serve to implement what has been passed down, a role likening to a technician meant not for provoking thought. It is argued that the capacity of leading thought provoking dialogue, which a technician is by nature not able to accomplish, is the fundamental prerequisite for teachers who are entrusted to teach the subject of 'Liberal Studies'. This paper argues that the notion of 'Liberal Studies' has to be re-conceptualized within the post-positivist paradigm which considers knowledge as something that emerges inter-subjectively. It entails that the encounter between teachers and students plays a pivotal role in co-constructing the world. Knowledge constructed in such a way implies the importance of what Gadamer has coined the 'fusion of horizons', based on which Mikhail Bakhtin's and Martin Buber's dialogism will be used under the umbrella term 'dialogic hermeneutics' to assert that the key of cultivating the spirit of 'liberal studies' in our students is an ethical rather than a technical issue. In short, in response to the positivist's deficiency in shedding light on how 'Liberal Studies' should be oriented, a post-positivist way of thinking is proposed and is regarded more illuminating in terms of its emphasis on divergent thinking, which celebrates dialogue - the breeding ground for liberal inquiry

For the past few decades, cultural studies scholars and critical educators in such contexts as North America, Australia and the UK have called upon their fellow scholars to cross disciplinary borders in framing and addressing educational issues. Inter-disciplinary work as such would recognize cultural studies as bodies of knowledges and approaches to be applied in new educational settings. It would also acknowledge the need for more and better studies of schooling in order to reflect on the problematics of the sites in their specific historical and institutional contexts. This paper discusses my earlier work that investigated a pedagogical issue of project learning in the Hong Kong senior secondary school subject Liberal Studies as a case of doing cultural studies and education between the disciplinary borders of the two fields. The paper examines the interdisciplinary conceptual-analytical framework of drama and the performative I adopted to understand the complex nature of project learning as a mode of learning. It ends by reflecting on the spaces such an interdisciplinary analytical framing might open for cultural studies' interventions into the schooling system.
Copyright of Cultural Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2014.900099