Cities are considered to be the major drivers of the global economy for many reasons, including their creative and innovative potential in generating sustainable economic growth. Istanbul is one of the global cities searching for a long-term growth strategy. This paper starts with a modest effort of composing an index to be used in the evaluation of the creative potential of cities. Our proposed index, "global creative index", consists of five main criteria: (1) creativeness, (2) innovativeness, (3) intellectual development, (4) global network connectivity and (5) world cityness emphasizing multinational corporate economy, international division of labour and high intensity of producer and financial services. The use of the index is illustrated through the comparison of nine cities: Hong Kong, Istanbul, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, New York, Shanghai, Singapore and Toronto. The analysis of these nine cities shows that Istanbul is building an innovation environment, but it still lacks research and development infrastructure, technical support and investment in higher education. This comparison offers guidelines for policy-makers to sketch the growth of Istanbul along the lines of creativity and innovativeness.
[Copyright of European Planning Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2012.680583]

An increasingly important curricular aim of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) is to develop learners' intercultural competence for communication with people from different cultures through English. English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' perceptions and practices in relation to integrating culture with English learning have been investigated mainly in Europe and the USA, whereas in Asia, these issues seem to have been less explored. This article reports an interview study that collected views about culture and language teaching from 12 secondary school English teachers in Hong Kong, including native and non-native English teachers. The findings showed that the teachers were unanimously positive in their attitudes towards the motivating power of culture (including popular culture) in language teaching, but also revealed ambivalence or contradictory feelings about the means and the end of culture-integrated TEFL in terms of what cultural resources to draw on; the connectivity between cultural components and examinations; and the role of teachers. The findings suggest the need for EFL teachers to deploy culture as a discursive resource for meaning-making, and to consider culture pedagogy as interlingual and intercultural exploratory dialogues with the students. The need for a closer collaboration among EFL teachers from different sociocultural backgrounds is highlighted.
[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/10.1080/07908318.2012.716849]

This paper discusses the changing concepts of leadership in early childhood education (ECE) in England and Hong Kong during a period of significant education reform. We seek to illustrate the interplay between the impact of the policy agenda and the emerging quality leadership perspectives found in the theoretical literature, by first considering the recent education reform context in both England and Hong Kong, before examining the importance of leadership for quality provision given the constraints and drivers of policy expectation. The paper explores transformational, distributed and authentic models of leadership in the 'New Leadership' paradigm and uses these constructions to examine the developing problems and opportunities for quality leadership as expected by the current policy reform agenda and understood by the practitioners. In conclusion, we raise questions about the interplay between policy agendas and the development of theoretical models of leadership for ECE in England and Hong Kong.
[Copyright of International Journal of Leadership in Education: Theory and Practice is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2011.644327 ]

Commonalities and distinctions in Hong Kong-Chinese and German kindergarten teachers' conceptions of play and learning were examined. Six video clips of play episodes reflecting common play behavior and themes were selected from observations made during free play in two kindergartens in Hong Kong and two in Germany. Ten Chinese and seven German teachers viewed clips of children in their own and the other culture in small groups, participated in a semi-structured group discussion, and completed questionnaires, respectively. Results indicated that teachers in the two contexts had different views on the role of play in curriculum, teacher intervention during children's play, and learning objectives in play. These differences may be a function of different ecological environments and preset learning objectives. Findings suggest that teachers' cultural beliefs about play and learning are translated into actions (play arrangements) which, in turn, influence children's play behavior.
[Copyright of Roeper Review is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2011.623511]

This study examines the influence of the colonial experience (1945-1997) on the planning of secondary technical education in Hong Kong. Specifically, the origins of secondary technical institutions and their positioning in secondary education are examined. Primary source materials are used as the basis of investigation and analysis, supplemented by secondary sources. The study finds that the origins and form of secondary technical education in Hong Kong mirrored those of secondary technical education in the British tripartite school system (grammar, technical, and modern). The breakdown of the tripartite school system in Britain might have led the colonial government not to adopt the full British model of secondary technical education. Nevertheless, the British tripartite school system had a long-term impact on the development of secondary technical schools in Hong Kong. Following the end of colonial rule, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government initiated education reform, which brought an end to curriculum differentiation by school types (grammar, technical, and prevocational) and replaced it with comprehensive education.
[Copyright of Roeper Review is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13636820.2011.561929]