Drawing on findings from the extensive questionnaire survey and intensive case studies we conducted in Hong Kong secondary schools, this paper examines the interactions, tensions and gaps among the various stakeholders' visions, concerns and priorities as identified in the ongoing school reform. We examine the classroom dynamics of teaching and learning, the interactive pedagogical relationship involved, as well as the embedded institutional complexity in the schooling process, in order to understand what underlies the curriculum policy and education reform within the mainstream system. In view of the paramount significance of its evolvement in actual operation, we argue that education reform ought to be taken pragmatically but programmatically as the complexly embedded cultural process in which all the local practices and values of its stakeholders operate in the same cultural space. By conducting research on that interlocking cultural process, we also identify new options for Cultural Studies when education is taken seriously as the core of our intellectual project.
[Copyright of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09502386.2011.534579]

Academic libraries devote considerable human resources in delivering library instruction programs. This study attempts to determine if these instructional efforts have any measurable effect on student performance in terms of overall grades: Library workshop attendance and graduation GPA of over 8,000 students was analyzed at Hong Kong Baptist University. It was found that, if more than one or two library workshops were offered to students within the course of their program, there was a higher tendency of workshop attendance having a positive impact on final GPA. The results indicate that library instruction has a direct correlation with student performance, but only if a certain minimum amount of instruction is provided.
[Copyright of College & Research Libraries is the property of Association of College and Research Libraries. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://crl.acrl.org/content/72/5/464]

Around the world, increasing numbers of students receive after-school private supplementary tutoring. Such tutoring may be provided through informal channels or by companies, and it may be received one-to-one, in small groups or in large classes. The tutoring is commonly called shadow education since its content mimics that of regular schooling. The spread of shadow education is part of a global shift of balance with increased roles for the private sector. Hong Kong is among the societies in which shadow education enrolment rates are particularly high. Much of the shadow education focuses on techniques for performance in external examinations, and is not consistent with the emphases stressed by teachers and the government. This paper focuses on a newly introduced subject called Liberal Studies in which the tensions are especially visible. Although the official curriculum emphasizes creativity and critical thinking, many students have sought large-class tutoring focused on formulae for passing examinations. Interviews exposed the needs that the students felt were not being met in their schooling. The findings illustrate some of the complexities in relationships between the public and private sectors. Viewed in a wider context, the paper illuminates some of the mechanisms and effects of marketization, which are increasingly evident globally.
[Copyright of Journal of Curriculum Studies is the property of Routledge . Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220272.2014.883553]