Over the past two decades, the feminisation of primary school teaching has been identified by the media and government officials in Western countries as an important contributing factor to boys’ academic problems. This panic, which has been criticised by feminists as a backlash and a form of recuperative politics, has promoted the development of research into gender and education, particularly studies related to the gendered culture of primary schools and on the masculinities of male teachers. However, male primary principals remain relatively under-researched in the literature, despite the importance of their structural position and increasing concern over the masculinisation of school leadership. This paper aims to contribute to the discussion by critically analysing the interpretive frameworks of 12 male primary school principals. The findings reveal not only the complex, contradictory and at times culturally specific gendered discourses that some male principals employ, but also their feminising and masculinising effects on the school workplace and leadership.
[Copyright © 2011 Common Ground, Wai Man Vivienne Leung.]

Mentoring has long been recognized as an effective approach in the professional development of teachers since it combines career advancement and psychosocial development (Kram, 1988). While a body of mentoring research in music education focusing on professional development exists (Benson, 2008; Conway, 2008; Haack, 2006), there is little evidence that the benefits arising from the process have been recognized or acted upon at the governmental level. Through the collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative pre-, present- and post-case study data from a three-year school-based mentoring program in Hong Kong, this paper examines how the effective delivery of the music curriculum in early childhood education can be enhanced by the implementation of mentoring in helping to ensure the long-term professional development of its participants. The findings indicate the inadequate amount of training and preparation for kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong to adequately deliver a multifaceted music curriculum, and the mentor could fulfill the role of a music specialist. As a reference source for those considering the implementation of similar programs within their kindergarten settings, the findings can have applications across different subject areas, providing a practical perspective on the implications for sustained delivery as it pertains to novice and veteran teachers alike. To this end, a number of considerations as they relate to the research objectives – along with practical recommendations for the various stakeholders involved within early childhood education – are also discussed.
[Copyright © 2010 HKIEd APFSLT.]

In response to the wave of global education reform, the Hong Kong Government has initiated an educational reform to promote the child-centred approach to meet the changing society in the recent ten years. The Holistic Child-centred Educational Approach which enshrine a distinct kind of spirituality of interconnectedness is considered as Quality education. In order to foster the holistic curriculum in young children, the Government has recognized the values of play in the ECE informal curriculum and its allied pedagogy. Despite the Government’s persistent attempts to foster the policy, the feedback from practitioners is less than satisfactory. Through a qualitative research with two preschools with religious affiliations, it is found that spirituality education has an important role to play in fostering the good lives of young children. Children are being ‘equipped’ with skills to deal with life adversity and handling the complex human relationships. A successful implementation of spirituality education however must rest on a clear understanding of the difference between the traditional religious education and spirituality education. A genuine understanding on the part of practitioners would increase the chances for a successful implementation of the ECE Educational reform promoted by the SAR Government. (The Author)
[Copyright © Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker-Society.]

This study explores a beginning early childhood teacher’s reflective practices and looks for evidence of characteristics of a reflective practitioner. The participant took part in a series of reflective thinking activities over five months. The findings of this study revealed the participant’s reflective practice in the following aspects: on students learning, teacher-students interaction and teaching behaviour. Most of her reflections focused on technical and practical levels. The participant had the characteristic of a reflective practitioner. Through this case study the author wishes to facilitate reflective teaching by early childhood educators which in turn is expected to help improve the quality of their teaching, besides promoting reflective practice among early childhood educators.
[Copyright © 2011 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.]

This paper examines the field of art education for young children in Hong Kong with a focus on the curriculum policy. A number of researchers have found that effects of cultures on the conceptions and understanding of art education for young children and its values are significant in their process of formation (e.g., Duncum, 2000, 2002; Freedman, 2000; Gardner, 2004; Green, 2000; Piscitelli, 1999; Piscitelli, Renshaw, Dunn & Hawke, 2004; Schirrmacher, 2001; Wright, 1991, 1997, 2003). This paper has applied the framework of the three orientations from Efland (1990), i.e. expressionism, reconstructionism and scientific rationalism in the analysis of Hong Kong curriculum policy documents and found that contradictions in terms of principles and practices are embedded. It is argued that these hidden but value-loaded assumptions about theories and practices in early childhood education and art education should be made explicit both in the formation of the policies and their implementation in schools if success is expected.
[Copyright © 2009 HKIEd APFSLT.]

In his 2006-07 Policy Address, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong committed HK$2 billion to enhancing holistic ECE through the instigation of a school voucher scheme. The new paradigm of a child-centred curriculum is considered necessary to keep pace with international quality educational developments. The paradigm of spirituality education for young children, which enshrines interconnectedness (Taggart, 2001), is in essence the holistic education that is advocated in child-centred ideology. Religious education, in contrast, is underpinned by teacher-centred ideology and has the aim of transmitting traditional religious values to the younger generation. The article reports on six case studies on three different faith schools which suggest that elements of spirituality are embedded in the newly advocated curriculum. The preliminary data collected, however, also suggest that there is a misunderstanding on the part of stakeholders in their view of the conceptualisation of Spirituality Education as nearly synonymous with Religious Education. Based on these findings, the author hopes to arouse the public at large to the potential educational inequalities existed alongside the educational reform policy; firstly to the parents when exercising their rights under the school voucher scheme and secondly, to faith schools being distracted from their school mission by a misconception that Spirituality Education and Religious Education are nearly synonymous.
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Drawing on the theory of dialogism and the literature on children’s culture and cultural resistance, this article investigates the contextual and textual features of the cultural making of a group of children in sociodramatic play in a Hong Kong kindergarten. Different from other, similar studies, this study reports that under the gaze of the teacher, children’s play is largely practised as a reproduction of the teacher’s cultural texts. Children’s culture or resistance only arises as a bricolage of various cultural texts in which the cultural texts of the teacher and the children are intertwined, dissonant and hybridized. Two major modes of bricolage are identified. They are hybridization and invalidation. This result suggests that the teacher’s strategies and authoritarian discourse are suppressive of the children’s culture, aiming largely to shape the way and process of their cultural making. Nonetheless, from the evidence in this study, it is believed that bricoleur is a creative act as it involves tactful and creative appropriation, orchestration and transformation of all sorts of cultural texts which are at hand. The pretend play corner is consequently reframed and recreated as a heteroglot playing space of the children’s own.
[Copyright © The Author(s) 2012.]