Curriculum reform in Hong Kong is one facet of a broad systemic reform variously explained in terms of addressing a changing sovereignty or more recently, of servicing Hong Kong's economic growth. One initiative supporting this curriculum reform entitled Assessment for Learning seeks to promote formative assessment. Three case studies, of teachers within their Hong Kong classrooms seeking to implement formative assessment, serve to highlight a curious contradiction: caring teachers who appear to work against curriculum reform. To explain this contradiction we offer a three-point philosophical framework comprising Confucianism, Daoism and pragmatism, which provides an answer to our central question: curriculum reform in the Hong Kong primary classroom: what gives?
[Copyright of Music Education Research is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14613800802079122]

After considering colonialism and the transition of Hong Kong, this article explores the state of curriculum management now at the micro- level, through a case study of two secondary schools, It provides a picture of the tensions, compromises and evolution of the educational system.
[Copyright of Curriculum Studies is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14681369800200024 ]

Relatively little is known about how and by whom curriculum leadership and management occur inside secondary schools, especially in Asian contexts. This article aims to analyse curriculum decision-making in two academically effective secondary schools in Hong Kong. It employs qualitative methods to capture the contributions made by various school personnel, and in particular the principals, to curriculum leadership and management. Data for the two schools show that whilst neither of the principals plays a significant role in curriculum monitoring and innovation, the vice-principal (male), the senior teachers and teachers in one school were perceived to place more emphasis on curriculum monitoring and innovation than their counterparts in the other school. Whilst teachers in both schools shared high expectations for students' academic achievement, one subtle difference between them related to the pursuit of academic excellence. In one school, students did not exert much pressure on their teachers whereas in the other school, teachers felt they had to fulfil students' demands for good lesson preparation and take account of students' opinions of their teaching.
[Copyright of School Leadership & Management is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13632439968970]

Cross-cultural analysis of the effects of transformational leadership on organizational learning in elementary and secondary schools in Hong Kong, Western Australia, Canada (Manitoba), and Taiwan.
[Copyright of School Leadership & Management is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1363243022000053448]

This article aims to contribute to an understanding of principalship in Hong Kong through probing the formation and preservation of the deep leadership structures that shape its practice. Deep structures are formed partly through a dynamic relationship between constitution and culture which forms bounded "codes" of understanding, conduct and behaviour which combine to shape principalship in Hong Kong and power relationships within schools and collections of schools. After providing a brief historical snapshot of Hong Kong education development since 1945, the paper explores the recent context of principalship and how this influences its shape in schools. Discussion of context focuses on the interconnected elements of constitution and traditional culture. These factors are illustrated using the issues of principal selection and teacher and parent empowerment to show the influence of deep leadership structures on the principal and the system. Depending on the perspective taken, these can be understood as either supportive or obstructive to better school leadership.
[Copyright of Discourse is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0159630042000178491]