The quality of a teacher plays one of the most important roles in the achievement of an education system. Teacher training is a multi-dimensional process which comprises the selection of teacher candidates, pre-service training, appointment, in-service training and teaching practices. Therefore, this study focuses on teacher training processes in Singapore, Shanghai-China, Hong Kong-China and Turkey and aims to discover the reasons for success in Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) by relating it with teacher training processes. Singapore, Shanghai-China, Hong Kong-China were chosen to study because their educational systems were ranked among the high-performing educational systems in 2016. This study was a qualitative research and document analysis method was used to collect data about the relevant countries' teacher training processes. The result of the study suggested some practical considerations for teacher training programs in low-performing education systems about the selection of teacher candidates, pre-service training, appointment, in-service training and teaching practices.
[Copyright of Journal of Curriculum and Teaching is the property of Sciedu Press]

International studies of science education, such as the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), have revealed considerable national disparities in students' achievements in science education. The results have prompted many nations to compare their science education systems and practices to those of others, to gain insights for improvement. Teacher training and professional development are key educational components that have not attracted as much attention as they deserve in international comparative studies. This study compares the conceptions and attitudes of pre-service elementary teachers (PSETs) in Hong Kong and the United States with respect to inquiry science learning and teaching at the beginning of the semester before the start of the science methods course. PSETs' conceptions and attitudes in the two countries were compared by means of a questionnaire with both Likert-type and open-ended questions. Quantitative data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis and inferential statistics, while qualitative data were analyzed through the systematic categorization of PSETs' responses into broad themes and subthemes to reflect patterns in their conceptions of and attitudes toward inquiry science learning and teaching. The results revealed a complex interplay between PSETs' conceptions of and attitudes toward inquiry science learning and teaching. The results shed light on the effects of sociocultural contexts and have important implications for the design of science methods courses.
[Copyright © 2018 Springer Science+Business Media B.V., part of Springer Nature.]

This study aims to understand teacher emotions through interviewing 53 primary teachers in Hong Kong and Mainland China. Content analysis was employed to analyze the data. Teachers reported 68 different types of emotions which decreases as distance from the teachers increases at the five nested ecological system – microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macro-system, and chronosystem. Teachers mentioned the most emotions at the microsystem level (50 emotions), followed by the exosystem (36), the mesosystem (30), the macrosystem (10), and the chronosystem (seven) levels. These emotions comprised 34 positive emotions (e.g., happiness, caring, pride) and 34 negative emotions (e.g., pressure, sadness, worry). Attention should be paid to the high proportion (50%) of negative emotions described by Hong Kong and Mainland China teachers. Findings may help teachers to understand how to regulate their emotions but also provide strong references for teacher education, teaching, and teacher lives.
[Copyright © 2017 James Nicholas Publishers.]

本文以敍事研究的方法，分別對中國內地和香港地區的兩所國際文憑 (IB) 學校的課程負責人進行採訪，並對採訪內容進行敍事分析，以求還原學校申請成為IB世界學校、以及實施IB課程的具體過程，從中觀察IB學校在中國所面臨的問題、探討這些問題的前因後果、總結問題的解決方法。希望通過重現和回顧帶來反思，促進發展。
[Copyright © 2017 中華書局(香港)有限公司.]

The study explores secondary students' decision making about socio-scientific issues (SSIs) related to biological conservation, from cross-cultural, cross-age and cross-gender perspectives. It has been widely recognized that many SSIs have profound repercussions on global environmental sustainability that transcend cultural boundaries. Research on SSIs has been focused on multi-perspective reasoning, the evaluation of evidence, value judgement, and the formulation of the criteria for decision-making, but not on the possible roles of culture, gender, and age-related developmental factors as mediators of students' decision making. This study was to fill this gap. It adopted a comparative perspective and used mixed methods including student worksheets, class discussion records and focus groups. A total of 97 HK students, with 55 aged 11-13 and 42 aged 15-17, and 54 UK students, with 41 aged 11-13 and 13 aged 15-17 were involved in decision making about shark hunting within their own classes, and in cross-cultural exchange between HK and UK classes. The aim was to study gender, cultural and age-related differences in students' decision-making about shark hunting, and the impact of cultural exchanges through watching videotaped presentations from another locality. Preliminary findings showed that while nearly all the students in both localities agreed to protect sharks to different extents, there were differences across age, gender and culture in various aspects of their decisions including their justifications. For instance, there was statistically significant difference in the number of concerns on which the justifications of HK and UK junior students were based upon; UK senior students targeted at a wider range of stakeholders in their final decisions than their HK counterparts; and far more senior students in both localities resorted to education as a means to protect sharks than their junior counterparts. More junior students in both localities thought they needed

The major characteristic of religious education is to equip students with a set of values with reference to its religious doctrines. Vermeer (2010) pointed out that religious education may influence students with some basic democratic values like equality, tolerance and non-discrimination. Various Western literature highlights the influence of religion on students' civic and social values development (see Grundel and Maliepaard, 2012; Pike, 2008; Vermeer, 2010; Gates 2006). However, the study of this topic in Chinese contexts is quite limited (Zhai & Woodberry, 2011; Cheung et al., 2016). Hong Kong and Taiwan are part of East Asia with similar set of values (Cho & Kim, 2013; Karsten et al., 2002). Religious bodies like Buddhist organizations and Christian churches play a significant role in both Hong Kong and Taiwan education development (Cheung et al., 2016; Zhai & Woodberry, 2011). They operate various secondary and primary schools. Religious education is part of their curriculum and makes these schools different from secular schools. This paper aims to explore the influence of religion on secondary students' civic and social values development in both societies. By making use of the focus group interview, this study collected data from schools with four different types of religious background, including Buddhism, Catholicism, Protestantism and Atheism (no religious affiliation) and making comparison between Hong Kong and Taiwanese students. The findings provide a better understanding about the influence of religion on Chinese students' citizenship development in both societies but the results differ from those found in Western studies. The implications of these results for theory building and policy are discussed.

What is learning and how could the learning in mathematics be enhanced has fallen into debate for many years. Singapore rank number one in both TIMSS and PISA in 2015. What are the insights we could earned from such competition? Regarding to the facts that Singapore is one of the first countries in implementing the metacognition into their mathematics curriculum in 1990s (Chan & Leung, 2013), metacognition may possible be the answer we are searching for. There is no doubt that textbooks take a very important role in this. White & Mesa (2014) indicated that lecturer rely highly on textbook in their teaching especially the tasks assigned. However, researches with textbooks related to mathematical content and researches on their potential in developing metacognitive knowledge are limited (Mesa, 2004; Mesa, 2010). Especially, comparisons between metacognitive strategies among textbooks in different countries are very limited. Thus the following questions are proposed to be investigated. 1. Does mathematics textbook emphasis enough metacognitive strategies in enhancing students' metacognition? 2. Does the pattern of using metacognitive strategies in mathematics textbooks different among countries/cities? The assessment is divided as seven categories: think aloud, questioning, self-questioning, error detection, group activity, alternative strategies and reflection. It is identical to those suggested by Chan and Leung (2013). Result shows that think aloud is the most popular strategy used in textbooks among Singapore, British and Hong Kong. However, other strategies weight about only 20% in total. It is suggested that more metacognitive ingredients could be added in textbooks in enhancing students' metacognition.

以古德萊德對課程理解框架為參考，此研究從理解和實施的課程層面，調查和比較了北京、臺灣、香港三地數學教師的教科書使用情況，包括教師的備課(教科書內容的理解與評價)和課堂教學(教科書內容的選取、調適和運用)兩部分，並據此分析了三地數學教師與教科書之間的關係。研究發現，從教師對教科書的滿意度和忠誠度的角度來看，三地數學教師明顯呈現不同的教科書使用風格。研究結論對於課程實施和教師專業發展實踐都具有重要的參考意義。
[Copyright © 2017 湖南師範大學.]

中國香港是東西方文化的交融之地。在教育研究的諸多方面，它既有自己的獨特之處，也相容華人世界的共性。透過對中國香港過往30年間數學教育研究成果的系統闡述，從學習、教學法、課程、評估、教師教育等研究領域做出回顧與分析。從分析可見，中國香港數學教育研究已初具規模，在國際學術界亦受到一定的認可，但同時也面臨著一些挑戰，包括學術氛圍的改變等。這些不僅是中國香港教育研究經驗的總結，也能對當前中國內地數學教育現狀和未來的發展提供一些參考和借鑒。
[Copyright © 2017 天津師範大學;中國教育學會.]

比較臺灣、內地和香港三地2000年前後進行的建構主義數學新課程改革的期望課程和實施課程，發現有很多因素限制建構主義課程的實施，如政治因素、考試文化、社會參與、教科書編寫和教師培訓等，而系統的課程評價模式的引入、師範教育的改革以及鼓勵更廣泛的社會參與等是促進課程改革成功的有效策略。
[Copyright © 2011 北京教育科學研究院; 北京廣播電視大學.]