Enormous variation exists among nations and regions in their inclusive education provisions. In addition to comparisons based on policy documents and figures, in-depth and contextually grounded comparative studies involving qualitative data based on stakeholder’ experiences are needed, especially between western and Asian regions or nations where socio-economic and cultural contexts vary greatly. This article examined and compared how the conceptualization of inclusive education and elements that affected school leaders’ decisions to participate in inclusive education in Guam and Hong Kong where vastly different socio-economic and cultural contexts were present. An interpretive qualitative approach of interviewing school leaders was adopted to permit an in-depth understanding of these contexts. Findings revealed that the legislation-based versus the cultural heritage of Confucianism and the geographical location versus the elite education system of Guam and Hong Kong were key contexts affecting conceptualizations and challenges in the two regions. Large scale cross-national qualitative studies are called for to examine contextual factors from other key stakeholders, to give meaning to statistical figures and policy documents, and to offer more meaningful interpretation of the relationship between national contexts and inclusive education provisions.
[Copyright © 2017 Whole Schooling Press.]

The roles of principal leadership in change management have long been documented. The key concern to examine in this study was the dilemmas and measures confronting principals’ when they led changes to instigate inclusive education in Hong Kong. Thus, this paper aims to report sources of dilemmas and how principals tackled them in the change process. Ten principals of schools recognized for effective inclusive education practices were interviewed in a qualitative study. Findings suggested that the process of leading change was very complex. Two dilemmas were identified: (a) principals’ struggles between benefits and issues of participating in inclusive education and (b) autocratic initial decisions versus need for staff involvement. The second dilemma stemmed from not involving key staff while the implementation required their active participation. Thus, the existing organizational culture and personnel capacities became obstacles required for the success of inclusive education. The leadership measures to tackle the obstacles began by building a shared vision which in turn required both transactional and transformational leadership activities in order to increase teacher commitment to reforms. This study has contributed to change leadership theories in affirming the need to include socio-political contexts in examining leadership decisions toward school reforms.
[Copyright © 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.]

This paper reports on a hermeneutic phenomenological study on the experiences of visual arts teachers teaching students with intellectual disabilities in Hong Kong. Themes which emerged from the interviews were examined in conjunction with the lived experiences of the teachers. Special school visual arts teachers who participated in this study have strong emotional and personal connections with their students. The teachers had experienced difficulties when teaching their students and many of the problems were unique to the special school settings. In an effort to tackle these problems and improve their teaching, these teachers engaged in reflection and explored a variety of ways to enhance their students' learning. In spite of the practical learning problems their students face, the teachers maintained that studying visual arts is beneficial to their students 'whole-person development. The paper concludes with a critical reflection on the nature of teaching visual arts to students with intellectual disabilities.
[Copyright © 2015 Australian Association of Special Education Inc.]

It is increasingly recognized in the field of gifted education that giftedness is asynchronous development, which posits that the combination of advanced cognitive abilities and heightened intensity and sensitivity in the gifted population creates inner experiences and awareness that are qualitatively different from the norm. The asynchronous development of the gifted renders them vulnerable particularly in the social-emotional aspects (Silverman, 1993). The purpose of this chapter is to look into the social-emotional characteristics of gifted students. It is further asserted that the social-emotional challenges or inner conflicts experienced by the gifted students were actually the driving force of the personal development for the gifted students. Implications on effective counselling for the gifted are also discussed with the aim to facilitate an optimal personal development of the gifted in a Hong Kong school context.

Career planning plays a salient role in determining the individuals’ goal setting, work engagement, and outcomes. In school settings, helping students to establish good career planning would contribute not only to maximize their potential to learn and achieve based on their personal strengths, but also to suit their career development needs. However, to students with special educational needs (SEN), they are usually the group facing greater challenges in career planning and development compared to regular students. In the Hong Kong context, the present study took the initiativeto examine the aspirations, expectations, and challenges of post-secondary school transition among SEN students and their parents. A qualitative approach through a series of focus group interviews was adopted. Over 70 SEN students from both mainstream schools (n =38) and special schools (n =34) and 37 parents of SEN student participated in this study. The results were categorized into career aspirations, difficulties and challenges, expectations and recommendations of SEN students and their parents. The results draw educators’ attention of the found inadequacy of positive attitude to career planning and low confidence levels to achieve desirable post-school transition outcomes among SEN students. Implications are discussed in relation to SEN students’ needs of career planning training and career development.

The Hong Kong government proposed a three-year pilot project of arranging a Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO) in the schools. Using this new policy as a case study, this study aims to develop a better understanding of inclusive education policy in a Chinese context and to identify what concerns of this policy in practice that can help the implementation of policy change. This presentation uses critical discourse analysis to analyse the government policy papers and the responses from the public based on multiple sources. The findings suggest that this policy attempts to satisfy both the economic and educational needs together. Yet, there is a gap between the expectations of the government and understanding of the community. Future research is recommended to explore and gain broad and in-depth understandings of added values and effects of SENCOs’ role on inclusive practices in the pilot schools in contrast to those existing provisions.

This article draws insight from a narrative inquiry to examine the complexities of educating immigrant students with disabilities in which language, culture, and disability collide. Issues related to language-in-education policy, teacher preparation, and the proportion and identification of culturally and linguistically diverse students were primarily reviewed within multicultural and multilingual education conceptual frameworks in English speaking countries between English speaking teachers and non-English speaking students. Little is known about potentially more complicated situations such as those in which teachers and students have a shared ethnicity and dialects with different levels of proficiency. This article thus attempts to illustrate and map the complexity based on the insight from a narrative inquiry situated in an inclusive school setting of Hong Kong. Multiple sources of data were included for a thorough understanding of and analyses on the place, temporality, and sociality within the narrative inquiry framework. Data were drawn from interviews, classroom observations, teacher diaries, school data, and student input. Analyses indicated that shared ethnicity and languages could complicate rather than simplify the teaching and learning contexts. The lived experiences of the special educator demonstrated and contextualised the complex issues of educating CLD children with ADHD of shared ethnicity in multilingual environments. Findings of this inquiry added an important dimension to immigrant and multicultural special education studies and concluded that current inquiry paradigm should be expanded to include shared ethnicity and different proficiency in shared dialects/languages.

This article reports on a mixed-method inquiry into pre-service and in-service secondary school teachers' knowledge about Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and attitudes toward students with this disorder in Hong Kong. The inquiry revealed no differences between pre- service and in-service secondary school teachers concerning their knowledge of ADHD and attitudes toward students with ADHD. It also identified possible sources of participants' knowledge and a variety of factors underlying their attitudes toward students with ADHD including sociocultural beliefs and working conditions. The findings call for teacher educators to develop better education programs to support both pre-service and in-service teachers in undertaking the challenging task of teaching students with ADHD.