In this study, a modified version of the Curriculum Orientation Inventory for Early Childhood Education (COI-ECE) is developed and validated with a sample of 717 in-service teachers from fifty Hong Kong pre-primary schools. Results of confirmatory factor analysis show that the curriculum beliefs of pre-primary school teachers can be conceptualised into four dimensions: humanistic, cognitive process/academic, technological, and social reconstruction orientations. Results also reveal that pre-primary school teachers hold strong humanistic orientation beliefs while cognitive process/academic orientation beliefs are held less strongly. Further analyses by one-way ANOVA tests find that differences in curricular orientation beliefs are related to teachers’ educational level and teaching position. This study reaffirms the importance of implementing an integrated developmentally appropriate curriculum in promoting whole-child development in children’s early years. The implications for supporting and sustaining teachers’ curriculum-based planning and subsequent teaching practices will be discussed. Copyright © 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.

This study employed an inductive qualitative approach to understanding the effects of local culture on early childhood curriculum development in two Hong Kong kindergartens. A triangulation of interviews, observations and documents was established, and cultural-historical activity theory was employed as the theoretical framework. The results indicated that local culture played an important role in early childhood curriculum development. First, the two cases learned from diverse models and approaches during the transformation of their curricula, resulting in contradictory demands and motives. Then, these contradictions were, in turn, resolved by the local culture to achieve curriculum hybridisation and innovation, as well as inherit the culture. Such findings provide valuable implications for early childhood professionals to integrate social and cultural diversity into curriculum development and to localise imported curricular practices so as to ensure a good fit between the curriculum and the local context. Copyright © 2020 The Author(s).

Hong Kong preschool teachers have long been portrayed as ineffective reform implementers entrenched in the Confucian educational practices. This study, conducted in an award-winning drama partnership, solicits nineteen teachers’ voices on their first-hand experiences in using process drama for curriculum and pedagogical innovation. Based on Bakhtin’s voice theory and thematic analysis, the study identifies various kinds of teacher-reported benefits of this western educational borrowing, ranging from teaching capacity building, perceptual changes concerning childhood and teachers’ role, to personal wellbeing enhancement. Unlike previous studies, these findings represent teachers as effective implementers of process drama and active agents of education reform. Copyright © 2021 American Alliance for Theatre and Education.

本文以一個教研項目的經驗為基礎，討論價值觀教育課程的設計原則與教學實踐技巧。內容主要以一初中系列的視像教材設計及相關課研經驗為例子，先綜合出四項課程設計原則。之後，藉著過程中所蒐集的課堂數據解釋相關的教學實踐技巧。最後，本文以建議教師在設計及實踐價值觀教育課程的角色作為往後值得關注的課題作結。With reference to an experience drawn from a teaching study, this paper discusses the design principles and teaching practice skills for values education curriculum. It first summarizes four design principles by using the series of video resource and the teaching study from a junior secondary school. Then, it explains the related teaching practice skills based on the empirical data collected in lessons. At last, it ends with suggesting that the role of teachers in designing and teaching values education curriculum would be a topic for further study. Copyright © 2020 香港教師中心.

Organized extracurricular activities (EAs) are an important component of the microsystem that impacts children's lives. Previous literature has primarily focused on school-aged children and youth in Western societies. This study utilized a longitudinal design and examined the antecedents and consequences of extracurricular participation in a sample of 194 Hong Kong Chinese preschoolers. The results showed that higher family socioeconomic status (SES) predicted higher levels of participation in EAs (e.g., attendance intensity and the breadth of participation). Children from higher-SES families were more likely to involve in non-academic-oriented EAs. Participation in EAs was generally associated with the growth trajectories of reading and math skills in children from less advantaged SES backgrounds, but not higher-SES children. In contrast, EA participation was not associated with children's social skills. Findings highlight the importance of examining the relationship between EA participation and children's early development in non-Western societies. Copyright ©Elsevier Ltd.