As a former colony, Hong Kong's education system has been powerfully influenced by ideas from the West. However, these influences have been mediated by a number of factors of contingency - the most important of which is culture - which shapes implementation, particularly of what counts as successful practice. The aim of this paper is to trace the interpretation and implementation of key ideas about school leadership and to offer some analytical projections into the future based on current trajectories. It explores three broad sets of constraints on the development of leadership practice: the features of the Hong Kong school system, the influence of a Confucian cultural tradition, and the process oriented nature of the professional practice of effective school leadership. The paper concludes by offering an analysis of how this dynamic process view of leadership can be used to understand current attempts to build a school-based approach to educational leadership.
[Copyright of Journal of Educational Administration and History is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220620802507268]

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]

此文撮錄自作者於1997年提交的哲學碩士論文之晤談分析部份。作者指出，香港小學美勞科似乎具有「校本課程」發展的特色；因此在是項研究中，作者訪問了七間小學的八位美勞科主任，希望了解他們在編訂美勞科全年教學計劃時的決策因素。結果發現小學美勞科其實具有「校長為本」的課程決策特色。在教育署督學有責無權下，便要視乎校長個人對美術教育的態度了。至於政府唯一的指引——《小學美勞科課程綱要》，也僅限於為老師提供計算全年教學進度的「公式」。