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This article investigates the perceptions of English headteachers and Hong Kong principals on the kinds of pressures that they believed affected the way they did their job, and in particular the degree to which they felt their governments were affecting their leadership role. The research utilised semi-structured interviews to generate written ‘portraits’ of these individuals, which were then examined to answer questions about current pressures. The findings suggested that (1) there was considerable variation in the manner these individuals responded to key issues; (2) all individuals prioritised local concerns, and particularly with consideration to the children in their care; (3) there was a greater sense of embattlement from the English headteachers and a more critical approach to legislation, than from the Hong Kong principals, though with considerable individual variation in the degree of overt resistance shown; (4) whilst current educational reforms in Hong Kong seemed to favour the development of c...

This article provides two ‘portraits’ of headteachers in primary schools in England and Hong Kong, derived from semi-structured interviews with these individuals. Contrary to some claims that such a small sample is worthless, this article argues that what is most meaningful is sometimes derived from the singular and unique; that generalisations in education are as likely to be useful if they are ‘fuzzy’ generalisations as if they are from scientific or statistical generalisations; and that the individual case can strip away the clutter of large contexts and allow recognition of a common shared humanity. What these portraits also show is that responses to larger contexts are heavily dependent on personality and local context, and that if policy implementation and professional development are to have impact, then an attention to the personal and the local are going to be critical factors in any success in these areas.

Emotional intelligence (EI) has been an emerging topic for psychological, educational, and management researchers and consultants in recent years. However, there is a lack of scientifically valid measures of this concept, especially for those that have practical utility in the Asian context. Recently, a 40-item forced-choice instrument was developed for Chinese respondents in Hong Kong. We collected data in three studies to further test the practical utility of this instrument in Hong Kong and mainland China. The results provided clear evidence for the instrument’s practical utility. More research that uses this measure in Asian countries is required.

Emotional intelligence (EI) has been an emerging topic for psychological, educational, and management researchers and consultants in recent years. Unfortunately, there have been relatively few empirical studies on EI conducted with scientific rigor, especially in Asia. A recent study clarified the definition of EI as a set of mental abilities related to emotions, and developed a self-report EI measure by demonstrating the relationships between EI and life satisfaction, job performance, and job satisfaction for Chinese respondents. To facilitate future EI research and EI-related human resource practices in Asia, we develop an alternative EI measure in this series of four studies using forced choice items. Scenarios with alternative responses showing different levels of EI were generated in the first study, and 20 items were selected empirically. In the second study, pairs of abilities were generated and 20 EI items were paired with various ability facets. In the third study, we examined the social desirability of the 40 items developed in the first two studies. In the fourth study, these 40 EI items were cross-validated. The results indicated that this forced choice EI-scale had acceptable convergent, discriminant and predictive validity using life satisfaction, job performance, and job satisfaction as criterion variables. We discussed the implications of our findings in the conclusion.

Comment expliquer les changements observes dans les programmes d'etudes des differents systemes scolaires ? Les AA. s'interrogent sur les motifs sociaux, economiques ou politiques de Hong Kong pour faire evoluer ses programmes

A family of high-order subparametric bending elements with up to 25 nodes are developed. These elements are conforming elements and by including the effect of transverse shear moderately thick plates can also be analysed. This is demonstrated in one of the numerical examples in which the contribution of the shear deformation to the central deflection of rhombic plates supported on two opposite sides is investigated. The elements, being subparametric, can model plates of different geometries, such as rhombic, trapezoidal and curved plates. Several examples are presented here and comparisons are made with results obtained by other methods. The versatility of these elements are clearly shown since only a few elements will normally give results of sufficient accuracy for design purposes.