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Early childhood education in Hong Kong is in a transition time. The Hong Kong government's Education Commission is urging the field of early childhood education to engage in a substantial paradigm shift in order to achieve the goals of educational reform (Education Commission, 1999a). Informed by recent overseas research, government directives have asserted that teachers must ensure that young children are educated for "life-long learning," "self-development," and a "willingness to experiment and explore" (Education Commission, 1999b) the ideas of active learning. However, those precepts may not match Hong Kong teachers' knowledge about how "good" teachers teach and how young children learn efficiently. Experience in other contexts worldwide has shown that rhetoric alone will not help teachers embrace change (Hargreaves, 1992; Wood & Bennett, 2000). Information about teachers' knowledge and practice could guide interventions that align teachers with the government's policies. However, little research has investigated early childhood teachers' knowledge and practice in the Hong Kong context. This article reports the findings of a study that explored the richness and variety of teaching in kindergarten classrooms in Hong Kong. Case studies of nine teachers show that the teachers use similar teaching strategies despite articulating different knowledge of teaching and learning. A paradigm of warmth, control, and structure are at work in the kindergartens. The study suggests that early childhood teachers in Hong Kong may require a great deal of support to embed the government's educational reform policies into classroom practice. (Contains 3 tables.)

This study investigated perceptions of teaching and learning among Hong Kong kindergarten teachers. Findings indicated that traditional instruction emphasizing planning, preparation, and external judgment, was perceived as an important indicator for good teaching. Teachers tended to focus on their own actions as teachers rather than their pupils' actions. It was concluded that the vision of developmentally appropriate early childhood education has not been well acknowledged by Hong Kong teachers. (Author/KB)

Background: A burgeoning literature has found relationships between telomere length, telomerase activity, and human health and longevity. Although some research links a history of childhood adversity with shortened telomere length, our review found no prior research on the relationship between child maltreatment history and telomerase activity in adulthood. We hypothesized a negative relationship between child maltreatment and telomerase activity and hypothesized that the association would be moderated by sex., Methods: These relationships were tested on a sample of 262 Hong Kong Chinese adults (200 females versus 62 males) with mild to moderate depression., Results: Counterintuitively, emotional abuse was positively associated with telomerase activity, while other maltreatment types were non-significant. The positive relationship between emotional abuse and telomerase activity was significantly moderated by the sex of the participant., Conclusions: We advance two possible explanations for this finding (1) a culturally informed resilience explanation and (2) a homeostatic complexity explanation. The two explanations are not mutually exclusive. This trial is registered under Hong Kong Clinical Trial Register number HKCTR-1929., Significance Statement: Emotional abuse was significantly positively associated with telomerase activity. There are at least two non-mutually exclusive explanations for the findings. Simply put, either (1) in the cultural context of Hong Kong emotional abuse was not a risk factor, and/or (2) the conceptualization of telomerase activity as a straightforward indicator of longevity is overly simplistic. The first story we might term a "resilience explanation" while the second we might call a "homeostatic complexity" story.