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Developing generic skills is a core component of the current educational reforms in Asia in response to global demands to shift towards a knowledge-based economy in the last two decades. The study adopted a mixed approach by using a survey and interviews to find out the views of a group of students and teachers about the effects of the school curriculum on developing students' self-management and leadership skills. The findings show that learning self-management and leadership skills has been infused in the school curriculum, and is not exclusive to a particular curriculum area in Hong Kong schools.

The development of generic skills is a focal issue in education policy and school curriculum reform across countries. This study in the Hong Kong context explores the sources of formal and non-formal curriculum and learning activities related to senior secondary students' perceptions of learning outcomes in creativity, communication, and problem solving. Findings showed that students tend to associate the development of generic skills to specific subjects, such as visual arts, languages, and a variety of extra-curricular activities, such as leisure-related, art-related, formal learning-related, and service-related activities. The implications for curriculum development are discussed.

Demand has risen for the introduction of career education in senior secondary schooling to enhance students' transition from study to work. Against such a background, this paper aims to discuss the curriculum reforms and supporting structures in schools and to explore the challenges of life skills planning for secondary school students in China with particular reference to Hong Kong. Literature review and examples from Hong Kong and China indicate that although various Vocational (Career) Development Education and Career and Life Planning Education (CLPE) activities and school-based curriculum development take place at schools, a clear linkage between study opportunities and career choices, enhancement of learning experiences at work through activities such as job shadowing and provision of a curriculum to enhance career and life planning across years as dimensions of intervention, seem not to be found at secondary schools in Hong Kong. This paper will also look into the implications for future development of CLPE.

This study explored two under-researched areas on students' attitudes towards science, that is, the structural models representing these attitudes and the role played by school bands in moderating the gender differences in such attitudes. The participants were 360 ninth graders in Hong Kong from 3 school bands. The structural equation modelling method was adopted to compare four hypothetical models for students' attitudes towards science. Results reflect that (i) the data supported the three-factor structure of the behavioural domain of students' attitudes towards science; (ii) the four lower level dimensions of the attitudes towards science (i.e. value of science to society, self-concept in science, anxiety towards science and enjoyment of science) could be further integrated into broader categories; (iii) male students demonstrated significantly more positive attitudes towards science in five dimensions (i.e. self-concept in science, enjoyment in science, learning science in and outside the classroom and future participation) and (iv) school bands played a prominent moderating role in gender differences in students' attitudes towards science. Implications for studying and developing students' attitudes towards science are discussed in the paper.

Since the start of the new century, basic and senior schools have started to encounter curriculum reforms, and vocational education has experienced substantial changes. Based on the changing context in the past 10 or more years, this study examines the issue of school-to-work transition from the perspective of the vocationalization of secondary education in Hong Kong. In addition to providing the results of different studies, three approaches are proposed. These approaches include enhancement of generic competencies through technology, introduction of lost-cost programs in less gender-specific areas, such as business studies, and emphasis on entrepreneurship education.

This study explores how contextual factors affect the instructional reaction of teachers to the changes in the high-stake testing. The results obtained from an investigation of 11 teachers from five senior middle schools show that contextual factors can be categorized into three, namely, traditional exam culture, leadership at district and school levels, and teachers and students' background at the classroom level. These results elucidate the idiosyncrasies of Chinese exam culture, as well as the complicated effects of other crucial contextual factors.

Since the mid-1980s, a global resurgence of large-scale reform in the field of education has been witnessed. Implementing these reforms has created many dilemmas for change leaders. Following a three-year qualitative research project, the present study explores the dilemmas leaders faced during the implementation of the national curriculum reform of senior secondary education in mainland China. The results indicate that those leading the changes of the curriculum reform were placed in a "trilemma" arising from three conflicting cultural values, namely compliance culture, examination culture, and the new pedagogic culture advocated by the reform. These dilemmas stem from local adaptations in response to global reform trends. Finally, the implications for managing dilemmas in change leadership resulting from the present study are put forward.

This paper discusses, from the perspective of social capital, the development of two schools and its teachers in a school district in Chongqing, a major city in Southwest China. This study focuses on the understanding of school members of "social capital" and "bridging" activities that facilitate the development of learning communities within and across schools and enhance teaching and learning innovations. Furthermore, "Linking" activities between schools and other agencies, communication between schools and parents, and the role of the school district in these linkages and bridges are examined. The implications for future school development in China are discussed.

Classroom experience is shaped by a number of factors. In this paper, we report a classroom observation study in China, illustrating regional variation in students' classroom learning experiences. Through comparing and contrasting observed classroom practices in three different regions in China (Chongqing, Hong Kong and Shanghai), the paper provides an analysis of the variation in classroom learning experiences of primary school students in China. Our empirical classroom observation data illustrates some key differences in the pedagogy, the use of classroom activities, and the implementation of the curriculum between individual schools. More substantial differences in classroom practices are found when comparing schools from different regions than those within a given city, leading us to conclude that regional impacts on student experience appear to be more important than within-city factors such as the location of a school or its level of facilities.

The role of a principal's curriculum leadership has become an educational issue in Taiwan's early childhood education. This study represents a pioneering attempt in adopting a target school interview, fuzzy Delphi, and analytic hierarchy process for constructing preschool principal's curriculum leadership indicators. Fifteen experts and practitioners were involved in the Delphi panel and a two-stage questionnaire survey was administered. The findings revealed that preschool curriculum leadership indicators could be classified as 20 implementation items in six aspects: formation of preschool vision; organization and functioning of the preschool curriculum development team; control of the preschool curriculum implementation process; improvement of teachers' curriculum professionalism; integration of different educational resources; and assessment of preschool curriculum implementation performance. Analysis of the relative weighting of curriculum leadership indicators reveals that the most important implementation items are "Ability to analyze the preschool's background and features to provide a basis for development of a curriculum vision," "Ability to construct a preschool curriculum vision together with other members," "Ability to call together teachers to jointly establish a curriculum development team," "Ability to secure resources from inside and outside the school to provide the environment and equipment needed to meet teachers' curriculum and teaching needs." These indicators emphasizing organizational cooperation, entrustment, and control under the context of the new leadership in Taiwan are in line with the Western concept of distributed leadership.

This study explores the impact of teachers' perception of trust in colleagues on their sense of empowerment in Mainland China, with a particular focus on the mediating role of teacher efficacy. The results of a survey of 1646 teachers indicate that although teachers scored positively on trust in colleagues, efficacy and empowerment, they had relatively lower scores on general teaching efficacy (GTE) and participation in decision-making. Trust in colleagues was a significant predictor of teacher empowerment. In addition, personal teaching efficacy had a significant mediation effect on the relationship between trust in colleagues and teacher empowerment, while GTE had not. These findings lead to some implications for understanding the nature of GTE and the relationship between trust and teacher empowerment. (Contains 2 figures and 4 tables.)

This study explores the changing professional identities of teachers and their emotional experiences during curriculum reform in Shenzhen in the southern part of China. A qualitative approach to research was adopted. Findings reveal that the informants display several teaching behaviours and diverse emotions ranging from pain and helplessness, fulfilment and anxiety, and other mixed emotions. The three types of influential factors that influence teachers' professional identities are also discussed in this study.