Referencing and borrowing from other systems: the Hong Kong education reforms

Abstract

Background: This paper analyses the role of, and approach to, policy referencing and borrowing in Hong Kong’s recent reforms that culminated in the creation of its New Academic Structure and the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education.

Main argument: It argues that Hong Kong has gone further than most jurisdictions not just in responding to global influences on education reform, but in taking explicit steps to internationally benchmark its curriculum and assessment, and in involving the global community at multiple levels in the process of education policy planning and implementation.

Sources of evidence and method: The paper is based on the documentary analysis of policy documents in Hong Kong, and 23 interviews with key stakeholders in the policy network, including policy-makers, practitioners and community leaders.

Discussion and conclusions: While policy referencing and borrowing in the Hong Kong context can, in part, be traced to a colonial legacy, the Special Administrative Region of China demonstrates a collaborative approach to education reform involving local and international engagement that may be relevant to other systems. Its approach was informed by a measured use of policy referencing that involved ‘horizon scanning’ of other systems’ policies and practices; international benchmarking; and engaging international expertise to facilitate implementation.     

Teaching Family Systems Theory Through Service‐Learning

The authors present a rationale for incorporating service‐learning projects into courses that teach family systems theory. A model program is presented to provide an example of the objectives, practical considerations, and student responses to such a project. Recommendations for counselor educators are made based on experience with the model program and student feedback.     

Child abuse: A study of the child''s perspective

This study ascertained the child's response to various types of abuse and neglect. With interviews and questionnaires for the staff of a child psychiatric unit, the mothers and the children involved, we assessed the severity, frequency and duration of physical abuse, verbal abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect or sexual abuse of children. The physically abused children accepted blame for mild but not severe mistreatment. Verbally and sexually abused children did not believe it was their fault if the mistreatment was moderately extensive but did if it was mild or severe. The relationship between extent of abuse and blame was less clear for neglect, but children usually though it was their fault. Verbal and sexual abuse appeared to have a greater impact on the children's perception of themselves and the world. Verbally abused children were more angry and more pessimistic about their future. Although physical abuse appeared to make some children feel they were unwanted at birth, how much the mother wanted her children was not related to the extent of any type of abuse. Both the type and extent of mistreatment appear to have different effects on the child's subjective experience. The use of the visual analogue scale in this study made it possible to differentiate a continuum of severity and frequency of five types of mistreatment without the need for definition.     

Games for the very young baby

The very young infant who enters into any day care setting is more dependent on the caregiver than he or she ever will be again. The infant has not yet developed the physical and social skills with which older babies can manage to call attention to their needs. Caregivers (and parents) of young babies understand that there are several important sets of abilities an infant needs to develop before he or she evolves into the busy, sitting-up, smiling, babbling 6-month-old. The adults can, and should, provide assistance. A loving and attentive caregiver can both protect and enhance the infant's natural development by regularly engaging in the “interaction games” described here. They are designed to be fun, to combine gentle rhymes and song, and to be conducted in a cheerful, relaxed fashion. Don't “teach”—DO create a warm, friendly playtime. The best time for interaction games is when the baby and caregiver are both rested, attentive, and in good spirits. After you try it a few times, use your own judgment to determine if a particular game is successful or not. Just as you will have your favorites, different babies like different things too! Once baby and caregiver use the first games in each set, once they enjoy them and make them their own, they can go on to the next, more difficult activities. Christine Z. Cataldo coordinates research projects and teaches courses on infant education, parent programs, early intervention, and atypical young children. She consults with day care centers, nursery schools, and special programs for the very young.     

‘If this was real … ’: researching student meaning making in a digital rolling role drama

ABSTRACT

This article explores the interplay of the ‘live’ experience of drama learning in the classroom and curated digital content on learner meaning making, collaborative creation and subjectivities. It examines a case study conducted in an inner-city secondary school in Sydney, Australia, as part of a larger innovative international collaborative drama exercise entitled ‘The Water Reckoning Project’ (http://www.water-reckoning.net) which focussed on sustainability education. Data collected and analysed included ethnographic observations, video documentation and digital curation of students’ creative work, focus groups, and pre- and post-surveys. Findings of this study reveal the importance of the aesthetically charged, embodied experience of drama as the key driver of learning when integrating drama with digital technologies. This unique project enabled students to critically and creatively engage with significant real and fictional contexts, as well as issues of local and global relevance.     

Pre-Service Elementary Teachers'' Perceptions of Factors in an Holistic Methods Course Influencing their Confidence in Teaching Science

Lack of confidence towards science is a major factor in the avoidance of teaching science at elementary school. This paper reports the results of a survey that asked 28 pre-service elementary teachers what they believed contributed to their confidence towards science and the teaching of science during a second year science unit where an holistic teaching/learning approach was taken. The holistic nature of the unit was based on a model that considered six major factors to be important influences on the confidence of the pre-service teacher. Using median values, and ranking from the most to least important factor influencing their confidence, the pre-service teachers identified practicum, teacher educator, pedagogical content knowledge, learning environment, assessment and reflection. Factors within pedagogical content knowledge, ranked from most to least important, were science pedagogy, science activities, children's views of science, science content knowledge and investigating scientifically. The wide variability in responses highlighted that no single factor was perceived to be a major contributor to the pre-service teachers' confidence, but rather a balanced mix was necessary. Implications for pre-service elementary science education units are discussed.     

Gender,policy and initial teacher education

An examination of gender discourses within New Labour education policy on the preparation of students for a career in teaching in the UK reveals a contradictory yet, at the same time, complementary position. In the guidelines outlining the Standards that a prospective teacher has to achieve, the ways in which gender informs pupils’ educational opportunities is ‘played down’ in that it is not addressed directly. Rather ‘gender’, along with ethnicity, social class, disability and sexuality is embedded within the broader concept of ‘diversity’. At the same time, gender is foregrounded in education policy on the recruitment of teachers with the drive by the Training and Development Agency to encourage men into primary schools. This article explores these tensions and relates these to the published research on the experiences of male primary teachers. It concludes by arguing for a recognition of student/practicing teachers’ real concerns regarding the gender issues which influence and inform their professional choices and careers rather than those set by the Government agenda.     

Developmental,gender, and practical considerations in scoring curriculum‐based measurement writing probes

The present study focused on CBM written language procedures by conducting an investigation of the developmental, gender, and practical considerations surrounding three categories of CBM written language scoring indices: production‐dependent, production‐independent, and accurate‐production. Students in first‐ through eighth‐grade generated a three‐minute writing sample in the fall and spring of the school year using standard CBM procedures. The writing samples were scored using all three types of scoring indices to assess the trends in scoring indices for students of varying ages and gender and of the time required to score writing samples using various scoring indices. With only one exception, older students outperformed younger students on all of the scoring indices. Although at the middle school level students' levels of writing fluency and writing accuracy were not closely associated, at the younger grade levels the CBM indices were significantly related. With regard to gender differences, girls outperformed boys on measures of writing fluency at all grade levels. The average scoring time per writing sample ranged from 1‐1/2 to 2‐1/2 minutes (depending on grade level). © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 40: 379–390, 2003.     

Acquisition and transfer of control by an ambiguous cue

In three experiments, the specificity of action of occasion setters was examined, using a discretetrial leverpress procedure. Rats’ acquisition of anXA+, A?, XB?, B+ discrimination, in which a single feature cue (X) signaled the reinforcement of responding in the presence of one target cue (A) and the nonreinforcement of responding during another target (B), was no more difficult than acquisition ofXA+, A?, X?, B+ orX+, A?, XB?, B+ discriminations, in whichX signaled only one target-response-reinforcement contingency. In transfer tests,X did not modulate responding controlled by other cues that were untrained or consistently reinforced, either when the elements of the compounds were presented serially or when they were presented simultaneously in training and testing. However, after serial, but not after simultaneous, compound training ,X facilitated responding controlled by a cue that was trained and then extinguished. Implications for the nature of occasion setting and configurai learning are discussed.