Kokila Roy Katyal

Parents--Partners or Clients? A Reconceptualization of Home-School Interactions.

Increasingly, there is advocacy for parents to be included in partnership roles with schools. Indeed, the term ‘partnership’ seems to have acquired the connotation of an ideal form of parent–school relationship. This paper argues that the notion of partnership, with its accompanying suggestion of equality as a framework for the complementary sharing of responsibilities, is problematical. Based on the findings from an in‐depth study of teacher leadership in three Hong Kong schools that involved as participants parents, teachers, and students, it is proposed that a more reasonable understanding of this relationship is that of a professional and client association, where both parents and teachers are aware of their responsibilities and that these responsibilities are at once both demarcated and shared according to that understanding. At the same time there is also a need for teachers and parents to concentrate on building more concrete links for consistent and regular teacher–parent communication, as significant student learning now takes place informally at home, via the Internet.

Educating Teachers in Hong Kong for Leadership in the Age of the Internet: A Re-Conceptualisation.

There is very little argument that one of the major developments to have impacted in schools in the past decade is the rapid and world-wide development of information and communication technologies (ICT), particularly the Internet. In Hong Kong, reforms in the ICT teacher training policy, and the fact that Hong Kong is a ‘wired’ city, has resulted in pre-service teachers being well versed in the technical competencies of computer usage and its pedagogical manifestations. However, there has been scant attention paid to the fact that students are actively engaged in large-scale autonomous, teacher-less learning via the Internet. In this paper, it is argued that for teachers to be leaders in contemporary classrooms, teacher education programs need to focus more on the deeper and wider implications of ICT and the Internet in education than has hitherto been the practice.

‘Outsiderness’ and ‘insiderness’ in a Confucian society: complexity of contexts

This paper addresses the influence of CHC on how the insider/outsider distinction is drawn and what consequences follow for the conduct of research. The paper outlines the methodological complexities faced by us whilst conducting our respective research projects in Hong Kong. In the studies reported in this paper we, the researchers, were insiders at one level as both of us have a degree of familiarity with Hong Kong being residents of the city. We were also insiders on a professional level in the contexts under study. However being ethnically non-Chinese positioned us as outsiders. Additionally, our Western-trained research selves accepted certain normative paradigms, whilst our own personal ethno-centricities tended to question these self-same paradigms. In sum, the research context for us assumed hues in accordance with the lens that we were using for viewing our data concurrently and concomitantly and this we argue has much to do with the research methodologies that we used in the studies.

Educational Leadership in Hong Kong Schools, 1950-2000: Critical Reflections on Changing Themes.

As a former colony, Hong Kongs 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.

Non-Chinese researchers conducting research in Chinese cultures: critical reflections

This paper addresses some fundamental methodological and ethical issues confronting non-Chinese researchers undertaking research in Hong Kong Chinese society. Among other things, it considers problems pertaining to data collection, the challenges of data interpretation, and the implication that this has for research. Whilst the issues are by no means unique to Hong Kong, there are a number of matters related to outsider research that require special attention in the Hong Kong Chinese context, even when the researchers may be acquainted with both the context and the participants. Understanding the context of research, including the socio-cultural context of which the research participants are a part leads to an enhanced understanding of the issues at hand. This paper intends to serve as an overview that may guide future research in Hong Kong. Issues raised in this paper will need re-theorizing in order to provide a more realistic and comprehensive view of the need to re-examine the paradigms that guide research methodology in Confucian societies.

Paradigms, Perspectives and Dichotomies amongst Teacher Educators in Hong Kong.

This paper argues that the concepts, beliefs and understandings of local and non‐local teacher educators in a Hong Kong university are grounded in their own cultural cognition and antecedents. It presents the viewpoint that contemporary notions of good practice were compromised when applied to a context that is strongly influenced by the tenets of Confucianism. Thus the conclusion is that the contingencies of teaching and learning contexts are sufficiently different to compromise the goal of having pre‐constructed notions of good teaching. The alternative is that university tutors and future researchers re‐conceptualise good teaching practices within a context that gives it meaning and purpose.

Conducting research in Confucian Heritage Cultures: an overview of methodological issues

The aim of this Special Issue of Comparative Education is to contribute to the research methodology literature in the field of comparative education, with a special emphasis on fundamental theoretical, methodological and ethical issues confronting researchers undertaking studies in contexts that are strongly influenced by Confucian frameworks of understanding. The argument that we explore here is that research methodology is not neutral with respect to the enterprise of comparison. Rather, the adoption of a comparative perspective, with its emphasis on the importance of context, also applies to the very tools of inquiry that researchers may wish to employ. Thus, we argue that just as substantive theoretical perspectives, philosophical practices and policy prescriptions may fail to transfer to, or from Confucian Heritage Cultures (CHCs), because of unique and individual contextual qualities, so too may matters of inquiry and inference fail to cross such contextual boundaries.

Gate-keeping and the ambiguities in the nature of ‘informed consent’ in Confucian societies

Scholars of international and comparative education have long endorsed the importance of context in conducting research. In this paper, I expand upon the theme to argue that just as educational policies and practices may be compromised in the process of transfer, so too may the research methodology used to draw inferences fail to resonate from one culture to another. In particular, I discuss some of the practical methodological challenges that I encountered while dealing with informed consent while conducting a research project in Hong Kong. I found that informed consent with its emphasis on individual autonomy was at odds with the norms of the largely collectivist, hierarchical, Confucian heritage culture of Hong Kong. Viewed through Western frameworks of understanding, the negation of informed consent has detrimental connotations as it compromises the fundamental concept of an individuals right to choose. However, I found that when viewed through a Confucian lens this was not a deliberate or intentional infringing of rights but an acceptable manifestation of familial and paternalistic relationships that guide inter-personal interactions in such societies.