Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is a potential treatment for chronic insomnia. We evaluated the efficacy of MBCT for insomnia (MBCT-I) by comparing it with a sleep psycho-education with ...exercise control (PEEC) group.
Adults with chronic primary insomnia (n = 216) were randomly allocated to the MBCT-I or PEEC group. The MBCT-I included mindfulness and psycho-education with cognitive and behavioural components under cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia. PEEC included psycho-education of sleep hygiene and stimulus control, and exercises. Any change in insomnia severity was measured by the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI). Secondary outcomes included sleep parameters measured by a sleep diary, health service utilisation, absence from work and mindfulness measured by the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire.
The ISI score significantly decreased in the MBCT-I group compared with the PEEC group at 2 months (i.e., post-intervention) (p = 0.023, effect size 95% CI -0.360 -0.675, -0.046) but not at 5 or 8 months. Treatment response rates and remission rates based on the ISI cut-off scores were not significantly different between groups. Wake time after sleep onset (WASO) was less in the MBCT-I group at 2 and 5 months. At 8 months, both groups showed a reduced ISI score, sleep onset latency and WASO, and increased sleep efficiency and total sleep time; however, no group differences were seen. Other outcome measures did not significantly improve in either group.
Long-term benefits were not seen in MBCT-I when compared with PEEC, although short-term benefits were seen.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to understand the dilemmas facing Hong Kong vice-principals in discharging their roles and to further explore their engagement in informal mentoring as a coping ...mechanism in the absence of a structured professional development program.
Design/methodology/approach
– The qualitative study was conducted in the form of in-depth face-to-face, loosely structured individual interviews with ten informants from a variety of personal and school backgrounds, contributing to a set of data that unveiled the basic themes.
Findings
– Three dilemmas facing Hong Kong vice-principals were identified: juggling administrative work with teaching, standing by management or siding with peer teachers, and forced innovation vs omnipresent conservatism. The findings also suggested that the informants tended toward external resources intentionally with a view to gaining emotional support as well as professional stimulation. They also engaged in informal mentoring, which took the form of observing principals’ behaviors, joining support groups organized by school governing bodies, and enrolling in academic programs offered by universities and/or professional bodies, as a way to resolve the dilemmas.
Research limitations/implications
– Informal mentoring has been identified as an effective approach for Hong Kong vice-principals to acquire the skills and knowledge needed to overcome workplace challenges and the feelings of loneliness experienced upon changing their role. The findings point to the importance of formalizing mentoring in vice-principal development programs.
Originality/value
– This study is the first of its kind to explore the impact of informal mentoring on vice-principals in Hong Kong where both dual-career track systems and a structured mentoring programs are missing.
Following the international trend in education towards democracy and decentralization, the Hong Kong government introduced a school-based management (SBM) system about two decades ago. It is widely ...recognized in the literature that decentralization, empowering school level management and marginalizing the influence of the intermediate level of governance, can result in better deployment of school resources and better meet the demands of various stakeholders. However, in the unique historical and cultural context of Hong Kong, the advantages of decentralization claimed in the literature have yet to be fully realized. This paper discusses the contextual factors affecting the implementation of SBM in Hong Kong, and examines their impact on four major stakeholders, namely the government, the principals, the teachers, and the parents in the wake of reform.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to understand the dilemmas facing Hong Kong vice-principals in discharging their roles and to further explore their engagement in informal mentoring as a coping ...mechanism in the absence of a structured professional development program.
Design/methodology/approach
– The qualitative study was conducted in the form of in-depth face-to-face, loosely structured individual interviews with ten informants from a variety of personal and school backgrounds, contributing to a set of data that unveiled the basic themes.
Findings
– Three dilemmas facing Hong Kong vice-principals were identified: juggling administrative work with teaching, standing by management or siding with peer teachers, and forced innovation vs omnipresent conservatism. The findings also suggested that the informants tended toward external resources intentionally with a view to gaining emotional support as well as professional stimulation. They also engaged in informal mentoring, which took the form of observing principals’ behaviors, joining support groups organized by school governing bodies, and enrolling in academic programs offered by universities and/or professional bodies, as a way to resolve the dilemmas.
Research limitations/implications
– Informal mentoring has been identified as an effective approach for Hong Kong vice-principals to acquire the skills and knowledge needed to overcome workplace challenges and the feelings of loneliness experienced upon changing their role. The findings point to the importance of formalizing mentoring in vice-principal development programs.
Originality/value
– This study is the first of its kind to explore the impact of informal mentoring on vice-principals in Hong Kong where both dual-career track systems and a structured mentoring programs are missing.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to systematically analyze the neoliberal challenges and problems facing public schools in the particular Hong Kong context.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a ...systematic and critical analysis on the history and socio-political context of Hong Kong’s school policies and practice as well as the official documents and statistics, this paper examines the impacts of neoliberalism in four main aspects of school education in Hong Kong: school governance, accountability, privatization and government expenditure.
Findings
Convergence, as well as deviation, on neoliberal globalization occurs in the particular Hong Kong context. School bureaucracy has irresistibly expanded. Policymakers have placed increasing emphasis on instrumentally evaluating schools while decentralizing, diversifying and privatizing education. School leadership has become focused solely on succeeding within those imposed performance management and metrics, pulling ahead of school competitions and prioritizing easily quantifiable and measurable tasks. Teachers have faced a potential threat from the loss of autonomy through the market logic and consumerist metrics. The rise of privatized education has further intensified school practices based on competitiveness and performativity. On the other hand, resource cutbacks and financial constraints – problems that are generally inflicted by neoliberal discourse – have rarely occurred in Hong Kong.
Research limitations/implications
This study is part of concerted efforts in research that adopts the comparative and critical perspectives emerging from different social contexts to consider and flesh out how neoliberalism look across the school systems, how it challenges the systems differently, and how it evokes various responses from within the systems (Apple, 2001). Taken all the efforts together, a finely nuanced understanding of the trails of neoliberalism can help collectively re-discover school education as a social good, and collectively re-imagine and reshape alternatives for the future.
Originality/value
This paper offers an international and comparative perspective and further nuances to an understanding of how neoliberal policies and ideology are recontextualized in countries across the globe given particularities of different local contexts.
This chapter aims to examine the unique challenging policy environment confronting Hong Kong schools from the perspective of neoliberal discourse and to reveal the reactive, as well as strategic ...responses of school leaders and teachers in coping with these challenges. As we argue, driven by the global trend of striving for international competitiveness in education and economy, Hong Kong's schooling is no exception to other systems that manifest signs of neoliberal normalization. Based on a systematic and critical analysis of the history and socio-political context of Hong Kong's public schools, this chapter discusses the major challenges faced by these schools which are inflicted by neoliberal discourses of reform, namely school governance, privatization, budget cuts, and performativity. The results of our analysis show that Hong Kong has not followed suit the western trajectory of neoliberal development but has developed its own path in response to its unique historical, cultural, and economic context.
