From China to Hong Kong: A reflection on the impact of the educational reform in the Deweyan perspective on early childhood education in the land of the dragon

While Dewey’s progressive philosophy did not have the wide-ranging influence over the developing republic that some of his students had wished, it did influence educators and help to shape evolving thought about education (Keenan, 1977). Because of the constraints and difficulties in realizing the child-centered curriculum in a genuine sense, a combination of practices with the traditional curriculum mode and the new curriculum mode has resulted in a hybrid curriculum varying in degrees of practices. The hybrid mode of curriculum practice could be considered an indicator of the success of education reform and not vice versa ever since the educational ideology of John Dewey was instilled in the land of China in 1919. Copyright © 2012 Rowman & Littlefield Education.