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Equity and Quality' is an emerging terminology that focuses on the quality of education rather than on 'excellence'. The global policy discourse is turning towards levelling up educational quality for all. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 2012 report entitled Equity and Quality in Education: Supporting Disadvantaged Students and Schools claimed that the highest performing education systems (HPES) across OECD countries are those that combine high quality and equity. In such education systems, the vast majority of students can attain high level skills and knowledge that depend on their ability and drive, more than on their socio-economic background. Paradoxically, among the HPES are three East Asian systems-China, Hong Kong and Singapore-characterized by a huge income disparity between the rich and the poor with their above-40 Gini indices. Nevertheless, their high average scores in PISA 2009 illustrate that the average quality of education in respect to learning outcomes provided in these education systems are of a very high quality which benefits the whole population regardless of the socio-economic conditions of the students. How can these seemingly contradictory claims and evidences be explained? Can educational equity and quality co-exist within a highly unequal society? This article attempts to offer some explanations taking Hong Kong as an illustrative case. Employing Bourdieu's logic of practice, the article argues that both cultural habitus and structural contexts account for the achievement, albeit contested, of educational equity and quality in Hong Kong.

Unlike past research which has mainly examined whole school or whole department professional learning communities, this study focused on factors related to effective collaborative practices within teacher learning teams. Our main objective was to ascertain the roles of team value orientations (collectivism and power distance) and team collegiality in explaining team collaboration. Based on data obtained from 207 learning teams, structural equation modelling demonstrated that team collectivism had a positive effect on team collegiality. In addition to being a significant positive predictor of team collaboration, team collegiality was also found to mediate the effects of team collectivism on team collaboration. Although we did not detect any significant direct or indirect effect of team power distance on team collegiality or team collaboration, latent interaction analysis identified team power distance as a moderator of the relationship between team collegiality and teacher collaboration. It was found that the positive effects of team collegiality on team collaboration were stronger for teams with lower levels of power distance. Our findings draw attention to the important roles of team value orientations and collegiality in the context of teacher professional learning. Implications for teacher professional development and directions for future studies were also discussed.

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