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eral trends. More recent work, such as Clive Whitehead's, also critical of the generalisations of Carnoy, is based on an examination of the processes of policy-making, largely at the macro-level.' Whitehead seeks to use a fascinating combination of official archives and personal papers to suggest that there was no consistent and overriding policy of cultural imperialism in or for the British Colonial Empire between the two World Wars. Yet in the final analysis, Whitehead's conclusion, as convincing as it appears, is also the result of a quest for an overview.
The problem with overviews is that too much may be left out of sharp focus. The problem with a priori reasoning, based upon stipulated conceptual premises is that it may distort, in a Procrustean manner, the local reality. This article demonstrates an alternative to the macro, deductive approach in the belief that, on occasions, such an approach tends to tailor the facts to suit the concepts. This article adopts, instead, the inductive and discursive mode of an historian towards an aspect of formal and informal education in Hong Kong which has extraordinary importance and considerable emotive content — language learning. It examines neither the officially pronounced policy intentions of the Government nor the polemics of pressure groups, but a simple book and its author. This strategy is adopted on the grounds that an attempt to understand an author and his book may provide a small collection of interesting "snapshots" from the social history of education in Hong Kong, and that snapshots can be as valid and worthwhile a form of delineation as overviews. This opinion (or view) is advanced largely on pragmatic grounds and in the personal belief that much information can be gathered from an examination of snapshots, though Structuralist arguments in favour of synchronic analyses could also be enlisted. Neither type of argument dismisses the value of overviews completely. Both arguments depend to some extent on the existence of a series of snapshots, which can be argued to be representative. Assuming at least two, it may be possible to use the synchronic analyses for "before/after" or other illuminating contrasts."
The snapshots about to be displayed may be examined for the evidence they offer about social structures and relationships in
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6
eral trends. More recent work, such as Clive Whitehead's, also critical of the generalisations of Carnoy, is based on an examina- tion of the processes of policy-making, largely at the macro-level.' Whitehead seeks to use a fascinating combination of official ar- chives and personal papers to suggest that there was no consistent and overriding policy of cultural imperialism in or for the British Colonial Empire between the two World Wars. Yet in the final analysis, Whitehead's conclusion, as convincing as it appears, is also the result of a quest for an overview.
The problem with overviews is that too much may be left out of sharp focus. The problem with a priori reasoning, based upon stipulated conceptual premises is that it may distort, in a Procrus- tean manner, the local reality. This article demonstrates an alter- native to the macro, deductive approach in the belief that, on occasions, such an approach tends to tailor the facts to suit the concepts. This article adopts, instead, the inductive and discur- sive mode of an historian towards an aspect of formal and infor- mal education in Hong Kong which has extraordinary importance and considerable emotive content language learning. It exam- ines neither the officially pronounced policy intentions of the Government nor the polemics of pressure groups, but a simple book and its author. This strategy is adopted on the grounds that an attempt to understand an author and his book may provide a small collection of interesting "snapshots” from the social history of education in Hong Kong, and that snapshots can be as valid and worthwhile a form of delineation as overviews. This opinion (or view) is advanced largely on pragmatic grounds and in the person- al belief that much information can be gathered from an examina- tion of snapshots, though Structuralist arguments in favour of synchronic analyses could also be enlisted. Neither type of argu- ment dismisses the value of overviews completely. Both argu- ments depend to some extent on the existence of a series of snap- shots, which can be argued to be representative. Assuming at least two, it may be possible to use the synchronic analyses for "before/after" or other illuminating contrasts."
The snapshots about to be displayed may be examined for the evidence they offer about social structures and relationships in
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