Learning Studies: East and West Organisers: Ming Fai Pang and Ference Marton The proposed symposium aims at examining the practices of the learning studies in the East and West, in particular Hong Kong and Sweden, and illuminates how learning studies support teacher professional development. Learning study (e.g. Pang & Marton, 2003; 2005) builds on design-based research (Cobb et al., 2003; Kelly, 2004) into the "lesson study" model from Japan, in which teachers collaborate on lesson plans and investigate them without explicit theoretical grounding (Stigler & Hiebert, 1999), and "the teaching research group" model from China (Ma, 1999). In contrast to lesson study, learning study aims to build theory-grounded innovative learning environments (the variation theory of learning in this case) and to pool the relevant experiences of teachers, while maintaining a focus on the object of learning. In the past couple of years, there have been a number of learning studies conducted in Sweden, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom (Lo et al., 2004; Pang & Marton, 2005; Runesson, 2005; Holmqvist, 2006; Thabit, 2006). Thus far, several hundred learning studies have been completed with highly encouraging results. However, although the teams undertaking learning studies are presumed to have adopted the same theory of learning (the variation theory) and followed the same steps of the learning study cycle, it is worthwhile examining whether its running has been influenced by the Chinese and Swedish cultures and investigating its impacts on teacher learning and professional development in the different contexts. This is why the symposium has invited the two leading Swedish research teams in this area led by Ulla Runesson and Mona Holmqvist to share their experiences of conducting learning studies in Sweden, and at the same time the two leading Hong Kong research teams in learning studies led by Ming Fai Pang and Lo Mun Ling have also been invited to trace the developments of learning studies in Hong Kong, with a focus on the impacts of learning studies on teacher learning. Finally, to be forward looking and introduce "variation" to our symposium, we have invited another paper which attempts to share a research initiative of disseminating the practice of learning study in Tanzania, Africa, which is a brand new place with a very different culture from both the East and West.

It is hoped that with in-depth communication and deliberation in this symposium, researchers in the area of learning studies from both the East and West can learn from each other and find an appropriate way of conducting learning studies in their own contexts.