1,720,970 research outputs found
Unheard voices: Adults with ADHD in Aotearoa New Zealand
Full text linkAttention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a well-researched condition within multiple editions of the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM). Historically, ADHD was believed to be a childhood condition that typically diminished in adolescence. However, current research confirms that not only does ADHD often continue into adulthood, but its impact also has a cumulative effect over the lifespan. Consequently, adults not diagnosed in childhood are a growing demographic of ADHD diagnoses. Within this growing demographic, there is little research on the lived experiences of adults with ADHD, and none were found in Aotearoa New Zealand. The purpose of this study was to explore the similar and differing lived and ableist experiences between groups of adults who were diagnosed with ADHD in childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and those who suspect they have ADHD. Data were collected from eight participants (two from each diagnosis group) using online survey software and online one-to-one interviews. The study used a mixed-method design, and data were interpreted using hermeneutic phenomenology and critical disability theory frameworks to explore participants' lived experiences with ADHD. Findings revealed some differences in life trajectories and between-group experiences of participants with diagnosed or suspected ADHD. However, most experiences revealed a commonality centred around feelings of frustration, rejection, shame, and the lack of personal agency. These experiences and normative social discourses prompted participants to actively police and mask their behaviours and ADHD characteristics. Participants reported lacking crucial knowledge to navigate life internally and externally with ADHD due to the absence of relevant guidance and support. The impact of these internal and external difficulties was compounded by the ableism they faced related to their ADHD. Early ADHD diagnosis followed by comprehensive ADHD information and support within the broader community, i.e. educators and health professionals, would have facilitated more positive lived experiences according to participants. This study indicates that early information, treatment, and support could mitigate the unseen personal toll associated with having ADHD. Additionally, the results highlight the need for further research to understand better the most needed supports and how they might best be made available
Culturally-Oriented Environmental Identity Transitions: Migrant Indian Teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand Early Childhood Education
No full textAn increasingly multicultural Aotearoa New Zealand early childhood education (ECE) landscape that includes a growing number of migrant teachers forms the context for my doctoral study. In this country, respect for the natural world and kaitiakitanga are integral to the ECE bicultural curriculum framework Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education [MoE], 2017) which is grounded in Indigenous Māori worldviews that acknowledge strong spiritual connections to land and place. The natural environment is considered an integral part of the national identity and early childhood has been recognised as an important stage when Environmental and Sustainability Education should begin.
Within the context of this superdiverse nation, a significant number of migrant teachers transfer their cultural and environmental knowledge, practice, and identity as they transition into the Aotearoa New Zealand context. This thesis explored migrant Indian teachers’ understandings of their culturally-oriented and negotiated environmental identities. I was keen to examine if the environment might hold different meanings and places in their home (Indian) and host (Aotearoa New Zealand) cultural systems.
Through this study, insights were gained into migrant Indian teachers’ perceptions of the influence of cultural identity on their environmental identities in Aotearoa New Zealand ECE. A sociocultural theoretical perspective informed this study, drawing primarily on Sauvé’s (2009) model of personal and social development of the self in relation to other humans and the environment. Primary data for this interpretivist study were gathered through in-depth interviews with nine Indian ECE teacher participants. Interviews with their ECE setting managers/head teachers were conducted to support and supplement the teachers’ practices and experiences. The audio-recorded interview data were transcribed and examined using thematic analysis. Observations of teacher participants’ workplaces were used to provide a contextual profile for each of the nine Indian teachers. I also obtained a small number of assessment documents in the form of Learning Stories which the teachers had prepared, to analyse them for cultural and environmental themes and experiences.
Indian teacher participants’ perceptions of their own culturally-oriented environmental identities highlighted the significance of teachers’ own early childhood environmental experiences and home cultural context influences on their environmental identities. Teacher participants’ perceptions shed light on their cultural and environmental identity transitions and acculturation process. These teachers brought their cultural and environmental identities from their home cultural context and used their cultural lens to interpret the connections between the host cultural context and environmental worldviews.
The Indian teacher participants perceived close connections between their cultural and environmental identities. At the same time, they recognised cross-cultural connections between their culturally-oriented environmental identities and tikanga Māori (Māori ways of doing including practices, customs and rituals) and te ao Māori (the Māori world). These perceived connections were most evident through the significance of Indian philosophies of spirituality, relationships, belonging, and cultural recognition and exchange in their specific ECE contexts. These connections facilitated teachers’ cultural and environmental identity transitions and had a positive impact on their cultural and environmental teaching practices when supported within the ECE setting and by management/leadership.
Cultural and environmental transitions for this steadily growing group of migrant teachers require further investigation to facilitate their cultural and environmental participation and acculturation into the Aotearoa New Zealand ECE context. In these ways, the existing cultural, environmental, and sustainability connections within ECE could be strengthened to foster children’s culturally-oriented environmental identities
An ‘open letter to teachers’
Full text linkTeaching is a highly complex and political endeavour, and as teachers, we need to be courageous as we support children to make sense of the increasingly complex and diverse societies that we live in. My doctoral research highlighted a number of issues related to teachers and curriculum. Te Whāriki, the Aotearoa New Zealand early childhood curriculum is the framework for critical socially relevant curriculum, and this letter speaks to teachers whose daily work involves recognising and responding to children’s ‘working theories’ about the social world. I argue that as teachers we need to be reflective and reflexive, and think critically about curriculum planning to go beyond children’s surface interests and focus on deeper issues like fairness, justice, anti-racism and our shared humanity – issues of concern to society as a whole. As teachers, we also need to involve families in the conversations that they are part of, and privy to, so together we can create a fairer, more just society for all who call Aotearoa New Zealand home
Understanding how ableism impacts inclusion of autistic children in ECE in New Zealand
Full text linkResearch shows that, despite the promise of inclusive early childhood education (ECE) in national and international legislation, disabled children and their families are still marginalised in ECE (Lyons, 2021; Macartney, 2011, 2019; Purdue, 2009). Recent work in Critical Disability Studies (CDS) and Disability Studies in Education (DSE) has connected this ongoing marginalisation of disabled children to the bias associated with ableism. Ableism is influenced by the ideology of normalcy, which produces the notion of a ‘normal’ child, and simultaneously conceptualises a disabled child as ‘other’ in relation to their rights and participation. However, ableism and its impact on excluding disabled children and their families in ECE have been given little acknowledgement (Love & Beneke, 2021; Macartney, 2019). To address this gap, this study investigates whether and how ableism operates in an ECE setting in New Zealand, in order to understand its impact on the inclusion of autistic children and their families. Additionally, this study explores how disability awareness and critical reflection on their practices can help teachers support inclusive practices for autistic children. The study also analyses key policy documents in early childhood education and special education.
This study adopted the theoretical frameworks of Disability Studies in Education (DSE) and ableism. DSE challenges ableist ideologies and practices that dehumanise disabled children and focuses on the role of educational settings and broader society in supporting inclusion (Baglieri & Bacon, 2020). The research uses two data sets i) two policy documents, Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education (MoE), 2017) and Success for All (MoE, 2010), and ii) a case study within an ECE setting. The methods used to collect case study data included individual interviews with staff as well as a parent of an autistic child; video recordings and observations of interactions with autistic children in the ECE setting; a teachers’ focus group discussion; and analysis of documents written and used in the ECE setting. The analytical tools of thematic analysis and Fairclough’s (1995, 2003) approach of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) were used to identify the discourses of ableism within both data sets. The thesis examines how these discourses as social practices disrupted the inclusion of autistic children.
The findings indicate evidence of ableism operating in ECE policies and interactions in the ECE setting via the dominant discourses of developmental psychology, the medical model of disability, special education, and neoliberalism, and indicate that these discourses inform disablist practices that negatively impact the inclusion of autistic children. The findings also highlight that disability awareness and providing space, time and collaborative support to teachers for critically reflecting on their practices can positively change their thinking towards autistic children and empower them to affect changes in their teaching. A key argument is that the theoretical understanding developed in this study draws attention to the importance of the DSE framework in recognising and challenging ableism and reorienting thinking around inclusion in ECE policy and practice. Accordingly, the study offers theoretical ideas that can be used to work against ableism and promote inclusive practice for autistic and other disabled children.
Editorial: Striving for social justice: The power that picturebooks have to counter inequitable cultural hegemony
Full text linkChildren’s literature has a long association with education. It has transmitted cultural values to readers over many centuries, often reflecting dominant identities and cultures of the time. Picturebooks, a specific format in children’s literature, are unique in their marriage of image and text and can have a powerful influence on readers’ perceptions of themselves, others and the world around them. Our focus on picturebooks as a subset of children’s literature reflects our view that picturebooks have a particular power for a very wide age group, from those who cannot read independently, to those who are making choices on behalf of future readers. It is the fact that picturebooks are often chosen by adults, such as parents, librarians, teachers and publishers, for readers forming their views of the world that make them of particular interest when it comes to maintaining or disrupting existing power structures
Negotiating fairness and diversity: Stories from an Aotearoa New Zealand kindergarten
Full text linkA number of research studies have utilised ‘working theories’, a key learning outcome of Te Whāriki, the Aotearoa New Zealand curriculum, as a lens to explore pedagogy in early childhood education. The perceived gap that this research sought to fill related to children’s working theories about fairness and diversity in the social world, alongside power/knowledge perspectives previously underexplored in existing working theories research literature.
This Participatory Action Research study was located in a kindergarten community with 3- and 4-year old children in 2014. Using a theoretical framework informed by sociocultural and feminist poststructuralist perspectives, field texts composed from a mosaic of methods included a parent questionnaire and parent focus group, teacher discussions, observations, critical incidents and telling examples, and assessment documentation. Through critically and discursively reading and re-reading field texts, aspects of diversity that children were concerned with, including exclusion, the 'shadow side' of diversity, were identified.
Children were making sense of their world(s), their identities, and the possibilities available to them, alongside negotiating relationships with diverse ‘others’. Their working theories, which related to fairness and friendship, gender, sex and sexuality, and ethnicity and skin colour, often involved normalising and limiting discourses. The subject of children’s working theories, and the perceived risks associated with them, affected teachers’ provocations and responses.
The fundamental importance of teacher reflexivity and courage in this complex domain was uncovered. The conflicting and often uncontested framing of diversity and fairness by teachers and parents was highlighted. Teachers also have a leadership role to play, supporting parents who are unsure how to support their children’s developing understandings of diversity in the world around them.
This research adds to the growing body of scholarship around ‘working theories’, recognising their value as a lens for seeing and responding to children’s ongoing theorising about aspects of diversity. The unique combination of working theories, power/knowledge perspectives, and dominant discourses offers new insights about critical pedagogy in this terrain. Diversity can be a rich resource for learning if teachers recognise how normalising and limiting discourses can affect children realising their potential. Opening up dialogue involves risks especially in areas that intersect with dominant views of childhood innocence or the irrelevance of some issues to young children.
The importance of socially relevant curriculum that balances the interests of the child, and the interests of the community is stressed in an ‘Open letter to teachers’ which concludes this thesis. Making spaces for negotiation and meaning making, and valuing multiple perspectives and possibilities are part of renewed social justice, anti-bias teaching approaches. They are seen as part of the courageous whole setting response required to make the world a fairer, more just place for everyone
Mirrors, windows and sliding glass doors – “This is our house”
Full text linkMini-keynote Oral presentation about a vignette from my doctoral study at Children in the Early Years: Pedagogy, Policy and Community Connectednes
Position and perspective: Research connections and tensions in a kindergarten community
Full text linkThere are many stories worthy of telling in early childhood education research, and multiple perspectives to consider and critique in the processes of research, including children’s perspectives and positioning. Acknowledging position and perspective increases my awareness as a researcher of my relationship to what is being researched, how I create the subject that I am studying, and how I construct the knowledge of that subject. An increasing consciousness of the importance and relevance of reflexivity and how I stage the text are among the results of this exploration of research connections and tensions in a kindergarten community
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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