1,720,963 research outputs found
Zones of Contention: A Comparative Analysis of the Impact of Two Regimes of Enrolment Regulations in New Zealand
No full textA number of New Zealand studies have identified a relationship between enrolment regulations and school enrolments, in particular drawing attention to the negative impact that the abandonment of ‘home zones’ in 1991 have had on many lower decile and ethnically diverse schools. The progress of a group of secondary schools within a geographic area in New Zealand from before the introduction of Tomorrow’s Schools in 1989 up to 2009 is tracked using quantitative data from the Ministry of Education, New Zealand Qualifications Authority and Statistics New Zealand combined with qualitative data from interviews with those who were principals during the period. This mixed-methods approach shows that both enrolment numbers and academic achievement in three of the four schools fell and then rose almost simultaneously with the removal in 1991 and then reinstatement in 2000 of geographic home zones. The ethnic and socioeconomic polarisation that resulted from the earlier change, however, has not reversed. The quantitative and qualitative data together provide clear evidence that geographic home zones provide a level of stability and security in the provision of education at a local level that is not matched by the alternative regulatory regime that operated in the 1990s
Complexity, emotionality, balance, and threat: collegiality at Horoeka School
No full textThe act of balancing the twin elements of "social cohesion" and a "focus on teaching and learning" has been found to be crucial to effective collegiality. A case study inquiry, within a grounded theory approach, used a series of two interviews to explore the beliefs about collegiality held by the teachers and principal in a New Zealand primary school. Thirty one distinct aspects of collegial belief and behaviour were apparent within the data. This number of findings attests to the complexities inherent in teacher collegiality. These complexities are further compounded by the emotional nature of collegial interaction and the negative influence of elements within New Managerialist education policy
Perceptions of Children's Rights in Three Early Childhood Settings
No full textThe purpose of this thesis was to investigate perceptions of young children's rights in early childhood settings and contribute to the expanding discourse about children's rights. The research focus canvassed teachers', parents', and young children's perceptions of their rights in early childhood settings: How did they understand children's rights, and what did these perceptions mean for them in the early childhood settings they participated in? A qualitative, interpretive approach to the research generated data through interviews with young children, teachers, and adults, focus groups with the adult participants, and observations of day-to-day life in the three case study centres. The early childhood centres selected represented three mainstream services and included a teacher-led creche for under-two-year-olds, a sessional state, teacher-led kindergarten for three- and four-year-olds, and a parent-led playcentre for mixed ages from birth to six years old. NVIVO, a qualitative data classifying computer program, was used initially to sort and categorise the data alongside more conventional methods for coding categories and identifying emerging themes. The research found that perceptions of children's rights were interwoven, interrelated, and interdependent. Provision rights, protections rights, and participation rights are recognised categories of children's rights. These categories were used to foreground participants' perceptions of rights in particular early childhood settings. Findings suggest that more in-depth awareness of children's rights in early childhood settings would support the development of a children's rights-based pedagogy. This thesis potentially contributes to a growing body of international research about children's rights with a particular focus on the early childhood sector in New Zealand Aotearoa. The contribution that this thesis makes is both theoretical and sociological. It combines sociocultural constructs and ecological perspective with an international human rights convention to understand more clearly what children's rights mean in an early childhood sector. The study of childhood sociology is relatively new and challenges universal definitions of childhood and child. This thesis highlights how different conceptual theoretical ideas intersect with diverse sociological constructs. The broad conclusion drawn by this thesis is that for children to participate fully in their early education, the ethos of the community of practice/learners must explicate what that participation entails in a particular context
Te Taumata -te Timata: the Pinnacle - the First Step
No full textMaori with Bachelors degrees in Information Technologies (IT) have
specialist knowledge and skills far in advance of the general population of
Aotearoa/New Zealand. Problematically, this point is lost in dominant higher
education discourses that marginalise and position Maori negatively. The
'silence of the archives' with regard to Maori narratives of higher education
is a compounding factor. While the largest proportions of Maori pursue
tertiary education in the New Zealand Institutes of Technology and
Polytechnics (ITP), very little is known about them.
Kaupapa Maori theorising and research practices enabled a new approach in
an 'insurrection of suppressed knowledges' to identify and inform issues
that are problematic for Maori in particular. A traditional Maori metaphor of
poutama is used as a heuristic to illuminate core values and foundations of
a Maori worldview and philosophy, to generate a 'reversal discourse' that
gives a Maori perspective of the problems. Computer Graphic technologies
portray the spirals of learning implied by the multi-levelled, multi stepped
poutama; two heuristically separated worlds of Te Ao Maori and Te Ao
Pakeha and their integration into Te Ao Hou, The New World.
Re-interpreting a traditional role of Pae Arahi (Guides) as a Kaupapa Maori
research approach, respected members of tangata whenua, the indigenous
people of the land the ITPs are built on, facilitated appropriate entry into
fieldwork. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews conducted in 2006-2007
with 17 tauira Maori (students and graduates), 7 IT staff and 12 Maori staff
from three ITPs are the basis of narratives that 'positively image' Maori who
gained IT qualifications in the ITPs. A re-presentation of poutama as
whakapapa or genealogy explains the significance of foundational Maori
values of wairuatanga (spirituality), whenua (land), tangata (people) and
whanau (family), in academic success. A Maori worldview offers new
perspectives of what success is and challenges of being Maori in the tertiary
academy that are not commonly understood or acknowledged by non-Maori.
Five steps on a learning poutama follow the tauira Maori in their first
introductions to IT and prior education; enlightenment to the value of higher
education for whanau and openness to new understandings in the IT field; increasing confidence in their abilities to learn, to apply and share IT
knowledges; mastering the requirements of degrees in the academy and the
challenges of the virtually mono-cultural IT field and ITP environments; their
achievement of a pinnacle of IT degrees and other qualifications, and their
first steps into work.
Te Taumata, Te Timata expresses potentials for 'Maori Ways' to be
combined with 'IT Ways' and for more Maori voices to be heard in the higher
education discourse. Centrally it celebrates 17 unique individuals who are
role models, and inspirations for other Maori to follow to their own successes
Structural Dissonance, Enacted Hope and Initial Early Childhood Teacher Education in Aotearoa/New Zealand
No full textThis thesis argues that there is structural dissonance in university-based initial early childhood teacher education programmes in Aotearoa/New Zealand, and suggests a pedagogy of enacted hope as a countermeasure. In this thesis, structural dissonance is constructed as a form of structural violence, which is based on the contradiction between socioculturalism in the content of IECTE programmes and individualisation in the context in which they are provided.
This theoretical thesis uses Richard Rorty’s (1979, 1982, 1989, 1999) neo-pragmatic assumptions on truth, reality and knowledge to provide a coherent and consistent approach to the argument of structural dissonance and enacted hope. Distinctions between truth and justification, reality and appearance, found and made are rejected, and utility for social justice, language use, and an ironist approach to scholarship are adopted.
This thesis uses philosophical hermeneutics as a methodology for interpreting the textual sources that make up the data drawn upon in this thesis. This methodology is linked to interpretive scholarship, research bricolage, and the constructivist paradigm in qualitative research. The methods used in this thesis
are an ecological hermeneutic, ideal type method (converted into an interpretive method of textual analysis) and focus groups of student teachers.
This thesis constructed two ideal types. The ideal type for socioculturalism is used to argue that the content of IECTE programmes is heavily influenced by socioculturalism. The ideal type for individualisation is used to argue that the context in which IECTE programmes are provided reproduces individualisation. Socioculturalism and individualisation are shown to be dissonant in the structure of a case IECTE programme in Aotearoa/New Zealand resulting in a situation of structural dissonance.
A pedagogy of enacted hope is then proposed to counteract structural dissonance in the case study IECTE programme in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This pedagogy is constructed using a theory of hope developed through the integration of Ernst Bloch’s (1986) philosophy of hope, Rortyan philosophical assumptions and enactivist learning theory. Implications of using the pedagogy of enacted hope are then discussed in relation to the problem of structural dissonance
Exploring Anti-Democratic Practices in University Policy-Steerage, Management and Governance in Malawi: A Critical Theory Approach
No full textThis thesis draws on Critical Theory as advanced by Critical Theorists in the tradition of the Frankfurt School to explore the nature of anti-democratic practices within policy-steerage, management and governance of university education in Malawi. The thesis critiques instrumental use of reason and neopatrimonial aspects that permeate policy-steerage, management and governance of the university sector in Malawi, and suggests ways of emancipation or social change.
Two philosophical ideas inform analysis of this emancipatory project: dialectical reasoning as advanced by the first generation Critical Theorists such as Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse and communicative rationality, which is complemented by the theory of the lifeworld as advanced by the second generation Critical Theorist, Habermas. Dialectical reasoning entails understanding things as they are now and what they might be in future, as such, it is a useful idea for emancipation in that it fosters constant questioning (reflexivity) on the part of actors to make things better. Communicative rationality entails that actors seek to reach common understanding and coordinate actions by reasoned arguments, consensus and cooperation rather than instrumental reasoning and is useful for attaining social change (Habermas, 1984, 1987). Data sources comprise global policy debates, policy documents and interviews with selected government policymakers, Malawian civil society, university administrators and leaders of university staff and student unions.
The thesis reveals that at international policy-steerage level, university policy-making in Malawi is chiefly orchestrated by the World Bank using its economic power and the global-neoliberal logic. In this logic, Malawi follows the dictates of the powerful World Bank. Thus, the argument presented is that the World Bank’s university policy-steerage in Malawi follows instrumental rationality and is anti-democratic. Instrumental reasoning refers to the deliberate use of the power of reason for social control or manipulation. At university level, the thesis reveals a rivalry relationship among stakeholders which leads to constrained collegial governance. The thesis shows that the neopatrimonial attitude of presidentialism or the big-man syndrome, which permeates the management and governance of universities in Malawi, perpetuates instrumental use of reason and renders the system anti-democratic. At Malawi Government university policy-steerage level, the thesis shows problems associated with the usage of power by state presidents who are also chancellors of public universities. At this level, policy-steerage is interventionist and characterised by both neopatrimonial aspects of the big-man syndrome and patron-client relationships that lead to instrumental use of reason.
Based on this Critical Theory analysis, a theory of university management and governance for Malawian universities is presented aimed at achieving emancipation. To achieve social change there is a need to challenge instrumental ways of reasoning and neopatrimonial aspects by employing dialectical reasoning and communicative rationality
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe 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
Making Connexions: "Joined Up" Solutions to Social and Economic Problems Affecting Youth.
Get PDFThis paper offers a description and a critique of the Connexions strategy in England. Through better coordinating the provision of a suite of youth services, Connexions is designed to reduce the proportion of young people not in education, employment or training. Central to the strategy is the creation of a new breed of youth worker, known as personal advisors. These must ensure that all young people get the support needed, from counsellors and other specialist providers of services to youth, to make successful transitions into adulthood. As Connexions is an evidence-based service, its outcomes are closely monitored. The paper concludes by considering the value of introducing a Connexions type service in New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of New Zealand Journal of Counselling is the property of New Zealand Association of Counsellors and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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