Discursively complex identities of New Zealand teachers of writing in times of contestation and change

Changes in political, social and educational curriculum policies over the past four decades have created discursive shifts in writing theory and practice for New Zealand primary teachers. While these policies have historically privileged a particular view of writing over others, very little is known as to how teachers engage with experienced discourses of writing.Three broad conceptual metaphors, taking a ‘writer’, ‘text’ and ‘social’ perspective, frame the writing theories and practices and provide a context for the development of heuristic markers used to analyse the teachers’ interviews. Discourse analysis revealed teachers’ complex identities and knowledge or lack of, available writing discourses.     

Exploring the Politics of Blame: School inspection and its contestation in New Zealand and England

This article examines how New Zealand's Education Review Office (ERO) and England's Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) attempt to construct school failure as the clear responsibility of schools in order to gain ideological power as agents of accountability. These 'politics of blame' are contested in both settings by an alternative 'contextual' claim which seeks to take account of broader social and political constraints on schools. It is argued that whereas New Zealand academics have been distrustful of the ERO's agenda, English school effectiveness and school improvement researchers have often provided support for OFSTED's politics of blame. However this relationship represents a double-edged sword for OFSTED because some school effectiveness/school improvement researchers also partly support the contextual claim. The article concludes that the politics of blame and their contestation will continue to be important in these settings and elsewhere.     

Bicultural education policy in New Zealand

Abstract

Bicultural educational policy is part of a much broader ensemble of bicultural policies that were first developed by the Fourth Labour Government elected in 1984. These policies were an acknowledgement of, and response to, the historical injustices suffered by Māori people as a consequence of colonisation. Bicultural education policy is thought to be a means of addressing the ongoing challenge of educational underachievement of Māori students in the compulsory schooling sector. At present, the dominant discourse in New Zealand education frames the educational underachievement of Māori as a problem associated with cultural differences; however, this tends to obscure explanations that focus on socio-economic disparities. This paper shows how the dominant discourse relating to the underachievement of Māori students is established in policy and maintained through various auditing systems, and how this leaves little space for other explanations or solutions. The paper advocates a move away from an either/or approach to the problem of the educational underachievement of Māori and argues for greater critical engagement with bicultural education policy in order to open up space for conversations that address both the cultural and the socio-economic factors which may affect achievement.     

Exploring discursive barriers to sexual health and social justice in the New Zealand sexuality education curriculum

Sexuality education is a compulsory part of The New Zealand Curriculum for state-funded schools. In 2015, the Ministry of Education has published an updated revision of their official guidelines for schools on the teaching of sexuality education. This paper employs Foucauldian discourse analysis to argue that this policy document, Sexuality Education: A Guide for Principals, Boards of Trustees, and Teachers, reflects and reproduces particular ways of knowing which constrain possibilities for socially just sexuality education. These discourses include the adoption of an intellectual approach to teaching sexuality, the mandate to measure learning objectives, and a narrow emphasis on positive sexuality. Intentions for the curriculum to deliver a holistic, socio-ecological vision of sexual health as well as one which embeds Māori values are undermined by dominant understandings of individual action which shape approaches to both sexuality and pedagogy. Furthermore, the liberal recognition of cultural, ethnic, sexual and gender diversity in the curriculum unintentionally reinscribes an unmarked white, secular, heterosexuality as the norm. This paper reflexively critiques the discursive tensions that inhibit the realisation of sexuality education in schools which meets the needs of diverse students and offers it as a possible site for social justice.     

Curriculum development and teacher education in New Zealand

When the National English Syllabus Committee (New Zealand) was established in 1970 to revise the existing English syllabus for the first three years of secondary school, it sought to evolve a model of curriculum development which was process oriented.

This article describes the bases of the teaching guidelines and the extensive and complex teacher‐education programme which accompanied the evolution of the project. It describes an attempt to alter teachers' ideas about what to teach in English, as mother tongue, how to teach it and within what administrative structures it could best be taught.     

新西兰的教育魅力

记得台湾作家三毛写过一篇游记,说她"万水千山走遍,没有去过的就是澳洲和新西兰了。那里虽然很美,但是没有文化,就不去了"。是啊,新西兰这个只有约200年历史的小国,有什么历史文化遗产呢?然而,这次我赴"没有文化的新西兰",却感受到了它那     

The growth and crisis of Italian higher education during the 1960s and 1970s

The expansion of the Italian university system in the 1960s and 1970s is described with particular reference to the laws of 1961 and 1969 which liberalized access. The effects of these reforms are discussed and it is argued that despite the expansion the system remains an élite system. Admission to prestigious faculties and failure rates are correlated with social class to show that selection by failure within the university may to some extent have replaced selection at entry as a way of maintaining an élite system. Despite the increase in wastage there is a growing mismatch between the demand for and supply of graduate labour and this has given rise to social tensions.     

New Labour,social justice and disabled students in higher education

This article draws on findings from an Economic and Social Research Council funded research project entitled ‘Disabled Students and Multiple Policy Innovations in Higher Education’ (R000239069). It begins with a brief review of theories of social justice and their implications for widening access policies for disabled students. Social justice may be conceptualised in relation to the distribution of social goods and cultural recognition. Related to distribution, data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency are used to analyse the progress which has been made in expanding the number of disabled students in higher education and the wider social characteristics of disabled students. Related to recognition, the article considers changes which have been made at the institutional level to make the academic environment more conducive to the inclusion of disabled students. It is noted that new public management has often been used as the vehicle for achieving social justice goals. Whilst progress has been made in relation to redistribution and recognition, the adoption of managerialist strategies has had some negative effects. For example, dyslexic students who tend to be male and middle class have been the greatest beneficiaries of the expansion, whereas poorer disabled students and those with more significant impairments have been less likely to be included. In addition, the adoption of a categorical approach for the purposes of social audit does not fit readily with disabled students' conception of self.     

Beliefs of experienced and student teachers about the nature and purpose of social studies education in New Zealand elementary schools

This paper reports on an investigation carried out in New Zealand into experienced elementary and student teachers’ beliefs about the nature and purpose of social studies education. Since its inclusion in New Zealand's curriculum, social studies has been organized around the notion of citizenship education with curricula and programmes of work influenced by four overarching “traditions” – social studies as: citizenship transmission; social science; reflective inquiry; and personal, social and ethical empowerment. A 20-item scale based on these traditions was administered to 228 student teachers and 64 experienced teachers. A factor analysis indicated that participants' perceptions of the dimensions of social studies education were, with one exception, reasonably close to the four traditions. Despite the contested nature of social studies, the student and experienced teachers held similar positions on the relative importance of the traditions and dimensions. It is argued that this agreement arises, wholly or in part, from their common “apprenticeship of experience” in classrooms, the broader socio-historical context in which their beliefs were developed, the widespread influence of a prevalent educational discourse, and a shared lack of experience in formal knowledge associated with specific social science disciplines. It was concluded that the uncomfortable generational encounters often reported in the literature between novice and experienced teachers are unlikely to occur in relation to the teaching of elementary social studies in New Zealand.     

Rationality and rationalisation in teacher education policy discourse in New Zealand

Background:?A newly elected centre-right coalition government in New Zealand was forced to deal with the cumulative fiscal consequences of two unforeseen challenges: a global financial crisis in September 2008 and two major seismic events in the country's second largest city in 2009 and 2010. This paper examines the way in which policies for initial and continuing teacher education were reshaped thereafter and the justifications provided by government for these changes.

Purpose:?The paper examines the plausibility of the government's contemporary ‘crisis’ discourse and aims to show how ‘rational’ education policy changes also carry broader ideological and political agendas for teacher education. Thus, current changes to teacher education policy are located in the historical context of trends over the last two decades.

Sources of Evidence:?The paper uses official statements by government and officials to show how they justified the policy changes as the only possible responses to an external economic crisis. Secondary sources of statistical economic data and policy texts are used to demonstrate that equally plausible alternative responses were overlooked, rejected or ignored.

Main argument:?The paper construes teacher education policy as both text and discourse. It is argued that the media statements of politicians and officials are intended to secure popular approval for public education austerity measures, while at the same time masking an underlying political and ideological project and ignoring the informed policy rebuttals of some educationists.

Conclusions:?The steps taken in New Zealand to respond to a short- to medium-term national fiscal crisis have major long-term consequences for teacher education. Most apparent is the continued failure to acknowledge the major incremental reductions in public subsidies for initial teacher education that have occurred year on year since the early 1990s and, instead, to reiterate the new public management ideology of further public service efficiencies.     

Rates of return to investment in education in former Yugoslavia in the 1970s and 1980s by region

The article presents rates of return to investment in education in former Yugoslavia by region — former federal units (republics and autonomous provinces), by level of education, by gender, and for the society and the individual. It has shown some similarities and some differences regarding the observed pattern of the economic efficiency of investment in education in other countries. Some causes for these differences are discussed.     

Sex differences in education: exploring children’s gender identity

Abstract

Gender stereotypes associate mathematics and sciences with boys, whereas reading and writing are typically associated with girls. This study investigated sex differences in primary school children’s motivation (confidence and value) across four academic subjects (maths, science, reading and writing) and examined how their identification with stereotypical masculine and feminine traits related to their motivation in these subjects. Five hundred and thirty-two children (aged 9–11, 52% boys), from five UK schools participated. Sex differences in reading and writing motivation were wider than sex differences found in maths and science motivation. Interestingly, the extent to which children identified with feminine traits was a stronger predictor of their reading and writing motivation than their sex. Gender identity provides an innovative approach to the study of sex differences; it challenges the dichotomy inherent within sex differences research and can lead to a more critical and nuanced understanding of sex differences in education.     

Diversity in New Zealand early childhood education: challenges and opportunities

The early childhood education (ECE) sector in New Zealand has long been recognised for the diversity of service types and range of organisations involved in delivering ECE. However, less attention has been paid to diversity within individual ECE services. This article draws on a national survey carried out as part of a larger project, The Diversity of Diversity in Early Childhood Education, focusing on teachers’ perceptions of challenges and successes encountered when working with children from diverse family backgrounds. Educators’ attitudes towards diversity clearly influence whether they perceive working with diverse children and families positively or as a challenge. We argue that possessing positive dispositions and attitudes that enable educators to truly welcome, acknowledge and embrace diversity, together with access to professional knowledge and support services, are critical. The implications of this for policy and practice are then considered.