School of Education - Te Kura Mātauranga

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https://hdl.handle.net/10292/3300

Research within the School of Education - Te Kura Mātauranga is driven by students working towards postgraduate qualifications, staff pursuing their own research interests, and contracts for funding agencies such as the Ministry of Education and other partners. Research interests in the School of Education include; Learning and teaching, theory and practice, Curriculum and development, Teacher education, Early childhood education, Adult and tertiary education and development, Schools, E-learning, Educational administration, and Professional inquiry and practice.

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Now showing 1 - 18 of 18

A Critical Review of Curriculum Mapping: Implications for the Development of an Ethical Teacher Professionality
(Massey University, 2008) Benade, Leon
Curriculum mapping, a curriculum design methodology popularised in America has found favour in New Zealand schools as they develop their own curricula in line with the recently introduced New Zealand Curriculum. This paper considers the implications of curriculum mapping for the development of an ethical teaching profession. Curriculum mapping is problematised because it reflects positivist theories of knowledge and leads to further technicisation of schooling. The requirement that schools develop their own curricula could however open the possibility to develop pedagogically and theoretically sound curricula and offers teachers and managers the opportunity to regain ownership of their work as they review their current curricula, leading to engagement in a genuinely ethical and collaborative dialogue.
Biculturalism in Education: Haere Whakamua, Hoki Whakamuri/Going Forward, Thinking Back
(Faculty of Education, University of Canterbury, Aotearoa New Zealand, 2023-12-14) Lourie, Megan
While references to the Treaty of Waitangi and/or biculturalism are an accepted part of the New Zealand education policy landscape, there is often a lack of consensus around the meaning, and therefore the practice implications, of the term ‘biculturalism’. This difficulty can be explained by viewing biculturalism as a discourse that has continued to change since its emergence in the 1980s. In policy texts older understandings of the term are overlaid with more recent understandings and this can contribute to uncertainty about what the term means to teachers in 2016. This is particularly challenging for teachers and school leaders as they attempt to negotiate the requirements of the Practising Teacher Criteria. Therefore, there is a need to continue engaging in discussion about the meaning of biculturalism in education in the present, looking forward, but informed by the past.
Breaking New Ground: New Zealand Certificates of Steiner Education
(Frontiers Media SA, 2024-02-13) Boland, Neil; Brice-Geard, Karen; Bell, Amanda; Cook, Christine
The New Zealand Certificates of Steiner Education (CSE) are secondary qualifications at levels 1, 2 and 3, recognized by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. They give access to tertiary education in New Zealand and beyond. The impulse for new qualifications grew from a wish to have important aspects of the taught Steiner curriculum recognized and valorized, that these aspects be credit bearing toward tertiary study, an option not offered by existing qualifications. The certificates were developed over an 18-month period and were implemented by the (then) four New Zealand Steiner schools with high school classes. The CSE are based on a suite of learning outcomes which give teachers a substantial degree of assessment autonomy, allowing them to tailor assessment modalities to the student or class being taught. Since 2012, the qualifications have been offered overseas and are now used as a pathway to university by Steiner schools in a growing number of countries. This article draws on the experiences of one of the developers of the qualification and two teachers in schools using the certificate in the UK, and outlines some of the challenges faced when breaking new ground in the advancement of Waldorf education internationally.
Cultivating Whanaungatanga and Collaboration: Exploring the Impact of Inquiry-Based Project Learning on Kaiako and Tamariki in Early Childhood Education in Aotearoa
(Unitec ePress, 2023-11-29) Probine, Sarah; Perry, Jo; Heta-Lensen, Yo; Papoutsaki, E; Shannon, M
This paper examines the role of collaboration in inquiry-based project work in early childhood education in Aotearoa New Zealand. It draws upon findings from a research project exploring how inquiry-based project learning has been interpreted and undertaken in early childhood settings in this context. Inquiry-based project learning is a collaborative approach, underpinned by sociocultural theories, that supports a democratic view. The study is positioned in an interpretivist qualitative paradigm and is informed by sociocultural theories. A narrative inquiry approach informed the study design. Phase One of the project, which comprised a national questionnaire sent to all early childhood centres registered on the national ECE data base was completed in 2021. Phase Two, underway at the time of writing this paper, has involved a small number of purposively selected early childhood settings. At each of these settings, data collection has comprised an interview with the teaching team about their pedagogical frameworks, key influences and teaching practices, and a period of classroom observations focused on a current inquiry. Analysis of the data suggests that collaboration is cultivated when kaiako (teachers) prioritise whanaungatanga (sustaining connections and relationships) and have spent time developing pedagogical practices resulting in shared understandings surrounding inquiry-based project work. The impact of collaboration on the learning of tamariki (children) is demonstrated by a series of vignettes from the Phase Two data, demonstrating that developing a collaborative learning culture of inquiry fosters reciprocity, connection, theory making and problem solving.
Developing Volitional Readers Requires Breadth and Balance: Skills Alone Won’t Do It
(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2024-03-26) Milne, John
The learning and teaching of reading continues to be a source of contention in New Zealand education. In recent years, proponents of structured literacy approaches have argued for more attention to be paid to what they term the “science of reading”. They have emphasised skill development and argued against the inclusion of other approaches. A singular focus on skill development comes at a cost however, as being a reader requires more than simply being able to read words. When we consider a broader view of what it means to be a reader, we need to consider the reader as a whole person, and their place in a wider social context. This article discusses the “science of reading” in relation to Self-Determination Theory and considers how pedagogical approaches can contribute to, or work against, the development of children’s feelings of autonomy, relatedness, and competence in reading and their subsequent desire to read. A restricted focus and related pedagogies will have negative long-term impacts on individuals’ ability to access the many and varied benefits of truly being a reader. Some of the approaches being promoted will likely exacerbate existing concerns such as declining rates of volitional reading and achievement. While necessary, being technically capable is not enough, children must also see the value in reading and its outcomes if they are going to choose to do it.
How to Analyse Emojis, GIFs, Embedded Images, Videos, and URLs: A Bakhtinian Methodological Approach
(Brill, 2023-01-01) Westbrook, F
This article offers a means of analysing social networking, visual dialogues of emojis, gif s (images in the Graphics Interchange Format), embedded images, videos, and url s (Uniform Resource Locators). Doing so addresses these often overlooked and undervalued forms of visual communication, suggesting a unique means of gaining insights into their use within online interactions. Utilising a Bakhtinian methodology, the author extracts excerpts from her research, situated within Facebook, to demonstrate a Bakhtinian genre analysis, a framework that the author contends is adaptable to multiple social networking spaces. Highlighting emojis, gif s, embedded images, videos, and url s as integral components of online communication, an emphasis is placed on how the text dances with the visual, presenting a nuanced framework for such an analysis. Consequently, an argument is developed for the significance of visual dialogues in contemporary online spaces, and the need for researchers to better understand these dynamic forms of communication, offered through Bakhtinian dialogism.
Ko Wai Au - Ko Wai Au: Expressions of Wai Visiblising Pedagogies
(Brill, 2024-01-29) Denton, A; Gibbons, A; White, J; Williams, NM; Martin, K
As part of the international "Wash from the Start"omep (World Organization for Early Childhood Education) project, researchers shared time with children in three early childhood centre communities in the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand - Te Wai Pounamu. The research explored young children's engagement with local conditions of water through fieldwork annotations and photographic visual methods. The video article presented here is a photo essay that spans the researcher teams' experiences in their encounters with the children and teachers they had the privilege to spend time with over a sunny week in Autumn 2022.
Learning From Newly Settled Families in an Aotearoa New Zealand Playgroup
(SAGE Publications, 2023-12-05) Jacobs, MM
Families engage in a range of cultural practices in their everyday lives that shape children’s early literacies. Given the growing number of children who are living outside the country of their birth or their parents’ birth, more research is needed to highlight the under-recognised literacies of young children shaped by their family cultural practices and immigration experiences. This year-long qualitative study in an Aotearoa New Zealand playgroup explored how newly settled families worked to sustain their cultural practices and supported their young children’s understandings of new cultural norms in the context of immigration. Qualitative data collection methods included participant observation in the playgroup and photo-elicitation and semi-structured interview conversations in family languages. Findings highlight family aspirations and tensions regarding children’s participation in family cultural practices over time, sustaining family languages once children transitioned to school, and notions of belonging. Family participation was integral to interpreting children’s meaning-making in the playgroup, including how children flexibly navigated language differences and unfamiliar cultural practices. This study highlights the importance of learning from families about the linguistic and cultural resources young children draw on to represent, communicate and belong in a new country.
Lessons from a Va Relational Approach: Embedding Indigenous Constructs for Classroom Practice
(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2024-04-17) Ualesi, Yvonne Maggie
There is increasing concern raised for youth not in education and employment or training (NEET). Subsequently there is an increased demand for both education and health services that support the development of positive youths’ identities, socioemotional and cognitive developmental needs, through youth mentoring strategies (Rhodes & DuBois, Current Directions in Psychological Science 17(4):254–258, 2008). Youth mentoring programmes are largely underpinned by Eurocentric approaches lacking consideration of diverse cultural needs of multi-ethnic under-served youth (Larson & Ngo, Journal of Adolescent Research 32:3–10, 2017). This article draws on data from a participant observational study highlighting how youth mentoring practice underpinned by a range of key Indigenous psychological constructs can be nurtured to improve classroom practice for kaiako (teacher, instructor). The context of investigation is focused on a youth mentoring programme in a tertiary learning environment at a large urban city of Aotearoa New Zealand that explored culturally responsive, sustaining and safe youth mentoring practice for Māori and Pacific/Pasifika rangatahi excluded from mainstream compulsory education.
Making Space for Young Children's Embodied Cultural Literacies and Heritage Languages with Dual Language Books
(Wiley, 2023-03-27) Si‘ilata, Rae K; Jacobs, Mary M; Gaffney, Janet S; Aseta, Martha; Hansell, Kyla
The Pasifika Early Literacy Project supports teachers to make space for the languages and cultures of Pacific children and families in early childhood settings in Aotearoa New Zealand. Dual-language books in five Pacific languages and English validate Pacific children's languages, literacies, and identities. We highlight teacher practices following professional learning and development workshops. Teachers are invited to challenge dominant monocultural notions of language and literacy that perpetuate educational inequities. Illustrations of early childhood teachers' innovations with Pacific children (aged 2–6 years) demonstrate how dual-language texts can be connected to families' embodied cultural literacies. Understandings of “literacy” and “reading” were expanded to include children's expressive modalities through oral and visual texts in heritage languages and English. This work highlights the role of teachers to connect, rather than replace, the worldviews, languages, and literacies of families with the pedagogical practices of early childhood settings.
Multi-level Leadership Development Using Co-constructed Spaces With Schools: A Ten-Year Journey
(MDPI AG, 2024-06-03) Youngs, Howard; Ogram, Maggie
Leadership in both theory and practice usually emphasizes a person and a position. There has been a shift from emphasizing the senior level of organizational roles, to include the middle level and other sources of leadership. Nomenclature has emerged over time to reflect this, for example, collective, distributed, shared, and collaborative leadership. Another understanding of leadership needs to be added, one that does not first emphasize a person or position, instead incorporating process and practices, weaving through all levels and sources of leadership. This additional understanding has implications for how leadership development is constructed and facilitated. Over the last ten years, the authors have journeyed with groups of schools, using an emerging co-constructed approach to leadership development. The journey is relayed across three seasons. The first is the grounding of collaborative practices through inquiry, informed by a two-phase research project. The second focuses on adaptation and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic, whereas the third delves deeper into what sits behind prevalent practices that may enable and hinder student achievement. Our narrative over time shows that leadership development can be shaped through a continual cycle of review, reflection, and co-construction, leading to conditions for transformation across multiple levels and sources of leadership.
Opening Up and Closing Down Teachers’ Political Dialogues: Dialectic and Dialogic Strategic Orientations
(Informa UK Limited, 2024-04-19) Westbrook, Fiona
This paper employs Mikhail Bakhtin for a dialogic reading of dialectics, conceptualising how early childhood education (ECE) teachers’ political dialogues are opened up and closed down. Explorations of ‘political dialogue’, or how teachers respond to issues they deem of political concern, is pertinent for teaching’s inherently political nature. How such encounters are opened and closed has special significance for ECE teachers, who have expressed feeling professionally and politically silenced. Guided by a philosophical framing of the contradictions and jostling interplays between dialogism’s in-betweenness and dialectic’s one-ness, excerpts are analysed from a doctoral study involving 10 Victorian, Australian ECE teachers. This framing and analysis signal the potential ramifications of a dialectical closing down of ECE teachers’ political dialogues in addition to how dialogism’s in-betweenness fosters openness. Contemplating these language strategies, the paper highlights how a silencing divisiveness may transpire, prompting a need for genuine listening in the threshold in-between the self and other.
Pedagogy and Politics
(Informa UK Limited, 2024-07-01) Devine, N
I want to address the political element in the pedagogical engagement. Too often the business of teaching is presented as somehow independent of political influence or implication. When ERO talked about ‘delivering the curriculum’, the terminology reflected a very neo-liberal view that the curriculum was something different from the process of teaching and that teachers should be regarded as functionaries putting out there something decided by others. In this paper I want to look at the political element of pedagogy, both as a question of Foucault’s ‘conduct of conduct’, and as a process inseparable from the very political elements of sexism, racism, classism that pervade our society and are therefore inescapable in our classrooms. In considering the element or racism or ethnicism I will look at the ontologies we bring to our work, and how they might differ. Ultimately I will bring Levinas into the story, to help to consider how our teaching can be politically and ethically aware.
Privatising Public Education: Are We There Yet?
(Faculty of Education, University of Canterbury, 2024-06-24) Couch, Daniel; Jones, Kay-Lee; Cook, Helena; Teschers, Christoph; Devine, Nesta
Robot for Mayor: Creative Pedagogies with Social Robots in Secondary Education for Youth Civic Agency
(Scientific Research Publishing, Inc., 2023-06-12) Sosa, Ricardo; Torres, Rebeca; Bradford, Penny; Gibbons, Andrew
This paper presents new ways to imagine and carry out creative pedagogies that use robots to teach socio-technical topics. The paper presents key theoretical and methodological ideas that informed a project co-designed in partnership with teachers and learners from Manurewa High School. This project portrays a speculative story of an affable humanoid robot who shares its goal of running for Mayor of the city of Auckland in Aotearoa New Zealand and asks children for advice on how to prepare for this future role. The findings from this case study are organised around three main themes: suspending disbelief, powerful questions, and breaking the fourth wall. A discussion around learning using digital technologies more creatively and more critically closes the paper. The appropriateness of robots for creative and dialogic learning calls for the participation of learners and teachers in playful co-creation activities that transgress the conventional roles and scripts in the classroom and the curriculum.
The Conundrum of Care in the Construction of Professional Identity: A Foucauldian Lens
(Massey University, 2024-06-24) Wu, Bin; Devine, Nesta
The notion of 'professional' is built on a concept of traditionally male professions and patriarchal social orders. ECEC (early childhood education and care), however, is a female-dominated field characterised by its unique caring practice that is more salient when working with infants and toddlers. This study investigates how a group of Australian early childhood preservice teachers presented themselves professionally on Instagram, in relation to respective infant (0-2) and kindergarten (3-5) practica. Data were drawn from focus group discussions about how the participants shared their practicum experiences on social media, Instagram. The paper is guided by Foucault’s concepts of technologies of the self and self writing. The findings reveal two thematic narratives: 1) in the context of the kindergarten placement, the posts constitute a journey of continuous improvement against all odds. 2) In contrast, the infant placement experiences evoke a sense of struggle and renunciation. The paper concludes with implications for further study beyond the Australian context.
Twenty Years of Resistance
(Faculty of Education, University of Canterbury, Aotearoa New Zealand., 2023-12-14) Devine, Nesta
A Personal Reflection of 20 Years of Policy and Practice Regarding Teachers’ Work in Aotearoa New Zealand
We Enjoy Doing Reading Together: Finding Potential in Affective Encounters With People and Things for Sustaining Volitional Reading
(Informa UK Limited, 2024-04-23) Boyask, Ruth; Jackson, Jayne; Milne, John; Harrington, Celeste; May, Robyn
Reading is one of many things vying for young people’s attention. In the case of volitional reading, young people between 8 and 15 are following trends of less enjoyment of reading and declining time spent reading. There are complex explanations for patterns of decline in their volitional reading related to how choice is afforded within social and material relations. This article offers a glimpse into the motivations for young people’s volitional reading through placing a socio-material lens on descriptive statistics. Affect theory provides new ways of comprehending and using patterns in children and young people’s relationships to reading, recognising these as mutable and contingent relations within reading assemblages. Reading affect in volitional reading describes felt experiences of encountering other bodies (human and nonhuman) through reading. The secondary data from the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal cohort measures the physical, social, and cultural dimensions of over 6000 children in Aotearoa New Zealand. Descriptive statistical analyses showed relationships between reading enjoyment and frequency at age 8 and over 60 variables from throughout their life course. We comprehend reading affect by applying our socio-material lens to variables related to reading enjoyment assembled within a rough approximation of the complex arrangements of young people’s lives at home and in out of home experiences. Through reflecting upon associations identified in statistics, we find potential in encounters with other people and things to draw young people back into reading, rather than act as distractions.

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