This thesis represents the results of a three-year intervention study of a group of Māori language teachers, their pupils and Māori parent communities in the Northland region of New Zealand. The study was motivated by the problem of continuing low academic achievement for Māori students in state mainstream schools. The assumption that existing teaching outputs of Māori language were quite strong and so could be used to model improvements for other school subjects and teachers to follow for Māori students was examined. In fact this was found to be a mistaken assumption as serious problems were located for the teaching of the Māori language. Two school policy areas were examined to locate possible solutions: Treaty of Waitangi policies in school charters and the operation of Māori Language Resourcing. It was found that the operation by school managements tended to exclude any active role for the Māori parent community. An action research model of intervention was designed and implemented to offer teachers in-service assistance in the provision of practice examinations to help better prepare students in their school certificate written examinations. Teachers were also encouraged to work directly with their Māori parent communities in order to improve teaching, student learning and outcomes. A case-study demonstrates that a dramatic rise in pupil performance occurred when parents worked along side the teacher in the classroom. The thesis argues that the nature of the Treaty of Waitangi provides a rationale for Māori parent participation, for direct involvement into school management (teaching issues) both for Māori students and the Māori language. It is concluded that a successful school for Māori students depends both the strength and shape of the tripartite relationship between the school, the home and the students.

This study contributes to the contemporary debate within Western radical sociology of education regarding the relationship between the social order and the processes of schooling. It is theoretically well-established in this field that schooling is central to the maintenance of existing social relations of dominance and subordination. Focusing on the commonsense knowledge and classroom practices of two groups of fifth form adolescent girls in an inner-city all-girls Grammar school in New Zealand, the study sets out to analyse and illustrate in concrete detail some of the ideological and pedagogical processes through which schooling contributes to social reproduction. The data and discussion provide insights into the thoughts and everyday school experiences of some middle class Pakeha (European) and working class Pacific Island girls as they seriously attempt to 'get school knowledge' and, thus, the credentials which they believe the school offers the motivated and able. It also shows how teachers unwittingly recruit the active participation of students from 'race' and class groups in pedagogical interactions which often preclude the working class Pacific Island girls from acquiring the school credentials they seek. This process, and that of the school's 'provision' of the middle class Pakeha girls' academic achievement, is then 'misrecognised' by the students as the natural and fair outcome of differential talent and motivation. The theoretical framework of the thesis centres around the major contemporary questions in social theory regarding the agency-structure relationship and how social and cultural life is to be conceptualised as the dialectical product of human agents producing and produced by the social structure within which they exist.

Cognisant of the critical interplay between beliefs and practice, the current study investigated primary school teachers' beliefs and understandings about feedback, and the use of feedback to enhance student learning. Central to the investigation has been an exploration of teachers' beliefs about the nature and place of feedback in student learning and of their role and that of learners in the feedback process. Of equal importance has been an examination of the strategies and practices that teachers utilised and ascribed importance to within the feedback process, including the opportunities offered to students in relation to the development of evaluative and productive knowledge and expertise (Sadler, 1989). To facilitate this investigation, Sadler's (1989) theory of formative assessment and feedback was used as a framework to inform both the research design and subsequent analyses. Utilising an interpretive, qualitative, case study methodology the current research was conducted in two sequential phases. Phase one consisted of semi-structured interviews with a convenience sample of 20 experienced teachers. In phase two, three of these 20 participants were selected purposively for classroom observations of teachers' feedback practice during the teaching of a written language unit. These teachers also participated in a semi-structured interview following each series of observations. During both phases, additional data were generated through field notes and the collection of relevant artefacts. Together, the multiple forms of evidence provided complementary information and ensured a rich pool of data. Three recognised approaches to data analysis were utilised, namely thematic analysis, the constant comparison method and discourse analysis. The use of Sadler's theoretical framework illuminated both similarities and differences among teachers in regard to the nature, place and role of feedback in learning and teaching. As teachers' feedback discourse was examined in more detail the influence of efficacy beliefs on the uptake and enactment of new ideas and practices associated with formative assessment and feedback became apparent. Teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning were a further mediating influence, particularly in regard to how the feedback process was conceived and with respect to the norms of behaviour that teachers promoted within the feedback process. The complexity of the beliefs/practice nexus was highlighted in regard to the influence of teachers' tacit, at times outmoded beliefs, on practice. Observations revealed that each of the three case study teachers had adopted many of the strategies associated with contemporary notions of good feedback practice. However, the ways in which these strategies were implemented in the classroom was a matter of considerable variation particularly in regard to the nature of student involvement and the amount of control maintained by the teacher. Findings from this phase of the research supported Fang's (1996) consistency/inconsistency thesis. In two of the three cases there was a high degree of consistency between teachers' stated intentions and their actions while in the third the opposite was apparent. Overall, it was concluded that while all teachers had adopted elements of the contemporary feedback 'discourse' none had mastered the 'Discourse' (Gee, 1996). Looking to the future, it is argued that this Discourse cannot be enacted through the mere bolting on of strategies to existing classroom programmes. To enact the contemporary Discourse in the ways imagined three conditions must be met. Firstly, beliefs about teaching, learning and feedback must reflect those embedded in the Discourse. Secondly, there must be a close alignment between those beliefs and practice. Thirdly, teachers must acquire in-depth subject matter knowledge, which will enable them to create the dialogic forms of feedback necessary for students to become self-monitoring and self-regulatory.

In this thesis I portray through a history of music and art education in New Zealand the forms knowledge production took in these subject and the discourses within which they were embedded. This enables a more comprehensive understanding of curriculum and unearths connections with what Lyotard (1984) described as 'grand narrative' used to legitimate knowledge claims and practices at certain historical moments. Through such histories we may chart the progress of European civilization within the local context and provide the historical raison d'être for the present state of affairs in music and arts areas of the New Zealand curriculum. Curriculum and its 'reform' representing in part the distribution of public goods and services, has been embroiled in a market project. I seek to expose the politics of knowledge involved in the construction of the notion of The Arts within a neo-liberal policy environment. This environment has involved the deliberate construction of a 'culture of enterprise and competition' (Peters, 1995: 52) and, in the nurturing of conditions for trans-national capital's freedom of movement, a withdrawal from Keynesian economic and social policy, an assault on the welfare state. The thesis delves beyond the public face of policy-making. It follows and scrutinizes critically the birth of The Arts in the New Zealand Curriculum to the production of the first draft of the proposed policy presented by the Ministry of Education in 1999. I examine it as a site of the 'accumulation of meaning' (Derrida, 1981: 57) through a discussion of the history of meaning of 'art' and 'art' education. There is much of value in the Draft document. In particular, the arts have been invested with a new intellectual weight and the professionalism, passion and dedication of those involved in its writing shines through in each of the subject areas within the arts. However, through a process of analysis, I will show that there has been, in fact, a fashioning of a new container for the isolation of artistic knowledge. This is despite official sentiments mentioning possibilities within the document for flourishing separate Music, Art, Dance, and Drama education that implies increased curriculum space. The Draft Arts (1999) document both disguises and rehashes the 'master narrative' of universal rationality and artistic canons and is unlikely to work towards revitalising or protecting local cultural identities though not through lack of intention. I use Lyotard's notion of 'performativity' to critique notions of 'skills' and their 'development' which are implicitly and explicitly stated within the 'levels' of development articulated in the Draft Arts (1999) document. It is argued that this conflation works to enforce cultural homogeneity. There are clear dangers that the Draft Arts' (1999) conception of 'Arts Literacies' might operate as mere functional literacy in the service of the dominant culture's discourse of power and knowledge-one which celebrates the art-as-commodity ideal. It is argued that the Education Ministry's theoretical and epistemological construction of The Arts as one area of learning is unsound, and in fact represents a tightening of modernism's hierarchical notion of culture. New Zealand, now post-colonial or post-imperialist, both bi-cultural and multi-cultural, is situated on the south-western edge of the Pacific Rim. Culturally, it now includes Pacific Island, Asian, and new immigrants, as well as Maori and people of European descent. This therefore necessitates aesthetic practices which, far from promoting a set of universal principles for the appreciation of art - one canonical rule or 'standard' - recognise and reflect cultural difference. Merely admitting cultural difference is inadequate. By working away critically at the deeply held ethno-centric assumptions of modernism, its selective traditions concerned with 'practices, meanings, gender, "races", classes' (Pollock, 1999: 10), its universalising aesthetics of beauty, formal relations, individuality, authenticity or originality, and self-expression, of 'negativity and alienation, and abstraction' (Huyssens, 1986: 209), it is possible to begin to understand the theoretical task of articulating difference with regard to aesthetics. The development of the arts curriculum in New Zealand is placed within the modernism/postmodernism and modernity/postmodernity debates. These debates have generated a number of questions which are forcing us to re-examine the assumptions of modernism. The need for the culture of modernism to become self-critical of its own determining assumptions in order to come to understand its cultural practices, is becoming an urgent theoretical task, especially in disciplines and fields concerned with the transmission of acquired learning and the production of new knowledge. The culture of modernism is often taken as the historical succession of twentieth century avant-gardes (B. Smith, 1998) yet the culture of modernity, philosophically speaking, strictly begins with René Descartes several hundred years earlier, with a pre-history in the Florentine renaissance and the re-discovery of Graeco-Roman artistic and literary forms going back to the thirteenth century. Aesthetic modernism identifies with consumer capitalism and its major assumptions are rationalist, individualist and focus upon the autonomy of both the 'work of art' and the artist at the expense of the artwork, its reception and audience within its localised cultural context. The ideological features of humanism/liberalism - its privileging of the individual subject, the moral, epistemological and aesthetic privileging of the author/artist - are examined as forces contributing to modernism's major values (or aesthetic). Such approaches, it is argued, were limited for dealing with difference. The security and reproductive nature of modernistic approaches to curriculum in the arts areas are destabilized by thinking within the postmodern turn, and the effects of the changes questioning the basic epistemological and metaphysical assumptions in disciplinary fields including art/literature, artchitecture, philosophy and political theory, are registered here, within the field of the education in and through the arts. In a seminal description or report on knowledge, Jean-François Lyotard defines postmodernism as 'incredulity towards metanarratives' (1984: xxiv). Postmodernism, he argues, is 'undoubtedly part of the modern', 'not modernism at its end but in its nascent state and that state is constant (1984: 79). After Lyotard, postmodernism might be seen, therefore, not just as a mode or manner or attitude towards the past, but also as a materializing discourse comprising a dynamic reassessment and re-examination of modernism and modernity's culture. The thinking subject (the cogito) seen as the fount of all knowledge, its autonomy, and transparency, its consideration as the centre of artistic and aesthetic virtuosity and moral action, is subjected to intellectual scrutiny and suspicion. The need for an aesthetics of difference is contextualised through an examination of western hierarchies of art and the aesthetics of marginalized groups. I use the theories of poststructuralist, Jacques Derrida and Jean-François Lyotard, to examine the concept of difference. These theoretical inspirations are used as methodological tools for offsetting the privileging of the liberal individual and individualism. Rather than the mere consideration of difference in curricula, I seek to insert and establish the principle of an aesthetics of difference into relations of pedagogy and curricula. The implications for professional practice resulting from a recognition of a politics of representation are examined and a politics of difference. I argue that art education in all its manifestations can no longer avoid the deeper implications of involvement with representation, including forms of gender, ethnicity and class representation as well as colonial representation. The Western canon's notion of 'artists' and their 'art', often based upon white bourgeois male representations and used in many primary school classrooms, are part and parcel of 'social and political investments in canonicity', a powerful 'element in the hegemony of dominant social groups and interests' (Pollock, 1999: 9). Difference is not appreciated in this context. School art, music, and drama classrooms can become sites for the postmodern questioning of representation of 'the other'. In this context, an aesthetics of difference insists upon too, the questioning of images supporting hegemonic discourses, images which have filled the spaces in the 'chinks and cracks of the power/knowledge-apparati' (Teresa de Lauretis, 1987 cited in Pollock, 1999: 7-8). What would an 'eccentric rereading', a rediscovery of what the canon's vicarly cloak disguises and reveals, mean for music, and for the individual arts areas of the curriculum? I hope to reveal the entanglements of the cultural dynamics of power through an examination of the traditions of Truth and Beauty in imagery which are to be disrupted by inserting into the canon the principle of the aesthetics of difference. Art education as a politics of representation embraces art's constitutive role in ideology. This is to be exposed as we seek to unravel and acknowledge which kinds of knowledges are legitimised and privileged by which kinds of representations. Which kinds of narratives, historical or otherwise, have resulted in which kinds of depictions through image? A recognition of the increasing specification of the subject demands also the careful investigation of colonial representation, the construction of dubious narratives about our history created through visual imaging and its provision of complex historical references. How have art, music, dance, drama been used in the service of particular political and economic narratives? Through revisioning the curriculum from a postmodern perspective, suggestions are made for an alternative pedagogy, which offsets the ideological features of humanism/liberalism, one in which an aesthetics of difference might pervade cultural practices - 'systems of signification', 'practices of representation' (Rizvi, 1994). I draw upon Lyotard's notion of 'small narratives' (1984), and present an investigation of what the democratic manifestation of 'the differend', and multiple meaning systems, might indicate in terms of 'differencing' music education as a site in which heterogenous value systems and expression may find form. / Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access.

The effect of attention to oral reading errors has received little specific examination by researchers in applied behaviour analysis. Some data suggest attending to such errors can have inappropriate effects on learning. A conceptual framework was developed to examine the effects of error attention on the acquisition of proficient reading responses. Analyses of reading behaviour employed concepts and data from 'structural' accounts of reading. These concepts provided details of the components of response systems. Acquisition of proficient reading was seen to involve trends towards accurate integrated responding which becomes self controlled. Error attention was conceptualised as having motivational and informational properties which could directly affect acquisition trends. The first experiment (Chapter Three) demonstrated that under appropriate conditions oral reading behaviour was facilitated by error attention. Eleven year old readers in a Learning Disabilities classroom were measured in their usual reading setting. Two readers received extra tutoring with error attention procedures. A further two readers acted as a contrast for the effects of increased opportunities to respond. These readers received extra practice tutoring with minimum levels of praise. A third subject received no extra tutoring during the course of the experiment. Results indicated that both practice and error attention produced substantial increases in accuracy and correct rates. Accuracy levels were higher for error attention subjects suggesting error attention can have important learning outcomes. Additionally, predictions concerning the error attention dimensions of modeling and prompting were tested. Prompts were found to be more effective with the more proficient reader while models were more effective with the less proficient reader. The second experiment (Chapter Four) examined specific predictions about timing of error attention. Six, 6 year old normal readers received daily sessions of either delayed or immediate attention to errors. Every second day the subjects also read a text on which they were not tutored. Results showed that delayed attention increased the percent of errors self corrected for five subjects in both the tutored and non tutored texts. Increases in self corrections were consistently associated with increased accuracy. The data supported both the predictions and the proposed model of self correction behaviour as having a tutorial or self instruction function. Both experiments were discussed in terms of the functions of error attention in facilitating acquisition of proficient reading. Methodological issues in the behaviour analysis of oral reading were also discussed and implications from the studies for instruction in learning to read are drawn. The usefulness of concepts from 'structural' accounts of reading for a predictive 'functional' account of error attention is examined in a concluding section.

The effect of attention to oral reading errors has received little specific examination by researchers in applied behaviour analysis. Some data suggest attending to such errors can have inappropriate effects on learning. A conceptual framework was developed to examine the effects of error attention on the acquisition of proficient reading responses. Analyses of reading behaviour employed concepts and data from 'structural' accounts of reading. These concepts provided details of the components of response systems. Acquisition of proficient reading was seen to involve trends towards accurate integrated responding which becomes self controlled. Error attention was conceptualised as having motivational and informational properties which could directly affect acquisition trends. The first experiment (Chapter Three) demonstrated that under appropriate conditions oral reading behaviour was facilitated by error attention. Eleven year old readers in a Learning Disabilities classroom were measured in their usual reading setting. Two readers received extra tutoring with error attention procedures. A further two readers acted as a contrast for the effects of increased opportunities to respond. These readers received extra practice tutoring with minimum levels of praise. A third subject received no extra tutoring during the course of the experiment. Results indicated that both practice and error attention produced substantial increases in accuracy and correct rates. Accuracy levels were higher for error attention subjects suggesting error attention can have important learning outcomes. Additionally, predictions concerning the error attention dimensions of modeling and prompting were tested. Prompts were found to be more effective with the more proficient reader while models were more effective with the less proficient reader. The second experiment (Chapter Four) examined specific predictions about timing of error attention. Six, 6 year old normal readers received daily sessions of either delayed or immediate attention to errors. Every second day the subjects also read a text on which they were not tutored. Results showed that delayed attention increased the percent of errors self corrected for five subjects in both the tutored and non tutored texts. Increases in self corrections were consistently associated with increased accuracy. The data supported both the predictions and the proposed model of self correction behaviour as having a tutorial or self instruction function. Both experiments were discussed in terms of the functions of error attention in facilitating acquisition of proficient reading. Methodological issues in the behaviour analysis of oral reading were also discussed and implications from the studies for instruction in learning to read are drawn. The usefulness of concepts from 'structural' accounts of reading for a predictive 'functional' account of error attention is examined in a concluding section.

The effect of attention to oral reading errors has received little specific examination by researchers in applied behaviour analysis. Some data suggest attending to such errors can have inappropriate effects on learning. A conceptual framework was developed to examine the effects of error attention on the acquisition of proficient reading responses. Analyses of reading behaviour employed concepts and data from 'structural' accounts of reading. These concepts provided details of the components of response systems. Acquisition of proficient reading was seen to involve trends towards accurate integrated responding which becomes self controlled. Error attention was conceptualised as having motivational and informational properties which could directly affect acquisition trends. The first experiment (Chapter Three) demonstrated that under appropriate conditions oral reading behaviour was facilitated by error attention. Eleven year old readers in a Learning Disabilities classroom were measured in their usual reading setting. Two readers received extra tutoring with error attention procedures. A further two readers acted as a contrast for the effects of increased opportunities to respond. These readers received extra practice tutoring with minimum levels of praise. A third subject received no extra tutoring during the course of the experiment. Results indicated that both practice and error attention produced substantial increases in accuracy and correct rates. Accuracy levels were higher for error attention subjects suggesting error attention can have important learning outcomes. Additionally, predictions concerning the error attention dimensions of modeling and prompting were tested. Prompts were found to be more effective with the more proficient reader while models were more effective with the less proficient reader. The second experiment (Chapter Four) examined specific predictions about timing of error attention. Six, 6 year old normal readers received daily sessions of either delayed or immediate attention to errors. Every second day the subjects also read a text on which they were not tutored. Results showed that delayed attention increased the percent of errors self corrected for five subjects in both the tutored and non tutored texts. Increases in self corrections were consistently associated with increased accuracy. The data supported both the predictions and the proposed model of self correction behaviour as having a tutorial or self instruction function. Both experiments were discussed in terms of the functions of error attention in facilitating acquisition of proficient reading. Methodological issues in the behaviour analysis of oral reading were also discussed and implications from the studies for instruction in learning to read are drawn. The usefulness of concepts from 'structural' accounts of reading for a predictive 'functional' account of error attention is examined in a concluding section.

The effect of attention to oral reading errors has received little specific examination by researchers in applied behaviour analysis. Some data suggest attending to such errors can have inappropriate effects on learning. A conceptual framework was developed to examine the effects of error attention on the acquisition of proficient reading responses. Analyses of reading behaviour employed concepts and data from 'structural' accounts of reading. These concepts provided details of the components of response systems. Acquisition of proficient reading was seen to involve trends towards accurate integrated responding which becomes self controlled. Error attention was conceptualised as having motivational and informational properties which could directly affect acquisition trends. The first experiment (Chapter Three) demonstrated that under appropriate conditions oral reading behaviour was facilitated by error attention. Eleven year old readers in a Learning Disabilities classroom were measured in their usual reading setting. Two readers received extra tutoring with error attention procedures. A further two readers acted as a contrast for the effects of increased opportunities to respond. These readers received extra practice tutoring with minimum levels of praise. A third subject received no extra tutoring during the course of the experiment. Results indicated that both practice and error attention produced substantial increases in accuracy and correct rates. Accuracy levels were higher for error attention subjects suggesting error attention can have important learning outcomes. Additionally, predictions concerning the error attention dimensions of modeling and prompting were tested. Prompts were found to be more effective with the more proficient reader while models were more effective with the less proficient reader. The second experiment (Chapter Four) examined specific predictions about timing of error attention. Six, 6 year old normal readers received daily sessions of either delayed or immediate attention to errors. Every second day the subjects also read a text on which they were not tutored. Results showed that delayed attention increased the percent of errors self corrected for five subjects in both the tutored and non tutored texts. Increases in self corrections were consistently associated with increased accuracy. The data supported both the predictions and the proposed model of self correction behaviour as having a tutorial or self instruction function. Both experiments were discussed in terms of the functions of error attention in facilitating acquisition of proficient reading. Methodological issues in the behaviour analysis of oral reading were also discussed and implications from the studies for instruction in learning to read are drawn. The usefulness of concepts from 'structural' accounts of reading for a predictive 'functional' account of error attention is examined in a concluding section.

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This thesis examines the role of primary school principals as they undertake their role as educational leaders. Part One summarises theories about leadership and places principals' educational leadership in context. Leadership is defined as a social process whereby principals blend biography and context to reconcile positivist, systemic requirements and recommendations with appropriate localised, and individualised, expectations and aspirations. Part Two outlines an ethnographic methodology that justifies a process to gather and analyse data on the work of three principal subjects. This material is presented in cameo form and supported by questionnaire data from a further group of principal colleagues. Principals' leadership is identified as the interpretation of expectations and resources that results in particular actions. This interpretation is sourced in both context and personal biography. Part Three consists of data analysis and findings. The influence and interplay of context and personal biography are outlined. Conclusions are drawn as to the differences between leadership and management practices, and specific leadership activities performed by principals are identified. This leads to a clarification of leadership as a process of control (as opposed to power) that defines, rather than accommodates, the rules of realisation as to appropriate action. Recommendations are made regarding further study into the issues of personal identity, leadership style and the urgent need for principal pre-service and in-service professional development. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.