This study originated from personal experience, as a member of a Board of Trustee (BOT) within Kura Kaupapa Maaori (KKM). The workload required for Kura compliance with government regulation and legislation, was phenomenal. The BOT model seemed to be structured on a corporate model of governance with accountability to the Ministry of Education. This contradicted with the needs of Kura whaanau to be involved in Kura decisionmaking. The BOT model unintentionally created a separation and tension between whaanau and BOT members. This research set out to explore the BOT model of governance within our Kura, from a cultural perspective, rather, than researching problems identified by ERa. The research undertook a review of the literature that placed the BOT model within the 1984 -1990 Economic Reforms. It highlighted the impact of past government policies, and administration, on the Maaori language and culture to illuminate the cultural, economic, political and social context of the establishment of Kura Kaupapa Maaori and the doctrine of Te Aho Matua (TAM). The BOT model, and KKM/TAM, are founded on differing values. The study was approached from a Kaupapa Maaori perspective; not wishing to reaffirm the negative stigma of past research undertaken of Maaori. The objectives of the study were to gain an understanding of whaanau cultural capacity, perceptions and understanding of KKM and TAM; and also, whaanau understanding of the BOT model. The research design consisted of a case study. This involved a questionnaire to all whaanau; and in-depth discussions with a sample of twelve whaanau. Appropriate ethical considerations were given to the process, which addressed both academic and cultural needs. Findings clearly identify the structure, and nature of the BOT model, being problematic within the cultural framework of a KKM underpinned by Te Aho Matua. The values and principles between the model and TAM fundamentally conflict. Findings also identify key factors, that both government and Kura whaanau can utilise, in advancing whaanau governance.

This study originated from personal experience, as a member of a Board of Trustee (BOT) within Kura Kaupapa Maaori (KKM). The workload required for Kura compliance with government regulation and legislation, was phenomenal. The BOT model seemed to be structured on a corporate model of governance with accountability to the Ministry of Education. This contradicted with the needs of Kura whaanau to be involved in Kura decisionmaking. The BOT model unintentionally created a separation and tension between whaanau and BOT members. This research set out to explore the BOT model of governance within our Kura, from a cultural perspective, rather, than researching problems identified by ERa. The research undertook a review of the literature that placed the BOT model within the 1984 -1990 Economic Reforms. It highlighted the impact of past government policies, and administration, on the Maaori language and culture to illuminate the cultural, economic, political and social context of the establishment of Kura Kaupapa Maaori and the doctrine of Te Aho Matua (TAM). The BOT model, and KKM/TAM, are founded on differing values. The study was approached from a Kaupapa Maaori perspective; not wishing to reaffirm the negative stigma of past research undertaken of Maaori. The objectives of the study were to gain an understanding of whaanau cultural capacity, perceptions and understanding of KKM and TAM; and also, whaanau understanding of the BOT model. The research design consisted of a case study. This involved a questionnaire to all whaanau; and in-depth discussions with a sample of twelve whaanau. Appropriate ethical considerations were given to the process, which addressed both academic and cultural needs. Findings clearly identify the structure, and nature of the BOT model, being problematic within the cultural framework of a KKM underpinned by Te Aho Matua. The values and principles between the model and TAM fundamentally conflict. Findings also identify key factors, that both government and Kura whaanau can utilise, in advancing whaanau governance.

This study originated from personal experience, as a member of a Board of Trustee (BOT) within Kura Kaupapa Maaori (KKM). The workload required for Kura compliance with government regulation and legislation, was phenomenal. The BOT model seemed to be structured on a corporate model of governance with accountability to the Ministry of Education. This contradicted with the needs of Kura whaanau to be involved in Kura decisionmaking. The BOT model unintentionally created a separation and tension between whaanau and BOT members. This research set out to explore the BOT model of governance within our Kura, from a cultural perspective, rather, than researching problems identified by ERa. The research undertook a review of the literature that placed the BOT model within the 1984 -1990 Economic Reforms. It highlighted the impact of past government policies, and administration, on the Maaori language and culture to illuminate the cultural, economic, political and social context of the establishment of Kura Kaupapa Maaori and the doctrine of Te Aho Matua (TAM). The BOT model, and KKM/TAM, are founded on differing values. The study was approached from a Kaupapa Maaori perspective; not wishing to reaffirm the negative stigma of past research undertaken of Maaori. The objectives of the study were to gain an understanding of whaanau cultural capacity, perceptions and understanding of KKM and TAM; and also, whaanau understanding of the BOT model. The research design consisted of a case study. This involved a questionnaire to all whaanau; and in-depth discussions with a sample of twelve whaanau. Appropriate ethical considerations were given to the process, which addressed both academic and cultural needs. Findings clearly identify the structure, and nature of the BOT model, being problematic within the cultural framework of a KKM underpinned by Te Aho Matua. The values and principles between the model and TAM fundamentally conflict. Findings also identify key factors, that both government and Kura whaanau can utilise, in advancing whaanau governance.

This study uses a sociocultural framework to trace the experiences of 24 Chinese international undergraduate students studying business and information sciences in a New Zealand university, using community of practice perspectives recognising the university as a site of complex discourses requiring negotiation of new identities and practices. The students’ expectations, the issues that emerged and the processes of change they went through to meet their goals were investigated from retrospective and longitudinal viewpoints, using semi-structured interviews supported by schematic representations developed by the researcher and photographic representations compiled by participants were. The findings suggest that preparation before departure focused largely on expected English demands, rather than wider matters of academic culture, and this was only partially rectified during prior study in New Zealand. Students thus entered the university unfamiliar with its specific discourses and found conditions for resolving difficulties more limited than previously experienced. The anonymity and extreme time pressure pertaining in large first-year classes led to bewilderment about requirements, threats to the sense of identity as competent students which they had arrived with, and often, failure of courses. Nevertheless, the investment, personal and monetary, which this journey represented provided the incentive to persevere. Most students were resourceful in negotiating a fit between their learning preferences and the affordances of the university, resulting in very different journeys for each of them. Measures adopted included those sanctioned by the university, such as developing skills to meet the demands of academic literacies, and others less valued, such as extreme dependence on teacher consultation. Success was gained through personal agency which proved more important than the university goal of student autonomy. Beyond the academic arena, other activities such as part-time jobs were significant in contributing to a sense of identity as competent and educated adults, and to new viewpoints which contrasted with original cultural norms. They continued to identify as Chinese, but in a “third space” owing something to New Zealand influences. The study concludes that entry criteria should include a component of university preparation. It also recommends measures by which the university might enhance the experiences of such students.

This study uses a sociocultural framework to trace the experiences of 24 Chinese international undergraduate students studying business and information sciences in a New Zealand university, using community of practice perspectives recognising the university as a site of complex discourses requiring negotiation of new identities and practices. The students’ expectations, the issues that emerged and the processes of change they went through to meet their goals were investigated from retrospective and longitudinal viewpoints, using semi-structured interviews supported by schematic representations developed by the researcher and photographic representations compiled by participants were. The findings suggest that preparation before departure focused largely on expected English demands, rather than wider matters of academic culture, and this was only partially rectified during prior study in New Zealand. Students thus entered the university unfamiliar with its specific discourses and found conditions for resolving difficulties more limited than previously experienced. The anonymity and extreme time pressure pertaining in large first-year classes led to bewilderment about requirements, threats to the sense of identity as competent students which they had arrived with, and often, failure of courses. Nevertheless, the investment, personal and monetary, which this journey represented provided the incentive to persevere. Most students were resourceful in negotiating a fit between their learning preferences and the affordances of the university, resulting in very different journeys for each of them. Measures adopted included those sanctioned by the university, such as developing skills to meet the demands of academic literacies, and others less valued, such as extreme dependence on teacher consultation. Success was gained through personal agency which proved more important than the university goal of student autonomy. Beyond the academic arena, other activities such as part-time jobs were significant in contributing to a sense of identity as competent and educated adults, and to new viewpoints which contrasted with original cultural norms. They continued to identify as Chinese, but in a “third space” owing something to New Zealand influences. The study concludes that entry criteria should include a component of university preparation. It also recommends measures by which the university might enhance the experiences of such students.

Paging jumps from viii to xi. / National calls for equality of opportunity have not been matched by reciprocal responses by girls to participate and achieve in design and technology subjects in Zimbabwean secondary and high schools. Current levels of girls' participation and achievement are of national concern. The study found that fourth form girls' low design and technology subjects enrolment and limited success have ensured a near all-male environment resulting in personal career progression limitations for girls and a gender segregated national socioeconomic society. It is acknowledged that outside Zimbabwe, models of student subject participation and achievement have been studied in the past resulting in the implementation of various motivational and retention strategies. Whilst accepting that girls' decisions concerning participation and achievement-related choices for or against design and technology subjects are individual and complex, some complex and interrelated contributory factors are explored. These are carried out in the context of Zimbabwe in this case study research which involved eight secondary schools of four different types targeting 321 fourth form girls, 26 design and technology subject teachers, eight principals, eight families and two education officers. The eclectic data collection approach chosen for the study relied on multiple sources of information being collected using a variety of techniques such as the student questionnaire, focus group interviews, in-depth interviews, lesson observations, and document and content analysis. The effects of various overt and covert forms of home and school processes of difference, inequality and oppression were explored in the data and how these have affected fourth form girls' design and technology subjects participation and achievement-related decisions. In particular, the effects of home and school contextual and climatic factors have been found to largely militate against girls' 'fit' with design and technology subjects culture, staff and workshop environment. A model involving the student and school contextual and climatic dimensions, to explain girls' participation and achievement perspectives is suggested and explained encompassing sociological, psychological and gender perspectives. Findings in this study contribute to an understanding of girls' participation and achievement processes in design and technology subjects in the African context, a dimension that has been largely missing from mainstream debates on the subject.

This qualitative and interpretive study explores how young children experience humour and playfulness in their communication. Data were gathered in three early childhood education centres. The ethnographic method used was primarily participant observation, with the aid of a video camera and tape-recorder. Socio-cultural historical activity theory informs both the methodological paradigm of the research and the framework for data analysis. The research focuses on systems of interactions rather than individuals. The diversity and complexity in children's playful and humorous communication is illuminated by presenting 24 narrative-like "events" involving such communication. This presentation makes clear the dynamic qualities and artifact-mediated dialectical nature of playful and humorous communication activity. "Artifacts" include material and non-material tools, symbols, and semiotic signs (Wartofsky, 1979). Relationships between the roles, rules, and the community of children and teachers engaged in each event are discussed. Tensions and contradictions in these relationships (including children's playful subversion of adult rules) are explored. This thesis argues that humour, playfulness, and imagination are shared and distributed across groups of children. Thus children's imaginations, including their individual experiences, are dynamically shared with and connect the group. Playful and humorous communication involves words, sounds, gestures, posture, rhythm, and movement. At times the synchronous movements and speech of children having fun together are like a spontaneously improvised dance. Boundaries between children are blurred by the activity. The children become united by shared and distributed imagination in playful and humorous diversity. This study suggests that individual children in early childhood centres should be viewed as fundamentally connected to each other. Individuals exist in relation to others. Children's relationships with others, their environment, and artifacts are central to understanding children's experience of playful and humorous communication.

In 1975 the New Zealand Department of Education established a Committee on Health and Social Education, with the aim of addressing curriculum issues that had remained unresolved since the Thomas Report of 1944. Among these concerns was the issue of sex education. This Committee, also known as the Johnson Committee, was conceived under a liberal Labour government but its recommendations were debated during the terms of office of two subsequent National Ministers of Education. The work of the Committee on Health and Social Education was undertaken concurrently with the movements known as the Maori Renaissance and second wave feminism and within a climate of social and legislative change which included the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Bill of 1977. When the Report of the Committee on Health and Social Education, Growing, Sharing, Learning (1977), was published there was little controversy over its sixty-nine recommendations on physical health, outdoor education, parent education, or community involvement in curriculum development. Its two recommendations on sex education however provoked a polarised debate lasting more than five years. In the context of this controversy a coalition of groups representing the Religious Right worked concurrently to oppose further liberalisation of the primary school health education syllabus. This lobby was led by the Concerned Parents' Association, the executive of which assumed the role of the "moral entrepreneur" to raise public awareness on issues of sex and moral education. A range of theory is used to discuss the contextual antecedents of the controversy, the reasons for the controversy and why it became increasingly difficult for the educational policy community to exercise hegemony over the outcomes of the Report. This thesis reveals that the Report of the Committee on Health and Social Education encompassed a bicultural dimension, and was the work of a liberal educational community of interest. It examines the underlying causes of the ideological tensions of the controversy and the construct of moral cathexis is introduced, to explain the means by which the Religious Right was able to influence subsequent policy. It is argued that the same ideological tensions are inherent in contemporary attempts to encompass sex education within the state school curriculum.

The use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in early childhood education (ECE) is controversial. Currently, ICT in ECE is experiencing a second wave of popularity. While many of the recurring debates exist around the use of technology in the education sector it would appear that ICT is here to stay. A distinguishing feature of the literature across both waves is a growing appreciation of the importance of pedagogy and the key role of the teacher. This thesis builds on this broad concept of pedagogy by investigating the growth of ICT in ECE. The aim of the study was to discover new insight and understanding of how parents‟, teachers‟ and children‟s perceptions of the use of ICT in ECE influence the surrounding practice. A mixed-method approach was undertaken with a sample group in three distinct phases in one geographical location in the greater Wellington region. The study adopted an interpretive framework to inform the research methodology and help explain the findings. The findings across the three phases show the multifaceted nature of ICT and the many layers that are required to ensure that it can be offered in an authentic and meaningful way in ECE. When this approach is not evident it constrains the integrated use of ICT and affects the quality of the programme offered. Factors that influence the level of quality include: (a) the role of teacher‟s beliefs and self-efficacy; (b) fluid conceptions of pedagogy; (c) the competing and co-existing drivers associated with the use of ICT in ECE; (d) the changing face of literacy; (e) barriers affecting the full integration; and (f) the implications of policy on practice. The thesis draws on the framework of an enabled and enacted ICT curriculum developed in the literature review, as a tool to indicate and understand the current state of the level of ICT integration in ECE centres. Overall the findings show that participating teachers have begun their ICT journey and are working towards the goal of offering an authentic and meaningful educational experience. Yet, the research shows that the many layers of support necessary to ensure teachers continue to move forward on this journey are not well understood. A failure to address these gaps may sadly lead to a “third wave” of ICT in which history repeats itself.

This thesis explores the phenomenon of shared leadership as it emerged in three primary schools in Aotearoa/New Zealand, during the 1990s restructuring of educational administration. At this time, two 'mainstream' discourses of professional collaborative leadership and neo-liberal managerialism came into 'collision.' The principal's role was re-constituted from being a collaborative instructional leader, to being a chief executive, entrepreneurial manager. Separate contracts for principals and senior school managers detailed managerial tasks, performance standards and accountability lines that heightened the existing divisions between them and other teachers. The possibility of developing 'flattened,' more democratic forms of shared decision making- and leadership seemed increasingly remote. Yet it was in this context that a small number of co-principalships were initiated around the country. The study employs narrative, Foucauldian and feminist poststructuralist discourse analysis tools to examine how opportunities for change opened up within 'cracks' and contradictions in the 1990s discursive terrain of educational leadership. Moving between micro and macro analyses, the thesis demonstrates how individual and collective agency is enacted within and against dominant discourses, effecting transformations of practice. Three groups of women challenged and/or co-opted elements of managerial, professional and feminist discourses of organisation as they developed their co-principalships. These initiatives opened up for many people different ways of thinking about and practising school leadership: as one child said about her school, "Here there is no boss." Three case narratives provide insights into strategies for developing more fully democratic partnerships between principals and staff, principals and board members, professionals and parents. Open, honest communication and mutual forms of accountability that go beyond current requirements for contractual, task specific and linear forms of control, are particularly significant for a successful co-principalship. Governmental forms of power, material inequalities and socio-cultural hegemonies of gender, class and ethnicity, can constrain the democratic potential of shared leaderships however. Related factors that led to the disestablishment of two or the co-principalships included inequalities of knowledge and experience, difficulties over funding and staffing, and struggles between a governing body and their co-principals over the meanings and practices of governance and management. There are flaws in arguments that posit a generic model of 'strong' management that can be imposed across all schools, with assumed uniform results. This study shows how people's beliefs about and practices of school leadership are constituted in relation to their own backgrounds, interactions with other people in their local school community and wider socio-political, economic and discursive struggles over power.