The purpose of this thesis is to reflect upon the complex process of educating the sons and daughters of immigrant parents from diverse cultural communities. The study stresses the importance of valuing the language and culture of students in Aotearoa-New Zealand for whom English is another language. It is argued that the discourse of what shall be called ‘technocratic pedagogy’ falls short of meeting this goal. What is needed is more expansive and inclusive programmes that apprehend the social, economic, and political contexts of learning. This is necessary if the students are to continue their education not simply to absorb prescribed information and ideas but to actively understand, question, challenge, and change the school and the classroom. The thesis is written from the perspective of an indigenous Maori teacher trained in technocratic approaches of practice looking to aspects of her intimate culture, Tongan and Samoan ways of representing the world, and Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy to transform contemporary education that tends to exclude the adolescents from learning in school. This thesis is not simply another contribution to the ways in which teachers of school English in general think about methodologies and approaches to learning; rather, it is addressed more specifically to those Maori, Tongan, and Samoan teachers in this country who work with and alongside communities who are from the Kingdom of Tonga and the islands of Samoa. Thus, there is great value placed on educational experience with indigenous Tongan and Samoan teachers and students in an educational project referred to in the thesis as a ‘School-within-a-school’. The School-within-a-school refers to a site of education for teaching school English to immigrant adolescents within a large, state, secondary school in the city of Auckland. Particular attention is also paid to educational experience with indigenous teachers in a Curriculum Committee and Maori and Tongan grassroots organisations located within the same school. A fresh approach to teaching English accepts culture as the ground on which to begin to reflect on a practice within a specific context. The teachers who have a dynamic relationship with students argue that culture is a primary site for contradictions and that a revolutionary challenge to technocratic pedagogy is necessary, but not sufficient, to value and actively include the students in school. Since the English language and its attendant practices, values, traditions, and aspirations are the grounds for the students' marginalisation, immediate, consciously organised changes in the teaching beliefs, contents of education, and society at large in Aotearoa are necessary parts of any reintegrative pedagogy. On this account, the belief is that pedagogy is vitally important since it can enable the students to understand the technocratic discourse and draw upon the personal and collective experiences to counter the tendency that denies them full participation in school and the classroom. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

The purpose of this thesis is to reflect upon the complex process of educating the sons and daughters of immigrant parents from diverse cultural communities. The study stresses the importance of valuing the language and culture of students in Aotearoa-New Zealand for whom English is another language. It is argued that the discourse of what shall be called ‘technocratic pedagogy’ falls short of meeting this goal. What is needed is more expansive and inclusive programmes that apprehend the social, economic, and political contexts of learning. This is necessary if the students are to continue their education not simply to absorb prescribed information and ideas but to actively understand, question, challenge, and change the school and the classroom. The thesis is written from the perspective of an indigenous Maori teacher trained in technocratic approaches of practice looking to aspects of her intimate culture, Tongan and Samoan ways of representing the world, and Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy to transform contemporary education that tends to exclude the adolescents from learning in school. This thesis is not simply another contribution to the ways in which teachers of school English in general think about methodologies and approaches to learning; rather, it is addressed more specifically to those Maori, Tongan, and Samoan teachers in this country who work with and alongside communities who are from the Kingdom of Tonga and the islands of Samoa. Thus, there is great value placed on educational experience with indigenous Tongan and Samoan teachers and students in an educational project referred to in the thesis as a ‘School-within-a-school’. The School-within-a-school refers to a site of education for teaching school English to immigrant adolescents within a large, state, secondary school in the city of Auckland. Particular attention is also paid to educational experience with indigenous teachers in a Curriculum Committee and Maori and Tongan grassroots organisations located within the same school. A fresh approach to teaching English accepts culture as the ground on which to begin to reflect on a practice within a specific context. The teachers who have a dynamic relationship with students argue that culture is a primary site for contradictions and that a revolutionary challenge to technocratic pedagogy is necessary, but not sufficient, to value and actively include the students in school. Since the English language and its attendant practices, values, traditions, and aspirations are the grounds for the students' marginalisation, immediate, consciously organised changes in the teaching beliefs, contents of education, and society at large in Aotearoa are necessary parts of any reintegrative pedagogy. On this account, the belief is that pedagogy is vitally important since it can enable the students to understand the technocratic discourse and draw upon the personal and collective experiences to counter the tendency that denies them full participation in school and the classroom. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

The purpose of this thesis is to reflect upon the complex process of educating the sons and daughters of immigrant parents from diverse cultural communities. The study stresses the importance of valuing the language and culture of students in Aotearoa-New Zealand for whom English is another language. It is argued that the discourse of what shall be called ‘technocratic pedagogy’ falls short of meeting this goal. What is needed is more expansive and inclusive programmes that apprehend the social, economic, and political contexts of learning. This is necessary if the students are to continue their education not simply to absorb prescribed information and ideas but to actively understand, question, challenge, and change the school and the classroom. The thesis is written from the perspective of an indigenous Maori teacher trained in technocratic approaches of practice looking to aspects of her intimate culture, Tongan and Samoan ways of representing the world, and Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy to transform contemporary education that tends to exclude the adolescents from learning in school. This thesis is not simply another contribution to the ways in which teachers of school English in general think about methodologies and approaches to learning; rather, it is addressed more specifically to those Maori, Tongan, and Samoan teachers in this country who work with and alongside communities who are from the Kingdom of Tonga and the islands of Samoa. Thus, there is great value placed on educational experience with indigenous Tongan and Samoan teachers and students in an educational project referred to in the thesis as a ‘School-within-a-school’. The School-within-a-school refers to a site of education for teaching school English to immigrant adolescents within a large, state, secondary school in the city of Auckland. Particular attention is also paid to educational experience with indigenous teachers in a Curriculum Committee and Maori and Tongan grassroots organisations located within the same school. A fresh approach to teaching English accepts culture as the ground on which to begin to reflect on a practice within a specific context. The teachers who have a dynamic relationship with students argue that culture is a primary site for contradictions and that a revolutionary challenge to technocratic pedagogy is necessary, but not sufficient, to value and actively include the students in school. Since the English language and its attendant practices, values, traditions, and aspirations are the grounds for the students' marginalisation, immediate, consciously organised changes in the teaching beliefs, contents of education, and society at large in Aotearoa are necessary parts of any reintegrative pedagogy. On this account, the belief is that pedagogy is vitally important since it can enable the students to understand the technocratic discourse and draw upon the personal and collective experiences to counter the tendency that denies them full participation in school and the classroom. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

The purpose of this thesis is to reflect upon the complex process of educating the sons and daughters of immigrant parents from diverse cultural communities. The study stresses the importance of valuing the language and culture of students in Aotearoa-New Zealand for whom English is another language. It is argued that the discourse of what shall be called ‘technocratic pedagogy’ falls short of meeting this goal. What is needed is more expansive and inclusive programmes that apprehend the social, economic, and political contexts of learning. This is necessary if the students are to continue their education not simply to absorb prescribed information and ideas but to actively understand, question, challenge, and change the school and the classroom. The thesis is written from the perspective of an indigenous Maori teacher trained in technocratic approaches of practice looking to aspects of her intimate culture, Tongan and Samoan ways of representing the world, and Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy to transform contemporary education that tends to exclude the adolescents from learning in school. This thesis is not simply another contribution to the ways in which teachers of school English in general think about methodologies and approaches to learning; rather, it is addressed more specifically to those Maori, Tongan, and Samoan teachers in this country who work with and alongside communities who are from the Kingdom of Tonga and the islands of Samoa. Thus, there is great value placed on educational experience with indigenous Tongan and Samoan teachers and students in an educational project referred to in the thesis as a ‘School-within-a-school’. The School-within-a-school refers to a site of education for teaching school English to immigrant adolescents within a large, state, secondary school in the city of Auckland. Particular attention is also paid to educational experience with indigenous teachers in a Curriculum Committee and Maori and Tongan grassroots organisations located within the same school. A fresh approach to teaching English accepts culture as the ground on which to begin to reflect on a practice within a specific context. The teachers who have a dynamic relationship with students argue that culture is a primary site for contradictions and that a revolutionary challenge to technocratic pedagogy is necessary, but not sufficient, to value and actively include the students in school. Since the English language and its attendant practices, values, traditions, and aspirations are the grounds for the students' marginalisation, immediate, consciously organised changes in the teaching beliefs, contents of education, and society at large in Aotearoa are necessary parts of any reintegrative pedagogy. On this account, the belief is that pedagogy is vitally important since it can enable the students to understand the technocratic discourse and draw upon the personal and collective experiences to counter the tendency that denies them full participation in school and the classroom. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

The purpose of this thesis is to reflect upon the complex process of educating the sons and daughters of immigrant parents from diverse cultural communities. The study stresses the importance of valuing the language and culture of students in Aotearoa-New Zealand for whom English is another language. It is argued that the discourse of what shall be called ‘technocratic pedagogy’ falls short of meeting this goal. What is needed is more expansive and inclusive programmes that apprehend the social, economic, and political contexts of learning. This is necessary if the students are to continue their education not simply to absorb prescribed information and ideas but to actively understand, question, challenge, and change the school and the classroom. The thesis is written from the perspective of an indigenous Maori teacher trained in technocratic approaches of practice looking to aspects of her intimate culture, Tongan and Samoan ways of representing the world, and Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy to transform contemporary education that tends to exclude the adolescents from learning in school. This thesis is not simply another contribution to the ways in which teachers of school English in general think about methodologies and approaches to learning; rather, it is addressed more specifically to those Maori, Tongan, and Samoan teachers in this country who work with and alongside communities who are from the Kingdom of Tonga and the islands of Samoa. Thus, there is great value placed on educational experience with indigenous Tongan and Samoan teachers and students in an educational project referred to in the thesis as a ‘School-within-a-school’. The School-within-a-school refers to a site of education for teaching school English to immigrant adolescents within a large, state, secondary school in the city of Auckland. Particular attention is also paid to educational experience with indigenous teachers in a Curriculum Committee and Maori and Tongan grassroots organisations located within the same school. A fresh approach to teaching English accepts culture as the ground on which to begin to reflect on a practice within a specific context. The teachers who have a dynamic relationship with students argue that culture is a primary site for contradictions and that a revolutionary challenge to technocratic pedagogy is necessary, but not sufficient, to value and actively include the students in school. Since the English language and its attendant practices, values, traditions, and aspirations are the grounds for the students' marginalisation, immediate, consciously organised changes in the teaching beliefs, contents of education, and society at large in Aotearoa are necessary parts of any reintegrative pedagogy. On this account, the belief is that pedagogy is vitally important since it can enable the students to understand the technocratic discourse and draw upon the personal and collective experiences to counter the tendency that denies them full participation in school and the classroom. / Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations only.

Master of Arts / Department of Communications / Timothy R. Steffensmeier / This thesis examines the production of identity within post web 2.0 virtual communities. Second Life, the community which this study focuses on, is a growing home of educational institutions. To better understand the process of constructing identity and community in the hyper-mediated future, this thesis grapples with the complicated process of creating oneself through analyzing the avatar as self and the home as community. Identity appears to continue to be both a liberating and constraining force, and creating oneself is not as simple as buying a new skin. Through a self-reflexive post-colonial virtual ethnographic exploration of the thesis writers experiences in the virtual world, light will be shed on the ways that identity is being shaped in relation to race and gender.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Lawrence C. Scharmann / This research examines the impact of the “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) Act on elementary science education in the states of Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. Elementary teachers (n=928 total for all states) responded to an online survey, which included both closed-ended and open-ended questions pertaining to the time spent on science instruction and any changes made in science instruction since the implementation of NCLB. More than half of these teachers indicated they have cut time from science instruction since NCLB became law. Follow-up questions with regard to why changes were made in science instruction were also included in the survey. The need to increase time for math and reading instruction was a belief expressed by many of the respondents with other respondents stating a member of their administration mandated changes. This research also examines results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for each of these states to determine if the changes made in response to NCLB helped meet the goal of closing the achievement gap between the disaggregated subgroups of gender, race, and socioeconomic status (SES). The data from the NAEP shows only a few significant changes occurred; however, some included a significant increase in the achievement gap.