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.

This study describes the attributes of a highly accomplished mathematics teacher as reported by the students in their class, and also determines whether high school students can differentiate between highly accomplished mathematics teachers and others. The 51-item instrument, Students Evaluating Accomplished Teaching – Mathematics, was developed to map the construct of highly accomplished teaching as articulated by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards in their Adolescent and Young Adulthood Mathematics Standards. Two focus groups of New Zealand high school mathematics teachers reviewed these Standards, and found that there were more similarities than differences between the Standards and what they would expect of a highly accomplished teacher in New Zealand. Questionnaire items were drafted relating to each of 470 statements in the Standards. These items were trialled in New Zealand high schools, and analysed using factor analysis and item response theory, to select items that completely mapped the Standards. The questionnaire was then administered to 1611 students in the classes of thirty-two National Board Certified Teachers and twenty-six non-Board colleagues in 13 states of the USA. Multivariate analysis of variance and discriminant function analysis were used to establish that students can record and report the difference between NBCTs and their non-Board certified colleagues, and describe what students believe are the attributes of a good teacher. Highly accomplished teachers build a relationship between their students and the mathematics curriculum, as well as with the language and processes of mathematics, by engaging their minds with challenging material and rich tasks. These results provide further validation of the NBPTS certification process, and indicate that students provide dependable evaluations of their teachers. The student evaluation questionnaire could be used with confidence in both the USA and New Zealand to identify highly accomplished mathematics teachers.

This thesis explores reasons for New Zealand���s problematic tail of literacy underachievement and suggests one way to address the problem, is for schools to operate as learning organizations. A qualitative research design was used to identify elements of organizational learning in the practices of three very different schools identified as improving the students��� learning outcomes. The research methods included semi-structured interviews, team meeting observations, an anonymous questionnaire and document analysis. An analytical framework identifying five elements of organizational learning, developed from a review of the organizational learning literature, was used to evaluate each school���s ability to learn about their teaching and learning programmes as a result of reviewing students��� achievement information. The research findings identified elements of the organizational learning framework in the practices of all three schools. It was found that whilst the elements of the framework were necessary, the entirety of the framework was most significant in facilitating organizational learning. In order for the schools to learn to improve the learning of their students, they needed to have a well defined infrastructure for the collection, collation, analysis and use of student achievement information. The occurrence of the infrastructure alone did not, however, facilitate organizational learning. The school leaders and teachers needed to apply the appropriate curriculum content, pedagogical and assessment literacy knowledge to the assessment data in order to make sense of it and to use the information to review and refine their teaching and learning programmes. The acquisition of appropriate levels of professional knowledge appeared to be facilitated within a culture where teachers felt safe and confident to challenge and be challenged in their collegial discussions about students��� learning. Rigorous collegial discussions appeared to foster team learning and to be leader driven. When the appropriate professional knowledge was not available within the organization, learning only appeared to occur when the necessary expertise was accessed from the external environment.

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.

This study describes the attributes of a highly accomplished mathematics teacher as reported by the students in their class, and also determines whether high school students can differentiate between highly accomplished mathematics teachers and others. The 51-item instrument, Students Evaluating Accomplished Teaching – Mathematics, was developed to map the construct of highly accomplished teaching as articulated by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards in their Adolescent and Young Adulthood Mathematics Standards. Two focus groups of New Zealand high school mathematics teachers reviewed these Standards, and found that there were more similarities than differences between the Standards and what they would expect of a highly accomplished teacher in New Zealand. Questionnaire items were drafted relating to each of 470 statements in the Standards. These items were trialled in New Zealand high schools, and analysed using factor analysis and item response theory, to select items that completely mapped the Standards. The questionnaire was then administered to 1611 students in the classes of thirty-two National Board Certified Teachers and twenty-six non-Board colleagues in 13 states of the USA. Multivariate analysis of variance and discriminant function analysis were used to establish that students can record and report the difference between NBCTs and their non-Board certified colleagues, and describe what students believe are the attributes of a good teacher. Highly accomplished teachers build a relationship between their students and the mathematics curriculum, as well as with the language and processes of mathematics, by engaging their minds with challenging material and rich tasks. These results provide further validation of the NBPTS certification process, and indicate that students provide dependable evaluations of their teachers. The student evaluation questionnaire could be used with confidence in both the USA and New Zealand to identify highly accomplished mathematics teachers.

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 is a study of a) the nature and incidence of independent learning defined as "knowing how to generate and direct the processes of learning...*(see p.3) in new entrant classroom settings and, b) the nature of the teacher-child interactions associated with such independent learning. Systematic observation was used at school entry and three months later, to identify aspects of independent learning and the associated teacher behaviours. Six categories of child directed acts identified the range of behaviours from which independent learning could be inferred. Each category of teacher behaviour that appeared to facilitate independent learning in children was developed as a "mirror image" of each category of child directed acts. The teacher and four children in two new entrant classes were observed over the whole day for five days during two observation periods, one at the beginning of Term three and the other after 12 weeks. Each class was involved in normal classroom activities that covered the whole curriculum. The children were engaging in a considerable amount of independent learning on entry to school and three months later. Many facilitative teaching acts occurred in the interactive style that was demonstrated in all aspects of the curriculum. The teachers spent a considerable portion of teaching time assisting children in one-to-one teaching situations and in small groups, encouraging their responses and fostering and supporting independence in their learning. There was some difference observed between teachers in the attention given to different categories and in the facilitative behaviour occurring in one-to-one interactions and small group teaching interactions. A way of teaching emerges that differs from a teaching agenda determined by didactic, traditional instruction. The two teachers were deemed to be using the children's agenda to foster and support them in independent learning in the various curriculum areas. Some of the practical and philosophical features of the New Zealand education system that may contribute to this particular style of teaching are discussed. The theories of learning and teaching deriving from this study place a value on independent learning (as here defined) in new entrant children and on the teacher’s role in providing opportunities for it to develop. Independent learning a) ensures the continuation of learning at times when the teacher is directly engaged with other children, and b) derives from a teacher expectation that children will be able to actively process ideas and make some decisions about their learning. It engenders a power in children that sustains the momentum of learning.

An investigation into the assessment of the moral components which were developed by John Wilson, is reported. Tests fox the classroom measurement of two components were developed. The components were; PHIL(CC), the claiming of concern for other persons as an overriding, universal, and prescriptive principle in moral decision making; and; GIG, knowledge of factual information which is relevant in making moral decisions which subjects face. The test development exercise was undertaken at a time when public interest in moral education was growing. The recent demand for moral education in Auckland is reviewed. Over the last fifteen years, since the Currie Commission Report, reports by committees investigating the purposes of schools have increasingly emphasised moral and social education as school objectives. The Department of Education appeared to be sympathetic towards the cause of moral education. The submissions made by the public during the Educational Development Conference suggested that, in general, parents and citizens were prepared to consider innovative programmes in social or moral education, although there was little agreement on what form such training or education should take. A number of teachers were supporters of moral education. The primary purpose in constructing tests for Wilson's components was to provide an instrument which would assist in the evaluation of moral education curriculum projects in Auckland secondary schools. Evidence concerning descriptive, content, domain selection, construct and concurrent validity is presented. Kuder-Richardson, retest and criterion-referenced reliability studies were undertaken. It is claimed that an instrument with sufficient validity and reliability has bean produced for the summative evaluation of curriculum projects, and the diagnostic investigation of class groups using the test as a criterion-referenced measure. Auckland intermediate and secondary school pupils were surveyed, using the tests produced and punch card recording in an attempt to identify significant variables. Over 1,100 children completed the tests under controlled conditions. Significant variables identified using the test for PHIL(CC) were socio-economic level for twelve-year-old children, and intelligence for sixteen-year-old children. The effect of schooling appeared to be significant at all levels. Age does not appear to markedly increase children's concern for others. Age was related to performance in the knowledge test. Older children knew more. Other significant variables for GIG were socio-economic level (middle levels performed better) and the effects of schooling. There was some evidence that females know more than males. In both tests it appears that there is considerable interaction between the variables. Suggestions for the further development of the tests are given.

This thesis investigates the problem of how to speed up the process through which professional educators learn how to significantly improve disadvantaged students’ academic achievement. The problem is addressed through three questions: (i) What are the most effective national and international examples of school improvement? (ii) What is the condition of the evidence base for making claims of effectiveness? (iii) What can be learned about developing and implementing effective school improvement from those national and international examples? The thesis begins by searching international and national school improvement literature to find those initiatives with the strongest evidence of effectiveness. One initiative in England (the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies) and four initiatives in the United States (Success For All, Direct Instruction, The School Development Programme & a district-wide reform in New York District #2) were considered to have strong evidence of effectiveness. Two initiatives in New Zealand (the Numeracy Development Project & the Strengthening Education in Mangere and Otara project commonly called SEMO) had evidence that showed promise. It is argued that patterns of investment in different types of evaluation and ease of access to achievement information account for the difference between the strong international evidence and promising evidence in New Zealand. A series of investigations in the middle of the thesis focus on the processes set up in the initiatives to help practitioners learn effective reform practices. Three models of learning processes are developed which reveal a strong preference for vertical learning in England and the United States and a more balanced vertical-horizontal learning preference in New Zealand. Despite those contrasts, three characteristics were found to be common to all seven effective initiatives. They are a sharp focus on instructional improvement, a set of standardised practices, and, learning connections to transfer the reform ideas into practice. The latter part of the thesis transforms those three characteristics into a theory for schooling improvement which contribute to a faster and more effective reform process.