Volume 4, Issue 2, 2007

A Tribute to John Codd and Roy Nash
PAUL ADAMS & JOHN O’NEILL

This editorial is a very brief tribute to the lives and academic work of two irreplaceable New Zealand academics and colleagues – Professors John Codd and Roy Nash – both of whom died recently.  Both were deeply committed to the importance of education and the impact of teachers’ work on students, communities and society. They both had a profound vision of a society that was fair and just for all its citizens. While they constantly argued for the value of education in creating such a society, they also were wise and brave enough to point out the bounds of what was actually realistic and possible for New Zealand teachers to contribute to this project ...

Education's 'Inconvenient Truth': Part One - Persistent Middle Class Advantage
MARTIN THRUPP

As a policy sociologist I have long been drawn to uncomfortable questions about whose interests are really being served in and through education. I’ve been interested in how developments in education policy and practice can lead to greater social inequalities and how seemingly worthwhile policies and practices can be undone by other developments. In recent years I’ve also increasingly turned the spotlight back on us as academics and researchers, to consider the politics of our own work and ask awkward questions about whether we are part of the problem too …

Five Factors for Effective Teaching
PHILIP GURNEY

At the beginning of this year I set myself a goal and that was to try to establish an understanding of the concept of good teaching. I wanted to see if it were possible to encapsulate the qualities of a good teacher and good teaching in a good learning environment so that one could hold these qualities up as a benchmark for all teachers to see and to aspire towards ...

Putting the Community Back Into Inquiry Based Learning
RA DAVIS

The current quest to implement inquiry based learning would be all the better for some philosophical enrichment. The emphasis of successful enquiry lies in developing the classroom environment into a true community of inquiry. This community has its roots firmly planted in the traditions of philosophy ...

'Slicing up the Funding Pie'. Tertiary Funding in New Zealand: Where It's Been and Where It's Going
MATT RUSSELL

For the past three years life hasn’t been particularly happy for those of us involved in tertiary education. Staff at almost every institution have been faced with ongoing job insecurity as a wave of major staffing and budgetary cuts have swept the sector  ...

Culture of Care: A Chronology of New Zealand Teacher Induction Policy
SQUIRREL MAIN AND MARY HILL

This paper provides an overview of induction highlights for each decade, and concludes by highlighting current practices in exemplar schools.  The argument is that induction has moved from an individualistic outlook in the 1970’s to a humanistic stance in the mid-1980’s, and New Zealand stands poised to adopt a vanguard pedagogical viewpoint from a current wave of induction reform  ...

Moral Education in Asia: Pressures, Contradictions and Future Directions
JOHN CLARK

Moral education is gaining increasing attention in Asia; this was clearly evidenced by those attending the conference of the Asian Pacific Network for Moral Education held at Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China, 12-14 May, 2007 ...