Greg Burnett

Language Games and Schooling: Discourses of colonialism in Kiribati education

The present secondary education system in Kiribati is little changed from its establishment and growth through the colonial years when the island group was known as the Gilbert Islands. It is marked by a heavy emphasis on English language and a curriculum geared to place students in a limited labour market. It is also marked by an uneven distribution of privilege across the population it serves. This article suggests a theoretical basis for critiquing the dominant voices in the educational and colonial past and their representations of Kiribati others. In such a critique, the legitimising technologies and discursive practices that have helped shape these educational practices are exposed. The act of exposing “how they did it” in turn creates the conditions for more equitable educational futures. This article presents a critical postcolonial discourse analysis of some language and language teaching policies from the Kiribati educational and colonial past. Though focused on Kiribati, the ideas here have relevance across the Pacific region.

‘It’s all he’s going to say’: using poetic transcription to explore students’ mainstream and residential school experiences

The article explores the experiences of Zac, Bob-Charley, Kip, and Carter (not their real names), four of 15 boys aged between nine and 13 years who, along with their caregivers, families and school principals, were interviewed as part of a project about the students’ transition from a dis-established residential school to mainstream schools. Throughout the course of the project we became increasingly aware of the lack of existing school-focused research that included the voices of students with severe and complex behavioural needs. In this article, therefore, we employ an approach of poetic transcription to illuminate their voices, highlight their experiences, and provide insight into their affective lives.

Research Paradigm Choices Made by Postgraduate Students with Pacific Education Research Interests in New Zealand.

This paper explores the nature of postgraduate research in the broad area of Pacific education completed in New Zealand universities. First, a number of basic trends are identified in terms of institutional affiliation, area of educational research, MA and PhD balance, growth over time, national/ethnic focus and the expected beneficiaries of the research. Secondly, and more significantly, trends in the theorisation of Pacific postgraduate education research are identified using a positivist-interpetivist-emancipationist-deconstructivist paradigm typology as a basis for analysis, in particular the degree to which the latter two research perspectives have been embraced. It is argued that research done within emancipationist and deconstructionist paradigms has the most socially transformative potential. The completion of socially transformative educational research is significant given increasing calls from within Pacific communities to decolonise and re-indigenise both educational research agendas as well as systems of Pacific primary and secondary schooling influenced by educational research. The paper demonstrates, however, that very little emancipationary and deconstructivist education research has been completed. This apparent mismatch is explored in the light of the wider competing educational discourses of Pacific colonisation and indigenisation.

Approaches to English literacy teaching in the Central Pacific Republic of Kiribati: quality teaching, educational aid and curriculum reform

English literacy competence in the Central Pacific Republic of Kiribati is considered important for employment, overseas study and general engagement with a globalizing world. It is also considered as a key factor in the current governments response to climate change and sea level rise, enabling skilled relocation of I-Kiribati to other countries if necessary. This article synthesizes a range of literature sources based on Kiribati literacy education to highlight: a general perception that English literacy standards are in decline; the role of the teacher in addressing that decline; pedagogical approaches to teaching literacy, particularly the historic swing from a highly structured and socially conservative teacher-centred approach to that of a very liberal student-centred approach; and the reliance on Australian and NZ educational aid and consultancy in literacy education. These issues require further debate and investigation in light of unique development problems in Kiribati marked by: rural to urban drift; an increasingly youthful population; limited employment possibilities, and eventual possible large-scale repatriation due to sea level rise. The article tentatively suggests an approach to literacy education based on a four resources model that balances teacher and learner-centredness with socio-cultural and political aspects of literacy.

Supporting Families: A Nurturing Teacher Education Strategy in Nauru.

ABSTRACT There has been little recent documentation concerning Pacific family support for family members locally involved in university study in their Pacific home country and how such responses affect both parties. Some studies dealing with family support for student family members, including Pacific families residing in the USA, have been published. A New Zealand Ministry of Education report on Pasifika students’ educational success rates raised the need for effective family support contexts. Another study researched the family support negotiation patterns of mature-age part-time students in Australia, Hong Kong and Papua New Guinea. Only one University of the South Pacific research focused on Pacific family and community expectations of family members studying and residing with their families in their Pacific home countries. This Nauru-based study describes mixed support responses from Nauruan families towards their teacher education student family members and Nauru Department of Education student engagement and well-being development strategies.

Pacific Elementary School Teachers and Language Policy Critique: Context, Text and Consequences.

This article explores the issue of language policy analysis for elementary school teachers in the Oceania region, that is Polynesian nations in the southern and eastern, Melanesian nations in the western and Micronesian nations in the northern parts of the Pacific Ocean region. It is grounded in an understanding that education policy work of any kind is contested and political but nevertheless an exercise that elementary school teachers need to engage in. The ideas examined in the article are timely given recent ‘re-thinking’ language policy work across the region initiated in early 2005 by the Institute of Education at the University of the South Pacific and the Pacific Regional Initiatives for the Delivery of [basic] Education (PRIDE), in Fiji. This article draws on a template for education policy analysis that enables teachers in particular to ask critical key questions around language policy context, text and consequences (Taylor et al., 1997). These questions offer teachers a language for examining language and language policy issues that concern them in their everyday work and thus a possible way of accessing and contributing to debates from which they are often excluded.

(Re)Conceptualising inclusive education in New Zealand: listening to the hidden voices

Abstract This article explores the experiences of 14 students with severe and complex behaviour, their caregivers, and teachers/principals as the students transition from a disestablished residential school back to mainstream schools, with support from the Intensive Wraparound Service (IWS). Interviews were the primary source of data collection. Data were collated into 14 cases, and analysed using a general inductive approach. Two broad themes are addressed in the article: education and relationships/communication. The research found that the IWS is not living up to its rhetoric. Suggestions made for improvement are based on approaches that participants found worked for them.

Children's Changing Urban Lives: A Comparative New Zealand–Pacific Perspective

Pacific Island countries are undergoing processes of urbanization and globalization. This paper asks what these processes mean for childrens lived realities and for urban planning in the Pacific. It reports on findings from a study undertaken with children aged 9-13 years in schools in Suva, Fiji, and Dunedin, New Zealand, that looked at childrens travel, safety, neighbourhood relationships and how they use their local urban environment. This research presents information and understandings that can inform the development of urban areas and enable planners to respond more effectively to meeting the needs of children living in a rapidly urbanizing Pacific.