Karen Nairn

A counter-narrative of a ‘failed’ interview

In a broader research project about students’ perceptions of their rights in New Zealand high schools, the first author conducted an interview with a group of students that was noticeably different from her interviews with groups of students at three other high schools. This article was prompted in the first instance by a sense of this ‘noticeably different’ interview being a ‘failure’ because of the limited spoken text elicited. In this article we demonstrate what we can learn from data regarding embodiment, the interview setting, silence, laughter and, in the process, we attempt to practise ‘uncomfortable reflexivities’ advocated by Pillow (2003). We argue that an apparently ‘failed’ interview has a great deal to teach us about the theory and practice of qualitative research and the tenuous nature of the production of knowledge. We finish by identifying how our experience of this ‘failed’ interview informs our current research.

The Problems of Utilizing ‘Direct Experience’ in Geography Education

Many fieldtrips are designed so that students might have direct experience of ‘the landscape’ and/or ‘the people’. But as Scott (1992) warns, experience of ‘the real world’ is never transparent and unmediated. It is with this central idea in mind that the author (re)examines the epistemology of two human geography fieldtrips that concerned recent migrants to New Zealand in order to show how they trade on a logocentric essentializing epistemology. Scotts (1992) critique of experience forms the central theoretical framework of the article. The author draws on this framework to review the geographic education literature concerning the role of experience; to describe the pedagogical intentions of the lecturers running the two human geography fieldtrips; to analyse data from interviews with students conducted some months after the fieldtrips had taken place; and to claim that a logocentric essentializing epistemology is evident in the design and effects of the fieldtrips and that this is flawed theoretically, practically and ethically.

Demystifying Academic Writing: Reflections on Emotions, Know-How and Academic Identity.

Writing is the foundation of academic practice, yet academic writing is seldom explicitly taught. As a result many beginning (and experienced) academics struggle with writing and the difficult emotions, particularly the self-doubt, that writing stirs up. Yet it need not be like this. In this paper, strategies are discussed for attending to the emotions of writing, and developing writing know-how and a stronger sense of identity as a writer. It is argued that addressing all three aspects of writing—emotions, know-how and identity—helps demystify the academic writing process and helps novices on their journey to becoming academic writers.

‘It's Just Like the Teenage Stereotype, You Go Out and Drink and Stuff’: Hearing from Young People who Don't Drink

In this article, we report on a study in which 39 final-year students at two New Zealand high schools were interviewed about their adoption of alternative subject positions in relation to the prevailing norm of alcohol consumption. There were four ways in which participants in our study constituted themselves as non-drinkers in relation to this norm: (1) by constituting legitimate alternative subject positions such as ‘sporty’ and ‘healthy’ or by complying with other norms defined by participants’ cultural and/or religious practices; (2) by constructing alternative leisure identities; (3) by reconstituting the norm of alcohol consumption as abject, as a way of legitimating their non-drinking subject position; and (4) by ‘passing’ as a drinker in social spaces where alcohol was being consumed. We show how participants used these processes in constituting opposition to the norm of alcohol consumption. We conclude with some suggestions about how these theoretical insights might be put to practical use.

International Perspectives on Fieldcourses

Fieldwork is a distinctive feature of geography in higher education and is therefore a subject that is likely to be scrutinised by an emerging international network. Originating from an Internet discussion, the paper considers the context of internationalism for the enhancement of fieldwork practices. These broadly comprise opportunities to debate and discuss pedagogic issues about fieldwork in an international forum and to facilitate more effective international fieldwork opportunities and exchange. In examining specific issues affecting internationalisation, attention is drawn to the frequently implicit assumptions about the value of fieldwork and the need to foster research on the delivery of fieldwork objectives.

New Zealand’s neoliberal generation: tracing discourses of economic (ir)rationality

Young New Zealanders currently in transition to post‐school lives have grown up during a period of intensive neoliberal reform, the speed and scope of which was unprecedented in Western economies. The authors explore how New Zealand’s neoliberal generation craft their identities in the transition years, making sense of their educational and employment experiences and choices in the context of neoliberal discourses. The transition talk of these young people is imbued with neoliberal rationality, mediated through two key discourses in particular: those of the knowledge economy and the cultural economy. It is argued that these individuals are not passive recipients of neoliberal rationality but are involved in actively crafting their identities, making use of the resources that neoliberal and other discourses provide, within the discursive and material constraints that their environments allow.

‘In transition’: choice and the children of New Zealand’s economic reforms

New Zealand’s rapid emergence as a late‐modern, neo‐liberal society following 1984 led to a transformation in the institutional infrastructure for youth transitions from school to post‐school worlds. Our research focuses on the ways that young people born after 1984 craft identities in transition. We investigate their perspectives on transition in their last year of school, and the processes by which they make choices about post‐school destinations. In particular, we examine the extent to which the transitions they negotiate are shaped by the institutional infrastructure for transition established by policy. Expecting some degree of mismatch between the complexities of participants’ lives and the linear transition process implicit in policy, we found instead a combination of traditional assumptions (that transition would be a straightforward, linear process) and late‐modern assumptions (about the construction of elective biographies through active choice). These combined to produce a particular perception of risk among participants.

Rights important to young people: Secondary student and staff perspectives

Abstract How young people construct rights, which rights are important to them, and their awareness of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, are the focus of the present study. The study also compares adults’ and young people’s knowledge, priorities and awareness of rights issues. A postal survey of 107 secondary schools in New Zealand targeted ten 15-16 year-old young people and five staff members, participating in each of the survey schools. A total of 721 students and 449 staff responded to the survey. The vast majority of staff and students understood the meaning of rights, and defined them in terms of entitlements. Only 15% of students were aware of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, while 85% of staff said that they knew about it. Students and staff showed different priorities in terms of which rights they thought were important to young people. About two out of every three students prioritised participation rights, while around a quarter prioritised provision rights, and only just over one in ten prioritised protection rights. Staff were relatively evenly spread in their views of which rights were most important to young people, with just over a third prioritising provision rights, a third protection rights, and just under a third prioritising participation rights. The right to be treated as social actors with views which should be heard respectfully by others, is a salient one for young people. 2

'Professionalising' Participation: From Rhetoric to Practice

Local government is increasingly seeking to encourage young peoples participation in local government planning and decision-making. This paper examines the relationship between professionals in local government and the young people who are the focus of local government participatory initiatives. We argue that whilst the move towards developing participation initiatives is welcome, there is a need to adopt a process of critical reflection with regard to these initiatives. The case of one New Zealand city is examined where young people express their views on the effectiveness or otherwise of their councils participation initiatives. Our findings suggest that whilst well intentioned these initiatives have had limited success in facilitating meaningful participation and perhaps the participation process as currently practised is in urgent need of review.

Vocational imagination and labour market literacy: young New Zealanders making education–employment linkages

This paper explores the concepts of vocational imagination and labour market literacy, arguing that these are important elements in the crafting of effective education–employment linkages. Evidence of truncated understandings of both is found in the talk of 93 young New Zealanders in transition from secondary school to their post‐school lives. We argue that development of labour market literacy and vocational imagination requires that young people crafting career pathways are able to work on identity formation, to discover and develop their abilities, and to recognise relevant opportunities and constraints, all within an infrastructure that allows clear career pathways to be mapped. Changes in New Zealands economic and educational landscape, together with forms of career education that are ill‐matched for this developing landscape, have inhibited such an approach and so contributed to the truncation observed. We suggest that this analysis points to ways of enabling young people to make links between education and employment more effectively.