Robin Peace

Happy, stable and contented: accomplished ageing in the imagined futures of young New Zealanders

ABSTRACT In imagining how their lives might turn out, 100 young New Zealanders aged between 16 and 18 years wrote descriptions of their future lifecourse. Their descriptions of themselves at the nominal age of 80 years form the basis of the research reported in this paper. For these young people, ageing and old age are understood as accomplishments in the context of an imagined lifecourse. They see personal ageing as shaped by a common temporal ordering of life events that ensures material security, financial success, and an enduring intimate relationship. In imagining themselves aged 80 years, three key themes that constitute a discourse of ‘accomplished ageing’ were identified: the experience of old age would be contingent on achievements throughout the lifecourse; old age would be a time for harvest; and while people may look old they can continue to ‘be’ young. Although their images of bodily appearance included some negative stereotypes of old age, appearance and bodily function were understood as amenable to life-long self-management. The young people imagined themselves as life-long active agents, and framed a positive image and homogeneous social identity for older people. The ‘accomplished ageing’ discourse has implications for how ageing is understood by young people. In particular, the social identity that accomplished ageing implies may shape how they relate to those who do not accomplish ageing in the imagined optimistic and homogeneous way.

Implementing disaster preparedness education in New Zealand primary schools

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the national implementation of disaster preparedness education in New Zealand primary schools through the dissemination of Whats the Plan, Stan?, a voluntary, curriculum-based teaching resource. Design/methodology/approach – Results and findings from a focus group study with school teachers and local civil defence staff in 2011 and a nationally representative survey of schools in 2012 were analyzed to identify intervening, facilitating and deterrent factors of uptake and use of the resource. Findings – The main intervening factors between resource promotion and school teachers’ awareness of the resource are word of mouth among school teachers and teachers’ proactive lesson plan research. The strongest facilitating factor was school-wide use of the resource. Lack of awareness of the resource and the perceived need for teacher training are the greatest deterrents to use of the resource. Practical implications – Based on the findings, several recommendations ...

Managing Temporary School Closure Due to Environmental Hazard: Lessons from New Zealand.

The February 2011 Canterbury earthquake was a dramatic reminder of the need for schools to have emergency management plans in place. A number of other disaster and hazard events have historically caused New Zealand schools to close temporarily, and often within a short time frame. At such times principals must act decisively and communicate clearly with their communities in complex and difficult circumstances, carrying risk for student well-being. Here we present two hazard-specific New Zealand case studies, pandemic (H1N1) and adverse weather (snowstorm) − both precipitating instances of temporary school closure. Lessons taken from the case studies offer an opportunity for management staff to reflect on how to best plan for and manage environmental hazards precipitating temporary school closure in order to mitigate immediate and long-term risk to pupils and the wider school community.

Visually Modelling Collaborative Research into Innovative Community Disaster Resilience Practice, Strategy, and Governance

In 2013 a new collaborative center was established in Wellington, New Zealand to focus on integrating resilience research with the region’s community disaster resilience strategy. An earlier study with parties to this center had indicated that researcher and practitioner groups were divided by attention to their own immediate knowledge and skills, but agreed there was a need to maximize community resilience benefits amongst a regional population. An action research workshop of researchers and practitioners used a visual logic model to focus on the pragmatic benefits of improving community resilience. The visual logic model was used to design research activities that would improve the regional community resilience strategy, which was still in an early implementation phase. Ten of 14 workshop participants were interviewed following the workshop. Statistical content analysis of interview data highlighted certain strengths of the action research process: visual monitoring and evaluation planning was a catalyst for complicated conversations between two very different groups of professionals; and researchers became more focused on practical issues as a result. Other findings suggested that in future collaborative research governance would benefit from wider cycles of strategic intelligence, enhanced research contributions, and the use of different information formats for different purposes. Different formats for different purposes should also be considered when developing and implementing large-scale disaster risk reduction policies and strategies.

Politics of Practical and Academic Knowledge: A Q‐Method Analysis of Gauging Community Disaster Resilience

This research analysed strong opinions, held by emergency management practitioners and researchers, about developing a regional framework of community resilience indicators. A group of practitioners and another group, of researchers, were planning an International Centre of Excellence, focused on community disaster resilience in Wellington, New Zealand. Five participants from each of the researcher and practitioner groups volunteered to better identify opinion factors among these groups, using Q‐methodology. One perspective supporting complicated analysis to inform strategic decisions was particular to the researcher group. Practitioners shared an opposition to insular, top‐down decision making. Both groups perceived a need to evaluate opportunities for improving post‐disaster outcomes. These perspectives helped develop the International Centre of Excellence and inform comparable approaches to community disaster resilience.

Assessing displays for supporting strategic emergency management

Purpose – Emergency management groups aiming to address community resilience work with complex systems which consist of multiple interacting dynamics. The purpose of this paper is to help ensure that information is displayed in a way which supports strategic performance, to address longer term challenges faced by these groups. Design/methodology/approach – Ten professional emergency managers completed an online simulation of complex, community resilience related tasks faced in their normal working lives. They responded to either table-or diagram-based information about a relevant emergency management strategy. Responses were rated by academic and practitioner experts using 0-5 point Likert scales. Findings – Analyses of the expert ratings found that certain components of macrocognitive performance reached large degrees of inter-rater reliability (ρ=0.76, p=0.003; ρ=0.58, p=0.03; ρ=0.53, p=0.05). Current situation awareness increased by an average of 29 per cent in the diagram condition. Prospective amendm...

Migration, gender and economic integration: international scholarship (2006–09) and an Aotearoa New Zealand research agenda

Abstract This paper follows from the findings of the 2006 review of research on women, gender and migration published in International Migration Review. We begin by discussing three international trends in contemporary migration flows: diversification, bifurcation and feminisation; and examine their significance for New Zealand. We then review the research on gender and economic integration of migrants in developed countries in relation to three aspects: the characteristics of migrants; the strategies migrants use during settlement; and the contexts of reception in receiving communities. We identify insights and omissions in this scholarship relevant to New Zealand policy-oriented migration research. We argue that the gendered nature of migration cannot be ignored, and that while human capital approaches to economic integration are important, they are insufficient for understanding complex migrant outcomes. Rather, comprehensive, integrated and local research is required to understand migrant experience and outcomes and to assess the effectiveness of immigration policy settings.

Puke Ahu: articulating a place-based, university campus identity

ABSTRACT Universities in Aotearoa New Zealand are public institutions established on lands purchased or acquired by government since 1869. As particular sites in the built landscape, they each carry a history and geography. A project at Massey University’s Wellington campus seeks to open-up diverse identifications with the ‘place’ of the campus and has produced resources, established fora, and built relationships that differently recognise aspects of place and identity. The Pākehā authors reflect on the theoretical frameworks that have influenced their work on the project including geography, critical pedagogy, and discourse theory. As Pākehā academics engaging with the indigenous history of the land through which they work, the authors discuss the implications of this knowledge and the difficulties and responsibilities of working in a project that seeks emancipatory outcomes.