Sonja Macfarlane

Reflections on enhancing pre-service teacher education programmes to support inclusion: perspectives from New Zealand and Australia

Positive changes to pre-service teacher education programmes (PSTEPs), driven in part by changing worldwide policy frameworks around inclusion, are occurring, albeit slowly. After briefly reviewing international trends and key policy and legislation platforms in New Zealand and Australia, this paper explores some of the challenges in enhancing PSTEPs to take on more inclusive perspectives and content. Examples of innovative changes in one programme in New Zealand and one in Australia are then described and discussed, particularly around how these changes seek to address these challenges. Some key facilitators for enhancing PSTEPs are put forward, namely positioning and embedding policy and practice in national and international contexts; embracing practices; working with the broader education faculty around the integration of course structures and content; listening to the views of practicing teachers; exploring pre-service teachers’ values, beliefs, attitudes, knowledge and concerns about engaging with and teaching students with diverse learning needs; building evidence-based programming and instructional knowledge, skills and practices for effective differentiation and adjustments; contributing to authentic mentoring networks; and encouraging professional development planning.

Creating Peaceful and Effective Schools through a Culture of Care.

Many schools in New Zealand, the USA, and elsewhere, are searching for ways to respond positively to the educational achievement disparities that exist between majority culture students and students from minority ethnic and cultural communities. Most of the approaches and strategies that have been implemented to date have either failed, or had minimal positive influence. This paper presents the results of over five years of research, conducted collaboratively by the authors, that has been focused on developing the theory and practice of a ‘culture of care’ in schools. Using a cultural lens to interpret the findings, these replicated studies offer the promise of positively influencing the culture of schooling in the USA, New Zealand and beyond. Creating a culture of care requires schools and teachers to be cognisant of how the school and classroom values, beliefs and practices make it safe for all students to engage, to contribute, to belong and to feel confident in their own cultural identities.

A Culture of Care: The Role of Culture in Today's Mainstream Classrooms

Challenges researchers and teachers face in meeting culturally and linguistically diverse students’ needs are certainly multidimensional and complex. In this article, the authors share their perspective of the Māori culture of Aotearoa, New Zealand, and the culturally and linguistically diverse students at large. Culture is defined as it relates to this indigenous people along with other groups and a sound framework for specific actions that are necessary in achieving positive learning outcomes is provided. The article seeks to help policymakers and practitioners develop an astute and extensive understanding of the issues related to culturally and linguistically diverse students and their unique needs in todays heterogeneous classrooms.

Social and Emotional Learning and Indigenous Ideologies in Aotearoa New Zealand: A Biaxial Blend

This chapter describes the fundamentals of social and emotional learning (SEL) and its benefits within educational contexts. An argument is presented for the visibility and centrality of SEL imperatives in education policies, the curricula and teaching pedagogies given that they collectively assume an integral and interconnected role in the promotion of student well-being and achievement. The chapter then explores the notion that there is a complementary dimension of SEL—one that sees SEL imperatives through an Indigenous lens. It is argued that this lens enables teachers to attain a clearer vision of their students’ cultural identities and ultimately become more attuned to the way their cultural interactions are able to be played out within learning contexts. The concept of manaakitanga—one that comes from within a Māori worldview and has resonance with CASEL’s SEL core competencies—is then introduced. The literal meaning of manaakitanga is ‘to care’, and in order to illustrate the connection between SEL core competencies and Indigenous phenomenology, a case study of an exemplary teacher of Māori students is narrated.

Behavior Problems and Post-traumatic Stress Symptoms in Children Beginning School: A Comparison of Pre- and Post-Earthquake Groups

Introduction: Literature reviews caution that estimating the effects of disasters on the behavior of children following a disaster is difficult without baseline information and few studies report the effects of earthquakes on young children. In addition the relationship between age at the time of disaster and consequential behavior problems have not been reported for young children who experience disaster-related stress during a developmentally sensitive period. Methods: Behavior problems and symptoms of post-traumatic stress (PTS) were reported for two groups of children from nearby neighborhoods during their first term at school, using the Behavior Problem Index by teacher report, following approved informed consent procedures. Data on one group, “Pre-EQ” (N=297), was collected four years before the beginning of the earthquakes on children born 2001-2002. Data on the second group, “Post-EQ” (N=212), was collected approximately three to four years after the beginning of the earthquakes on children born 2007-2009 and living in heavily damaged neighborhoods. The Post-EQ group had significantly more children from high socioeconomic neighborhoods but no other significant differences on main demographic characteristics. Results: The mean behavior problem score was significantly higher in the Post-EQ group (Mean =6.11) as compared to the Pre-EQ group (Mean = 3.78). PTS symptoms were also significantly higher in the Post-EQ group (Mean =2.91) as compared to the Pre-EQ group (Mean=1.98) and more children had high PTS scores (20.9% v. 8.8%, OR= 2.73, 95%CI =1.57, 4.76). Model testing identified that a younger age at the time of exposure was the only significant predictor of high numbers of PTS symptoms in the Post-EQ group. Discussion: Rates of teacher-reported behavior problems in young children more than doubled following the Christchurch earthquakes. Younger children may be more vulnerable to the effects of earthquakes that occur during a developmentally sensitive period. Additional research is needed to consider the effects of age and duration of disaster effects to better understand the effects of disasters on children, their families and communities.

Weaving the Dimensions of Culture and Learning

In recent years several studies have attempted to ascertain the particular teaching and learning strategies that motivate Maori learners and enhance their achievement. These studies inform our thinking about what is most likely to be effective—and why. A suite of research studies on culturally effective practices in New Zealand classrooms has found that Maori students achieve and retain at higher levels, are more motivated and develop more positive attitudes when they learn through collaborative and supportive processes.

Culturally Responsive Practice for Indigenous Contexts: Provenance to Potential

Across international contexts many young people from Indigenous cultural groups continue to experience a Western, conventional form of schooling as alienating, dispiriting, and inequitable. Culturally responsive practice by teachers and school leaders has been posited as a promising pedagogical framework for creating positive learning contexts to mitigate these challenges. In this chapter, the authors draw together sociocultural theory and Indigenous epistemological frameworks, as well as their own scholarly and personal experiences, in order to critically examine the conceptual and praxis landscape of culturally responsive teacher education within Indigenous contexts. It is argued that educators who choose to firmly encounter these initiatives will be motivated to revise old conclusions and reenvision an authentic, culturally inclusive future.

Inclusion, Disability and Culture

Policy development in education, according to Durie (2004) and Sullivan (2009), is ultimately shaped by the philosophical positionings of those who comment upon and control competing interests and discourses. Larkin (2006) highlights the need for education policies to actively target ethnicity so as to avoid “hegemonic cultural domination” (p. 23), and effect impact for those minority populations that regularly have the greatest need. Given that Māori philosophy and discourse are regularly absent in special education policy development processes, then the theoretical perspectives that underpin policies of inclusion will most likely be bereft of Māori thinking and aspirations.

“How High Is Your RQ?”: Is Te Reo Māori The New Blood Quantum?

“Are you part-Māori?” “How much Māori blood do you have?” “S/he is only one sixteenth Māori so not really Māori” “You’re one quarter Māori?! Wow you don’t look it” “I can tell you have something in you – it’s your eyes that give it away” and “But there aren’t any full-blooded Māori left anyway” are comments many of us have heard, and some of us may have made, as we grapple with this complex and intricate thing called ‘identity’. The archaic notion of defining who is (or who is not) Māori based on a mathematical formula, whereby (we think) we are supposed to divide the number of generations since our tūpuna (ancestors) were ‘full-blooded’ by the number of marriages with people who are non-Māori in order to determine who is a ‘real Māori’ (or not), thankfully is no longer accepted practice in Aotearoa New Zealand – although, sadly, the same cannot be said for our Indigenous counterparts elsewhere. That isn’t to say that comments like those mentioned above aren’t still made – and for the most part (Don Brash and Bob Jones excluded), we don’t believe those who ask these questions are intending to cause harm; rather they are perhaps being made in order to satisfy a genuine curiosity about another person’s identity.

Enablers and barriers to developing competencies in a blended learning programme for specialist teachers in New Zealand

Abstract The views of recent graduates of a blended learning programme for specialist teachers of children with learning and behaviour difficulties in New Zealand were investigated. Six focus group interviews examined factors that participants considered enabled them to develop programme competencies as well as those that acted as barriers to competency development. Results indicated that a range of factors had acted as barriers to or enablers of competency development. These focused on five overarching themes related to: course content, relevance, clarity and structure; support networks; managing time and stress; pre-requisite knowledge, skills, and experience; access to technology. The implications of these factors for the further development of blended learning programmes are identified.