As a postgraduate student, my interest has been in teaching theory and especially holistic based relational teaching practices. As an educator, I am constantly striving to improve my practice and become the best teacher I can for my students. These factors, combined with my strong desire to bring about change in the education system that will value knowledge and beliefs outside the paradigm of the dominant pedagogy, have led to this research. The philosophy of Āta is firmly posited within Mātauranga (...) Māori and is not new, however, as a philosophy of teaching theory it is new and is the topic of this thesis. A case study was undertaken to observe the researcher’s teaching practice based on the principles of the philosophy, and to consider the possibility of developing a theory of best practice in teaching based on the philosophy of Āta. This was a mixed method study involving the July 2005 intake of Bachelor of Education students for the Mātauranga Māori class at the School of Education Te Kura Mātauranga, AUT. Data collection methods included research assistant observations, a researcher reflective journal, student questionnaires and a student focus group interview. The findings of the study indicated that teaching under the principles of the philosophy of Āta assists the development of respectful relationships within the classroom environment, and suggests this enhances student learning. The findings could be significant for all teachers and teacher educators as they suggest a teaching theory based on the philosophy of Āta may provide educators with a values based theory of practice that is not only humanistic but also maintains standards of professionalism. From both the literature reviewed and from student comments, indications are that by developing a sense of belonging, a feeling of connectedness, and by demonstrating mutual respect in classroom situations, the learning environment appears to be enhanced. The findings of the study further indicate that the positive effects of teaching under the philosophy of Āta may not be restricted to any particular classroom environment. This is an important finding in my opinion because it indicates that Āta as a teachingphilosophy may be successful in growing relationships in other environments, making it a strong, working theory of teaching. Teacher qualities identified by the students as being essential to learning can be developed through embracing the philosophy of Āta and incorporating it into teaching practice and this is the challenge I put forward to all teachers and teacher educators. The study has potentially opened new and exciting possibilities for teacher educators searching for a teaching practice theory that is strongly values-based. Implications of the study include stronger recognition of the value of cultural knowledge in the education system, an acknowledgement of the depth of knowledge contained in te ao Māori, and an opportunity to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi by developing a bi-cultural model of teaching based on the philosophy of Āta. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of Samoans to the New Zealand criminal justice system. This also involved exploring Samoan people’s process of knowledge production and how this shapes their reactions to crime. The researcher’s interest in this topic emanated from working as an interpreter in the New Zealand criminal courts and the recognition that Pacific peoples, of whom Samoan people comprise 49.3% (131,103), are over-represented in violent crime rather than total crime (Families Commission, 2009, pp. (...) 16-17). While the 53 participants for this study from throughout the Auckland region are not representative, especially in terms of randomness, of the total New Zealand Samoan population, they do reflect certain important elements of the Samoan population in Auckland like geographic concentration, employment status, gender, age group and country of birth. The study employed a mixed method approach where a short survey was filled in individually by each participant before personal in-depth individual interviews began. In addition, two focus groups (Appendix B) were organised; one for the older youth group (18 to 25 years of age) and one for the adults group (aged over 25 years). A combination of Pacific and migrant-specific approaches like Fonofale, Talanoa, Fa’afaletui and Kakala, and mainstream methodologies like Grounded Theory and Thematic Analysis, informed the collection and analysis of participants’ ‘shared knowledge’. Theoretically, ideas from cultural criminology, labelling approaches, and general strain theory underpinned this investigation. Results of the pre-interview survey show very high support for judges, lawyers and police with judges receiving the highest support at 92% which underlines the (somewhat paradoxical) high level of respect Samoans have in relation to the criminal justice system. The thesis presents six key findings that provide deeper understandings of various aspects of Samoan attitudes to crime; 1) prisons are counter-productive to rehabilitation, 2) access to information and knowledge about the criminal justice system is of prime importance, 3) crime is permanent, 4) the notion of family is central, 5) sentencing is too light for rape and murder, and 6) the process of knowledge production for Samoan people is important. Theme number six presents the main argument that the involvement of Samoan people in criminal activities follows the same process of Samoan knowledge production that one takes in order to learn, practise and acquire a faiva – vocation. Albeit negative as it sounds, crime commission is undeniably a faiva. This finding is important in terms of understanding why Samoan people over-represent in violent crime, as well as in terms of the development of any subsequent policies and programmes that are partly informed and underpinned by cultural notions. (shrink)

This PhD project engages the fields of contemporary art, performance studies and performance philosophy. It explores participation and the relation of ethics to politics, through performance art works in public places. The research developed through a series of performances by the researcher, the researcher’s participation in performances of others, and in the writing of this exegesis. The project engages a reference field occurring among selected texts of the ‘ethics as first philosophy’ of contemporary philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, selected texts of Jacques (...) Derrida, selected passages of David Wills’s Dorsality, performance works of Ant Hampton and Glen Neath, Martin Nachbar and others, and writings on performance of André Lepecki, Brian Massumi, Alan Read, Liza Kharoubi and others. Following the introduction of the project in Chapter One of the exegesis, Chapter Two explores becoming and belonging within performance practices in relation to locale and the there, prosthetics, and recording. It proposes a choreographic engagement with passing, attending and tethering, where it proposes these as something like the ‘quasitranscendental’ structures Rodolph Gasché proposes–as conditions of possibility of classes or categories, and conditions of impossibility of the closure of such classes and categories. In relation to this it invents the neologism 'attendeer' as a relation of attention to passivity. The engagement with tethering recalls an audio-recorded voice saying, ‘Bear in mind that you are tethered’, in Hampton and Neath’s performance The Bench or Hello for Dummies. The project’s engagement with choreography references David Wills’s writing in Dorsality¬ of a ‘technology in the back’ (2008: 12), a technology in the human animal that is behind, prior to, and undoing of, conceptual perspective. Chapter Three explores modes of resemblance within the performance practices in relation to Levinas’s proposition in ‘Reality and Its Shadow’ of a passive participation in ‘the image’ which suspends conceptuality, as no longer the participation of a subject or substantive. It proposes that at times performances, through their minimal differences with life in general in a locale, open an engagement with ‘the image’. Chapter Four considers this project’s methodology through an exploration of Levinas’s ‘The Trace of the Other’, and Wills’s writing of dorsality as modes of ‘bending back’. In relation to this it considers the project as practice-led research. Exploring relations on footpaths of passers-by and attendeers in my performance practice, Chapter Four begins an exploration of responsibility and relations of ethics to politics, engaging writings on performance of André Lepecki, Liza Kharoubi, Alan Read, and writings on politics of Simon Critchley. Chapter Five engages my performance practice in relation to Levinas’s writing of ethics as diachronic time¬–‘a saying prior to anything said’–and juxtaposes aspects of Levinas’s engagement aspects of Jean-Luc Nancy’s engagement with Listening. Chapter Five explores relations of saying, seriality and interruption, and considers Levinas’s proposition of ingratitude in relation to the possibility or impossibility of the movement of a work that is not a restitution to the same. ‘Figuring Diachrony: Ethics before the voice’ relates performance practice to the possibility or impossibility of figuring the trace of ethics. (shrink)

“Learning through play” is an important component of Western early childhood education, and plays a key role in the play-based curriculum in New Zealand (Ministry of Education, 1996; White, O’Malley, Toso, Rockel, Stover, & Ellis, 2007). However, this concept is challenged in New Zealand by Ethnic Asian-Chinese (EAC) immigrant families, who question the educational value of play for young children (Guo, 2006; Li, 2001a; Liao, 2007; Wu, 2003, 2009). For the early childhood education sector in New Zealand, this tension is (...) compounded by the early childhood curriculum, Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 1996), because it affirms both the valuing of play and the valuing of diverse cultural perspectives. Further research and discussion of EAC immigrant parental perspectives on play in early childhood education will be essential to addressing this tension. The objective of this research is to investigate EAC parental perspectives on the value and purpose of a play-based early childhood curriculum and to explore the implications for early childhood teachers in order to support the building of effective partnership with immigrant families in New Zealand. This research involved eight EAC immigrant parents who had or currently have at least one child attending a play-based early childhood setting in New Zealand. A qualitative approach was employed to allow EAC parents’ experiences, values and beliefs of a play-based curriculum to be explored and examined in detail. Factors that EAC parents perceive as being most important for children to learn at a play-based early childhood curriculum were explored through interviews with the volunteer participants. Findings from the study revealed that although EAC parents may view learning as distinct from play, they agree that children should have an opportunity to play and expect their children to learn through play. The results of the study contribute to an understanding of the historical and cultural background of EAC parents and how they perceive children’s learning and play. Practical suggestions for pedagogy and future research were also identified. (shrink)