The quality of relationships has been identified as a significant factor in Pasifika education. Pasifika education refers to students who have links with Pacific Islands, who are at schools in Aotearoa New Zealand. In the past, attention has been given to the type of person who can successfully create relationships as a teacher of Pasifika…

This paper is an investigation into the impact of a hierarchal and exclusive ability grouping framework on the self-perception and mathematical identity of diverse students in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Research interest in the low achievement of certain groups of students is growing as a result of increased understanding of the impact of cultural and…

Choirs have been stereotypically gendered feminine in many national contexts. When gender-role conformity has been expected in such settings, male choral participation and performance has often been rendered gender incongruent and consequently threatening. Gender stereotype threat was explored as a factor which might instigate a potentially…

There exists considerable and rich literature on students' misconceptions about probability; less attention has been paid to the development of students' probabilistic thinking in the classroom. Grounded in an analysis of the literature, this article offers a lesson sequence for developing students' probabilistic understanding. In particular, a…

International comparative testing, such as the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), has considerable impact on policy-makers, the media and the general public. A central assumption underlying PISA is that global variation in students' academic performance is attributable to national educational structures and policies. The…

For many years computing in New Zealand schools was focused on teaching students how to use computers, and there was little opportunity for students to learn about programming and computer science as formal subjects. In this article we review a series of initiatives that occurred from 2007 to 2009 that led to programming and computer science being…

There is disagreement in the literature regarding the influence of social and cultural factors on the propensity for young people to undertake higher education. This study draws upon a national data set of over 45,000 young people to assesses their propensity to progress to bachelor level study, while controlling for their ethnic backgrounds,…

As New Zealand has become increasingly pluralistic, the teaching profession has become progressively less reflective of the wider population. This paper reviews the literature on impediments to teaching for minority students, and reports on a case study exploring factors that deter Asian New Zealanders from pursuing teaching as a career. The…