Metaxis offers a powerful, yet elusive space for learning. We argue that authentic questions can provoke compelling metaxis moments where students and their teachers straddle two worlds at one time: the fictional and the real. We report findings from two New Zealand research projects in primary schools where we investigated the precursors to…

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…

Young children are keenly motivated to inquire into and make meaning about their worlds. This article discusses "working theories", one of two indicative learning outcomes of the New Zealand early childhood curriculum, "Te Whariki". Working theories occur as children attempt to find connections between their experiences and…

In the face of what has been characterised by some as a "crisis" in curriculum--an apparent decline of some aspects of curriculum studies combined with the emergence of new types of national curricula which downgrade knowledge--some writers have been arguing for the use of realist theory to address these issues. This article offers a…

New Zealand (NZ) Europeans show a unique implicit bicultural effect, with research using the Implicit Association Test consistently showing that they associate Maori (the Indigenous peoples) and their own (dominant/advantaged majority) group as equally representative of the nation. We replicated and extended this NZ = bicultural effect in a small…