Drawing on data from a phenomenological research study of Ako Matatupu/TeachFirst New Zealand (TFNZ), an affiliate of Teach for All, this article considers how differently positioned actors within New Zealand theorize the appeal of TFNZ as opposed to university-based pathways. Findings suggest that a multiplicity of factors influence the…

New Zealand's response to the COVID-19 pandemic was "to go fast and go hard". This directive meant closing the borders, requiring returning New Zealanders to go into two-week self-isolation and, on 25 March 2020, putting the entire country into full lockdown. Schools had a short period of time to get ready to offer online learning. The…

This research draws on qualitative data collected in Aotearoa New Zealand over a sixmonth period to examine the ways in which participants in Teach First New Zealand (TFNZ), an affiliate of Teach for All, discuss issues of poverty and educational underachievement in their teaching contexts. Findings from this study suggest that broad discursive…

In recent years, New Zealand schools have been challenged to cater for increasing numbers of students in material hardship without comprehensive support. New Zealand once led the world in putting equity at the centre of education policy and practice, this is no longer the case. Recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)…

This year the education research community in New Zealand is celebrating fifty years of the publication of the New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies. In this article, it is argued that the half century has been bifurcated by the shift from social democratic discourses of equality for all, to a market choice model of schooling after 1989. This…

This article describes education solutions to child poverty. Through a focus on New Zealand, the article explores the meaning of child poverty, children's perspectives on child poverty and solutions, and modalities in citizenship, social and economics education to help address child poverty. Four modalities are proposed: centre our work in…

Differential student achievement has particular significance in New Zealand as it has one of the largest gaps between high and low achievers among all OECD countries. Students from low socio-economic status (SES) communities, who are often Maori and Pasifika, are heavily over-represented in the low achieving group, while students from wealthier…

In a recent paper, Reardon found that the relationship between family income and children's academic achievement grew substantially stronger in the 1980s and 1990s in the United States. We provide an international context for these results by examining the income-achievement association in 19 other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and…

Students from low socio-economic backgrounds in New Zealand face many disadvantages when it comes to education, and, despite government initiatives, the disparity between the poor and the well-off continues to grow in this country. New Zealand is among several countries where income inequalities are large and the impact of socio-economic…

Whether in health, in education, or in material well-being, some children will always fall behind the average. The critical question is -- how far behind? Is there a point beyond which falling behind is not inevitable but policy susceptible, not unavoidable but unacceptable, not inequality but inequity? There are no widely agreed theoretical…