This paper is concerned with how teachers manage homophobia at school. It examines how they deal with homophobia directed at students, "and" instances when teachers become the recipients of homophobia themselves. This dual focus, on teachers as both the perpetrators and recipients of homophobia, adds complexity to existing studies…

This report on "Responsive School Systems" constitutes the second of three thematic comparative reports bringing together findings from the OECD's School Resources Review. Evolving educational objectives, changing student needs and demographic developments require school systems to be highly responsive to new patterns of demand and adapt…

This study investigated the hypothesis that vocabulary influences word recognition skills indirectly through "set for variability", the ability to determine the correct pronunciation of approximations to spoken English words. One hundred forty children participating in a 3-year longitudinal study were administered reading and…

Moving from primary school (Year 6) to the next stage in schooling (Year 7 intermediate or middle school) can provide challenges for students, teachers, and parents. A study was carried out to investigate these challenges with a focus on mathematics for 65 students from six different urban primary schools in New Zealand. Qualitative data were…

Changing demographics have a major impact on schools and societies. This report is a study of how three New Zealand primary schools are working with student populations that are becoming more diverse and increasingly multi-ethnic in nature. One major theme that emerged from interviews with 25 teachers and school leaders was the concept and…

This paper outlines the various limitations of several multicultural education initiatives and explores the conditions necessary for making multicultural education actually work. The conditions examined include the centrality of first language maintenance and the reconstituting of curriculum, pedagogy, evaluation, and organization at the school…

The extent to which school mix--the social class composition of schools--influences school processes and student achievement has long been a matter of dispute. Drawing on a comparative ethnography of four New Zealand urban secondary schools, this article suggests that school mix probably does impact on school organizational and management…

The existence of a contextual effect of the social class composition of a school's intake on individual student performance--the school mix effect--has long been debated in qualitative school effectiveness literature. This paper reports on a qualitative study of four New Zealand urban secondary schools of varying social class composition (and…

New Zealand education policy has been formed from a combination of nineteenth century liberalism which accepts limited intervention in the education process to ensure equality, and the demands of a capitalist economy which has relied on education to provide a selective function to aid market processes. In a recession, it is this latter function…