Acceptance and belonging are essential to human growth and development. Currently, there is limited literature regarding acceptance and belonging in the field of special education and what facilitates this experience within the classroom. This research study asks: 'How do New Zealand school settings help or hinder a sense of acceptance and…

This paper investigates the phenomena of overclaiming -- the propensity for individuals to claim more knowledge about an issue or topic than they really (or could possibly) do. Using Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data from nine Anglophone countries and over 40,000 young people, we examine teenagers' propensity to claim…

Truancy is a longstanding, unresolved educational issue in countries where there are compulsory attendance policies. It represents a long-term cost to society in expenditure on health, well-being and incarceration. Previous research has focused on key demographic variables related to truancy, causal factors, interventions and a variety of…

Despite significant evidence indicating its effectiveness in meeting the needs of academically gifted students, academic acceleration is not a popular provision in New Zealand schools. The literature suggests that parents and educators fear that removing students from their same-aged peers will damage their social-emotional development, although…

Both physical and relational aggression are characterised by the intent to harm another. Physical aggression includes direct behaviours such as hitting or kicking; relational aggression involves behaviours designed to damage relationships, such as excluding others, spreading rumours, and delivering threats and verbal abuse. This study extended…

Learning as part of a group on the mat is a common experience in children's early education and socialisation. Indeed, many classrooms would have a mat, to which the children are called in addition to chairs and tables (Poveda, 2001). Nonetheless, very little research exists about activity using the mat in junior classrooms either locally or…

Twenty-four moderately subnormal children (6 to 17 years old) were integrated onto a campus in New Zealand serving nonhandicapped 11 to 13 year olds. Although the disabled students received primary instruction from their own teachers, there were social, sports, and extracurricular opportunities for mixing. Analysis of questionnaires completed by…

To determine the role that physical aspects of corporate adventure training played in the acquisition of trust, 75 employees from a New Zealand computer company were assigned to one of two groups with varying levels of physical activity or to a control group. Trust was enhanced in the two experimental groups but more so in the more active group.…

This study analyzed tape-recorded workplace small talk collected in New Zealand workplaces, including workplaces employing workers with intellectual disabilities. The topics, the distributional patterns, and the functions of small talk are described, and aspects of the management of small talk which may present problems to workers with…

Six case studies investigated the outcomes of inclusive education on six children with mild mental retardation. In five cases, teachers had attempted to modify their programs to provide individualized instruction for high-risk children. All six children made very poor academic progress and five were poorly accepted socially by their classmates.…

This report presents case studies of six children (ages 9-10) at high risk for mild intellectual disability who were attending six different regular education primary schools in the greater Auckland, New Zealand, metropolitan area. The children were experiencing major academic difficulties and had made limited academic progress in the 6- to…

When students enter the classroom they are confronted with a wide variety of goals to strive for, activities to engage in, and challenges to face, across a number of domains: academic, artistic, sporting and social. Recently, there has been a growing recognition of this complexity of goals among researchers interested in student's motivational…