An educational researcher describes and reflects on a qualitative research project she conducted, focusing on her positioning, neutrality, and objectivity throughout the research process and during subsequent data analysis. The research took place in a K-12 school in a remote rural New Zealand community inhabited by Maori, 1970s…

This paper discusses the development of research on early childhood education in New Zealand, the people involved in the research, and other general issues concerning early childhood education in New Zealand. Content analysis of the New Zealand Early Childhood Care and Education Bibliography reveals an increase in published materials concerning…

The premise of this paper is that the state of educational sociology in New Zealand is uncertain. The following reasons are given: (1) The tradition of sociology is underdeveloped in New Zealand; (2) The community of scholars is scattered and divided; (3) Not enough effort has gone into the development of graduate research and occupational…

Michel Foucault wrote of the "well-managed life" as one that would require a certain "care of the self." As a preliminary to the exploration of the care of the self as a scholar, this paper explores why scholars choose to live the "researching life" in the first place. The experiences of 57 people who completed Ph.D.s…

The focus of this paper is the politics and practicalities of using, training, and paying young people as peer researchers in their schools. It begins by presenting a five-point rationale for involving peer researchers in research about young people. The paper also discusses the ethics and politics of negotiating peer research in four New Zealand…

This study followed 57 New Zealand candidates for a Ph.D. in Education through the years of writing their theses, focusing on their internal struggles and how these affected, and were affected by, those with whom they had close relationships. Their efforts to balance the scholarly, professional, interpersonal, and domestic dimensions of life, a…

New Zealand's 1989 Education Act has resulted in a range of educational reforms. These reforms have offered the Maori opportunities to bring about positive educational developments for their people. Devolution of educational responsibility from a regional to a local level provided some of the space quickly utilized by the Maori. The requirement…

Maori and other indigenous peoples are concerned about the power and control that non-indigenous people hold over research. Research issues such as initiation, benefits, representation, legitimation, and accountability have usually been determined by the researcher's interests and agenda. One means of addressing indigenous peoples' desire for…

Policymaking is a subjective, cultural, and intellectually complex activity in a democracy and should be researched with the multidisciplinary approach. This paper focuses on theoretical implications of the multidisciplinary approach and on its opposing position, the structural-functional approach, in educational policy research. The paper briefly…

As exemplified by New Zealand, the nature of educational policy research is shaped by political and social factors that impinge upon the research environment. Following a description of the educational system and research funding methods, this paper analyzes three areas that affect policy research in New Zealand and addresses relevant social…

Differing attitudes of researchers and preschool teachers towards research in early childhood are discussed in this paper. These differences are seen as arising from causes such as the special training of each group and the nature of the work they do, the distribution of the sexes in each group and the social institutions which back them. The…

This is a record of the proceedings of the 30th annual conference of the Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (MERGA). The theme of the conference is "Mathematics: Essential research, essential practice." The theme draws attention to the importance of developing and maintaining links between research and practice and…