bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Early Childhood Curriculum (2009) In Vietnam: Tensions In The First Three Years Of Implementation
Authors:   , Dinh Doan-Huong Thi 
Published: December 2021

<p>In 2009 the Vietnamese Government introduced the new Early Childhood Curriculum (ECC) to replace the Reformed Early Childhood Curriculum (RECC) that was in place between 1994 and 2009. The ECC presents a new image of the child as an agentic, competent, and self-directed learner for a globalised society. Recent research on the implementation of the ECC has focused on the teachers‘ reconceptualising of traditional ways of teaching to meet new official aspirations without acknowledging teachers‘ perceptions of intrinsic valued concepts within both the RECC and the ECC. In addition, there has been limited investigation of how this implementation has been carried out in practice. This study fills these gaps by investigating how teachers are experiencing the transition from the RECC to the ECC. A mixed-method approach was used, which involved a questionnaire sent to 472 respondent teachers followed by an in-depth exploration of six case-study teachers‘ experiences in three early childhood education centres. Data was interpreted using a socio-cultural approach and informed by the principles from Social Reconstruction ideology, which views education as a cultural, political and social tool to foster changes in society (Schiro, 2008). The study revealed that the teachers held dichotomous beliefs about the valued concepts in the ECC and used conflicting approaches within their theories of practice as they implemented the new curriculum. Teachers‘ age, qualification, and working position appeared to be significantly related to their implementation of the ECC in their early childhood centre. In addition, the study found the partnership between teachers and parents was not a strong one in jointly realising the Government‘s aspirations of preparing young children for life-long learning and holistic development. Hybrid forms of teaching practice emerged, illustrating the tensions for teachers created by the incompatibilities between the ideal and the reality as the implementation of the Western educational ideology in the ECC encountered deeply embedded Vietnamese cultural concepts. This study argues that despite teachers‘ acceptance of the aspirations of the ECC, traditional cultural concepts — including an emphasis on academic education, a traditional concept of collectivism and an ingrained social hierarchy — acted to create tensions, as well as challenges, for teachers who found themselves caught between the ideals of the new curriculum and the constraints placed upon them by their traditional working culture. Additionally, professional development for teachers and administrators were found to be a significant factor that either facilitated or reduced the tensions. Implications of how to improve the implementation of the ECC are presented.</p>
Dallah: the death knell for deference?
Authors:   , Fraser Anastasia Lee 
Published: December 2021

<p>This paper examines the decision of the United Kingdom Supreme Court in Dallah Real Estate and Tourism Holding Company v The Minister of Religious Affairs, Government of Pakistan, a rare case where an English court refused enforcement of an international arbitral award under the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the New York Convention). Although in Dallah the United Kingdom Supreme Court acknowledged the trend to limit reconsideration of the findings of arbitral tribunals in fact and in law, the Court considered it was bound to decide the question of validity de novo. Contrary to the tribunal, the Court held the arbitration agreement was not valid under the law to which it was subject and refused enforcement of the arbitral award. This paper analyses how the English Supreme Court decided the legal issues before it. It concludes the English court could have reached the same decision on a more convincing basis. Even where the issue is initial consent, holding the court at the place of enforcement is always bound to decide a matter de novo neither serves the objectives of international commercial arbitration nor is necessary to promote the fundamental integrity of arbitral proceedings.</p>
Acculturating Architectural Sublimity: Experimenting with themes of Japanese experientiality within New Zealand housing
Authors:   , Picot Rachael Elisabeth Victoria 
Published: December 2021

<p>It has been argued that domestic architecture within New Zealand is increasingly dominated by international styles since the rise of modernism. According to Bill Wilson (the Group’s leader), there is a lack of understanding of foreign design principle within New Zealand modernist architecture, denying any psychological or spiritual connection within the home. This has caused a shift from what was considered a vernacular architecture to a hybrid of adopted building styles, imitated largely for their aesthetic value rather than any theoretical grounding. In New Zealand, a lack of national identity or sense of belonging within a home is said to be problematic. This thesis aims to help redefine a national vernacular and the experience of domestic space through the implementation of experientiality. The design reconsiders domestic spaces through design-research methodologies derived from two early modernist architectural groups: the Bunriha (co-founded in 1920) with the locality of Auckland’s the Group (established in 1946). These were chosen as both groups provided manifestos for reviving each respective nation’s architecture (Japan and New Zealand) post war. The Group’s work is based purely on functionalism and economically viable solutions. It will provide the basis of architectural thought for the exploration of multiple design strategies within this thesis. While the Bunriha’s ideas are utilised for their experiential approach to modernist architecture. As The Groups’ Japanese equivalent, the Bunriha provides a successful precedent for mediating between new technology, experientiality and a vernacular style. The Bunriha’s design methodologies are extracted and appropriated to the Group’s vision for New Zealand modernism through multiple case study houses. The aim here is to introduce a new dimension of domestic architecture within specific sites chosen within Auckland. This intends to strengthen the relationships between inhabitant, home and landscape through several explorations. The research led design results from a series of architectural strategies that respond to six design theories of shadow, reflection, permeability, materiality, interior/exterior relationship and construction. The first three are derived from the intangible considerations of Japan’s Bunriha, while the remaining respond to the tangible considerations of the Group. This is intended to transcend the preconceptions of a contemporary home through the reconsideration of intangible qualities and their value. It is proposed that this strategy will result in a heightened sense of self through the foreign concept of experientialism. The split between the different members of the Group meant a discontinuation of their early explorations of intangible qualities of space within a vernacular architecture. A continuation of their work will be intended through this thesis work.</p>
The Edge of Public Amenity
Authors:   , Takizawa Ken 
Published: December 2021

<p>We have the techniques to design smaller and more efficient apartments, but those small apartments are often less attractive than their suburban alternatives. Some of the most attractive suburban houses are adjacent to significant natural public amenities, like beaches and parks, which gives the occupants convenient access to these public amenities. Valuable waterfront houses, for example, often open directly onto the beach. Houses adjacent to the town belt in Wellington often have direct access to these natural environments. While some small apartments can also have high value when adjacent to public amenities, they seldom have direct access to interior public amenities. What opportunities are there to making apartments more attractive by providing a shared interior public space directly accessible from the apartments door step? What is the interior equivalent of a beach front house? This project explores the possibility of setting apartment’s directly adjacent to interior public amenities like a gallery space, giving occupants privilege access to these spaces. With a growing urban population, our cities can either become denser or sprawl. The latter is not a positive outcome. Cities with limited access to land often handle density better since it is an urgent issue while others do not face these issues the same way but it is a reality. There are many benefits to living in the city; however we require places for recreation such as public amenities like the beaches and parks. Distinctively they are an escape from the built environment where there is a growing demand for density. Apartments are the norm in inner city living and they do not have relative proximity to these public amenities. Interiors also can be public amenities and there is an opportunity to bring these interior public amenities into the apartment. This opportunity could well improve the quality of apartment interiors because of this new adjacency to a public interior amenity. There are many examples of flexible designs but all are individual cases, such as the building in which Gary Chang lives. It is a small 32m² apartment known as a domestic transformer because of its sliding walls. Out of the hundreds of similar sized apartments, none is as flexible as Chang’s apartment. Typical apartments have a systematic problem of cramping more space at the cost a spatial configuration. Furthermore apartments rarely have any significant interior spaces that are adjacent to them.</p>
The Future of Science Teacher Education in Tonga
Authors:   , Vaka-Vivili Margaret Kuira 
Published: December 2021

<p>The purpose of this research was to explore and document existing policy and practices contributing to the debate of science teacher education in the Pacific. The study took on a pragmatic approach for a mixed research, drawing from the positives of both the qualitative and the quantitative approaches using the kakala/kakala research frameworks guiding the methodological framework. Being a mixed research, the data collection method involved three elements: one-on-one semi-structured interviews with senior Tongan education officials, document analysis and a teacher questionnaire targeting science teachers. All the interviews were conducted in English and recorded using a digital recording device and transcribed by myself as the researcher. All the science teachers who participated in the questionnaire returned a signed consent form to confirm willingness to participate maintaining anonymity. In order to answer the research question, the study examined the significance of the fibre (fau)used in the kakala weaving process, extracting from the Kakala/Kakala research frameworks the metaphoric conceptual relevance of the fibre (fau) which holds the kakala providing it structural support. Hence the conceptualisation that, the three strands of fibre that holds and maintains the education system in Tonga can be attributed to; (i) strong cultural values, (ii) a clear and definitive education policy framework (Catherwood & Levine, 2004), and high teacher self-efficacy. The self-efficacy of Tongan science teachers is measured for the first time and reported in this study as high to very high on a Likert-type psychometric scale adapted from (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2009) to fit the Tongan context. The study also discusses challenges and teacher perceptions of being a science teacher in Tonga and the implications these challenges might pose in future.</p>
Exploring the paradoxes of addressing sustainability in commercial research: A study of scientist views
Authors:   , Ashby Mary 
Published: December 2021

<p>Research scientists increasingly engage in commercial research as well as face the need to address sustainability by taking into account the social, environmental and economic consequences of development activities. This role often entails addressing contradictory imperatives. Though paradox has pervasive effects on science work and managing for sustainability, it remains underexplored in these contexts. This research is positioned at the novel intersection of three bodies of work: sustainability in the context of science work, commercial research, and paradox in management and organisation. It engages a sensemaking perspective to examine the experiences of research scientists with managing sustainability in commercial research and explicates the tensions they perceive, as well as the ways in which they respond to them. The study is primarily based on a set of 44 semi-structured interviews conducted with research scientists across four Crown Research Institutes in New Zealand. It offers two sets of findings. First, it identifies three main paradoxes research scientists perceive and elucidates their dynamics. These include the paradoxes of service ethos, role identity, and professional integrity. Second, it explicates perceived responses to these paradoxes, both constraining and productive. The former comprise the practices of opposing, isolating, over-committing, and suppressing. The latter, productive responses, consist of a range of management tactics premised on differentiation or integration. Differentiation tactics include diversification in scope of services, variation in work organisation and responsibilities, and incrementalism. Integration tactics used with external parties comprise identifying financial synergies between public and commercial projects, (re)framing problems and solutions for clients, (re)positioning across roles and identities, as well as harnessing economies of scope by co-authoring with clients. This research contributes to the literature on research management by casting the emphasis on perceived paradoxes to be navigated when addressing sustainability in commercial research. It also offers a secondary contribution to the literature on paradox in management by contextualising organisational paradoxes and their management in science work. Specifically, it provides new insight into the ways by which scientists’ engagement with sustainability cuts across ethos and shapes their views on professional integrity. It also contributes to a nuanced understanding of role identity by focusing on the tensions research scientists at Crown Research Institutes experience in the dual role of advocates of change towards sustainability and allies of business. Altogether, this work extends existing organisational research by offering insights into scientists’ experience of paradox and its management when engaging with sustainability in commercial research.</p>
Active Investment: Evaluating the Benefits and Costs of Investing in Active Travel in the Urban New Zealand Context
Authors:   , Grams Mark 
Published: December 2021

<p>Increased uptake of active travel is widely acknowledged to promote improved health, environmental and community outcomes. Although active travel participation rates in New Zealand compare favourably to other Anglo-Saxon countries, many northern European countries report active travel rates that are many fold higher. In response to declining rates of active travel across New Zealand, the New Zealand Transport Agency created the Model Communities Programme. The goal of this programme was to boost walking and cycling rates in two demonstration cities, Hastings and New Plymouth, by improving walking and cycling infrastructure, as well as funding promotional and educational initiatives. This study evaluates the effectiveness of the Model Communities Programme. This evaluation includes a quantitative appraisal in the form of a cost-benefit analysis. In addition to evaluating the economic efficiency of the programme, this study provides qualitative analysis derived from user intercept surveys and interviews with district council project managers to further assess the effectiveness of the intervention. This study has found the Model Communities Programme to be cost-beneficial under several evaluative frameworks. In addition to this, the qualitative analysis has also presented largely positive feedback from both users and project managers. This study concludes that the Model Communities Programme has indeed boosted active travel in the demonstration cities, and that similar interventions are likely to be effective at promoting active travel across urban New Zealand.</p>
Towards human and nature reconciliation: a Māori worldview approach to ecological landscape architecture.
Authors:   , Fau Tavete Faimau 
Published: December 2021

<p>This research explores how applying Māori worldview principles can reconcile and allow mutualism between people and ecologies within the post industrial urban setting of Wellington wharf. The aim of this thesis is to develop three possible solutions to reconcile people with ecologies and allow for mutual benefits within natural ecologies of the intertidal zone below Wellington wharf. This research explores how a nonconventional ecological approach that includes human interaction in restorative landscape design can create beneficial interactions between humans and microorganisms.</p>
The Pedestrian's Office Building
Authors:   , Redwood Zoe 
Published: December 2021

<p>According to urban theorist Jan Gehl (2004), Wellington’s central business district (CBD) lacks pedestrian vibrancy. Gehl identifies impermeability, caused by many large footprint commercial buildings with closed street frontages and privatised ground floors, as the main weakness in the city’s urban fabric . This thesis seeks to address Gehl’s findings that commercial buildings create a sterile pedestrian environment because of their disengaged street frontages, lack of programmatic diversity and negative impact on the connectivity of the pedestrian network. A current lack of high end commercial office buildings in Wellington’s CBD creates an architectural opportunity to reconsider the way in which office buildings are integrated into the urban environment. In this thesis the office building is used as a tool to realistically investigate how these new buildings can address the urban issues raised by Gehl, and enhance the pedestrian experience. This research uses the design principles in Nan Ellin’s Integral Urbanism to find a solution for the urban problems identified by Gehl. Three architectural and urban principles are used as devices to integrate the vertical office tower into the horizontal streetscape; hybridity, porosity and connectivity. This design proposition investigates an office building on the corner of Jervois Quay and Willeston Street in the Wellington CBD. This site is identified as a particularly weak area of the urban fabric challenged by a disconnection from the nearby waterfront; by the six lane highway, Jervois Quay. The site-specific problem combined with the challenges of the market driven Wellington office typology is explored through an iterative design process to create a commercially feasible, site-specific design solution. Ultimately this research found that through applying urban design principles, office towers can better integrate into the urban environment to create a more pedestrian orientated city.</p>
A Tale of Place
Authors:   , Edwards Jazmyn 
Published: December 2021

<p>The purpose of this research is to develop a cultural centre for Paraparaumu College that will aim to counter the number of students leaving school without any formal qualifications. The need for such a centre, with particular reference to Māori, was identified with the publishing of the 2013 census, which saw a third of Māori aged 15 years and over make up this demographic. While this number has decreased in comparison to earlier census results, this percentage still sits high above the national average. From the standpoint of Māori, the reason for this statistic has been speculated by many theorists claiming Māori disconnection from their ancestral roots and the assimilation into European culture as a potential cause. Yet, while the Māori arts and language have declined in terms of common practice, the prevalence of western society is an aspect of life that modern-day youth have become accustomed to. Therefore, it is proposed that the medium of interior architecture can serve as a tool to explore the notion of culture and identity in the built environment. While the success of Māori students is of particular interest to this investigation, the issues outlined are not exclusive to this cultural group. As such, this research will seek to generate a physical form that will pay homage to the unique blend of cultures that make up the Kapiti region as a means to anchor the building to its environment. Additionally, as a nation of people who have travelled to this land, the overarching theme of journey will serve as the basis with which the subject of identity in architecture will be explored. It is hoped that by establishing a strong sense of identity this will service the student in a way that a standardised education system may fail.</p>
Gardening Mt Vic
Authors:   , Pearce William 
Published: December 2021

<p>Since Olmstead envisioned Central Park, New York, the study of gardening has slowly become the Staple of landscape historians. Gardening practices can engage the body with aesthetic experience through plants and materiality; landscape architects inform this process through expressive design intention and representations informed by conventions. When a creative drawing convention lacks sensitivity to how one reads the landscape, the intentions behind the expressions created by landscape architects become obscure or unclear. John Ward, a New Zealand Company secretary, stated that Wellington’s town belt was for “the beautiful appearance of the city to be secured.” (Cook, 1992) Over time, urban infrastructural developments have altered the boundaries of town belt parks; This was the case for Mount Victoria Park due to the 1930s development of Alexandra Road. Landscape architects recognise the significance of walking along the ridge of Mount Victoria because of its meaningful history; however, the large scale of the Mount Victoria Park means common planning practices cannot meaningfully engage with important opportunities for how its spatial compositions can dynamically affect the human experience. This is because landscape-planning tendencies typically utilise large-scale mapping to create utilitarian maintenance regimes that regiment spaces, rather than utilising landscape architectural principles in the forming of them. This design research investigation asks: how can landscape architecture establish a meaningful, human-scale experience of the garden at the scale of the large park? This study operates through design-led landscape architectural research. Site study of the Wellington Town Belt revealed that despite the scale of this site its variety of trails and open spaces for experiencing the site as a composed garden. This thesis argues that visual factors that enable composition focussed drawings to be meaningful can also be applied to the design of large-scale garden parks. Reflection on fieldwork was developed in design through crafted explorations of technique and convention resulting in a composition focussed drawing system. These designs were developed through a sensitivity to scale and drawing convention. The creative use of representation and site interpretation challenged utilitarian conceptions about the design of large-scale town belts to also include human-scale iterative visual interpretation. The results of these design experiments unified spaces and formed intense moments of beauty and meaning, during both movement and points of pause, resulting in a garden-like experience that expressed the particular beauty and unique attributes of Matairangi, Mt Victoria.</p>