title: Developing restorative practices in schools: Some reflections

authors: Drewery, Wendy

subjects: Counselling

abstract: The use of disciplinary practices derived from restorative justice have recently been gaining popularity and inciting keen interest in the education community. Practices that have so far been introduced have tended to centre on conferencing, although there is a broadening range of other practices in schools that are being brought under the heading “restorative”. This paper offers some reflections on these developments, building on the experiences of a team at the University of Waikato, which completed two projects on restorative conferencing in schools for the Ministry of Education under the rubric of the Suspension Reduction Initiative, and continues to develop understanding of the practices. The projects included developing and trialling processes for suspension hearings using restorative conferencing and principles from restorative justice. Objectives of both projects were related to the desire to reduce numbers of suspensions and exclusions, particularly of Māori children. We argue that the introduction of restorative practices invites schools into some tectonic shifts in thinking about offending behaviour, about community, and ultimately about the purposes of education.

text: Developing restorative practices in schools: Some reflections The use of disciplinary practices derived from restorative justice have recently been gaining popularity and inciting keen interest in the education community. Practices that have so far been introduced have tended to centre on conferencing, although there is a broadening range of other practices in schools that are being brought under the heading “restorative”. This paper offers some reflections on these developments, building on the experiences of a team at the University of Waikato, which completed two projects on restorative conferencing in schools for the Ministry of Education under the rubric of the Suspension Reduction Initiative, and continues to develop understanding of the practices. The projects included developing and trialling processes for suspension hearings using restorative conferencing and principles from restorative justice. Objectives of both projects were related to the desire to reduce numbers of suspensions and exclusions, particularly of Māori children. We argue that the introduction of restorative practices invites schools into some tectonic shifts in thinking about offending behaviour, about community, and ultimately about the purposes of education.

year: 2005

title: Words on walls: The linguistic landscape of Kirikiriroa primary school classrooms

authors: Burnette, Jessie

abstract: Language contact between te reo Māori and English has resulted in one of the central features of New Zealand English (NZE): the integration of loanwords from the Indigenous, donor language, te reo Māori, into a dominant Lingua Franca (Hay et al., 2008). Previous works have analysed the presence and presentation of these loanwords across a number of mediums. Our study, however, examines data directed at a previously unexamined demographic: primary school-aged children.

We aim to establish which loanwords children are regularly exposed to, and thus examine a most relevant domain: the classroom. Considering the linguistic landscape of classrooms (schoolscapes) offers insight into the language use that occurs within them. Further, the classroom is educational in the traditional sense, but also in the developmental sense, in the acquisition of broader social meaning. Previous schoolscapes research has highlighted not only their pedagogical importance, but their influence in the construction and transmission of language ideologies (Pzymus and Huddleston 2021; Brown 2012), making these particularly valuable spaces to study.

This study presents a schoolscape investigation of nine Waikato classrooms by analysing loanwords arising in educational artefacts directed at primary-aged children (7-11) in an English-medium school setting. We make the following contributions: (1) a systematic schoolscape method for analysing contact-induced language phenomena; (2) quantitative and qualitative analyses of loanwords identified in our data; (3) a detailed taxonomic expansion of te reo Māori loanword categories (semantic and syntactic) in present day NZE.

In this talk, we ask the following questions:

RQ1) What type of te reo Māori (loan)words are children regularly exposed to through schoolscapes in A/NZ?

RQ2) What is their distribution across schools/classrooms/years?

We find that, in the classes examined, children encounter both high levels of exposure to te reo Māori (loan)words and high levels of variation in the types of words present. On average, children encounter one te reo Māori token for every ten English tokens. As in previously identified trends (Macalister, 2006b), most loanwords found are nouns belonging to semantic categories pertaining to the environment, place names and social culture items. However, we also identify prominently occurring words and word types that have not previously been identified in corpora. We show that, within classrooms, children regularly encounter a landscape richer in te reo Māori (loan)words than previously seen, but also one characterised by substantial variation.

text: Words on walls: The linguistic landscape of Kirikiriroa primary school classrooms Language contact between te reo Māori and English has resulted in one of the central features of New Zealand English (NZE): the integration of loanwords from the Indigenous, donor language, te reo Māori, into a dominant Lingua Franca (Hay et al., 2008). Previous works have analysed the presence and presentation of these loanwords across a number of mediums. Our study, however, examines data directed at a previously unexamined demographic: primary school-aged children.

We aim to establish which loanwords children are regularly exposed to, and thus examine a most relevant domain: the classroom. Considering the linguistic landscape of classrooms (schoolscapes) offers insight into the language use that occurs within them. Further, the classroom is educational in the traditional sense, but also in the developmental sense, in the acquisition of broader social meaning. Previous schoolscapes research has highlighted not only their pedagogical importance, but their influence in the construction and transmission of language ideologies (Pzymus and Huddleston 2021; Brown 2012), making these particularly valuable spaces to study.

This study presents a schoolscape investigation of nine Waikato classrooms by analysing loanwords arising in educational artefacts directed at primary-aged children (7-11) in an English-medium school setting. We make the following contributions: (1) a systematic schoolscape method for analysing contact-induced language phenomena; (2) quantitative and qualitative analyses of loanwords identified in our data; (3) a detailed taxonomic expansion of te reo Māori loanword categories (semantic and syntactic) in present day NZE.

In this talk, we ask the following questions:

RQ1) What type of te reo Māori (loan)words are children regularly exposed to through schoolscapes in A/NZ?

RQ2) What is their distribution across schools/classrooms/years?

We find that, in the classes examined, children encounter both high levels of exposure to te reo Māori (loan)words and high levels of variation in the types of words present. On average, children encounter one te reo Māori token for every ten English tokens. As in previously identified trends (Macalister, 2006b), most loanwords found are nouns belonging to semantic categories pertaining to the environment, place names and social culture items. However, we also identify prominently occurring words and word types that have not previously been identified in corpora. We show that, within classrooms, children regularly encounter a landscape richer in te reo Māori (loan)words than previously seen, but also one characterised by substantial variation.

year: 2024

title: How much new saving will kiwisaver produce?

authors: Gibson, John

subjects: KiwiSaver

abstract: After two decades of tax neutrality for private saving, New Zealand policy changed radically with the recent introduction of tax incentives for KiwiSaver. A key issue for tax-favoured saving schemes is the extent to which existing saving is reshuffled versus new saving created by reduced consumption. Using data from a nationwide survey carried out by the authors, we estimate that each dollar of KiwiSaver balances represents only $0.09-$0.19 of new saving. The rest is either reshuffling amongst existing saving and debt by KiwiSaver members, or else taxpayer and employer transfers which reduce national saving elsewhere. Homeowners are least likely to fund their KiwiSaver contributions by reducing spending, indicating possible mis-targeting since owners are often blamed for excessive consumption arising from house price wealth effects. There is little evidence that KiwiSaver affects either the reported trend in saving or the presence of dis-saving. Since only one-tenth of households report negative saving, KiwiSaver may be a costly and ineffective solution to a relatively small problem of insufficient household saving.

text: How much new saving will kiwisaver produce? After two decades of tax neutrality for private saving, New Zealand policy changed radically with the recent introduction of tax incentives for KiwiSaver. A key issue for tax-favoured saving schemes is the extent to which existing saving is reshuffled versus new saving created by reduced consumption. Using data from a nationwide survey carried out by the authors, we estimate that each dollar of KiwiSaver balances represents only $0.09-$0.19 of new saving. The rest is either reshuffling amongst existing saving and debt by KiwiSaver members, or else taxpayer and employer transfers which reduce national saving elsewhere. Homeowners are least likely to fund their KiwiSaver contributions by reducing spending, indicating possible mis-targeting since owners are often blamed for excessive consumption arising from house price wealth effects. There is little evidence that KiwiSaver affects either the reported trend in saving or the presence of dis-saving. Since only one-tenth of households report negative saving, KiwiSaver may be a costly and ineffective solution to a relatively small problem of insufficient household saving.

year: 2008-03