title: Feminism and education in post-war New Zealand: a sociological analysis

authors: Middleton, Sue

abstract: For the purposes of this thesis, feminism has been viewed as both a set of social theories which identify, describe and account for the contradictions experienced by women in their everyday lives and the social movement which has developed and employed these theories to assist in generating political strategies aimed at redressing social inequalities and injustices recognised as based, wholly or in part, on gender. Since the late 1960s, many New Zealand educators have been influenced by feminism. Although feminist social scientists have given some attention to the origins of post-war feminism, there has been little attention given by scholars to describing and explaining how individual women came to adopt a feminist analysis of the social world. This thesis is a sociological analysis of the lives of twelve feminist educators, born in New Zealand in the years immediately following World War Two. The method used in this is life-history analysis, which focusses on ‘biography, history and social structure.’ It is argued that these New Zealand women, who attended school in the post-war years, and who have, as adults, become both educators and feminists, experienced in their lives contradictions and a sense of ‘marginality’, which generated in them visions of both the desirability and the possibility of change in their own lives and in the lives of women in general. During their schooling, they experienced contradictions between their upbringing to be professionally-autonomous ‘intellectuals’ and the expectations of them as women to be subordinately ‘feminine.’ They also experienced contradictory expectations with respect to their sexual morality: while the dominant ideology of family and school emphasised pre-marital virginity, the permissive anarchy of the ‘sexual revolution’ stressed freedom of sexual expression. These women believed that education could provide a vision of the desirability and the possibility of change in their own lives and in those of their students. As feminist educators within institutions, these women experienced a ‘double marginality’: as women, they were marginal in attaining senior positions within professional hierarchies and as feminists they were members of a small and dissenting minority.

text: Feminism and education in post-war New Zealand: a sociological analysis For the purposes of this thesis, feminism has been viewed as both a set of social theories which identify, describe and account for the contradictions experienced by women in their everyday lives and the social movement which has developed and employed these theories to assist in generating political strategies aimed at redressing social inequalities and injustices recognised as based, wholly or in part, on gender. Since the late 1960s, many New Zealand educators have been influenced by feminism. Although feminist social scientists have given some attention to the origins of post-war feminism, there has been little attention given by scholars to describing and explaining how individual women came to adopt a feminist analysis of the social world. This thesis is a sociological analysis of the lives of twelve feminist educators, born in New Zealand in the years immediately following World War Two. The method used in this is life-history analysis, which focusses on ‘biography, history and social structure.’ It is argued that these New Zealand women, who attended school in the post-war years, and who have, as adults, become both educators and feminists, experienced in their lives contradictions and a sense of ‘marginality’, which generated in them visions of both the desirability and the possibility of change in their own lives and in the lives of women in general. During their schooling, they experienced contradictions between their upbringing to be professionally-autonomous ‘intellectuals’ and the expectations of them as women to be subordinately ‘feminine.’ They also experienced contradictory expectations with respect to their sexual morality: while the dominant ideology of family and school emphasised pre-marital virginity, the permissive anarchy of the ‘sexual revolution’ stressed freedom of sexual expression. These women believed that education could provide a vision of the desirability and the possibility of change in their own lives and in those of their students. As feminist educators within institutions, these women experienced a ‘double marginality’: as women, they were marginal in attaining senior positions within professional hierarchies and as feminists they were members of a small and dissenting minority.

year: 1985

title: Music to measure: symbolic representation in children's composition.

authors: Henderson, Clare L.

subjects: music education

abstract: Eisner maintains that the arts education community needs "empirically grounded examples of artistic thinking related to the nature of the tasks students engage in, the material with which they work, the context's norms and the cues the teachers provide to advance their students' thinking" (2000, p. 217). This paper reflects on the results of collaborative action research between teachers and university researchers in New Zealand who have been investigating how children develop and refine their ideas and related skills in music. The paper focuses specifically on the results of action research in which the impact of symbolic representation on idea development and refinement in music is examined. It raises some issues and points of tension for generalist and specialist teachers when fostering creative idea development in music.

text: Music to measure: symbolic representation in children's composition. Eisner maintains that the arts education community needs "empirically grounded examples of artistic thinking related to the nature of the tasks students engage in, the material with which they work, the context's norms and the cues the teachers provide to advance their students' thinking" (2000, p. 217). This paper reflects on the results of collaborative action research between teachers and university researchers in New Zealand who have been investigating how children develop and refine their ideas and related skills in music. The paper focuses specifically on the results of action research in which the impact of symbolic representation on idea development and refinement in music is examined. It raises some issues and points of tension for generalist and specialist teachers when fostering creative idea development in music.

year: 2007

title: Indigenous Peoples and the State - International Perspectives on the Treaty of Waitangi [Book Review]

authors: Te Aho, Linda

abstract: Just over thirty years ago, in the High Court decision Huakina Development Trust v Waikato Valley Authority, Justice Chilwell famously stated: “There can be no doubt that the Treaty is part of the fabric of New Zealand society.” ¹ At a symposium celebrating 30 years of the Huakina decision, Tom Bennion described the judgment as “a marker, a significant new structure sticking out in the legal landscape, indicating the shape of arguments to come.” This collection of work brings together a range of arguments for our time concerning the meaning and importance of the Treaty of Waitangi, shaped by different perspectives on its context and history.

text: Indigenous Peoples and the State - International Perspectives on the Treaty of Waitangi [Book Review] Just over thirty years ago, in the High Court decision Huakina Development Trust v Waikato Valley Authority, Justice Chilwell famously stated: “There can be no doubt that the Treaty is part of the fabric of New Zealand society.” ¹ At a symposium celebrating 30 years of the Huakina decision, Tom Bennion described the judgment as “a marker, a significant new structure sticking out in the legal landscape, indicating the shape of arguments to come.” This collection of work brings together a range of arguments for our time concerning the meaning and importance of the Treaty of Waitangi, shaped by different perspectives on its context and history.

year: 2019