title: Institutional responses to mental deficiency in New Zealand, 1911-1935: Tokanui Mental Hospital

authors: Hoult, Adrienne

subjects: mental deficiency

abstract: This thesis considers the response of one New Zealand institution, Tokanui Mental Hospital, to legislation and policies for 'mental deficiency' introduced during the first half of the twentieth century. Institutional reactions to these policies have been under examined in New Zealand. While psychiatric or mentally ill patients have been the subject of a number of New Zealand histories of the asylum, 'mental defectives' have often been overlooked. Yet during the early-twentieth century, 'mental defectives' were thought to be a source of a number of social problems, and the New Zealand government considered a range of measures aimed at limiting the spread and effect of mental deficiency in society. Policies for 'mental deficiency' were influenced by contemporary anxieties about crime, sexuality and hereditarism. As a policy of segregation was formally prescribed, more 'mental defectives' were committed to mental hospitals and other institutions than ever before. An understanding of the responses to this perceived problem also provides an insight into wider social policies in New Zealand in the first half of the twentieth century. This thesis argues that gender was a significant factor in the decision to commit mental defectives to Tokanui. Subsequent categorisation and treatment within Tokanui was also affected by gender. Official reports inform us about the policies that were in place, and historical materials from Tokanui show how these worked in practice. Most of the archives of Tokanui Mental Hospital have been unexamined by historians before now, and close analysis of patient cases also reveals more about institutional practices. The connection between Tokanui and neighbouring Waikeria Prison is also explored, in the context of contemporary fears surrounding 
mental deficiency and crime.

text: Institutional responses to mental deficiency in New Zealand, 1911-1935: Tokanui Mental Hospital This thesis considers the response of one New Zealand institution, Tokanui Mental Hospital, to legislation and policies for 'mental deficiency' introduced during the first half of the twentieth century. Institutional reactions to these policies have been under examined in New Zealand. While psychiatric or mentally ill patients have been the subject of a number of New Zealand histories of the asylum, 'mental defectives' have often been overlooked. Yet during the early-twentieth century, 'mental defectives' were thought to be a source of a number of social problems, and the New Zealand government considered a range of measures aimed at limiting the spread and effect of mental deficiency in society. Policies for 'mental deficiency' were influenced by contemporary anxieties about crime, sexuality and hereditarism. As a policy of segregation was formally prescribed, more 'mental defectives' were committed to mental hospitals and other institutions than ever before. An understanding of the responses to this perceived problem also provides an insight into wider social policies in New Zealand in the first half of the twentieth century. This thesis argues that gender was a significant factor in the decision to commit mental defectives to Tokanui. Subsequent categorisation and treatment within Tokanui was also affected by gender. Official reports inform us about the policies that were in place, and historical materials from Tokanui show how these worked in practice. Most of the archives of Tokanui Mental Hospital have been unexamined by historians before now, and close analysis of patient cases also reveals more about institutional practices. The connection between Tokanui and neighbouring Waikeria Prison is also explored, in the context of contemporary fears surrounding 
mental deficiency and crime.

year: 2007

title: A note on steady flow into a submerged point sink

authors: Hocking, Graeme Charles

subjects: axisymmetric flow

abstract: The steady, axisymmetric flow induced by a point sink (or source) submerged in an unbounded inviscid fluid is computed. The resulting deformation of the free surface is obtained, and a limit of steady solutions is found that is quite different to those obtained in past work. More accurate solutions indicate that the old limiting flow rate was too high and, in fact, the breakdown of steady solutions at a lower flow rate is characterized by the appearance of spurious wavelets at the free surface.

text: A note on steady flow into a submerged point sink The steady, axisymmetric flow induced by a point sink (or source) submerged in an unbounded inviscid fluid is computed. The resulting deformation of the free surface is obtained, and a limit of steady solutions is found that is quite different to those obtained in past work. More accurate solutions indicate that the old limiting flow rate was too high and, in fact, the breakdown of steady solutions at a lower flow rate is characterized by the appearance of spurious wavelets at the free surface.

year: 2014

title: Aro mai aro atu: Raising Māori-medium students' academic oral language proficiency

authors: Shandley, Rosina Mary

subjects: Māori-medium

abstract: From the early 1860s, colonial governments worked systematically to eradicate the language and culture of the indigenous people of Aotearoa / New Zealand, and, by the late 1960s, the death of the Māori language was being predicted by leading linguists. Māori leaders responded in the 1980s with language regeneration initiatives that included the birth of Māori-medium education. Today, this uniquely indigenous education system is a significant site of language learning for new generations of Māori children. In Māori-medium education, children are nurtured, educated, and loved as Māori, and they are more likely to attain educational qualifications than their Māori peers who attend English-medium schools. 

The success of Māori-medium education is achieved in the face of a raft of ongoing challenges that teachers and students confront on a daily basis. Years of language marginalisation, including the disruption to intergenerational transfer, mean Māori-medium students are required to learn the curriculum through their second and less-developed language. They have limited opportunities to hear or use the Māori language outside of the school, and this places huge pressure on teachers who are often their most significant language models. The challenge is compounded by the limited education that has been made available to teachers in relation to second-language pedagogies specifically designed for Māori-medium classrooms. The resulting situation is that Māori-medium teachers are often left struggling to find ways that they can develop students’ Māori language proficiency at the same time as their curriculum achievement so that one is not sacrificed for the other. 

This study designed and trialled pedagogies to support Māori-medium students to develop their academic oral language proficiency at the same time as their curriculum achievement. It was a mixed methods study grounded in a kaupapa Māori approach, and involved three teachers and 24 students across three separate Māori-medium schools. An Anga Putanga Ako (Curriculum Outcomes Matrix) was developed to support the students to understand what they needed to learn to progress through the writing curriculum. Teachers then learnt to share explicit learning outcomes from the Anga Putanga Ako with students before lessons and to allow them time to discuss their achievement of those outcomes in pairs at the conclusion of those lessons. Linguistic scaffolds were developed to support students’ learning conversations, including the self and peer assessment of the learning outcomes, and decisions about their curriculum achievement levels and next learning steps.

The quantitative and qualitative results of the study revealed that the confluence of the self and peer assessment practices, supported by the Anga Putanga Ako and linguistic scaffolds, improved the students’ academic oral language and accelerated their reading and writing achievement significantly beyond what is usually expected in a Māori-medium classroom in 14 weeks. The study also found that, through implementing the self and peer assessment pedagogies, teachers were able to identify ways they could develop their students’ academic language and curriculum achievement simultaneously and how these approaches could be applied across the curriculum.

It was clear from the research results that pedagogies that support second-language development and curriculum learning, such as the self and peer assessment pedagogies demonstrated in this study, need to be explicitly taught with consistency across initial and in-service teacher education programmes. This development is necessary to help ensure Māori-medium students are supported with the thinking and linguistic skills needed to contribute to the creation of new knowledge, to support or challenge the current social order as they see fit, and to continue to transfer the Māori language to new generations of mokopuna.

text: Aro mai aro atu: Raising Māori-medium students' academic oral language proficiency From the early 1860s, colonial governments worked systematically to eradicate the language and culture of the indigenous people of Aotearoa / New Zealand, and, by the late 1960s, the death of the Māori language was being predicted by leading linguists. Māori leaders responded in the 1980s with language regeneration initiatives that included the birth of Māori-medium education. Today, this uniquely indigenous education system is a significant site of language learning for new generations of Māori children. In Māori-medium education, children are nurtured, educated, and loved as Māori, and they are more likely to attain educational qualifications than their Māori peers who attend English-medium schools. 

The success of Māori-medium education is achieved in the face of a raft of ongoing challenges that teachers and students confront on a daily basis. Years of language marginalisation, including the disruption to intergenerational transfer, mean Māori-medium students are required to learn the curriculum through their second and less-developed language. They have limited opportunities to hear or use the Māori language outside of the school, and this places huge pressure on teachers who are often their most significant language models. The challenge is compounded by the limited education that has been made available to teachers in relation to second-language pedagogies specifically designed for Māori-medium classrooms. The resulting situation is that Māori-medium teachers are often left struggling to find ways that they can develop students’ Māori language proficiency at the same time as their curriculum achievement so that one is not sacrificed for the other. 

This study designed and trialled pedagogies to support Māori-medium students to develop their academic oral language proficiency at the same time as their curriculum achievement. It was a mixed methods study grounded in a kaupapa Māori approach, and involved three teachers and 24 students across three separate Māori-medium schools. An Anga Putanga Ako (Curriculum Outcomes Matrix) was developed to support the students to understand what they needed to learn to progress through the writing curriculum. Teachers then learnt to share explicit learning outcomes from the Anga Putanga Ako with students before lessons and to allow them time to discuss their achievement of those outcomes in pairs at the conclusion of those lessons. Linguistic scaffolds were developed to support students’ learning conversations, including the self and peer assessment of the learning outcomes, and decisions about their curriculum achievement levels and next learning steps.

The quantitative and qualitative results of the study revealed that the confluence of the self and peer assessment practices, supported by the Anga Putanga Ako and linguistic scaffolds, improved the students’ academic oral language and accelerated their reading and writing achievement significantly beyond what is usually expected in a Māori-medium classroom in 14 weeks. The study also found that, through implementing the self and peer assessment pedagogies, teachers were able to identify ways they could develop their students’ academic language and curriculum achievement simultaneously and how these approaches could be applied across the curriculum.

It was clear from the research results that pedagogies that support second-language development and curriculum learning, such as the self and peer assessment pedagogies demonstrated in this study, need to be explicitly taught with consistency across initial and in-service teacher education programmes. This development is necessary to help ensure Māori-medium students are supported with the thinking and linguistic skills needed to contribute to the creation of new knowledge, to support or challenge the current social order as they see fit, and to continue to transfer the Māori language to new generations of mokopuna.

year: 2022