title: An assessment of the benefits of cleaner streams: A New Zealand case study

authors: Marsh, Dan

subjects: non-market valuation

abstract: Water pollution is now considered to be one of the most important environmental issues facing New Zealand. Water quality in rivers, lakes and streams is generally falling alongside the increase in farming intensity, especially in dairying. Currently, technical and regulatory mechanisms to reduce non-point source pollution from agriculture are the focus of an intensive effort involving industry, researchers, regulators and other stakeholders.
The research described in this non-technical paper aims to complement existing knowledge by developing appropriate methodology for valuing water quality improvements in New Zealand. It is envisaged that this type of information will assist the policy process by allowing decision makers to consider both the costs and the benefits of different levels of water quality improvements.
This research is based on a case study of the Karapiro catchment in the North Island of New Zealand. It uses choice analysis to assess people’s preferences and willingness to pay for different levels of water quality improvement in catchment streams. Choice analysis methods ask respondents to choose between one group of environmental services or characteristics, at a given price or cost to the individual, and another group of environmental characteristics at a different price or cost. Each respondent is usually asked to repeat this exercise several times.
The results from this study indicate that respondents would be willing to pay for cleaner water for swimming, for better ecological health (with eels, bullies and smelt present), for the presence of trout and for better clarity such that ‘you can usually see the bottom’. Respondent preferences were strongest for water suitable for swimming, followed by ecological health, presence of trout and clarity.

text: An assessment of the benefits of cleaner streams: A New Zealand case study Water pollution is now considered to be one of the most important environmental issues facing New Zealand. Water quality in rivers, lakes and streams is generally falling alongside the increase in farming intensity, especially in dairying. Currently, technical and regulatory mechanisms to reduce non-point source pollution from agriculture are the focus of an intensive effort involving industry, researchers, regulators and other stakeholders.
The research described in this non-technical paper aims to complement existing knowledge by developing appropriate methodology for valuing water quality improvements in New Zealand. It is envisaged that this type of information will assist the policy process by allowing decision makers to consider both the costs and the benefits of different levels of water quality improvements.
This research is based on a case study of the Karapiro catchment in the North Island of New Zealand. It uses choice analysis to assess people’s preferences and willingness to pay for different levels of water quality improvement in catchment streams. Choice analysis methods ask respondents to choose between one group of environmental services or characteristics, at a given price or cost to the individual, and another group of environmental characteristics at a different price or cost. Each respondent is usually asked to repeat this exercise several times.
The results from this study indicate that respondents would be willing to pay for cleaner water for swimming, for better ecological health (with eels, bullies and smelt present), for the presence of trout and for better clarity such that ‘you can usually see the bottom’. Respondent preferences were strongest for water suitable for swimming, followed by ecological health, presence of trout and clarity.

year: 2010-10

title: Creativity, mood disorders and the aesthetic.

authors: Fraser, Deborah

abstract: This article explores the sensitivity and mood disorders found in a number of gifted people. Dabrowski's theory of positive disintegration provides the theoretical framework through which issues for these people are examined. Personal narratives and poems from gifted young people provide insights to their sensitivities and struggles. The aesthetic is proposed as one way in which to understand their needs. There are direct implications for parents, teachers, health professionals, and creative people when mood disorders are considered developmental rather than purely pathological. In particular, the therapeutic influence of expressing strong feelings through creative writing has merit in terms of support. Dabrowski's theory and the use of the aesthetic deepens both our understanding and our appreciation of the gifted.

text: Creativity, mood disorders and the aesthetic. This article explores the sensitivity and mood disorders found in a number of gifted people. Dabrowski's theory of positive disintegration provides the theoretical framework through which issues for these people are examined. Personal narratives and poems from gifted young people provide insights to their sensitivities and struggles. The aesthetic is proposed as one way in which to understand their needs. There are direct implications for parents, teachers, health professionals, and creative people when mood disorders are considered developmental rather than purely pathological. In particular, the therapeutic influence of expressing strong feelings through creative writing has merit in terms of support. Dabrowski's theory and the use of the aesthetic deepens both our understanding and our appreciation of the gifted.

year: 2010

title: Fanning the divine spark: Gaining understandings of micro-interactions in New Zealand classrooms

authors: Eley, Elizabeth Martha Ann

subjects: micro-interactions

abstract: New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi was signed by representatives of Iwi Māori (Indigenous tribal groups) and the British Crown.  Inherent in the heritages of both signatory groups is the ontological positioning that children are born of greatness; carriers of the divine spark from Tama-nui-te-rā (the central sun) and created in the image of God.  Almost all New Zealand children attend school.  For some, their ongoing classroom experiences with educators fans their divine spark and works towards the realisation of their innate potential.  For others, schooling is not a positive experience and their divine spark may be neither recognised nor celebrated.  

This research explores the relationships and pedagogical practices that underpin the classroom micro-interactions experienced by children.  Children’s schooling experience is made up of small interactions in classrooms that are situated in the social, political and legal contexts of schooling.  Therefore, this research applies both a centripetal and a centrifugal examination of the macro and micro contexts of classroom interactions.  

In examining the macro-context, ontological views of the child and the theoretical frameworks that guide pedagogy are considered.  The Education Acts governing New Zealand schooling have successively contained an ontological contradiction that enforces both a factory model as the preferred means of schooling for New Zealand and a requirement to honour the Treaty of Waitangi, including the worldviews of both signatories.  I conclude that educators within the compulsory schooling sector are not provided with specific guidance on how to navigate these contradictory worldviews.  Neither ontological views of how children are perceived within the system, nor theoretical frameworks that could and should inform views of knowledge and how learning occurs, are made explicit for educators.  

At the micro-context level, relationships and pedagogical practices are explored through case studies in three different New Zealand classrooms.  In each case, from video-recordings of classroom interactions, critical incidents were extracted and used to support interviews with participating teachers, students, parents and members of the wider school community.  Employing culturally responsive research methodologies, the interactions with participants were relational and dialogic.  The research found that classroom micro-interactions are pervasive and complex.  All participants, students, teachers and whānau, draw from the knowledge, understandings and positionings of the individual’s own cultural toolkits in classroom interactions.  Their cultural toolkits contain a range of factors to support learning, all of which were necessary and interdependent.  

The thesis calls for all children to receive an education that fans their inherent divine spark.  While this experience is not yet the case for all, there is opportunity in the rhetoric and structures already within New Zealand’s education system for this to occur.  Some schools and communities have begun to successfully challenge and address the prevailing theoretical and pedagogical status quo.  Therefore, there is reason for radical hope for a system-wide fanning of the divine spark in every child.

text: Fanning the divine spark: Gaining understandings of micro-interactions in New Zealand classrooms New Zealand’s Treaty of Waitangi was signed by representatives of Iwi Māori (Indigenous tribal groups) and the British Crown.  Inherent in the heritages of both signatory groups is the ontological positioning that children are born of greatness; carriers of the divine spark from Tama-nui-te-rā (the central sun) and created in the image of God.  Almost all New Zealand children attend school.  For some, their ongoing classroom experiences with educators fans their divine spark and works towards the realisation of their innate potential.  For others, schooling is not a positive experience and their divine spark may be neither recognised nor celebrated.  

This research explores the relationships and pedagogical practices that underpin the classroom micro-interactions experienced by children.  Children’s schooling experience is made up of small interactions in classrooms that are situated in the social, political and legal contexts of schooling.  Therefore, this research applies both a centripetal and a centrifugal examination of the macro and micro contexts of classroom interactions.  

In examining the macro-context, ontological views of the child and the theoretical frameworks that guide pedagogy are considered.  The Education Acts governing New Zealand schooling have successively contained an ontological contradiction that enforces both a factory model as the preferred means of schooling for New Zealand and a requirement to honour the Treaty of Waitangi, including the worldviews of both signatories.  I conclude that educators within the compulsory schooling sector are not provided with specific guidance on how to navigate these contradictory worldviews.  Neither ontological views of how children are perceived within the system, nor theoretical frameworks that could and should inform views of knowledge and how learning occurs, are made explicit for educators.  

At the micro-context level, relationships and pedagogical practices are explored through case studies in three different New Zealand classrooms.  In each case, from video-recordings of classroom interactions, critical incidents were extracted and used to support interviews with participating teachers, students, parents and members of the wider school community.  Employing culturally responsive research methodologies, the interactions with participants were relational and dialogic.  The research found that classroom micro-interactions are pervasive and complex.  All participants, students, teachers and whānau, draw from the knowledge, understandings and positionings of the individual’s own cultural toolkits in classroom interactions.  Their cultural toolkits contain a range of factors to support learning, all of which were necessary and interdependent.  

The thesis calls for all children to receive an education that fans their inherent divine spark.  While this experience is not yet the case for all, there is opportunity in the rhetoric and structures already within New Zealand’s education system for this to occur.  Some schools and communities have begun to successfully challenge and address the prevailing theoretical and pedagogical status quo.  Therefore, there is reason for radical hope for a system-wide fanning of the divine spark in every child.

year: 2020