title: Invisible Rehabilitation: An Exploration of Rehabilitative Practices within a Community Work Agency.

authors: Namwinga, Nasalifya

subjects: Rehabilitation

abstract: Community Work is one of the most utilised community based sentences in New Zealand. It is a low cost and low intensity sentence that is extensively used to punish low level offences. Although Community Work is not an explicitly rehabilitative sentence, it does possess some implicitly rehabilitative traits. In her Ireland based study, McGagh (2007) argued that rehabilitative practices enhance Community Work and lead to better outcomes for offenders. The most recent New Zealand based study on the sentence was conducted over 2 decades ago by Asher and O'Neill (1990). This is the research gap this study sought to fill by exploring rehabilitative practices within a faith-based Community Work agency.

The study was an ethnographic case study of a faith-based agency within which offenders on Community Work sentences completed sentenced hours. A number of qualitative data collection methods including observations, interviews, a focus group and analysis of testimonial data were used to triangulate findings. The researcher gathered data from three participant groups at the agency. These groups were; individuals currently or previously on community work sentences at the agency, agency staff and agency volunteers.

When offenders on community work sentences arrive at this agency their status as offenders is kept private. They are consequently introduced as volunteers and have access to all the same benefits of volunteers. The ability to keep their offender status private and be regarded as any other volunteer was a central theme present in the data. This helped those sentenced to community work to develop a non-offender identity. The invisibility of offender status helped offenders distance themselves from the offender identity, while being offered the visible prosocial ‘volunteer’ identity helped them shift their self-narrative from that of an offender to a nonoffender.

Desistance research suggests that subjective changes in an offender’s self-narrative can be indicative of the offender engaging in the desistance process (Farrall & Maruna, 2004; Healy, 2010; Serin & Lloyd, 2009). This study found that anonymising the offender status of individuals in community work sentences at this agency may have initiated a shift in self-narratives as individuals shifted their identity from offenders to volunteers. This narrative shift potentially helped trigger and maintain offender desistance. The principle of treating offenders as desisters rather than persisters displays a confidence in the offenders’ ability to change. This faith in an individual’s ability to change has been found to be desistance supportive (Raynor & Robinson, 2005).

Anonymising offender status as a rehabilitative practice can lead to the onset or maintenance of desistance. It is a potentially effective intervention that could be broadly integrated into the community work sentence.

text: Invisible Rehabilitation: An Exploration of Rehabilitative Practices within a Community Work Agency. Community Work is one of the most utilised community based sentences in New Zealand. It is a low cost and low intensity sentence that is extensively used to punish low level offences. Although Community Work is not an explicitly rehabilitative sentence, it does possess some implicitly rehabilitative traits. In her Ireland based study, McGagh (2007) argued that rehabilitative practices enhance Community Work and lead to better outcomes for offenders. The most recent New Zealand based study on the sentence was conducted over 2 decades ago by Asher and O'Neill (1990). This is the research gap this study sought to fill by exploring rehabilitative practices within a faith-based Community Work agency.

The study was an ethnographic case study of a faith-based agency within which offenders on Community Work sentences completed sentenced hours. A number of qualitative data collection methods including observations, interviews, a focus group and analysis of testimonial data were used to triangulate findings. The researcher gathered data from three participant groups at the agency. These groups were; individuals currently or previously on community work sentences at the agency, agency staff and agency volunteers.

When offenders on community work sentences arrive at this agency their status as offenders is kept private. They are consequently introduced as volunteers and have access to all the same benefits of volunteers. The ability to keep their offender status private and be regarded as any other volunteer was a central theme present in the data. This helped those sentenced to community work to develop a non-offender identity. The invisibility of offender status helped offenders distance themselves from the offender identity, while being offered the visible prosocial ‘volunteer’ identity helped them shift their self-narrative from that of an offender to a nonoffender.

Desistance research suggests that subjective changes in an offender’s self-narrative can be indicative of the offender engaging in the desistance process (Farrall & Maruna, 2004; Healy, 2010; Serin & Lloyd, 2009). This study found that anonymising the offender status of individuals in community work sentences at this agency may have initiated a shift in self-narratives as individuals shifted their identity from offenders to volunteers. This narrative shift potentially helped trigger and maintain offender desistance. The principle of treating offenders as desisters rather than persisters displays a confidence in the offenders’ ability to change. This faith in an individual’s ability to change has been found to be desistance supportive (Raynor & Robinson, 2005).

Anonymising offender status as a rehabilitative practice can lead to the onset or maintenance of desistance. It is a potentially effective intervention that could be broadly integrated into the community work sentence.

year: 2016

title: Number sense in a secondary school context

authors: McChesney, Jane

abstract: Current mathematics education research in New Zealand is directed at primary school or senior secondary school, in the areas of numeracy, technology innovations, student achievement and teacher professional development. This study investigated junior secondary mathematics lessons as contexts for distributed mathematical activity. Two Year 9 classes and one Year 10 class from the same school constituted case studies; two case studies were lower band and one was middle band. All three teachers continued with their normal mathematics programmes. Using an interpretivist methodology, participant observation was the main method used to collect data of sequential mathematics lessons over five weeks. The data was organised around three domains of classroom activity: classroom social norms, mathematical tools, and interaction. The data analysis focussed on aspects of these domains that afforded and constrained the negotiation of mathematical meaning. 
In each classroom context, social norms associated with lesson events were found to afford student participation. Student participation was afforded by interactional spaces; that is, regular opportunities for students to volunteer mathematical contributions and to adopt different roles in joint activity. Interactional spaces provided students with greater access to more diverse mathematical resources. Students activated interactional spaces in different ways with questions, suggestions, explanations, errors and, in one classroom, a discourse of primary school mathematics. 
Using a sociocultural perspective, school mathematical artefacts were conceptualised as cognitive mathematical tools. Cognitive tools were identified as representations, thinking devices and analogous models. Tools that were both representations and thinking devices afforded further resources for students, such as mathematical information, cues and other signifiers. The only technological tool in the case study classrooms was the scientific calculator. The roles of the calculator were as a recording device, calculating machine and exploratory object. In these roles, the calculator afforded further resources for students. 
The findings in the interaction domain challenge the assumption that traditional classroom mathematics programmes have limited discursive opportunities. Students initiated more focussed negotiations in both whole class and localised situations. In each case study, students and the teacher actively contributed mathematical resources. For these lower and middle ability students, access to mathematical resources was a significant affordance for further mathematical activity. In each classroom context, activity was found to be distributed over social norms, tools and interaction. Number sense activity was distributed according to the adapted 'environment' metaphor (Greeno, 1991 ). Students negotiated mathematical meanings by activating and using cognitive tools and discursive resources in the number sense 'environment'.

text: Number sense in a secondary school context Current mathematics education research in New Zealand is directed at primary school or senior secondary school, in the areas of numeracy, technology innovations, student achievement and teacher professional development. This study investigated junior secondary mathematics lessons as contexts for distributed mathematical activity. Two Year 9 classes and one Year 10 class from the same school constituted case studies; two case studies were lower band and one was middle band. All three teachers continued with their normal mathematics programmes. Using an interpretivist methodology, participant observation was the main method used to collect data of sequential mathematics lessons over five weeks. The data was organised around three domains of classroom activity: classroom social norms, mathematical tools, and interaction. The data analysis focussed on aspects of these domains that afforded and constrained the negotiation of mathematical meaning. 
In each classroom context, social norms associated with lesson events were found to afford student participation. Student participation was afforded by interactional spaces; that is, regular opportunities for students to volunteer mathematical contributions and to adopt different roles in joint activity. Interactional spaces provided students with greater access to more diverse mathematical resources. Students activated interactional spaces in different ways with questions, suggestions, explanations, errors and, in one classroom, a discourse of primary school mathematics. 
Using a sociocultural perspective, school mathematical artefacts were conceptualised as cognitive mathematical tools. Cognitive tools were identified as representations, thinking devices and analogous models. Tools that were both representations and thinking devices afforded further resources for students, such as mathematical information, cues and other signifiers. The only technological tool in the case study classrooms was the scientific calculator. The roles of the calculator were as a recording device, calculating machine and exploratory object. In these roles, the calculator afforded further resources for students. 
The findings in the interaction domain challenge the assumption that traditional classroom mathematics programmes have limited discursive opportunities. Students initiated more focussed negotiations in both whole class and localised situations. In each case study, students and the teacher actively contributed mathematical resources. For these lower and middle ability students, access to mathematical resources was a significant affordance for further mathematical activity. In each classroom context, activity was found to be distributed over social norms, tools and interaction. Number sense activity was distributed according to the adapted 'environment' metaphor (Greeno, 1991 ). Students negotiated mathematical meanings by activating and using cognitive tools and discursive resources in the number sense 'environment'.

year: 2004

title: Te Pūtahitanga: A Tiriti-led science-policy approach for Aotearoa New Zealand

authors: Kukutai, Tahu

abstract: This paper examines the interface between science and policymaking and calls for a policy approach that is enabled by, and responsive to, Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Mātauranga Māori. For a science sector to have its greatest reach and impact for all citizens, it must demonstrate relevance, accessibility and inclusion. In Aotearoa, there has been concern about the exclusion of Māori and Pacific expertise from science advice and key decision-making roles. Te Tiriti offers a powerful framework for connecting systems and communities of knowledge in ways that are mutually beneficial and future focused.

text: Te Pūtahitanga: A Tiriti-led science-policy approach for Aotearoa New Zealand This paper examines the interface between science and policymaking and calls for a policy approach that is enabled by, and responsive to, Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Mātauranga Māori. For a science sector to have its greatest reach and impact for all citizens, it must demonstrate relevance, accessibility and inclusion. In Aotearoa, there has been concern about the exclusion of Māori and Pacific expertise from science advice and key decision-making roles. Te Tiriti offers a powerful framework for connecting systems and communities of knowledge in ways that are mutually beneficial and future focused.

year: 2021-04-28