title: Place of theory: Locating the New Zealand Education PhD experience

authors: Middleton, Sue

subjects: education

abstract: The year 1998 marked 50 years of doctoral study in New Zealand, and in 1999 I embarked on a history of Ph.D. theses in Education. Influenced by Foucaultian genealogy, this employed a fusion of bibliographic, archival and life-history interview methods. One hundred and eighty-three Education theses were identified and 57 of these graduates interviewed. How has New Zealand's 'corpus' of Education Ph.D. thesis production been enabled and constrained by its temporal/spatial location? To address this, I draw on geographical debates on 'space' and 'place'. The first part contextualises thesis topics, theories and methods in discourses of international scholarship, New Zealand politics and social change. The second part narrates a parallel history of the changing circumstances and sites of thesis production—biographical, domestic and institutional. It integrates students' accounts of thesis work's epistemological, methodological, spatial and technological dimensions to suggest a history of New Zealand doctoral candidates' experience.

text: Place of theory: Locating the New Zealand Education PhD experience The year 1998 marked 50 years of doctoral study in New Zealand, and in 1999 I embarked on a history of Ph.D. theses in Education. Influenced by Foucaultian genealogy, this employed a fusion of bibliographic, archival and life-history interview methods. One hundred and eighty-three Education theses were identified and 57 of these graduates interviewed. How has New Zealand's 'corpus' of Education Ph.D. thesis production been enabled and constrained by its temporal/spatial location? To address this, I draw on geographical debates on 'space' and 'place'. The first part contextualises thesis topics, theories and methods in discourses of international scholarship, New Zealand politics and social change. The second part narrates a parallel history of the changing circumstances and sites of thesis production—biographical, domestic and institutional. It integrates students' accounts of thesis work's epistemological, methodological, spatial and technological dimensions to suggest a history of New Zealand doctoral candidates' experience.

year: 2007

title: Smart or Smarting: Student-library engagement in online distance education

authors: Ferrier-Watson, Anne

subjects: distance learning

abstract: This small-scale mixed methods study used surveys and focus groups to investigate the challenges faced by a cohort of online learners at the University of Waikato when seeking and referencing information for course assessments. The research also investigated the type of library support students value, as well as the barriers to their engagement with library information services. Findings revealed half the cohort reported they seldom used the library or library services during their degree; nearly three quarters of the cohort reported problems finding information; and over three quarters of the cohort did not seek help from the library. However, over three quarters of students reported they engaged with library referencing resources. This chapter makes observations about what it means to be ‘digitally smart’ in an academic library context, and suggests ways that library information services can be better provided and promoted to an information-saturated and time poor student audience.

text: Smart or Smarting: Student-library engagement in online distance education This small-scale mixed methods study used surveys and focus groups to investigate the challenges faced by a cohort of online learners at the University of Waikato when seeking and referencing information for course assessments. The research also investigated the type of library support students value, as well as the barriers to their engagement with library information services. Findings revealed half the cohort reported they seldom used the library or library services during their degree; nearly three quarters of the cohort reported problems finding information; and over three quarters of the cohort did not seek help from the library. However, over three quarters of students reported they engaged with library referencing resources. This chapter makes observations about what it means to be ‘digitally smart’ in an academic library context, and suggests ways that library information services can be better provided and promoted to an information-saturated and time poor student audience.

year: 2015

title: The contested shift to a bicultural understanding of place heritage in Aotearoa New Zealand

authors: Passey, Emma

abstract: This article explores contemporary threads in the heritage history of Aotearoa New Zealand, as we witness in real-time the emergence of alternative narratives of Indigenous heritage, in contrast to those of Western dominated modernity and colonial hegemony. Moves to actively decolonise heritage studies is creating shifts in the bicultural understanding of culture and heritage to overtly include place heritage. As this new framing emerges, wider acknowledgement of the significance of Māori heritage landscapes is growing. This is explored here in a series of four case-studies. Each account illustrates how Indigenous Māori voices have gained momentum, and reinforces how Aotearoa New Zealand is transitioning to greater bicultural appreciation through inclusion, changes in social and cultural conventions, and new interpretations of dominant narratives using tools like critical heritage studies and existing legal conventions. This evolution of heritage values is not without repeated contestation, however. Positively, increasing numbers of settler-Pākehā (non-Māori) as well as those colonised, no longer believe or accept the histories previously told. Much needed, robust, and sometimes difficult discussions are taking place, enabling New Zealanders to reconsider the significance of what heritage means to all its people.

text: The contested shift to a bicultural understanding of place heritage in Aotearoa New Zealand This article explores contemporary threads in the heritage history of Aotearoa New Zealand, as we witness in real-time the emergence of alternative narratives of Indigenous heritage, in contrast to those of Western dominated modernity and colonial hegemony. Moves to actively decolonise heritage studies is creating shifts in the bicultural understanding of culture and heritage to overtly include place heritage. As this new framing emerges, wider acknowledgement of the significance of Māori heritage landscapes is growing. This is explored here in a series of four case-studies. Each account illustrates how Indigenous Māori voices have gained momentum, and reinforces how Aotearoa New Zealand is transitioning to greater bicultural appreciation through inclusion, changes in social and cultural conventions, and new interpretations of dominant narratives using tools like critical heritage studies and existing legal conventions. This evolution of heritage values is not without repeated contestation, however. Positively, increasing numbers of settler-Pākehā (non-Māori) as well as those colonised, no longer believe or accept the histories previously told. Much needed, robust, and sometimes difficult discussions are taking place, enabling New Zealanders to reconsider the significance of what heritage means to all its people.

year: 2023-01-01