title: The way forward – Strengthening the advocate-activist early childhood profession and teachers’ professional identities

authors: Kamenarac, Olivera

subjects: teachers’ professional identities

abstract: The New Zealand early childhood education and care (ECEC) has been torn between tensions created through an interplay of opposing discursive windows. Discursive windows of enterprise, economic investment and vulnerability have promoted competition, individualism, entrepreneurship and social-intervention emphases in the sector. On the other hand, discourses of collectivism, collegiality, and empowerment, reinforcing democratic education and democratic professionalism, have been frequently overpowered. Through a struggle to resolve ongoing tensions among the confronting and yet simultaneously coexisting discourses in ECEC policies and practices, early childhood teachers constantly reinvent their professional selves and transform their teaching practices. This paper draws on my doctoral study investigating how teachers’ professional identities have been re-constructed in response to shifting discourses in ECEC policies and practices in Aotearoa New Zealand. By sharing an analysis of some key ECEC policy documents over the last two decades, and collective and individual interviews with teachers, professional leaders and managers from both community-owned and for-profit services, I exemplify how opposing political interests and priorities have created a space for multiple and yet confronting constructions of teachers’ identities. I argue that straightening of the advocate-activist early childhood profession and teachers’ professional identities is the necessity and the priority for bringing in a much needed paradigm shift in the contemporary context of ECEC, in which teachers are forced to favour enterprise interests over well-being of children, families and community. Keywords: teachers’ professional identities, democratic professionalism, advocacy

text: The way forward – Strengthening the advocate-activist early childhood profession and teachers’ professional identities The New Zealand early childhood education and care (ECEC) has been torn between tensions created through an interplay of opposing discursive windows. Discursive windows of enterprise, economic investment and vulnerability have promoted competition, individualism, entrepreneurship and social-intervention emphases in the sector. On the other hand, discourses of collectivism, collegiality, and empowerment, reinforcing democratic education and democratic professionalism, have been frequently overpowered. Through a struggle to resolve ongoing tensions among the confronting and yet simultaneously coexisting discourses in ECEC policies and practices, early childhood teachers constantly reinvent their professional selves and transform their teaching practices. This paper draws on my doctoral study investigating how teachers’ professional identities have been re-constructed in response to shifting discourses in ECEC policies and practices in Aotearoa New Zealand. By sharing an analysis of some key ECEC policy documents over the last two decades, and collective and individual interviews with teachers, professional leaders and managers from both community-owned and for-profit services, I exemplify how opposing political interests and priorities have created a space for multiple and yet confronting constructions of teachers’ identities. I argue that straightening of the advocate-activist early childhood profession and teachers’ professional identities is the necessity and the priority for bringing in a much needed paradigm shift in the contemporary context of ECEC, in which teachers are forced to favour enterprise interests over well-being of children, families and community. Keywords: teachers’ professional identities, democratic professionalism, advocacy

year: 2018

title: Adaptive text mining: Inferring structure from sequences

authors: Witten, Ian H.

subjects: computer science

abstract: Text mining is about inferring structure from sequences representing natural language text, and may be defined as the process of analyzing text to extract information that is useful for particular purposes. Although hand-crafted heuristics are a common practical approach for extracting information from text, a general, and generalizable, approach requires adaptive techniques. This paper studies the way in which the adaptive techniques used in text compression can be applied to text mining. It develops several examples: extraction of hierarchical phrase structures from text, identification of keyphrases in documents, locating proper names and quantities of interest in a piece of text, text categorization, word segmentation, acronym extraction, and structure recognition. We conclude that compression forms a sound unifying principle that allows many text mining problems to be tacked adaptively.

text: Adaptive text mining: Inferring structure from sequences Text mining is about inferring structure from sequences representing natural language text, and may be defined as the process of analyzing text to extract information that is useful for particular purposes. Although hand-crafted heuristics are a common practical approach for extracting information from text, a general, and generalizable, approach requires adaptive techniques. This paper studies the way in which the adaptive techniques used in text compression can be applied to text mining. It develops several examples: extraction of hierarchical phrase structures from text, identification of keyphrases in documents, locating proper names and quantities of interest in a piece of text, text categorization, word segmentation, acronym extraction, and structure recognition. We conclude that compression forms a sound unifying principle that allows many text mining problems to be tacked adaptively.

year: 2004

title: Self-decolonisation in Aotearoa: Pushing through programmatic Pākehā paralysis

authors: Weijers, Dan M.

abstract: Te reo, tīkanga, mātauranga, te Ao, and kaupapa Māori are finally seeing a resurgence in Aotearoa. This revitalisation is occurring in the tertiary education sector, but staff and skill deficits are holding back many academic disciplines. This chapter documents the challenges facing a traditionally colonial tertiary programme—philosophy— attempting to de-colonise itself. The overlapping nature of the challenges can make decolonising appear to be so difficult that some programmes may feel paralysed. This chapter argues that the importance of decolonisation requires that programmes push through any paralysis they may be experiencing by prioritising decolonisation above other goals.

text: Self-decolonisation in Aotearoa: Pushing through programmatic Pākehā paralysis Te reo, tīkanga, mātauranga, te Ao, and kaupapa Māori are finally seeing a resurgence in Aotearoa. This revitalisation is occurring in the tertiary education sector, but staff and skill deficits are holding back many academic disciplines. This chapter documents the challenges facing a traditionally colonial tertiary programme—philosophy— attempting to de-colonise itself. The overlapping nature of the challenges can make decolonising appear to be so difficult that some programmes may feel paralysed. This chapter argues that the importance of decolonisation requires that programmes push through any paralysis they may be experiencing by prioritising decolonisation above other goals.

year: 2024