title: Children’s negotiation of meanings about geometric shapes and their properties in a New Zealand multilingual primary classroom

authors: Sharma, Shweta

subjects: Multilingual

abstract: New Zealand is a nation of superdiversity in terms of ethnicities and languages spoken. This superdiversity is reflected in New Zealand multilingual classrooms. In the New Zealand primary school mathematics curriculum, the teaching and learning of early geometry focuses on recognising and understanding shapes, their properties, and symmetries, and on describing the position and movement of shapes. The Achievement Objectives suggest that the children at Curriculum Level 3, which roughly translates to Year 5/6 (9 to 11-year-old), are expected to identify, describe, and classify two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) shapes by spatial features. Acknowledging the multilingual context of a New Zealand classroom, this study investigated how children negotiate their meanings about 2D shapes, 3D shapes, and their properties as they engage in whole-class and/or group interactions in a New Zealand primary classroom. Accordingly, following research questions (RQ) guided this study:
1.	What discursive constructions do 9 to 11-year-old children use to represent their understanding of 2D shapes, 3D shapes, and their properties in a New Zealand multilingual primary classroom? 
2.	How do 9 to 11-year-old children interact to construct their understanding of 2D shapes, 3D shapes, and their properties in a New Zealand multilingual primary classroom?
3.	What characteristics of dialogic space influence 9 to 11-year-old children’s negotiation of meanings about 2D shapes, 3D shapes, and their properties in a New Zealand multilingual primary classroom? 
A qualitative study informed by the Discursive Psychology perspective (Edwards & Potter, 1992) within the Critical Inquiry research paradigm was undertaken. Edwards and Potter (1992) argue that language-in-use is construed as an action in itself and, as a result, knowledge is taken as situated and constructed through language-in-use as people interact. Bakhtin’s (1981) Dialogic Theory and Garfinkel’s (1967) Ethnomethodology informed the theoretical framework of this study. Data were gathered from a Year 5/6 classroom in a New Zealand English-medium school. The participants were fifteen children (nine multilingual, six monolingual) and their mathematics teacher. Six geometry lessons on shapes and their properties were observed and audiovisually recorded. Additional data were gathered from a variety of sources, including semi-structured teacher interviews, four focus group interviews with children, a short questionnaire filled by the parents, children’s work samples, and teacher’s unit plan. Data from different sources allowed me to establish the reliability and validity of the findings.  
Data were analysed in three phases: thematic analysis, micro-level analysis, and macro-level analysis. Five themes were identified from thematic analysis of data to explore the discursive constructions that the children used to represent their understanding of shapes and their properties (RQ1). These themes are: (i) making sense of 2D shapes, (ii) making sense of 3D shapes, (iii) relating 2D shapes with 3D shapes, (iv) mathematical construct of dimension, and (v) naming shapes in Te Reo Māori (the Indigenous language of New Zealand). For the purpose of managing and presenting analysis, two Key Moments within each of the five themes were identified for further analysis at the micro-level and macro-level. For the micro-level analysis, I used selected Conversation Analysis (Schegloff & Sacks, 1973) techniques to explore what is said and how it is said (RQ2). Based on the micro-level analysis findings, the macro-level analysis was conducted using Bakhtinian concepts of speech genres, discourses, heteroglossia and unitary language, double-voicedness, and chronotopes to explore the characteristics of dialogic space that influence children’s negotiations of meanings about shapes and their properties (RQ3).  
The study reveals four novel findings. First, the analogy of “flat vs fat” may not be useful in developing children’s geometric understanding of dimension. Second, the study indicates that multilingual children use prosodic repertoires from their multiple languages as they engage in whole-class or group interactions, and these prosodic repertoires may be interpreted differently by monolingual English-speaking children. Third, the study reveals the presence of several speech genres available to teachers and children within the dialogic space of a multilingual classroom. Fourth, the study shows that multiple meanings could be drawn out for each utterance, and the meaning of an utterance is dependent not only upon the interaction of unitary language and heteroglossia between the discourses but within the discourse as well. 
The findings of this study suggest, first, that a comprehensive definition of dimension needs to be included in the school curriculum. Second, teachers may benefit from learning about prosodic features that multilingual children may use to show their confidence or doubt about their learning, along with several speech genres available within the dialogic space. Several ideas for further research in the mathematics education field with a focus on developing an understanding of geometry concepts such as dimension are also suggested. Overall, the study highlighted the need for teachers and teacher educators to recognise subtle yet powerful aspects of language use that influence children’s negotiation of meanings about geometric ideas as children engage in classroom interactions.

text: Children’s negotiation of meanings about geometric shapes and their properties in a New Zealand multilingual primary classroom New Zealand is a nation of superdiversity in terms of ethnicities and languages spoken. This superdiversity is reflected in New Zealand multilingual classrooms. In the New Zealand primary school mathematics curriculum, the teaching and learning of early geometry focuses on recognising and understanding shapes, their properties, and symmetries, and on describing the position and movement of shapes. The Achievement Objectives suggest that the children at Curriculum Level 3, which roughly translates to Year 5/6 (9 to 11-year-old), are expected to identify, describe, and classify two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) shapes by spatial features. Acknowledging the multilingual context of a New Zealand classroom, this study investigated how children negotiate their meanings about 2D shapes, 3D shapes, and their properties as they engage in whole-class and/or group interactions in a New Zealand primary classroom. Accordingly, following research questions (RQ) guided this study:
1.	What discursive constructions do 9 to 11-year-old children use to represent their understanding of 2D shapes, 3D shapes, and their properties in a New Zealand multilingual primary classroom? 
2.	How do 9 to 11-year-old children interact to construct their understanding of 2D shapes, 3D shapes, and their properties in a New Zealand multilingual primary classroom?
3.	What characteristics of dialogic space influence 9 to 11-year-old children’s negotiation of meanings about 2D shapes, 3D shapes, and their properties in a New Zealand multilingual primary classroom? 
A qualitative study informed by the Discursive Psychology perspective (Edwards & Potter, 1992) within the Critical Inquiry research paradigm was undertaken. Edwards and Potter (1992) argue that language-in-use is construed as an action in itself and, as a result, knowledge is taken as situated and constructed through language-in-use as people interact. Bakhtin’s (1981) Dialogic Theory and Garfinkel’s (1967) Ethnomethodology informed the theoretical framework of this study. Data were gathered from a Year 5/6 classroom in a New Zealand English-medium school. The participants were fifteen children (nine multilingual, six monolingual) and their mathematics teacher. Six geometry lessons on shapes and their properties were observed and audiovisually recorded. Additional data were gathered from a variety of sources, including semi-structured teacher interviews, four focus group interviews with children, a short questionnaire filled by the parents, children’s work samples, and teacher’s unit plan. Data from different sources allowed me to establish the reliability and validity of the findings.  
Data were analysed in three phases: thematic analysis, micro-level analysis, and macro-level analysis. Five themes were identified from thematic analysis of data to explore the discursive constructions that the children used to represent their understanding of shapes and their properties (RQ1). These themes are: (i) making sense of 2D shapes, (ii) making sense of 3D shapes, (iii) relating 2D shapes with 3D shapes, (iv) mathematical construct of dimension, and (v) naming shapes in Te Reo Māori (the Indigenous language of New Zealand). For the purpose of managing and presenting analysis, two Key Moments within each of the five themes were identified for further analysis at the micro-level and macro-level. For the micro-level analysis, I used selected Conversation Analysis (Schegloff & Sacks, 1973) techniques to explore what is said and how it is said (RQ2). Based on the micro-level analysis findings, the macro-level analysis was conducted using Bakhtinian concepts of speech genres, discourses, heteroglossia and unitary language, double-voicedness, and chronotopes to explore the characteristics of dialogic space that influence children’s negotiations of meanings about shapes and their properties (RQ3).  
The study reveals four novel findings. First, the analogy of “flat vs fat” may not be useful in developing children’s geometric understanding of dimension. Second, the study indicates that multilingual children use prosodic repertoires from their multiple languages as they engage in whole-class or group interactions, and these prosodic repertoires may be interpreted differently by monolingual English-speaking children. Third, the study reveals the presence of several speech genres available to teachers and children within the dialogic space of a multilingual classroom. Fourth, the study shows that multiple meanings could be drawn out for each utterance, and the meaning of an utterance is dependent not only upon the interaction of unitary language and heteroglossia between the discourses but within the discourse as well. 
The findings of this study suggest, first, that a comprehensive definition of dimension needs to be included in the school curriculum. Second, teachers may benefit from learning about prosodic features that multilingual children may use to show their confidence or doubt about their learning, along with several speech genres available within the dialogic space. Several ideas for further research in the mathematics education field with a focus on developing an understanding of geometry concepts such as dimension are also suggested. Overall, the study highlighted the need for teachers and teacher educators to recognise subtle yet powerful aspects of language use that influence children’s negotiation of meanings about geometric ideas as children engage in classroom interactions.

year: 2022

title: The Ogress, The Innocent, And The Madman: Narrative and Gender in Child Homicide Trials in New Zealand, 1870-1925

authors: Powell, Debra

subjects: child homicide

abstract: The murder of a child represents one of the most perplexing and unimaginable of crimes. This thesis, the first legal-historical investigation into child homicide in New Zealand, seeks to uncover some of the ways that people have ‘imagined’ and made sense of this complex crime in the past. The conclusions emerging from this study suggest that nineteenth and early twentieth-century observers of child homicide trials relied heavily on the interpretive power of familiar cultural narratives to convey meaning and achieve composure. Homicides involving children, though often disparate and deeply ambiguous events, were bounded by a narrow yet profoundly influential body of images, characters and representations. This repertoire of narrative conventions was not simply reflective of contemporary attitudes and understandings but worked actively to bolster and crystallise the meanings surrounding disturbing events. 
Utilising quantitative and qualitative methodologies, this study draws on a comprehensive dataset of reported child homicide incidents occurring in New Zealand between 1870 and 1925. Select cases from this database are considered as a set of narrative texts using gender as the primary category of analysis. The popular and legal discourses surrounding these incidents are analysed within a post-structuralist theoretical framework to examine the divergent representations of those who were implicated in the suspicious death of a child. The research includes an investigation of criminal data for evidence of quantitative patterning in criminal typologies and sentencing, as well as analysis of textual evidence such as trial transcripts, coronial inquest reports, parliamentary debates, and newspaper reporting and commentary. The findings of this study demonstrate that the discursive constructions of child homicide in nineteenth and early twentieth-century New Zealand were highly gendered. Ultimately, child murder was imagined as an offence perpetrated by mothers. However, the impact of gender on trial proceedings and outcomes was by no means straightforward or clear cut. Cultural understandings of race, class, morality, madness and criminality all fed into the narrative construction of murder events and were shaped and reformed in relation to each other. In unpacking the stories of child murder, this thesis exposes the highly constructed nature of criminal legal discourse within and beyond the courtroom, and provides a historical basis for a more nuanced critique of understandings of child homicide crime in the present.

text: The Ogress, The Innocent, And The Madman: Narrative and Gender in Child Homicide Trials in New Zealand, 1870-1925 The murder of a child represents one of the most perplexing and unimaginable of crimes. This thesis, the first legal-historical investigation into child homicide in New Zealand, seeks to uncover some of the ways that people have ‘imagined’ and made sense of this complex crime in the past. The conclusions emerging from this study suggest that nineteenth and early twentieth-century observers of child homicide trials relied heavily on the interpretive power of familiar cultural narratives to convey meaning and achieve composure. Homicides involving children, though often disparate and deeply ambiguous events, were bounded by a narrow yet profoundly influential body of images, characters and representations. This repertoire of narrative conventions was not simply reflective of contemporary attitudes and understandings but worked actively to bolster and crystallise the meanings surrounding disturbing events. 
Utilising quantitative and qualitative methodologies, this study draws on a comprehensive dataset of reported child homicide incidents occurring in New Zealand between 1870 and 1925. Select cases from this database are considered as a set of narrative texts using gender as the primary category of analysis. The popular and legal discourses surrounding these incidents are analysed within a post-structuralist theoretical framework to examine the divergent representations of those who were implicated in the suspicious death of a child. The research includes an investigation of criminal data for evidence of quantitative patterning in criminal typologies and sentencing, as well as analysis of textual evidence such as trial transcripts, coronial inquest reports, parliamentary debates, and newspaper reporting and commentary. The findings of this study demonstrate that the discursive constructions of child homicide in nineteenth and early twentieth-century New Zealand were highly gendered. Ultimately, child murder was imagined as an offence perpetrated by mothers. However, the impact of gender on trial proceedings and outcomes was by no means straightforward or clear cut. Cultural understandings of race, class, morality, madness and criminality all fed into the narrative construction of murder events and were shaped and reformed in relation to each other. In unpacking the stories of child murder, this thesis exposes the highly constructed nature of criminal legal discourse within and beyond the courtroom, and provides a historical basis for a more nuanced critique of understandings of child homicide crime in the present.

year: 2013

title: Microsoft Translator Hub for Māori language

authors: Keegan, Te Taka Adrian Gregory

subjects: computer science

abstract: Recent improvements in Machine Translation (MT) software has opened new possibilities for applications of automatic language translation. But can these opportunities exist for the smaller, minority languages of the world? Training data was collected for the language pair of Māori and English which was used to build an MT system using Microsoft’s Translator Hub software. A comparative analysis was undertaken with this system and Google Translate. Various MT metrics and analysis software was considered before deciding to use the Asiya toolkit to undertake the comparative analysis. Māori language experts were also used to provide a human perspective on the output translations. The overall results showed no significant difference in the translation quality produced by the two systems. Despite some misgivings around the accuracy of the translations these results do show promise for MT usage by minority languages.

text: Microsoft Translator Hub for Māori language Recent improvements in Machine Translation (MT) software has opened new possibilities for applications of automatic language translation. But can these opportunities exist for the smaller, minority languages of the world? Training data was collected for the language pair of Māori and English which was used to build an MT system using Microsoft’s Translator Hub software. A comparative analysis was undertaken with this system and Google Translate. Various MT metrics and analysis software was considered before deciding to use the Asiya toolkit to undertake the comparative analysis. Māori language experts were also used to provide a human perspective on the output translations. The overall results showed no significant difference in the translation quality produced by the two systems. Despite some misgivings around the accuracy of the translations these results do show promise for MT usage by minority languages.

year: 2018