title: Mentoring and teaching in academic settings:  Professional and cultural identities from one Pākehā’s perspective

authors: Middleton, Sue

subjects: biculturalism

abstract: When invited to respond to the paper on “Mentoring Māori in a Pākehā framework” by Hook, Waaka and Raumati (2007), I hesitated. Mentoring was not a term I had previously used in my professional thinking or academic writing: unlike Barbara Grant (Ratima & Grant, 2007), I had not been involved in formal mentoring programmes or immersed myself in the mentoring literature. As a Pākehā, I was not qualified to evaluate the authors’ definition of a Māori framework. At first glance, the target paper’s focus seemed to be on mentoring in commercial, rather than academic workplaces. My experience had been as a teacher, the last 30 years having been in a university School of Education. I was persuaded to undertake this commentary on the grounds that academic work involves nurturing, advising and supporting younger or less experienced colleagues, as well as students – tasks identified as mentoring in the Hook et al. paper. The following comments are informed by my everyday practices as teacher, thesis supervisor and researcher, and by my former management roles as an assistant dean of graduate studies and head of department. My angle of vision and conceptual resources are those of a (Pākehā and feminist) sociologist of education.

text: Mentoring and teaching in academic settings:  Professional and cultural identities from one Pākehā’s perspective When invited to respond to the paper on “Mentoring Māori in a Pākehā framework” by Hook, Waaka and Raumati (2007), I hesitated. Mentoring was not a term I had previously used in my professional thinking or academic writing: unlike Barbara Grant (Ratima & Grant, 2007), I had not been involved in formal mentoring programmes or immersed myself in the mentoring literature. As a Pākehā, I was not qualified to evaluate the authors’ definition of a Māori framework. At first glance, the target paper’s focus seemed to be on mentoring in commercial, rather than academic workplaces. My experience had been as a teacher, the last 30 years having been in a university School of Education. I was persuaded to undertake this commentary on the grounds that academic work involves nurturing, advising and supporting younger or less experienced colleagues, as well as students – tasks identified as mentoring in the Hook et al. paper. The following comments are informed by my everyday practices as teacher, thesis supervisor and researcher, and by my former management roles as an assistant dean of graduate studies and head of department. My angle of vision and conceptual resources are those of a (Pākehā and feminist) sociologist of education.

year: 2007-12

title: An integral rite of passage: embedding the aesthetic in adventure education in the pursuit of wellbeing

authors: Wagstaff, Ruth

subjects: wellbeing

abstract: The context for this study was the implementation of an arts integrated unit examined through the lenses of wellbeing, adventure education, children’s spirituality and aesthetic experience. The author’s personal experiences as a holistic educator, connecting theory and practice in educational settings, informed the devising of the learning experiences incorporated into this contemporary ‘Rites of Passage’, arts integrated unit. They also informed the qualitative methods selected for this research. Students reported on their own and others’ perceived state of “wholeness” and completeness of experience and the New Zealand Maori concepts of “hauora” – mental and emotional, physical, social and spiritual wellbeing were examined. Qualitative analysis of the data revealed that a holistic, integrative approach to learning was valued by the students and contributed significantly to their experience of wellbeing and wholeness. The coded data was considered in terms of a heuristic clustering of responses around the relational categories of Self, Others and the Environment. Connection, Relationship and Belonging emerged as the most important themes and, unexpectedly, Inclusion emerged as an important consideration to the participants in this study. Creative and resilience-building learning activities, as within this ‘Rites of Passage” unit and the integral “Wilderness Camp”, are supportive of the health and wellbeing of young learners. Such learning opportunities provide for intra-personal and inter-personal development, and contribute to their sense of self, place, meaning and purpose.

text: An integral rite of passage: embedding the aesthetic in adventure education in the pursuit of wellbeing The context for this study was the implementation of an arts integrated unit examined through the lenses of wellbeing, adventure education, children’s spirituality and aesthetic experience. The author’s personal experiences as a holistic educator, connecting theory and practice in educational settings, informed the devising of the learning experiences incorporated into this contemporary ‘Rites of Passage’, arts integrated unit. They also informed the qualitative methods selected for this research. Students reported on their own and others’ perceived state of “wholeness” and completeness of experience and the New Zealand Maori concepts of “hauora” – mental and emotional, physical, social and spiritual wellbeing were examined. Qualitative analysis of the data revealed that a holistic, integrative approach to learning was valued by the students and contributed significantly to their experience of wellbeing and wholeness. The coded data was considered in terms of a heuristic clustering of responses around the relational categories of Self, Others and the Environment. Connection, Relationship and Belonging emerged as the most important themes and, unexpectedly, Inclusion emerged as an important consideration to the participants in this study. Creative and resilience-building learning activities, as within this ‘Rites of Passage” unit and the integral “Wilderness Camp”, are supportive of the health and wellbeing of young learners. Such learning opportunities provide for intra-personal and inter-personal development, and contribute to their sense of self, place, meaning and purpose.

year: 2011

title: Intervention analysis of SARS on Japanese tourism demand for Taiwan

authors: Min, Jennifer C.H.

subjects: international tourism

abstract: Japan was Asia’s leading generator of international tourism in the 1980s and 1990s. Japanese tourists make up over 30% of all international tourists to Taiwan and they have been the highest ranking tourist source market since the early stages of the island’s tourism development in the 1970s. However, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003, the most catastrophic disaster in the past 100 years in Taiwan, had a huge impact on Japanese inbound tourism to the island. The purpose of this study is to evaluate how Japanese inbound arrivals have been affected by the SARS outbreak. A SARIMA with intervention model is used to assess the impact of the epidemic on inbound tourism from Japan to Taiwan in the aftermath of the SARS outbreak. The empirical results indicated that inbound tourism from Japan was devastated by the crisis, particularly during the first 5 months after the SARS outbreak. This study provides some helpful insight for the tourism industry to respond to the impact of exogenous shock.

text: Intervention analysis of SARS on Japanese tourism demand for Taiwan Japan was Asia’s leading generator of international tourism in the 1980s and 1990s. Japanese tourists make up over 30% of all international tourists to Taiwan and they have been the highest ranking tourist source market since the early stages of the island’s tourism development in the 1970s. However, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003, the most catastrophic disaster in the past 100 years in Taiwan, had a huge impact on Japanese inbound tourism to the island. The purpose of this study is to evaluate how Japanese inbound arrivals have been affected by the SARS outbreak. A SARIMA with intervention model is used to assess the impact of the epidemic on inbound tourism from Japan to Taiwan in the aftermath of the SARS outbreak. The empirical results indicated that inbound tourism from Japan was devastated by the crisis, particularly during the first 5 months after the SARS outbreak. This study provides some helpful insight for the tourism industry to respond to the impact of exogenous shock.

year: 2010