title: Our journey to school: A collaboratively constructed, digitally facilitated transition to school

authors: Woodhouse, Hazel Maxine

subjects: transition to school

abstract: A parent’s role in supporting their child’s transition to school has been well researched and the importance of educational settings developing a partnership with parents has been identified as a key factor in a child’s effective transition to school. However, this idea is based on the belief that it is the child who is experiencing the transition, while the parents have only a supporting role to play. A smaller body of research and literature focuses on a family’s transition to school and acknowledges that the parents as well as the child are undergoing their own processes of change, and may need support in this process.
Taking a new approach to the transition to school process, this thesis explores the use of Facebook by a New Entrant teacher to develop a Community of Practice (CoP) to collaborate with families in making decisions about their own transition to school process. Applying a qualitative, case study approach involving 20 families who had children transitioning from three early childhood centres to the same primary school, online questionnaires were used to generate data from families and teachers at the start of the process to support the purpose and design and of each of the two separate Facebook group (families and teachers) sites. van Gennep’s three phases of transition provided a framework to perceive transition as a process where families’ needs changed over the period of their transition. Reflecting the onging process of transition, the two groups’ online data generated through the Facebook page over the period of seven months were used formatively to provide for the families’ immediate needs, and summatively to view activity and the evolving CoP.
The research found that Facebook was an accessible and flexible tool, and allowed families to participate and collaborate as much as they wanted or needed. This study shows that the functions available through Facebook provided opportunities to share children’s learning with all stakeholders, and so develop transition practices in both ECE and NE environments through sharing and discussing examples of practices. The CoP framework provided a network that enabled those families who needed advice or support about their child’s transition to seek this from experienced members of the group. Facebook facilitated the development of a range of resources for families and teachers to return to at their leisure. It also provided a space to ask questions, have anxieties alleviated and success celebrated. Using the digital space in Facebook, traditionally not the place for more formal orientation meetings, allowed the subsequent face-to-face meetings to become social events. These face-to-face opportunities to meet supported the connections that the families and teachers had initially made online. This thesis advocates for the use of social media platforms, such as Facebook, to enhance a blended approach of both digital and face-to-face opportunities to give families greater agency during their child’s transition to school.

text: Our journey to school: A collaboratively constructed, digitally facilitated transition to school A parent’s role in supporting their child’s transition to school has been well researched and the importance of educational settings developing a partnership with parents has been identified as a key factor in a child’s effective transition to school. However, this idea is based on the belief that it is the child who is experiencing the transition, while the parents have only a supporting role to play. A smaller body of research and literature focuses on a family’s transition to school and acknowledges that the parents as well as the child are undergoing their own processes of change, and may need support in this process.
Taking a new approach to the transition to school process, this thesis explores the use of Facebook by a New Entrant teacher to develop a Community of Practice (CoP) to collaborate with families in making decisions about their own transition to school process. Applying a qualitative, case study approach involving 20 families who had children transitioning from three early childhood centres to the same primary school, online questionnaires were used to generate data from families and teachers at the start of the process to support the purpose and design and of each of the two separate Facebook group (families and teachers) sites. van Gennep’s three phases of transition provided a framework to perceive transition as a process where families’ needs changed over the period of their transition. Reflecting the onging process of transition, the two groups’ online data generated through the Facebook page over the period of seven months were used formatively to provide for the families’ immediate needs, and summatively to view activity and the evolving CoP.
The research found that Facebook was an accessible and flexible tool, and allowed families to participate and collaborate as much as they wanted or needed. This study shows that the functions available through Facebook provided opportunities to share children’s learning with all stakeholders, and so develop transition practices in both ECE and NE environments through sharing and discussing examples of practices. The CoP framework provided a network that enabled those families who needed advice or support about their child’s transition to seek this from experienced members of the group. Facebook facilitated the development of a range of resources for families and teachers to return to at their leisure. It also provided a space to ask questions, have anxieties alleviated and success celebrated. Using the digital space in Facebook, traditionally not the place for more formal orientation meetings, allowed the subsequent face-to-face meetings to become social events. These face-to-face opportunities to meet supported the connections that the families and teachers had initially made online. This thesis advocates for the use of social media platforms, such as Facebook, to enhance a blended approach of both digital and face-to-face opportunities to give families greater agency during their child’s transition to school.

year: 2024-06-11

title: Asian Transnational Families in New Zealand: Dynamics and Challenges

authors: Ho, Elsie

subjects: New Zealand

abstract: Since the 1990s, Asia has emerged as the major contributor of migration flows into New Zealand. Settler migration, tourism, international business and more recently, international education make up the diverse flows of Asian peoples into the country. This paper explores the changing dynamics of Asian transnational families over the last two decades, with a special focus on the experiences of young people within these families. In the early 1990s, bi-local families were commonly known as "astronaut" families, in which one or both parents returned to their countries of origin to work, leaving their children to be educated in New Zealand. Over time the structures of these families have changed, as many young migrants relocated back to their former homeland or re-migrated to a third country, while "astronaut parents" rejoined their spouses either in the origin or destination. More recently, the educational migration of international students from countries in Asia has given rise to another form of transnational family, in which young people enter New Zealand as international students and some subsequently become residents. In this paper, the experiences of these young people are explored within the wider context of family strategies for maximising benefits through spatially extended networks on the one hand, and government initiatives and immigration policy changes that have been taking place in New Zealand since the 1990s on the other.

text: Asian Transnational Families in New Zealand: Dynamics and Challenges Since the 1990s, Asia has emerged as the major contributor of migration flows into New Zealand. Settler migration, tourism, international business and more recently, international education make up the diverse flows of Asian peoples into the country. This paper explores the changing dynamics of Asian transnational families over the last two decades, with a special focus on the experiences of young people within these families. In the early 1990s, bi-local families were commonly known as "astronaut" families, in which one or both parents returned to their countries of origin to work, leaving their children to be educated in New Zealand. Over time the structures of these families have changed, as many young migrants relocated back to their former homeland or re-migrated to a third country, while "astronaut parents" rejoined their spouses either in the origin or destination. More recently, the educational migration of international students from countries in Asia has given rise to another form of transnational family, in which young people enter New Zealand as international students and some subsequently become residents. In this paper, the experiences of these young people are explored within the wider context of family strategies for maximising benefits through spatially extended networks on the one hand, and government initiatives and immigration policy changes that have been taking place in New Zealand since the 1990s on the other.

year: 2008

title: An accountability model for Pakeha practitioners

authors: Huygens, Ingrid Louise Maria

subjects: Maori

abstract: This paper outlines a model of accountability for Pakeha practitioners developed over many years
as a practising community psychologist involved in research and development projects in Aotearoa
in the 1980s and 1990s, during an era of contract-funded health projects, and increasing
prominence of the Treaty of Waitangi2. The model could be termed 'transformative' in that it
reverses the usual flow of power by making the Pakeha practitioner accountable to relevant Maori
authority, and maximises the potential for new outcomes and new learning for all parties. A brief
case study is outlined where the model placed a local iwi governance structure and a national
psychiatric survivor organisation in positions of authority alongside the funder of a mental health
project. Helpful conditions, positive outcomes and barriers to transformative accountability
processes are briefly discussed.

text: An accountability model for Pakeha practitioners This paper outlines a model of accountability for Pakeha practitioners developed over many years
as a practising community psychologist involved in research and development projects in Aotearoa
in the 1980s and 1990s, during an era of contract-funded health projects, and increasing
prominence of the Treaty of Waitangi2. The model could be termed 'transformative' in that it
reverses the usual flow of power by making the Pakeha practitioner accountable to relevant Maori
authority, and maximises the potential for new outcomes and new learning for all parties. A brief
case study is outlined where the model placed a local iwi governance structure and a national
psychiatric survivor organisation in positions of authority alongside the funder of a mental health
project. Helpful conditions, positive outcomes and barriers to transformative accountability
processes are briefly discussed.

year: 1999