title: Pilot study investigating pathway for practitioner engagement with whānau during a self-control activity: Implications for uptake in the home and for empowered engagement.

authors: Watson, Kaitlyn

subjects: Community psychology

abstract: There is a gap in youth mentoring services using the home environment of at-risk youth to encourage development of the skills worked on within mentoring. This thesis explores whether a game-based intervention situated in the home environment of youth may initiate changes in behaviour that coincide with their learning during mentoring. Participants were recruited through a private youth mentoring service within Whāngarei. Participants included whānau of youth who are enrolled in the Awhi Ako youth mentoring service and their respective mentors. The Awhi Ako mentoring service aims to support youth through their selected needs by a wider wraparound service.
A game was picked to introduce to whānau to play together at home. This game contained a mechanism that may reward self-control behaviours. Whānau were interviewed and asked to discuss their child’s self-control behaviours before the introduction of the game and any changes after playing the game. 
A principal focus of this thesis is on practitioner engagement with the whānau of mentored youth. Practitioner engagement with communities and people is an integral value underpinning Community psychology. Whānau within the youth mentoring service include Māori, Pasifika, Pākehā and mixed ethnic backgrounds. A core focus of this thesis is understanding the relationship between practitioner and participants and how this impacts upon uptake of the introduction of the activity. In accordance with community psychology underpinnings and values of cultural awareness, cultural respect and understanding this thesis aspires to provide evidence towards the importance of this relationship. Another key focus of this thesis is comprehending the multifaceted effects of an intervention within the home environment and how this impacts mentors, the home environment and the development of youth. Emphasizing a fundamental principle of community psychology of interconnectedness between all facets of a persons life. 
The conclusions drawn from this thesis illustrate the importance of developing a relationship with whānau a key focus to their willingness to participate and actively engage in this pilot study. The findings from this pilot study indicate that whānau experienced hardship and that whānau within at-risk environments had competing priorities that impeded the introduction of home-based activities.

text: Pilot study investigating pathway for practitioner engagement with whānau during a self-control activity: Implications for uptake in the home and for empowered engagement. There is a gap in youth mentoring services using the home environment of at-risk youth to encourage development of the skills worked on within mentoring. This thesis explores whether a game-based intervention situated in the home environment of youth may initiate changes in behaviour that coincide with their learning during mentoring. Participants were recruited through a private youth mentoring service within Whāngarei. Participants included whānau of youth who are enrolled in the Awhi Ako youth mentoring service and their respective mentors. The Awhi Ako mentoring service aims to support youth through their selected needs by a wider wraparound service.
A game was picked to introduce to whānau to play together at home. This game contained a mechanism that may reward self-control behaviours. Whānau were interviewed and asked to discuss their child’s self-control behaviours before the introduction of the game and any changes after playing the game. 
A principal focus of this thesis is on practitioner engagement with the whānau of mentored youth. Practitioner engagement with communities and people is an integral value underpinning Community psychology. Whānau within the youth mentoring service include Māori, Pasifika, Pākehā and mixed ethnic backgrounds. A core focus of this thesis is understanding the relationship between practitioner and participants and how this impacts upon uptake of the introduction of the activity. In accordance with community psychology underpinnings and values of cultural awareness, cultural respect and understanding this thesis aspires to provide evidence towards the importance of this relationship. Another key focus of this thesis is comprehending the multifaceted effects of an intervention within the home environment and how this impacts mentors, the home environment and the development of youth. Emphasizing a fundamental principle of community psychology of interconnectedness between all facets of a persons life. 
The conclusions drawn from this thesis illustrate the importance of developing a relationship with whānau a key focus to their willingness to participate and actively engage in this pilot study. The findings from this pilot study indicate that whānau experienced hardship and that whānau within at-risk environments had competing priorities that impeded the introduction of home-based activities.

year: 2024

title: Conscientisation and Resistance: Experiences from implementing a culturally responsive pedagogy of relations

authors: Lawrence, Dawn Cherie

subjects: culturally responsive pedagogy of relations

abstract: Consciousness of being part of a particular hegemonic force (that is to say,political consciousness) is the first stage towards a further progressive self –conscious in which theory and practice will finally be one. (Hoare & Smith,1971, p. 333)

Bishop, Berryman, Tiakiwai and Richardson, (2003) state that effective teachers of Māori students “positively and vehemently reject deficit theorizing as a means of explaining Māori students’ educational achievement” (p.95). This fundamental tenet of the Te Kotahitanga Effective Teaching Profile (ETP) moves beyond simply refraining from publicly articulating discourses that pathologise Māori students and their whānau (Bishop et al., 2003; Bishop & Berryman, 2006; Bishop, Berryman, Cavanagh, & Teddy. 2007). For many teachers it is a challenging, ongoing transformative process of critical self-reflection, which touches the very core of their own culture and identity.

This thesis contends that by working to discursively position themselves within a culturally responsive pedagogy of relations, teachers develop classroom practices that have been shown to positively affect outcomes for Māori students. It goes on to suggest that such discursive repositioning might be seen as praxis, with the potential to transform the inequities experienced by Māori within mainstream educational settings. With this understanding, the culture and leadership approach of the school context becomes a greater influence on teachers’ capacity to realize their agency within this pedagogy than any characteristic of the individual.

text: Conscientisation and Resistance: Experiences from implementing a culturally responsive pedagogy of relations Consciousness of being part of a particular hegemonic force (that is to say,political consciousness) is the first stage towards a further progressive self –conscious in which theory and practice will finally be one. (Hoare & Smith,1971, p. 333)

Bishop, Berryman, Tiakiwai and Richardson, (2003) state that effective teachers of Māori students “positively and vehemently reject deficit theorizing as a means of explaining Māori students’ educational achievement” (p.95). This fundamental tenet of the Te Kotahitanga Effective Teaching Profile (ETP) moves beyond simply refraining from publicly articulating discourses that pathologise Māori students and their whānau (Bishop et al., 2003; Bishop & Berryman, 2006; Bishop, Berryman, Cavanagh, & Teddy. 2007). For many teachers it is a challenging, ongoing transformative process of critical self-reflection, which touches the very core of their own culture and identity.

This thesis contends that by working to discursively position themselves within a culturally responsive pedagogy of relations, teachers develop classroom practices that have been shown to positively affect outcomes for Māori students. It goes on to suggest that such discursive repositioning might be seen as praxis, with the potential to transform the inequities experienced by Māori within mainstream educational settings. With this understanding, the culture and leadership approach of the school context becomes a greater influence on teachers’ capacity to realize their agency within this pedagogy than any characteristic of the individual.

year: 2014

title: Doing the damage? An examination of masculinities and men's rugby experiences of pain, fear and pleasure

authors: Pringle, Richard

abstract: Rugby union's prominent and historic link with males, within Aotearoa/New Zealand, has helped constitute it as a key signifier of masculinity. Feminist-inspired research suggests, however, that heavy-contact sports, like rugby, help (re)produce a problematic form of masculinity that marginalises other masculinities, contributes to health problems and facilitates male privilege in society. Despite these points of view, there have been relatively few empirical examinations of relationships between sport, pain and masculinities. This thesis provided such an examination. 
The prime research question, that underpinned this study, was: "How do men's rugby experiences of fear, pain and/or pleasure articulate with discourses of masculinities?" The research approach used to examine this question was based on semi-structured interviews with a purposeful sample of fourteen men, and differed from previous such research in three key ways. Firstly, I interviewed men with abroad range of rugby experiences and did not specifically examine the experiences of elite sportsmen. Secondly, I analysed the men's rugby experiences of pain and injury, as well as their emotional experiences of fear and pleasure. Thirdly, I used Foucauldian theory to analyse the men's interview accounts rather than drawing on the Gramscian inspired concept of masculine hegemony. 
The results suggested that rugby was typically linked to dominating discourses of masculinities, through promoting belief that males should be tough, relatively unemotional, tolerant of pain, competitive and, at times, aggressive. This linkage was particularly influential during the men's school years. At this time, rugby acted as a normalising practice for males, a dividing practice between males and females, and as a producer of pleasure, but also, at times, tension, fear and pain. Rugby's pervasive influence provided a discursive space within which the men negotiated understandings of masculinities and self. However, these negotiations did not result in the simple affirmation and reproduction of dominating discourses of masculinity. In contrast, these negotiation processes were often undertaken with varying degrees of tension. The dominance of rugby in the men's schools, for example, resulted in many of the men experiencing tensions between fears of pain, skill limitations and the knowledge that participation in rugby was normal, and expected, for all males. These tensions encouraged many of these men to quit participation in rugby at a young age and for some, when older, to develop resistant readings of rugby and masculinities. These resistant readings positioned rugby players as uncritical thinkers, weak in character and foolish for risking injury. Yet, the men's relationships with rugby were not only complex and divergent but also, at times, paradoxical: many of the men performed an inconsistent range of practices in relation to rugby that simultaneously disturbed and supported dominating discourses of masculinities. 
Despite nearly all of the interview participants expressing some concerns about aspects of rugby with respect to violence, risk of injury and/or its links to masculinities, the men reported that they rarely disclosed their concerns in public. The dominating discourses of rugby, that positioned rugby as 'our national sport' and as a 'man's game', made it a formidable task to publicly critique rugby. The technologies of domination associated with rugby and masculinities still exerted considerable influence over the adult men. However, many of the men, including some who had been passionate adult rugby players, did exercise power against rugby and dominant masculinities. This resistance was exercised primarily through discouraging others, typically their sons, from playing rugby. Although not revolutionary, this micro-level form of resistance, if repeated on a grander scale, would contribute a challenge to rugby's state of dominance. 
The dominance of rugby provided a discursive space that produced, challenged and resisted dominating discourses of masculinities. My research findings, therefore, support the recognition that sport does not consistently or unambiguously produce culturally dominant conceptions of masculinities. In contrast to researchers who have examined institutionalised heavy-contact team sports through a lens filtered by hegemony theory, my results question the extent to which sports like rugby can be primarily regarded as producers of dominant and problematic masculinities. Although this finding could be regarded as a more optimistic reading of sport/masculinity relationships, my results reveal that concern about rugby's dominant social position within Aotearoa/New Zealand is still warranted.

text: Doing the damage? An examination of masculinities and men's rugby experiences of pain, fear and pleasure Rugby union's prominent and historic link with males, within Aotearoa/New Zealand, has helped constitute it as a key signifier of masculinity. Feminist-inspired research suggests, however, that heavy-contact sports, like rugby, help (re)produce a problematic form of masculinity that marginalises other masculinities, contributes to health problems and facilitates male privilege in society. Despite these points of view, there have been relatively few empirical examinations of relationships between sport, pain and masculinities. This thesis provided such an examination. 
The prime research question, that underpinned this study, was: "How do men's rugby experiences of fear, pain and/or pleasure articulate with discourses of masculinities?" The research approach used to examine this question was based on semi-structured interviews with a purposeful sample of fourteen men, and differed from previous such research in three key ways. Firstly, I interviewed men with abroad range of rugby experiences and did not specifically examine the experiences of elite sportsmen. Secondly, I analysed the men's rugby experiences of pain and injury, as well as their emotional experiences of fear and pleasure. Thirdly, I used Foucauldian theory to analyse the men's interview accounts rather than drawing on the Gramscian inspired concept of masculine hegemony. 
The results suggested that rugby was typically linked to dominating discourses of masculinities, through promoting belief that males should be tough, relatively unemotional, tolerant of pain, competitive and, at times, aggressive. This linkage was particularly influential during the men's school years. At this time, rugby acted as a normalising practice for males, a dividing practice between males and females, and as a producer of pleasure, but also, at times, tension, fear and pain. Rugby's pervasive influence provided a discursive space within which the men negotiated understandings of masculinities and self. However, these negotiations did not result in the simple affirmation and reproduction of dominating discourses of masculinity. In contrast, these negotiation processes were often undertaken with varying degrees of tension. The dominance of rugby in the men's schools, for example, resulted in many of the men experiencing tensions between fears of pain, skill limitations and the knowledge that participation in rugby was normal, and expected, for all males. These tensions encouraged many of these men to quit participation in rugby at a young age and for some, when older, to develop resistant readings of rugby and masculinities. These resistant readings positioned rugby players as uncritical thinkers, weak in character and foolish for risking injury. Yet, the men's relationships with rugby were not only complex and divergent but also, at times, paradoxical: many of the men performed an inconsistent range of practices in relation to rugby that simultaneously disturbed and supported dominating discourses of masculinities. 
Despite nearly all of the interview participants expressing some concerns about aspects of rugby with respect to violence, risk of injury and/or its links to masculinities, the men reported that they rarely disclosed their concerns in public. The dominating discourses of rugby, that positioned rugby as 'our national sport' and as a 'man's game', made it a formidable task to publicly critique rugby. The technologies of domination associated with rugby and masculinities still exerted considerable influence over the adult men. However, many of the men, including some who had been passionate adult rugby players, did exercise power against rugby and dominant masculinities. This resistance was exercised primarily through discouraging others, typically their sons, from playing rugby. Although not revolutionary, this micro-level form of resistance, if repeated on a grander scale, would contribute a challenge to rugby's state of dominance. 
The dominance of rugby provided a discursive space that produced, challenged and resisted dominating discourses of masculinities. My research findings, therefore, support the recognition that sport does not consistently or unambiguously produce culturally dominant conceptions of masculinities. In contrast to researchers who have examined institutionalised heavy-contact team sports through a lens filtered by hegemony theory, my results question the extent to which sports like rugby can be primarily regarded as producers of dominant and problematic masculinities. Although this finding could be regarded as a more optimistic reading of sport/masculinity relationships, my results reveal that concern about rugby's dominant social position within Aotearoa/New Zealand is still warranted.

year: 2003