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Short stories published in Tomorrow Magazine., N/A

A brief account of the nature of the economic crisis is presented as a context for the increasing levels of unemployment among young people and school-Ieavers. This situation is seen to lead to a legitimation crisis for schooling, where the transition to work is no longer a straightforward and unproblematic process. Three different educational responses to new problems and demands are presented as theoretical constructs leading to specific curricular initiatives in schools., non peer-reviewed

Published also in 1991 in McGill Journal of Education, One of the major theoretical currents sweeping across the educational world today is" critical education". Paul Hirst, best known for an educational philosophy located in the analytic tradition, has recently suggested that in the consideration of formal schooling, "Perhaps the most promising discussions ... are to be found quite outside the particular context of educational theory, in the contemporary study of critical theory" (1983, pg. 27). This is an important and significant shift on the part of a highly influential thinker whose original position differed so fundamentally from the method and epistemology of critical theory and education, and in itself signals future directions for educational theory and practice., non peer-reviewed

An ideal view of streaming would have us justify the process of sorting and selecting students into different classes (stream A, B, C etc.) and schools (junior lyceum, secondary, trade schools, craft centres etc.) in terms of a number of educational goals. In attempting to organise class and school membership on the grounds of similarity of academic abilities and occupational aspirations, streaming is said to facilitate the achievement of the following positive ends: * Teaching is more effectively carried out because studefl\ts proceed at roughly the same rates through the learning tasks; * Appropriate pedagogies, curricula, texts and teachers can be delivered to different kinds of students according to the latters' particular needs, abilities and inclinations., non peer-reviewed

While numbers and statistics can be manipulated to shock or numb, most of New Zealand's teachers will not be surprised to learn that 59% of Maori school-leavers who find jobs go into manual occupations, that only 5% go into technical or professional work, that 49% of Maori students become unemployed on leaving school. After spending three years rubbing shoulders with New Zealand teachers, and a whole year in their classrooms, my guess is that they instinctively know that such statistics are close enough to the mark - they see these percentages come alive in their schools year in, year out. And perhaps because of the regularity of Maori 'failure' and 'underachievement', the 'Maori problem' has become something to be expected, to be coped with., non peer-reviewed

This is the second of a two-part article. The first part appeared in the April 1989 issue of our magazine. Author, Dr Ronald G. Sultana holds a first class degree in English and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from the University of Malta, as well as diplomas in Religious Studies (Institute of Religious Studies) and in Guidance and Counselling (University of Reading, U.K.). He has recently successfully completed a doctoral research study in the sociology of education at the University of Waikato (Hamilton, New Zealand ), and is currently lecturing on the subject at the University of Malta. His major interest is in the relation between education and the economy, and has published widely on the subject in local, British and Australasian journals of educational studies., non peer-reviewed

My intention in writing this paper is to explore -- in a formal, theoretical manner -the possibility that teachers can be recruited in the task of critical education, and to examine the conditions under which this possibility becomes a probability. By critical education I refer to both a theory and a practice -- hence critical pedagogy -- which draws on the depiction of human persons by social theorists of the Frankfurt School as rational, self-conscious beings who are bound to "strive (perhaps incoherently) for ever greater freedom, fulfillment. and self-critical awareness" (Inglis, 1985, p.16)., non peer-reviewed

In the last decade in New Zealand the number of people who were either registered as unemployed, or who were on temporary work schemes has increased by 964 per cent, and currently stands well in excess of 100,000 persons. For these people in the 40-45 age group - who incidentally are now our senior and middle management personnel - such a scenario would have been termed preposterous if put to them at the time when they entered the work force in the 1950's. At that time labour was scarce as a relatively low birth rate cohort sought to service the products of the post war baby boom during a period of rapid economic growth. Throughout the 1960's and well into the 1970's New Zealand experienced full, or at least near full, employment. Generally speaking, people who wanted to work found a job. Today, for every unfilled vacancy, in most months there are approximately 25 registered unemployed available to fill it. What, then, went wrong? This paper explains some of the causes of the employment crisis, which are basically in the areas of demography, economics, and changing social and technological patterns. After examining successive government's responses to the crisis we then look specifically at the role of the school system and the youth training programmes begun at technical institutes and elsewhere., N/A

In my experience as a teacher, I have become very much aware of students' problems arising out of difficulties in adapting themselves to various aspects of school life, such as change of institution, friends, teachers, academic level and expectations. Very often, difficulty to cope with life at school creates many emotional problems and scholastic performance suffers. The checklist I have generated will, hopefully, help persons concerned in pastoral or administrative activities in a school to identify students with adaptational problems, and also to gauge specific areas which many students might be finding difficult to cope with in a particular school. Knowing the attitudes of each individual and those characteristic of the group, the school can mobilize its counselling services to help make the adjustments necessary., non peer-reviewed

Henry Giroux can be considered to be in the mainstream of the so-called "new sociology" of education which, since the 1970's, and specifically since Michael Young's Knowledge and Control (1971) was published, has dominated most of the critical thinking about schooling and education. One of the few writers from North America who has dedicated himself to theoretical rumination at the macro abstract level rather than empirical investigation, Giroux's work provides a broad survey of the leading ideas of the new sociology of education, as well as a critique of the main trends within the field., non peer-reviewed

Maori people are widely represented in the unskilled and low-status, low-paying jobs in New Zealand. Recent statistics show that 59.1 % of the I\1aori school-leavers who find jobs go into manual occupations, and only 5.4% go into technical or professional work (Department of Education, 1982). 49% of Maori students become unemployed on leaving school (Department of Education, 1983). While the reasons for this state of affairs must necessarily embrace a great number of issues which analyse how inequality is structured in Aotearoa, attention must also be given to the way monocultural schooling enhances the reproduction of specific locations for Maori students within (or outside) a stratified labour market. This study looks at some of the processes involved in the occupational decision-making of Maori students as observed in two secondary schools in a provincial city in the North Island of New Zealand., non peer-reviewed