The film "Moana" creates a universe that is at once imaginative and familiar in that it is a fanciful depiction of real-world issues related to the environment. This sets the stage for an engaging series of activities with important content implications integrating environmental issues into elementary social studies. "Moana" is…

This paper describes a journey undertaken by literacy tutors who were caught between incompatible values and needs in building apprentices' literacy. The highly literate tutors were committed to teaching critical literacy. They believed that improved literacy could support learners' aspirations to advance their prospects at work, build their…

We know it is important to help students to critically engage with texts like books and movies. We want them to become skilled at questioning what's in front of them, and understand how texts are constructed, and whose interests are served. We also need to develop their critical literacy as they interact with games. So, how can we help them do…

Teachers are obligated to construct an environment inclusive of "all" students. This article argues critical literacy with queer intent can offer strategies to expose normative constructions of gender and sexuality that can exclude some students. I initiate the case with a queer theory analysis of a description of critical literacy…

When Agnew found the same, largely negative, dominant discourses of menstruation present in classroom lessons that researchers have been identifying for over 30 years, she sought different approaches to menstruation education. In this article the authors highlight the power of the media to (re)construct dominant discourses of menstruation and the…

Attending to current affairs and news within schools' curricula is a potential pedagogical strategy that holds promise for addressing children's knowledge, perspectives and agency in the world. However, our research suggests teachers' good intentions may be compromised by tension between the details of news media content and the curriculum as…

This article describes and discusses a unit of work taught by Maria Iki, a Social Sciences teacher at James Cook High School in South Auckland. The unit was taught as part of the TLRI project Tuhia ki Te Ao--Write to the Natural World. The project is concerned to develop students' eco-literacy and to help them to inform their environmental…

In a time of environmental crisis we need a language to speak for nature. In our TLRI project Tuhia ki Te Ao--Write to the Natural World, we have been working with teachers to develop "3D literacy" practices responsive to both culture and environment and located in a rich language and ecology of place. This article will discuss vignettes…

This article emphasises some of the shifts highlighted by the Ministry of Education in the refreshed "Te Whariki: He Whariki Matauranga mo nga Mokopuna o Aotearoa--Early Childhood Curriculum" (Ministry of Education, 2017) ("Te Whariki 2017"). Some of those shifts include the ideas of "Te Whariki 2017" being a…

Educators can think of changes in the international literacy landscape as a powerful wave. In this report, the authors argue that given the changes affecting classrooms through information and communications technology, and increasing student diversity not only do they want to prepare for the wave, but they wish to harness its power. This…

In an educational system based on equity, ensuring the achievement of Pasifika students in secondary education is seen as a key focus of the Government approach to education (Ministry of Education, 2013b) and a major step in addressing the social and economic inequities experienced by Pasifika peoples in New Zealand. While there has been a…

This is the second publication in the Teaching and Learning Research Initiative (TLRI) Project Plus series. Project Plus aims to inform questions of policy and practice by synthesising findings of educational interest from projects funded by the TLRI. This Project Plus focuses on literacy in the early childhood education (ECE) and school…

Criteria for the design and selection of literacy and thinking tools that allow educators to justify what they do are described within a wider framework of learning theory and research into best practice. Based on a meta-analysis of best practice, results from a three year project designed to evaluate the effectiveness of a secondary school…

This volume of transformed research utilizes an activist approach to examine the notion that nothing is apolitical. Research projects themselves are critically examined for power orientations, even as they are used to address curricular problems and educational or societal issues. Philosophical perspectives that have facilitated an understanding…