Imagine a scenario with a pilot and a flight attendant. How do you picture them? Now read the following anecdote: Sandra, an airline pilot with years of experience, was preparing for her flight while chatting with Mike, a flight attendant who had just joined the crew. Some of the passengers were surprised to see Sandra confidently taking control…

In this study, we aim to investigate the role of language in small group peer collaboration. Based on the notion of symmetrical scaffolding, we draw on theories of dialogic space and functional linguistics to analyse a transcript of three six-year-old students as they explore a shared understanding of 'two more than'. Using Martin and White's…

Handicapped, special, or diverse? Segregated, mainstreamed, or included? The field of disability and difference within education, is vast and wide-ranging. This review of the literature highlights how, although we have come far in the last 40 years, there is still much to learn about effective inclusion of disabled children in early childhood…

Since its emergence as a distinct subject area in the nineteenth century, English has been an important, but contested, subject. Competing discourses, resulting in different models of English, have vied for prominence, each with ideologies about the purposes of education and the needs of students and the state. However, while international…

This article reports from a Teacher-led Innovation Fund project that investigated connecting practices and resources for mathematical learning between a kindergarten and the first year of school. Teachers at both sites were teacher-researchers in the 2-year project. Our results highlighted expected and unexpected aspects of connections and…

The following interview was conducted with Catherine Elder in spring of 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic. Cathie has had a varied career in language testing, including work at universities in Australia and New Zealand and at the Language Testing Resource Center in Melbourne. In this interview, Cathie shares some highlights of her somewhat…

Globally, there has been increasing adaptation of curricula frameworks in early childhood education, providing overarching principles of practice rather than subject specific templates for teaching and learning. While such a movement is to be commended as supporting a socio-cultural approach in meeting each child's unique social and cultural…

In this paper I contrast conceptions of self from two perspectives: an individualistic orientation and a communitarian approach. In doing so, the philosophical justification is Wittgenstein's idea that individualism is produced and reinforced as a way of being, thinking and interacting in community. With this contextual frame, I argue that we are…

This narrative study focuses on how Gina, a Korean learner with a Korean immigrant mother and a European-descent New Zealander father, constructed her identities and engaged with Korean as a heritage language (HL) before, during, and after studying abroad in Korea. Gina's transformative experiences illustrate the links between HL learning and…

This article introduces Tofa'a'anolasi, a novel Samoan research framework created by drawing on the work of other Samoan and Pacific education researchers, in combination with adapting the 'Foucauldian tool box' to use for research carried out from a Samoan perspective. The article starts with an account and explanation of the process of…

Second language (L2) learning is widely acknowledged as complex due to variables such as learner, context, and target language. Such variables are particularly relevant to the learning of immigrant or indigenous languages in countries such as Canada, the United States, and New Zealand. The motivational roles of such variables are considered…

The Asia-Pacific region hosts the largest number of refugees and displaced people in the world, and is the place of origin for nearly half of all international migrants. However, data related to the unique language-in-education needs of refugee and migrant children in and from this area is sparse. The report aims to create a stronger knowledge…

Many Pasifika students start their schooling fluent in their own language and with a rich background of knowledge and experiences. However, very quickly they join high numbers of Pasifika students failing within the education system. The reasons are diverse but many link directly to the structural inequities they encounter which cause a disconnect…

This article presents a theoretical overview of the concept of teacher identity, particularly focusing on poststructuralist conceptions of what identity means, and shows how these ideas can be associated with ideas about narrative and narrative inquiry. It is argued that it is important for teachers, through reflective practice or teacher…

An ambivalence characterising the provision of English language instruction in New Zealand's Maori schools is traced to the establishment of the schools in the recent period of biculturalism and retribalisation, and to the role of the schools in indigenous ideology. The article discusses the effects of the ambivalence on English language provision…