This article seeks to explain how Aotearoa New Zealand moved from a consensus that the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) should grant a high degree of autonomy to teachers, to an emerging view that it ought to be more prescriptive about content. To do this, it takes an assemblage approach to policy analysis, understanding policies as constantly…

There is much to celebrate about the liberal-progressive approach championed by New Zealand, which continues to be a prized feature of New Zealand education. Many liberal-progressive practices developed in New Zealand and contextualised for New Zealand students that sought to expand and enrich education were borrowed from Native Schools, Maori…

O'Neill argues that the standard social democratic narrative of state schooling as a consensual, whole-of-society commitment to reduce educational inequalities across the system as a whole, for the collective well being of all, has been displaced by marketplace or commodity progressivism. He takes the position that reducing educational…

Friedrich Froebel is well-known for the invention of kindergarten and the pioneering educational philosophy he developed in the 1800s, which respected children's self activity and women's capabilities for the role of teacher, while promoting play as the primary medium for learning. His radical ideas and principled approach to early childhood…

Since its inception in 1907 New Zealand's "School Journal" has provided primary schools with free good quality material to be used for a variety of purposes in the classroom. At the same time, in reflecting curriculum reforms and changing perceptions of literacy learning, it has reproduced often conflicting ideologies. This article…

The New Zealand schooling system is well-known for its progressive and innovative approach to education (Couch, 2012; Mutch, 2013; Wells, 2016). Their national curriculum is inclusive and flexible, allowing schools and teachers to select the content they deem necessary to meet the competencies in the designated learning areas (Ministry of…

The young adult novels of multi award-winning New Zealand writer, Jack Lasenby, are strongly influenced by his careers as a primary school teacher and deer-culler, and love of story. In his first novel, "The Lake," Lasenby depicts Ruth, the protagonist, as a learner who seeks knowledge in much the same way that he, the author-teacher,…

This article was written as the final presentation to be delivered at our day of reflection on the educational work of Elwyn Richardson. As such, the tone is somewhat different to that which is usual for this journal, but I elect to leave it substantially the same as it was when delivered. I address first the question of what we do when we mourn…

This article considers the theoretical argument of anthropologist Tim Ingold, that the denial and subsequent encasement of bare feet in footwear was a critical characteristic of the development of modern societies, in exploring three aspects of feet, footwork, and footwear in the history of the modern school. First, the material conditions of feet…

Miss Isabel Little was a Scottish infant teacher who immigrated to New Zealand in 1912. She was described as a "Froebel trained Scot from Edinburgh" and known around Wellington education circles for her "modern methods". In contrast to known Froebelian pioneers, Miss Little's historical footprint is light but the few glimpses…

Between 1961 and 1984 the renowned New Zealand writer, Margaret Mahy, wrote over seventy-five pieces for the "School Journal" (a graded reading book provided free to New Zealand primary schools since its inception in 1907). It was a liberal humanist period in New Zealand education during which the 1940s' and 1950s' rolling reforms…

Geographically isolated in the south-west Pacific but intellectually and culturally connected to Western Europe, Aotearoa New Zealand's early childhood education sector is a unique mix of influences. The imprint of progressive education is evident in a legacy of "free play" programmes, yet its national curriculum is built on the…

In this article, progressive education in New Zealand is examined across three eras. The "revered past" (1870s-1960s) focuses the influence of progressive ideas on the early childhood movement from the establishment of the first kindergarten in 1889 and on the schooling sector from the 1930s to the 1960s. The "contested…

New Zealander Sylvia Ashton-Warner, a teacher in remote rural Maori schools in the 1940s-1950s, became internationally renowned as a novelist and educational theorist. Earlier commentators portrayed her educational theory as in conflict with those of her time and place, but recent studies conceptualise them as enabled by it. While space/place has…

The development of digital information literacy (DIL) has been slow in comparison to changes in information communication technologies, and this remains an issue for the higher education sector. Competency in such skills is essential to full participation in society and work. In addition, these skills are regarded as underpinning the ability to…