Socially relevant curriculum and the importance of opening up spaces for negotiation and 'meaning making' to occur are increasingly common ideas in my academic writing. In this article, I argue that cultural otherness, anti-racism, spirituality and religion are fundamental to contemporary socially relevant curricula. In it, I report how student…

We argue that Garrett and Segall's concepts of "doing school" and "pushing back" are valuable tools for analysing pre-service teachers' political views of neoliberal education reforms such as the introduction of charter schools. We extend Garrett and Segall's conceptualization by hybridizing "doing school" and…

The role that school health and physical education (HPE) plays in the making of physically active and healthy citizens continues to be rearticulated within the field of HPE practice. In Australasia, for example, this is evident in HPE curricula changes that now span almost two decades with ongoing advocacy for greater recognition of socially…

Teaching as Inquiry is a framework in the New Zealand Curriculum for guiding teachers' professional decision-making and actions (Ministry of Education, 2007). It has been included in initial teacher preparation courses to assist student teachers to practice in a way that focuses on their pupils' learning, and their own professional learning from…

As a means of more fully understanding the complexity and effects of teaching and learning within university-based initial teacher education (ITE), this project explored the discursive construction and material conditions of university-based teacher education including teacher educators' work: what is being worked on in university-based ITE? Why?…

What enduring knowledge and understanding from tertiary education study will learners remember most that will contribute to their on-going performance and understanding for effective teaching? This paper is based on research undertaken to identify what third-year initial teacher education students in a course including Technology Education…

Studying to be a teacher in their local community is not normal practice for student teachers in New Zealand initial teacher education (ITE) programs. This paper argues that student teachers in a distance ITE program who are familiar with the local school community can benefit from the experience. This qualitative study centered on a distance…

A number of trends are converging to drive the need for more informed teacher data use. These include advocacy for formative assessment and the need for teachers to account for student learning. In this context, assessment literacy and data literacy have emerged as a focus in research and professional development. Problematically, research signals…

Practicum is a key element of initial teacher education (ITE) programmes, designed to support the professional growth of student teachers. Practicum is also a key point of assessment, leading to a determination of the student's professional growth and their readiness to teach and enter the teaching profession. This study sought to understand the…

In this article we focus on how an experiential based approach to teacher learning about assessment for learning (AfL) provided opportunities for teachers to examine: their deep-seated beliefs about effective learning (and teaching); how these beliefs permeated their day-to-day actions and interactions with students, and the consequence of these…

Classroom experience is an important part of initial teacher education (ITE) and the teachers who work with student teachers in schools have a significant impact on learning in this context. While many studies have documented what the role of these teachers should be, it is also important to consider how the role is conceptualised by the teachers…

This study sought to identify preservice teachers' perceptions of their student teaching abroad experience and its effectiveness in preparing them to be globally competent educators upon completion of their student teaching as well as two years after. Findings indicate that they perceive their experience to have been both advantageous and…

A total of 659 photographs of text in early childhood environments were gathered by student teachers in New Zealand and Sweden, replicating an earlier Swedish study [Gustafsson, K., & Mellgren, E. (2002)." Using text in pre-school: A Learning Environment." "Early Child Development and Care", 172(6), 603-624]. The findings…

In New Zealand the Ministry of Education is committed to attracting and retaining "high quality individuals" to the teaching profession who represent the diverse cultural and socio-economic communities in the country. One way to achieve this has been through the provision of multiple pathways into initial teacher education (ITE). Such…

This article presents an analysis of journal entries of student teachers in a course on multicultural and language studies in primary education in Aotearoa/New Zealand, which was informed by a discursive strand of postcolonial theory, in particular Gayatri C. Spivak's ideas of education "to-come" as an "un-coercive rearrangement of…