Playful experiences provide us with the opportunity to engage with others and learn in enjoyable ways. Recognising and building on the power of playfulness and play can be a way to support more meaningful educational experiences for all, life-wide and lifelong. This "Trends Shaping Education Spotlight" touches on gamification as a…

Defined as the power to increase or lessen the capacity to act, affect is purported to be pedagogy's first lesson. In this article we explore the work of ordinary affects in relation to oppressive social norms with particular attention to race. Using feminist new materialist concepts, we trace the capacities of these affects as they play into two…

In this paper we explore whether power issues enhance and/or inhibit retention of foundation-learners in vocational education in Aotearoa New Zealand. After surveying reasons given for early departure in the retention literature, the paper offers Foucault's notion of governmentality as another possible factor in early departure. The paper explores…

This article argues that neoliberal ideology, through policy and governance of children in early childhood settings, has a very strong influence on children in Aotearoa New Zealand. It affects the way they grow up, play, learn, and perform their resistance and agency in the places and space of their education and care. Every hegemonic discourse is…

This paper engages with multiplicity in methodology through reflections on a dance and risky play research project in a shared problematisation of children's physical activity. A research-practitioner team explored perspectives on physical activity and risky play through dance. This project aimed to distance itself from the idea of an expert other…

Discourse regarding modern doctoral studies criticises the traditional notion of doctoral education as being too narrow to facilitate knowledge creation and transfer towards the knowledge economy. This study considered the pedagogical links to supervisory practices to enable transformative learning experiences. The study, grounded in the…

Despite clear messages from current physical education (PE) curricula about the importance of adopting socially critical perspectives, dominant discourses of gender relating to physical activity, bodies and health are being reproduced within this school subject. By drawing on interview data from a larger ethnographic account of boys' PE, this…

This paper explores trade union collective voice as a mechanism for worker participation in training decision making. New Zealand is an example of a liberal market economy (LME) with relatively weak regulatory pressure on employers to engage in training. Consequently, drivers such as trade union collective voice could fill an important role in…

In this article we present some initial findings from a Teacher-led Innovation Fund study undertaken in a kahui ako based in the small community of Dannevirke. Teachers from the eight early childhood education (ECE) services and six schools have worked together to explore teacher practice and research the impact of teacher pedagogy on the…

Against a backdrop of social struggles to rebalance power between colonisers and indigenous peoples, counsellor education at a university in Aotearoa New Zealand is undergoing a transformation. This article explores the creation and application of a framework that results from listening to the voices of indigenous peoples and counselling…

During 2008 and 2009, a group of nine Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour (RTLB) from Canterbury met as a Community of Practice to investigate the way that play in the school playground contributes to the social competence of students. While the original concern was around the needs of students who were unable to manage their behaviour in…

With continuing pressure to publish or perish, interventions such as writing groups are increasingly part of the academic landscape. In this paper, we discuss our writing group's experiment with collaborative writing, which came unstuck as simmering concerns led to a mutiny within the group. The mutiny provided insights into tensions that are…

What then can the body of Arts -- Research -- Education do? What can arts based educational research produce (hereafter ABER)? As emerging researchers in this field, we begin this chapter in the middle of a reflective conversation about many assemblages and about our journey into arts based education research, and what life was emergent in a…

In young children's worlds, gender and sexualities are constantly policed. Who children play with, where they play and how they play are often subject to regulation by others to perpetuate 'normativity'. This colloquium draws on 'telling examples' from an in-progress study in an early childhood education setting in Aotearoa New Zealand. Examples…

The childhood years are highlighted as a crucial time when ongoing participation in physical activity can be nurtured and maintained. The nurturing of a child's proclivity to participate in organised sport normally falls into the domain of adults. While both parents and coaches have been identified as key influences on children's enjoyment of…