This qualitative study examined how six academically high-achieving Pasifika secondary school students in New Zealand reported the interplay of home and school environments during their final year of secondary school. These six students had gained a New Zealand Qualifications Authority Scholarship which provided government funding for university…

Previous studies have shown that leadership capabilities and managerial competencies are related to leadership performance effectiveness, i.e., higher capabilities and competencies are associated with higher performance effectiveness, and vice versa. Among the studies focusing on these qualities in academic settings, two recent studies in…

Primary schooling, where the majority of students start learning formally about social interaction and civic expectations, reflects much about a nations' approach to education and the goals for their citizens. After a brief comparison of the purpose of education in both New Zealand and Japan, through the use of textual and content analysis, this…

The primary purpose of this study is to investigate how key competencies can be incorporated into school curricula, what relevant instructional methods are needed and what institutional support is required to make school curricula based more on key competencies. For this, the study uses qualitative data from three schools (one each in South Korea,…

Within the Asia-Pacific community, the New Zealand Ministry of Education has been one of few educational authorities to adopt an Assessment for Learning (AfL) framework and actively promote formative uses of assessment. This paper reports the results of a qualitative study in which eleven New Zealand secondary teachers in two focus groups…

Issues linked with the notions of quality of life (QOL) and motivation to learn among Asian medical students have not been well documented. This is true in both the international and the New Zealand contexts. Our paper addresses this lack of research by focusing on the QOL of international and domestic Asian students studying in New Zealand, where…

This paper describes a research project, "Voices from Manukau", that investigated the impact of a joint initiative by a university and an institute of technology in New Zealand. The purpose of the initiative was to increase the participation of students traditionally under represented at tertiary-level study, particularly Maori…

Holistic education is a popular trend in the midst of various educational reforms, yet little systematic research has been done to consider its application in the teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Second Language (ESL) for Asian Chinese learners. According to the New Zealand Ministry of Education, holistic education…

Research indicates that affective attitudes such as liking of a subject and confidence in one's ability within a subject predict academic performance. Generally, immigrant minority students have positive attitudes and often have low academic performance. This study examines the self-efficacy and liking of subjects of New Zealand students and…

Analyzes political and economic context for divergent paths of two key education curriculum reform documents in New Zealand. Contrasts a centrally controlled, subject-based, achievement-oriented curriculum for compulsory education with a child-oriented, thematic, experimental curriculum for early childhood education. Suggests some reasons for the…

The future schooling scenarios prepared by the OECD/CERI (OECD, 2001) are the focus of this article, first because they provide a useful tool for futures thinking in educational settings and, second, because they provide an analytic framework to investigate how notions of citizenship are embedded in educational policies and in the organisation of…