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    An exploration of teacher engagement practices with families of primary aged students categorised as at risk of educational underachievement : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Sociology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2016) McNeil, Christine Marie
    Current education policy in Aotearoa New Zealand signals that parents of students who are ‘at risk’ of educational underachievement should be drawn into the educational field to assist those children to reach the outcomes specified by the normative National Standards framework. An ‘educationally powerful relationship’ is advanced as being the optimum way to link home and school. Framed in this way, the home/school relationship emerges as an instrument of governance. The re-calibration of education-as-governance represents an emergence of teacher/parent relations as a means to address at-risk sub populations. Caught up with the administration of ‘at-risk’ families, the work of the teacher reflects capital(ism) in its tendency towards a crisis in social reproduction more generally. Identified by Nancy Fraser, this crisis refers to both the undermining and the overuse of the capacity of actors to establish emotional bonds, and of the contradictions that consequently emerge. Similarly, in the field of education, the emotional capacities of teachers are put to work to meet bio-political ends of producing productive populations. This research asks teachers to talk about their experiences of engaging parents of ‘at risk’ children. Using an inductive methodology, underpinned by a Foucaultian theoretical framework, data was generated by conducting semi-structured open-ended interviews in the Marlborough region. Findings point to a series of further contradictions at the site of the school. The following contradictions speak of the discontinuities inherent in the work of the teacher. Constituted to provide universal education, schools have established corrective mechanisms with which to address student underachievement. Accommodating the effects of adverse home conditions, teachers predominantly rely on in-school learning. Teachers try to be approachable yet may find themselves acting in ways that are inconsistent with their knowledge of family systems because of administrative requirements associated with the operation of National Standards. School management systems may disrupt tentative relationships with parents amplifying the tendency for parental involvement to diminish as children advance through the school years. It transpires that institutional practices work against the establishment of an effective home/school relationship, thereby illustrating the contradictions within Fraser’s crisis of social reproduction.
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    Access : the limits and capacity of the state : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education
    (Massey University, 1989) Gordon, Liz
    This is a study of a process of educational policy-making, and the subsequent implementation of policy. It is theoretically embedded within the neo-marxist analyses of the sociology of education, but much of the study is concerned with developing a more adequate framework for the investigation of policy and processes within the state than that provided by relative autonomy theories. It begins, therefore, with an overview and critique of various approaches to education from a sociological perspective, and goes on to develop an analytical framework, based on the concepts of the limits and capacity of the state, with which policy processes can be more fully analysed. The development and implementation of the ACCESS post-school training scheme for the unemployed forms the central policy study of the latter part of this thesis.
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    Structure and relationships of standard environmental, personality and ability factors in secondary school adolescents : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1972) Webster, Alan Charles
    Over 2,000 pupils of two state coeducational secondary schools and five single-sex private secondary schools in the same New Zealand town completed aptitude tests, and questionnaires on family background, attitudes, interests, affective states, adjustment, personality, beliefs and occupational preferences. Responses were subjected to descriptive analysis and were factor analyzed and regression analyses were carried out on dominant intellective and non-intellective variables. Higher socio-economic status was associated with more pre-school education, more private school education, less mother employment, less father absence, greater continuance at school, less delinquency, more parental pressure to succeed in school, more regular going out with parents, more positive family climate, more positive attitudes to teachers and higher primary school reading and arithmetic levels. Lower class was characterized by greater father absence, large families, less parental concern about school success, less family outings, deficient family climate, lower primary school reading and arithmetic levels, more negative views of how teachers regarded them, lower expectation of opportunity, and lower self-rating of happiness. Factor analyses produced six factors of the structural variables of home environment, five factors of parental child-rearing practices, eight factors of family relations, three intellective factors, ten non-intellective factors. Coefficients of multiple determination showed that home environment predictors of language aptitude and average attainment were father's education, smaller family, parental attitudes against smoking, parental expectation of household duties by adolescent, low parental anger-rejection, high father-permissiveness. Personality predictors of aptitude and attainment were general ability, adjustment to reality, scientific preference, sociability, less practical preference, more perceived favourability with teachers, and greater sensitivity. Joint effects of intellective, home environment and personality predictors were almost as great as the independent effects of intellective predictors. Joint effects of intellective, home environment, and personality predictors were half of the total multiple prediction of conformity problems and about equal to those of personality predictors. High ability pupils were found to be more influenced than others in aptitude by home environment factors. Males were more influenced than females by mother support and by extrinsic motives. Lower ability and lower socioeconomic level pupils were more influenced by intellective factors than by home environment. It was concluded that the home environment factors could be examined as a possible focus of experimental programmes aimed at enhancing adolescent adjustment and attainment.