Awards > Herbison Lecture > Geraldine McDonald 2007

2006 NZARE Herbison Lecture BY DR GERALDINE MCDONALD

"A spirited beginning: The origins of the New Zealand Association for Research in Education."

Abstract:

It was the Director-General of Education, W. L. Renwick, who took the initiative for the establishment of a New Zealand Association for Research in Education. Following a motion put forward by Professor Philip Lawrence at a Ministerial Conference on Educational Research held in April 1978, representatives from NZCER, the university departments of education, the teachers colleges and the Department of Education, studied the viability of such an Association, developed a constitution, publicized the idea, recruited members and published two issues of a newsletter before the end of 1979. The first conference was planned during 1979 and held in December. As a participant in the processes which resulted in NZARE I will give a personal account of the early days and reflect upon the source of the Association's spirit.

Participants at the Early Childhood Research Conference, Massey University, February 1977.
Back row from left: Jim Hefford, Louis Gurr, John Kirkland, Liz Straton, Donald McAlpine,
Alan Hall, Michael Cooper, Anne Bray, Dorothy Howie.
Middle row: Marie Bell, Fay Panckhurst, Linda Hall (now Mitchell), Joan Brockett,
Anne Meade, Peter Dinniss, Anne Smith, Maris O'Rourke, Penny Jamieson, David Mitchell. Seated: David Barney, Alison St George, Margery Renwick, Beverley Morris, John Watson, Marie Clay, Geraldine McDonald, Dave Fergusson.
Absent: Clem Hill, Bill Renwick.

Some of the early members of NZARE at the 2006 NZARE conference in Rotorua.
Back row from the left: Tom Nicholson, Clive McGee, Ian Livingstone, Graham Smith,
Logan Moss, Dick Harker. Front row: Val Podmore, Geraldine McDonald, John Codd,
Jim Holdom, Ken Stevens.

From the left: John Clark, Wendy Lee, Nick Zepke

About Dr Geraldine McDonald:

Geraldine McDonald was once a homecraft teacher in secondary schools. Her Masters thesis was a study of the effect of playcentre on building a sense of community. As a J.R. McKenzie Fellow at NZCER in 1970 she made a study of early childhood centres in Maori communities. The report was Maori Mothers and Preschool Education. She then became a lecturer at Wellington College of Education before writing a doctoral thesis on the language and thought of Maori and non-Maori children. Appointed to NZCER in 1973 she set up the Early Childhood Unit through which she was able to repay some of her debt to those who had assisted her earlier. She helped Maori Family Education Centres and the New Zealand Playcentre Federation to carry out research projects. In 1977 she was appointed Assistant Director NZCER. A Fulbright award took her to Teachers College Columbia University in 1981. She was Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Education London University in 1990 and the University of Newcastle on Tyne International Centre in 1992. Following retirement she worked as an educational consultant, joined the Department of Teacher Education at Victoria University of Wellington, supervised doctoral theses and helped to set up and teach a Master of Education first offered by Wellington College of Education in 2000. In 2001 she was invited to Hong Kong to advise on the hearing of a human rights case brought against the Education Department.

She was elected inaugural president of NZARE in 1979, a life member in 1987, was the recipient of the NZARE McKenzie Award in 1988, and gave the Herbison lecture in 1993 and 2006.