Awards > Herbison Lecture

Herbison Lecture

The Herbison Lecture honours Dame Jean Herbison, in recognition of her outstanding contribution to education. A leading New Zealand researcher is chosen each year to present the Herbison Lecture. The first Herbison Lecture was presented in 1990.

Previous presenters of the Herbison Lecture:

1990: Anne Meade
1991: Anne Smith
1992: Noeline Alcorn
1993: Geraldine McDonald
1994: Warwick Elley
1995: Ivan Snook
1996: Arapera Royal Tangaere
1997: Marie Clay
1998: Linda Smith
1999: Professor William Tunmer, Massey University
2000: Professor Margaret Maaka, University of Hawai'i at Manoa
2001: Professor Graham Nuthall, University of Canterbury (download lecture, PDF, 152K)
2002: Professor Arohia Durie, Massey University
2003: Associate Professor Margaret Carr, University of Waikato
2004: Associate Professor Alison Jones, University of Auckland (download lecture, PDF, 643K)
2005: Professor Noeline Alcorn, University of Waikato
2006: Dr Geraldine McDonald (download lecture, PDF, 80K, and slides, PDF, 1.8 MB.) See also
           webpage: the origins of NZARE.
2007: Emeritus Professor Keith Ballard, University of Otago (download lecture, PDF, 620K)
2008: Professor Joy Cullen, Massey University College of Education (download lecture, PDF, 90K)
2009: Dr Cathy Wylie, NZ Council for Educational Research (download lecture, PDF 295)

2009 NZARE Herbison Lecture

Dr Cathy Wylie
NZ Council for Educational Research

Cathy Wylie is a Chief Researcher at NZCER. She came to NZCER in 1987. Her previous experience includes lecturing in social anthropology at Victoria and Auckland universities, contract research with a range of government departments, and evaluation of social welfare programmes and policy at the then Department of Social Welfare.

What can we learn from the last twenty years?
Why Tomorrow's Schools could not achieve key purposes,
and how we could do things differently.

Abstract:

The aims of the Tomorrow's Schools reforms 20 years ago to our current system based on self-managing schools included aims that remain important: to improve educational opportunities, to better meet Mori needs, to give local knowledge real responsibility, and to encourage flexibility and responsiveness. There were also expectations that such a system would be more efficient, provide greater accountability, and involve parents more.

This paper examines the evidence around what we have achieved with our system, paying particular attention to some key mechanisms that were to produce the aims, including accountability, school choice, boards of trustees, and the separation between government agencies and schools. It looks at changes in the system over time, and its continuing tensions. It concludes by suggesting changes that are more likely to bring about the improvement of educational opportunities.

» Download lecture ( PDF, 295K)

2008 NZARE Herbison Lecture

Professor Joy Cullen
Massey University College of Education

Joy Cullen retired from the full-time position of Professor of Early Years Education, Massey University College of Education, Palmerston North, in 2007. She continues doctoral supervision and to publish in early years education. Earlier academic appointments were at Curtin University of Technology, Western Australian College of Advanced Education and University of Canterbury. Following doctoral studies at University of Alberta, Canada in the late 1970s she was awarded a post-doctoral research fellowship at University of Canterbury, as a special award for the International Year of the Child. She was Joint editor (with John Codd) of New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 1993-1997. Recent publications include a chapter on early years literacy in Reading across international boundaries (Soler & Openshaw, 2007) and Early childhood education: Society and culture (Anning, Cullen & Fleer, 2004, 2008). Research interests include education of young children with special educational needs in inclusive educational settings, sociocultural pedagogy in early education settings, the place of content knowledge in a sociocultural curriculum, and supporting teacher research. Joy's research profile reflects the emergence of joint research interests in the newly merged Massey University College of Education where she directed, co-directed and collaborated as researcher in many large external research contracts, in and across the early childhood and primary sectors. Joy acknowledges the contribution of her doctoral students to her thinking and her understanding of qualitative methodologies.

Outcomes of early childhood education: Do we know, can we tell, and does it matter?

Abstract:

This paper examined the interface of policy, research and practice, in the context of early childhood education. This area has developed in New Zealand as a voluntary education sector, marked by a separate curriculum and diverse services. Today, government commitment to participation in quality inclusive early education settings is evident in the regulations, policies, teacher resources and teacher development programmes that have evolved since the launch of the Te Whariki curriculum in 1996. The increasing investment of public funding in early childhood education has been accompanied by claims that early childhood education makes a difference to a child's life chances. What New Zealand evidence underpins this claim? This question is examined in relation to variables such as: an ideologically-driven curriculum; increased use of qualitative methodologies; key researchers in curriculum initiatives; and the Ministry of Education as major research funding agency.

» Download lecture (PDF, 164K)

2007 NZARE Herbison Lecture

Emeritus Prof Keith Ballard
The University of Otago

Keith Ballard is Emeritus Professor of Education, University of Otago. He has a background as a primary teacher and educational psychologist. His publications include work with Lous Heshusius of York University, Toronto, on paradigm shift in education and social science research (From positivism to interpretivism and beyond, Teachers College Press, New York); classroom studies of academic and social learning; work with parents and with Te Roopu Manaaki i te Hunga Haua on disability advocacy (Disability, family, whanau and society, Dunmore Press); studies with teachers on inclusive education; and analysis of the role of ideology in issues of poverty, racism and social justice. Some of his work on inclusive practice has been used by UNESCO in teacher education programmes in developing countries. Keith has served on the Board of NZCER (1999-2003) and has worked on disability research with Director of the Donald Beasley Institute, Dr Anne Bray and her colleagues. This has included a four year (1988-1992) action study with parents and professionals that established the Family Network, an ongoing parent support and advocacy organisation. As a member of the International Research Colloquium on Inclusive Education, Keith chaired the group's research programme in 1996-1997 and edited the publication of their studies (Inclusive education: International voices on disability and justice, Falmer Press, London).

"Education and imagination: Strategies for social justice."

Abstract:

In his letters to those who "dare to teach", Paulo Freire says that the teaching task is meaningless unless we have a commitment to freedom and justice. In this paper I suggest that as educators and researchers we apply Freire's tools of imagination and intellectual rigour to create more just alternatives to the belief systems and social practices that shape four areas of present day life in schools and communities. These are areas in which some hold positions of power and are able to design a world primarily for their way of living. Others experience harm and loss. For teachers this suggests the need for an ongoing analysis of context as central to the cultural politics of teaching. For teacher education this means that we should greatly enhance our attention to theory, research and scholarship so that we create the intellectual rigour needed for such analysis and for understanding classroom practice as social justice practice.

» Download lecture ( PDF, 620K)

2006 NZARE Herbison Lecture

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.

"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.

» Download lecture, (PDF, 80K
» Download slides, (PDF, 1.8 MB)
» See also webpage: the origins of NZARE

2005 NZARE Herbison Lecture

Professor Noeline Alcorn
University of Waikato

Professor Noeline Alcorn taught in New Zealand secondary schools for some years before undertaking her doctoral study at the University of California. She held lecturing and management positions at Auckland Teachers' College and was the Director of the Centre for Continuing Education at the University of Auckland where she was responsible for the establishment of the Principals’ Centre, before taking up her current position as Principal and Dean at the School of Education, University of Waikato in 1992. Professor Alcorn has published widely in children's literature, school principalship, action research, and education policy, especially in tertiary and teacher education. In 1999 she published a biography of C.E. Beeby. Professor Alcorn was elected to the Council of the New Zealand Council for Educational Research in 1985 and served as Chairperson from 1988 until 1993. She is a Fellow of the New Zealand Educational Administration and Leadership Society. She is the inaugural chair of the Teacher Education Forum of Aotearoa New Zealand, has served as an auditor for the AAU and will chair the Education Panel for the PBRF round in 2006.  She was awarded a Suffrage medal in 1993 and a QSO for Public Service in 2005.

"Evidence and Education: the braided roles and contexts of
research, policy and practice in New Zealand education."

Abstract

Calls for educational policy and practice to be evidence-based have become insistent, yet there is ongoing contestation of the purpose and value of educational research.  This paper addresses the scepticism and criticism of research from practitioners, politicians and policy makers and from within the research community itself. It examines the impact of the PBRF in New Zealand and the wider call for evidence-based practice which is apparent here, in the UK and the US. It draws attention to a small number of research studies which are possible models for a principled and methodologically inclusive way forward and develops a set of principles that are a personal credo for guiding future development in teacher education and educational research.

2004 NZARE Herbison Lecture

Associate Professor Alison Jones,
University of Auckland

Alison Jones is an Associate Professor in the School of Education, and Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor (Equal Opportunities) at the University of Auckland. Her research interests are various, but most recently her international research publications have focused in three areas of the sociology of education - cross-cultural pedagogy, educational equity in tertiary institutions, and social anxieties about touching children. Her main teaching interest is in doctoral training, particularly in the professional doctorate, the EdD.

"Pedagogy of the gaps: Lessons on evidence, from the beach"

Abstract:

Does it matter whether a 'sham fight' on a beach in 1814 was a powhiri, or whether Marsden's first sermon was simply a teaching opportunity for Ruatara, or whether the first school in New Zealand is seen as a failure or a success? Through re-reading events which preceded the first school in New Zealand, Alison Jones considers some contemporary lessons for educational researchers and practitioners. Today's evidence-based research which seeks to 'reduce the gaps' or 'shrink the tail' in educational achievement in New Zealand demands closer attention to 'what works' for groups such as Maori. Alison Jones stands ambivalently on the side of an evidence-based approach to research and educational practice as she considers intriguing lessons about evidence and its dependence on relationships between peoples.

» Download lecture (PDF, 643K)

2003 NZARE Herbison Lecture

Associate Professor Margaret Carr, University of Waikato
University of Waikato, New Zealand

Margaret Carr is an Associate Professor in early childhood at the University of Waikato. She has worked with early childhood colleagues and teachers on a number of curriculum development and research projects. Her most recent book is Assessment in Early Childhood Settings: Learning Stories, published in 2001. She is currently the Deputy Chairperson of the NZCER Board.

"Changing the Lens"

Abstract:

This lecture introduces some key research topics that have interested me over the last 20 years: learning outcomes, motivation and assessment practices. Being involved in the early 1990s in the development of Te Whāriki, the national early childhood curriculum, changed my lens on these topics. The change to a sociocultural lens has enabled me to see things that I didn't see before. This early childhood curriculum and research experience has implications for learning outcomes, motivation and assessment practices in other sectors of education in Aotearoa-New Zealand and beyond.

2001 NZARE Herbison Lecture

Emeritus Professor Graham Nuthall

Graham Nuthall trained as a primary teacher and speech and language therapist at the Christchurch College of Education. He completed his MA at the University of Canterbury and his PhD in Education and Psychology at the University of Illinois. He was appointed Professor of Education at the University of Canterbury in 1972 and has been a Visiting Scholar at the universities of Queensland, Illinois, Stanford and London.

Professor Nuthall started doing research on classroom teaching and learning when he began using a tape recorder in local school classrooms as part of his MA thesis research in 1959. Since then he has been involved in a series of research projects on how students learn from their classroom experiences and how teachers shape those experiences. His work is notable for the detail with which it traces the experiences of individual students, showing exactly how learning and forgetting occur and how differences in gender and cultural background shape learning and thinking processes. He is acknowledged as one of the leading researchers on classroom teaching and learning and has been invited to give addresses to research conferences and institutes around the world. The results of this research have been published in books and leading international research journals.

» Download lecture (PDF, 152K)

Compilation of Herbison Lectures 1999-2004

Each year, those attending the conference of the New Zealand Association for Research in Education (NZARE) are inspired by the Jean Herbison lecture, which is presented by a leading researcher. In recognition of the quality and significance of the work of these researchers, the NZARE Council decided to make these lectures available to a wider audience through this publication. This volume was compiled by Bev Webber in 2005 and is available from NZCER Press.

» About Dame Jean Herbison