Conferences > Conference 2011 > Keynote Addresses

Keynote addresses 2011

Professor Robert Tierney
Dean Faculty of Education and Social Work
University of Sydney

Rob Tierney is currently the Dean and Professor of the Faculty of Education and Social work at the University of Sydney which he assumed in 2010. Prior to this appointment he was Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia (2000-2010) and a member of the Faculties at the Ohio State University, the University of Illinois, University of Arizona, Harvard University and University of California-Berkeley. He is Past President of the Association of Canadian Deans of Education and Past president of the Literacy Research Association. He has served on several national boards in North America, Australia and internationally and has pursued projects for UNESCO in Africa, Children's Television Workshop and Apple Computer. His own work has focused upon learner-centered assessment and has included projects in US, Canada, Australia and China.

Topic: Growing inequities: How do we contribute?

Abstract  Notions of equity are negotiated at the level of everyday exchanges between one another and in the corridors of power. Education is not exempted from these power struggles - indeed, education is in the centre of them as they prepare the future leaders and citizenship and perpetuate certain privileges and opportunities. A forensic study of education systems offers more than just a glimpse of outcomes of those power struggles, it begins to explain the social, cultural and economic production of inequities. The paper examines the nature of educational inequities in New Zealand, Australia, North America and selected other countries including recent initiatives to address stalled efforts.

Professor Roger Boshier
Department of Educational Studies
University of British Columbia, CAN
Canada

Roger Boshier endured violence and incompetence at Hastings Boys High School before escaping to Wellington Teachers' College and 1960s tumult - which included leading roles in the Committee on Vietnam and Peace, Media Foundation attempts to extinguish French nuclear testing. After a stint as Junior Lecturer in Psychology at Victoria University and a similar job at the University of Auckland, he went to Canada in 1974. Once New Zealand opted for Rogernomics there were few reasons to come home. In the meantime he has been helping China build the largest learning society in the world and is active in UNESCO attempts to promote lifelong education. He is Chair of a Canadian Coast Guard Advisory Council and runs an in-shore marine salvage outfit. In recent months he has been at educational reform meetings in Humboldt University (the old East Berlin) and Stanford University, California. Much to his shock and horror, he has spent nearly 40 years at the University of British Columbia - 37th best-in-the-world on the Shanghai Jiaotong ranking of "world class" universities.

Topic: Journeys, maps and finding the way into a bright new dawn

Abstract  It is almost certain M.V. Rena ran into Astrolabe reef because the deck officer on shift was not reading the map (or, in nautical parlance, the chart). Maps are designed to get people from their present to a desired future location and, in addition, display unknown or hitherto unvisited possibilities for tragedy or adventure. Because of the importance of the long sea voyage to Aotearoa, many citizens have a special interest in map-making. Hence, shortly before W.W. II, Hastings-based New Zealand Aerial Mapping pioneered picture-taking and map-making using aircraft. When the speaker left Aotearoa 40 years ago, educational research was infested with false binary oppositions (e.g. qualitative/quantitative) and energy-sapping paradigm wars involving functionalist orthodoxy and critical perspectives. These problems still exist and, in this speech, Boshier positions map-making as a necessary activity, extols the virtues of pluralism, praises wananga and shows how social cartography can get grounded research off the rocks and into a safe harbour and posh academic journal.

» Download Journeys and Maps: Finding Your Way to a Bright New Dawn (PowerPoint presentation as PDF, 5.3MB)

Prof Boshier has also made available his paper presented at the Tertiary Education Summit, Wellington, New Zealand, 29 November, 2011: Where is the "Home" of New Zealand tertiary education in a globalizing world? (PDF, 385KB)

» Go to Herbison lectures