Talatalanoa as ongoing complex conversations and negotiation of practice in higher education

Higher education is a site where diverse cultures and knowledges intersect. Engaging in complex conversations is necessary for educators and academics to confront and negotiate differences, especially in areas they may not be overly familiar with. Negotiating complex conversations is difficult, time consuming, risky, yet rewarding, particularly if shifts in the understanding or valuing of relational engagement and practice. In this article, as a Tongan teacher educator and Pāpālangi (of European heritage/s) educator, we critically reflect on our work in transforming learning and engagement contexts that predominantly ignore expressions of Pacific Indigenous knowledge and Tongan ways of being. Through our collaborative talatalanoa (ongoing conversations) we demonstrate the value of negotiating complex conversations in higher education and particular aspects to consider when instigating them

Talatalanoa as ongoing complex conversations and negotiation of practice in higher education

Higher education is a site where diverse cultures and knowledges intersect. Engaging in complex conversations is necessary for educators and academics to confront and negotiate differences, especially in areas they may not be overly familiar with. Negotiating complex conversations is difficult, time consuming, risky, yet rewarding, particularly if shifts in the understanding or valuing of relational engagement and practice. In this article, as a Tongan teacher educator and Pāpālangi (of European heritage/s) educator, we critically reflect on our work in transforming learning and engagement contexts that predominantly ignore expressions of Pacific Indigenous knowledge and Tongan ways of being. Through our collaborative talatalanoa (ongoing conversations) we demonstrate the value of negotiating complex conversations in higher education and particular aspects to consider when instigating them

Exploring, Celebrating, and Deepening Oceanic Relationalities

The theme of the 2018 Oceania Comparative and International Society (OCIES) conference held at Victoria University of Wellington, in Wellington, New Zealand aimed to explore, celebrate, and deepen Oceanic relationalities. This special issue of the International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives responds to this call for scholarship to examine how Comparative and International Education (CIE) can be repositioned around the notion of relationality to contribute theoretically, practically, and spiritually to education at global, regional, national, and community levels. In this Special Edition, we celebrate the work of seven new and emerging researchers from OCIES. This paper introduces us as a community of scholars, connected geographically by sea, yet it is our shared commitment to relationality that has enabled us to further the scholarship of CIE within our region

Attorney-General and Gow v Leigh: Lifting the veil of parliamentary privilege and parliament's response

Parliament in its exclusive cognizance can legislate for anything it sees fit. However this paper finds that the New Zealand Parliament had the opportunity in Attorney-General and Gow v Leigh¹ to balance political needs and respect for individual rights rather than to adopt a reactionary attitude in enacting the Parliamentary Privilege Act 2014. It would be appropriate for Parliament to closely examine the efficacy of the “necessity test” in Leigh in the light of the implication of the codification of the definition of “proceedings in parliament” on the scope of parliamentary privilege as the experiences by the Australian jurisdictions showed. On the other hand, the court’s obligations under the Bill of Rights Act, 1990 might result in the Parliamentary Privilege Act 2014 being interpreted in ways that the lawmakers might not have intended. This paper examines the public/private dichotomy between the public interest justification for parliamentary immunity and the individual’s right to have access to remedy, in the context of the underpinning features of the “necessity” test that give precedence to basic individual rights. The test being; any claim for absolute privilege for an occasion that occurs outside absolutely privileged spheres (Parliament and its committees) that could result in depriving citizens of their basic rights, had to be necessary as in the sense of “essential” for the proper functioning of the core roles of the House. In conclusion, this paper finds that the contentious issues revolve around comity. It then attempts to address the interests of the three stakeholders in the Leigh decision; the individual citizen, the judiciary and the legislature by recommending a number of comity “best practice” reforms to the House’s Standing Orders and the Parliamentary Privilege Act 2014. ¹ Attorney-General v Leigh [2011] NZSC 106, [2012] 2 NZLR 713, (Leigh)

Scholarly Responses to ‘Students’ experiences of Open Distance Learning: A Samoan case study’

Scholarly Responses to ‘Students’ experiences of Open Distance Learning: A Samoan case study

Analysis of Ethical Issues in HRIS using the PAPA Model

Information system (IS) is an important aspect of the communication industry. It is a storehouse of vital information for the company as well as for the employees. Many companies in Tonga use the IS to retrieve information about the employees’ leave history and other personal data for reference and promotion purposes. It is therefore important that the IS in the telecommunications company in Tonga is accurate and that access is secure given the company’s heavy dependence on the human resource information system (HRIS) information for promotion and other related benefits.In this chapter, we analyze the ethical issues of the HRIS using the PAPA model, in terms of privacy, accessibility, accuracy, and property. To do this, we review the current policies within the telecommunications company and consider if there is a need for development of standards for accessing information in the HR department in view of the PAPA model

Participant profile and impacts of an Aboriginal healthy lifestyle and weight loss challenge over four years 2012-2015

OBJECTIVE: To explore participation, consistency of demographic and health profiles, and short-term impacts across six Aboriginal Knockout Health Challenge (KHC) team-based weight loss competitions, 2012 to 2015. METHODS: Data comprised one competition each from 2012 and 2013 and two per year in 2014 and 2015. We compared baseline and change (pre- to post-competition) in weight, fruit and vegetable consumption, physical activity and waist circumference (baseline only) across competitions using mixed models. RESULTS: Numbers of teams and participants increased from 2012 to 2015 from 13 and 324 to 33 and 830, respectively. A total of 3,625 participants registered, representing 2,645 unique people (25.4% repeat participation). Participants were mainly female and >90% were classified obese at baseline. Baseline weight and weight lost (between 1.9% and 2.5%) were significantly lower in subsequent competitions compared with the first. Improvements in fruit and vegetable consumption and physical activity were comparable across competitions. CONCLUSION: The KHC has increasing and sustained appeal among Aboriginal communities, attracting those at risk from lifestyle-associated chronic disease and effectively reducing weight and promoting healthy lifestyles in the short term. Implications for public health: Community-led programs generated by, and responsive to, Aboriginal Australians' needs can demonstrate consistent community reach and sustained program-level lifestyle improvements

Could, would, should: theory of mind and deontic reasoning in Tongan children

This study examined the developmental profiles of children's social reasoning about individual agentive and deontic concerns. Tongan children (N = 140, 47.9% male), aged 4–8 years, were given a set of mentalistic (standard theory-of-mind) and deontic reasoning tasks. On average, children found diverse desires, knowledge access, hidden emotion, and belief emotion easier than the false-belief and diverse belief tasks. Tongan children were sensitive to social norms governing behavior, and this information was recruited for predicting behavior in a false-belief task when embedded in a socially normative context. We discuss the potential for cultural mandates to shape children's social understanding and the impact of culture on our theoretical framing of children's development

Pathways to Resilience in Semi-arid Economies (PRISE) CARIAA consortium report February 2014 - November 2018

PRISE (www.prise.odi.org) (2014–2018) was funded through the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia (CARIAA) programme, launched by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Department for International Development (DFID) in 2013, to fund adaptation research on three ‘hotspots’ of climate vulnerability: glacier-fed rivers, mega-deltas, and semi-arid lands (de Souza et al., 2015). ‘Hotspots’ are defined as areas where a strong climate signal coincides with a large concentration of poor, vulnerable or marginalised people. PRISE developed projects in seven countries with semi-arid regions: Senegal, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Tanzania (until 2015), Pakistan and Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan (since 2016). CARIAA is also rooted in progressive research for development principles, including knowledge co-creation (Harvey et al., 2017) and transdisciplinarity (Cundill et al., 2018), and this is reflected in the approaches and methodology employed by PRISE.This report summarises: the key thematic, national and global findings and policy recommendations; related engagement activities and stories of impact; the approach taken by the consortium and how it was set up and managed; the monitoring of outcomes; the lessons learned; and next steps for how the research findings and recommendations can be used to inform future programming and the climate adaptation and ‘leave no one behind’ agendas