Land of milk and-- gas? Economic change and its social consequences in 1980s Taranaki : a regional history : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History at Massey University

In the minds of most New Zealanders the 1980s will be remembered as a decade of immense change and upheaval. In 1980 New Zealand was a fortress economy, with high tariffs and key industries heavily subsidised and sometimes owned by the government. 1 1 Brian Easton, The Commercialisation of New Zealand, Auckland, Auckland University Press, 1997, p.6. By 1990 the walls of that fortress had largely been removed. 2 2 Jane Kelsey, The New Zealand Experiment: A world model for structural adjustment?, Auckland, Auckland University Press with Bridget Williams Books, 1995, p.99. In 1980 the National government led by Robert Muldoon was pushing ahead its policy of energy development, borrowing and spending billions of dollars in the process.3 3 Easton, p.18. By the 1990s New Zealand was firmly in the grip of neo-liberal economic thinking, with government spending cuts, user pays, and market deregulation the driving forces behind government and the economy. 4 4 Kelsey, p.1. The beginning of the decade saw increasing concern over the growing number of unemployed. Employment was a prime issue in the 1981 election campaign. After the Labour government took office following the 1984 snap election, unemployment was reaching the five percent mark and was predicted to climb further. 5 5 Simon Collins, Rogernomics: Is there a better way?, Wellington, Pitman Publishing, 1987, p.26. By the 1990 election unemployment had grown so high in some regions that a level of five percent looked like a desirable yet impossible target. Indeed, even today in what appear to be prosperous times for New Zealand we have still not attained a level of unemployment as low as that which was facing New Zealand in the early 1980s. It says much of what occurred both economically and politically through the 1980s that we now view what was once seen as an unthinkably high level of national unemployment as remarkably low. The decade was a period which altered the relationship between New Zealanders and the governments elected by them. Nobody was left untouched by the processes of transformation. Where New Zealand once prided itself on being a country that led the world on issues of social welfare, it became one leading the world in market driven economic change. 6 6 Kelsey, p.1. All facets of society were effected from the social to the cultural. The governments of New Zealand began the 1980s as New Zealand's major employer and reluctant deregulators, and finished the decade having corporatised and sold many state assets, affecting thousands of jobs along the way. From being a protected economy, relying partly on import substitution to maintain employment, New Zealand became, in world terms, an open economy importing many new and cheaper products, changing the life styles and spending habits of many. 7 7 Easton, p.6. By the close of the decade the government was actively seeking to play less of a role in the lives of New Zealanders

Being a climber: Progressive lead coaching

An exploration of the changing power relations and agency that can result from a gentle progression of angle and duration. Adopting an occupations approach this short article describes an atypical approach to teaching leading and some of the benefits that arose

Responding to research: An interview study of the teacher wellbeing support being offered in ten English schools

Purpose: Responding to research reporting low-levels of teacher wellbeing in England, policy makers have begun to implement strategies to support wellbeing. Given the recent introduction of such policy, this exploratory study describes the wellbeing support being offered to teachers, and perceptions of its impact on wellbeing. Method: A purposeful sample of ten schools (primary and secondary) in Greater London beginning to offer wellbeing support was selected and fifteen teachers were interviewed. Findings: Teachers describe a range of wellbeing support strategies being implemented in their schools and report, in some cases, activities designed with good intentions can harm their wellbeing. We apply the capabilities approach to analyse the interviews and argue wellbeing support should be matched to the needs of recipients and support should increase teachers’ freedoms to act, rather than simply mitigating in the moment feelings of stress. Limitations: Findings of this small-scale study cannot be generalised to other contexts

Independence Standards Board: Backgournd, Organization, Mission and General operation, September 16, 1998

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_assoc/1628/thumbnail.jp

Paddle to the sea

This paper explores human and other-than-human agency through the rhythms experienced during a source to sea canoe journey from Kirkstone Pass in the centre of the Lake District to the Solway Firth.  Musing on the narrative of Holling’s (1941) children’s classic ‘Paddle to the Sea’ this study reflects on the dance of agency experienced by Hollins' character 'Paddle' alongside those which emerge during our own paddle to the sea. Acknowledging privileges in terms of agency, finances and time; what experiences would the researchers have in terms of their sense of space, time and nature connection? Findings included observations around the role of task focus on the sense of time, space and nature connection, some attractive aspects of arrhythmia and the examination of some assumed hierarchical dualities

Public File Documents Relating to ISB Staff Interpretive Letter Dated 4/9/99

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_assoc/1729/thumbnail.jp

Analysis of coloured Grooved Ware sherds from the Ness of Brodgar, Orkney

To the accumulation of evidence of painted decoration applied to Neolithic and Early Bronze Age pottery in Britain and elsewhere in Europe we report here the presence of decoration in red, black and white on some third millennium BC Grooved ware pottery at the Ness of Brodgar on Orkney. As expected, the red was identified as an iron-rich material and black was carbon black. The white was prepared from calcined (cow) bone; however, its identification encountered some issues arising principally from the effects of the prevailing burial conditions on the bone. Furthermore, whereas the chemical and FTIR data were consistent with the presence of apatite, XRD indicated that the white had a significant content of silicate minerals. This finding has suggested that the white required a preparatory step which might have included the calcined bone bring ground to powder in a stone mortar before application to the vessel surface. The results obtained at Ness of Brodgar are reviewed in the light of archaeometric data on similarly decorated prehistoric pottery reported from sites in Europe

Staff Recent Interpretation Ratified: Coopers & Lybrand of Australia

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_assoc/1733/thumbnail.jp

The “problem” of teacher quality: exploring challenges and opportunities in developing teacher quality during the Covid-19 global pandemic in England

Teachers and teacher education are often presented as “problems” to be solved, with policy solutions that focus on ways to make teachers “better” and improve teacher “quality” by introducing prescriptive strategies. We investigate the ways Covid-19-related changes to university and school-based facets of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in England influence teacher quality in relation to both student teachers and early career teachers, working in secondary schools. Drawing on 34 interviews with school leaders, school mentors and ITE tutors, we critically explore the ways in which teacher quality was developed through key aspects of teachers’ pedagogy and practice during the pandemic crisis when schools were closed and teaching moved online. Our findings show that the pandemic crisis has highlighted the different facets of teacher quality which arguably disrupt narrow and prescriptive understandings of what constitutes “quality” in policy terms. Although there were many instances of challenge in the development of new and student teachers, our data also shows how ITE tutors, school mentors and leaders responded creatively to the crisis. Participants highlighted the opportunities afforded by the pandemic to develop diverse and innovative pedagogies and practice, enhance students’ subject knowledge, as well as overcome some of the challenges in other areas of pedagogy and practice. Furthermore, the study shows that teacher quality was not substantially reduced despite the challenges arising from the pandemic and concerns that pre-service teachers would not be ready and prepared for a career in the classroom

Nanometric depth resolution from multi-focal images in microscopy

We describe a method for tracking the position of small features in three dimensions from images recorded on a standard microscope with an inexpensive attachment between the microscope and the camera. The depth-measurement accuracy of this method is tested experimentally on a wide-field, inverted microscope and is shown to give approximately 8 nm depth resolution, over a specimen depth of approximately 6 µm, when using a 12-bit charge-coupled device (CCD) camera and very bright but unresolved particles. To assess low-flux limitations a theoretical model is used to derive an analytical expression for the minimum variance bound. The approximations used in the analytical treatment are tested using numerical simulations. It is concluded that approximately 14 nm depth resolution is achievable with flux levels available when tracking fluorescent sources in three dimensions in live-cell biology and that the method is suitable for three-dimensional photo-activated localization microscopy resolution. Sub-nanometre resolution could be achieved with photon-counting techniques at high flux levels