'The more socially unacceptable smoking becomes in adult society the more attractive it appears to the younger generation'. This was the comment of a South Auckland intermediate school principal whose school I visited during a nation-wide Health Department survey of Form One (Year 6) students' smoking. On the affluent northern ...

It is in the family that children learn the skills and knowledge necessary to get along. Most children in fact become pretty competent in both their own family group and in larger social groups such as school. However, some families manage to help their children to be competent better than ...

This story about sex-stereotyping was used by two American researchers to illustrate the persistence in United States' schools of traditional ideas on sex roles. But it could have come from a New Zealand kindergarten. Or an Australian one. In all three countries educational institutions have been slow to recognise the ...

Nine out of ten children change from one school to another as they go from primary to secondary school. There is much discontinuity at the divide for the children, reinforced by the way in which the administration and functions of education have evolved, with separate systems of primary and secondary ...

In 1984, in one hundred Form 2 (Year 7) classes and in one hundred Form 5 (Year 10) classes throughout New Zealand, six thousand children wrote three pieces each. Their work was collected and the 18,000 pieces analytically marked according to internationally agreed criteria. Now the results are known. Not ...

Believing that it is our responsibility to address from our particular disciplines the most dangerous and destructive activities of our species, violence and war; recognising that science is a human cultural product which cannot be definitive nor all encompassing; and gratefully acknowledging the support of the authorities of Seville and ...

No matter where you go in the world, secondary schools have a lot in common. This article describes high schools in the USA, but the description of the good news and the bad, problems and solutions, traditions and innovation, rings very true for Australia and New Zealand.

Therese: Because, you know, Maoris are considered to be pretty dumb, you know. I've always had this strong desire to be a criminal defence lawyer, but that's a pretty high class job!
R.S.: And Maoris and high class don't go together?
Therese: Not really!
R.S.: Would Maoris and low class ...

In 1990 it may be relatively easy to set up state-funded schools in New Zealand which do not teach in English. Although many countries have parallel school systems teaching in different languages, somehow, in Australia and New Zealand the idea seems strange. What are the facts about going to school ...

Early this century one particular piece of 'wisdom' about human nature gained endorsement from very different sources. These suggested that early characteristics, whether genetically or environmentally influenced, were set into a fixed mould, thereafter changing with the greatest difficulty or not at all. In advance of reliable empirical evidence these ...