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Aotearoa New Zealand is home to diverse ethnic groups. Discussions with students about their own cultural identity are important to recognise and include our diverse student communities within schools. For adolescents, developing their identity, inclusive of their culture, is fundamental at a time when these young people are striving to figure out who they are. When students feel that schools recognise and welcome their culture and identity, they are more likely to engage their whole selves in academic tasks. This article reports on a small qualitative research study involving 10 Asian secondary school students. The findings demonstrate students' valuing access to cultural activities, highlighting the critical influence of language, food, cultural ornaments, and upholding the familiar traditions of their culture; all of which contribute positively to students' cultural identity and wellbeing. The article outlines suggestions for practical application of their views for teachers and school communities are included.

While there are theoretical arguments that suggest school practices can exacerbate delinquent behaviour by youth, research has not consistently examined this potential of schools to contribute to poorer outcomes for the most at-risk youth in our communities. This paper uses longitudinal data (n = 495) to examine the role being excluded from school plays in later criminal justice involvement for a group of at-risk youth in New Zealand. Path analysis is used to explore the interaction of contextual and personal risks as well as educational resources (Time 1) on personal and peer risks (Time 2), and engagement with Youth Criminal Justice (Time 3), accounting for differences between males and females using a multi-group analysis. Between groups t-tests were used to further understand the differences between genders. A direct link between being excluded from school and later criminal justice involvement is found, with an indirect link via delinquency (Time 2). Similar factors influence male and female pathways from school to prison, but their relative influence differs by gender: among youth interviewed, females reported higher rates of exclusion, while males reported receiving greater academic support, although this support did not reduce justice system involvement. Results highlight the need for educational programmes and policies to address underlying causes of delinquent behaviour if the pathway from school exclusion to the justice system is to be removed. Such policies and programmes need to target children early, promote the development of positive supportive relationships with teachers that can mitigate risks and provide opportunities for youth to build pro-social peer relationships.

As doctoral enrolments have soared in many countries around the world, considerable attention has been devoted to how an increasingly diverse candidature can succeed in thesis writing. Along with supervisory guidance during the student's research project, various publications have emerged to help students with thesis writing requirements. However, neither necessarily helps students become expert writers as supervisors tend to focus on content discussions, and self-help books attend to the more surface or mechanical features of writing. Along the way to a finished thesis, students can become mired in uncertainty about what they are discovering -- intellectually stuck -- and then lose confidence in their ability to express themselves within an academically accepted writing style. Indecision hampers student progress as they struggle with appropriate ways to reveal the insights they are gaining during research. Yet, generic, group-oriented, doctoral writing programmes can provide a powerful means for students to appreciate key features of the doctoral writing genre and overcome intellectual hurdles. This paper explores how an understanding of threshold concepts and the use of cultural, social and linguistic tools can mediate students' emerging knowledge of how to become proficient and successful thesis writers.

Increasingly, universities are involved in providing leadership development opportunities that support students' academic endeavours and their personal and professional development, including employability and citizenship skills. Leadership experiences are beneficial not only for students, but also for universities, the wider community, and future employers. To develop a greater understanding of students' perceived benefits of their involvement in peer leadership activities, a group of Australasian universities participated in a pilot survey based on the United States "National Survey of Peer Leadership." Overall, the results suggest students believe they benefit from peer leadership experiences across a range of key outcomes areas, most prominently creative problem solving, appreciation of diversity, and a sense of belonging and contributing to the university community.

Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) were introduced as an optional learning experience in a Bachelor of Physiotherapy programme. The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of PASS from the student perspective. Eight third year physiotherapy students who had participated in PASS during their second year of training attended a focus group, at which they provided their perspectives of these PASS sessions. A transciption of the focus group outcomes was analysed qualitatively using the general inductive approach, by two independent reviewers. Overall, the students' perceptions of PASS were positive for their learning, showing that PASS is a useful and effective adjunct to formal teaching for this group of students. Three main themes were identified: learning environment, revision and mastery of skills and clinical application. This study suggests that PASS could play a useful role in an undergraduate physiotherapy programme.

New Zealand students in the middle and upper school achieve better results in reading than they do in writing. This claim is evident in national assessment data reporting on students' literacy achievement. Research findings also state that teachers report a lack of confidence when teaching writing. Drawing on the National Writing Project developed in the USA, a team of researchers from the University of Waikato (New Zealand) and teachers from primary and secondary schools in the region collaborated to "talk" and "do" writing by building a community of practice. The effects of writing workshop experiences and the transformation this has on teachers' professional identities, self-efficacy, and their students' learning provided the research focus. This paper draws mostly on data collected during the first cycle of the two-year project. It discusses the influence of peer group response--a case study teacher's workshop experiences that transformed her professional identity, building her confidence and deepening her understandings of self as writer and ultimately transforming this expertise into her writing classroom practice. (Contains 2 figures and 3 footnotes.)

The literature on the immigrant-native educational achievement gap is suggestive of a better performance of immigrant students in countries practising selective immigration policies. However, the origin of such differences has not been investigated. I considered both important observed characteristics as well as the role of unobservables in the formation of immigrant-native achievement differences in 4 selective immigration countries. I found that, if the comparison is between selective immigration countries as a group and other European/Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, immigrant students in selective immigration countries perform better. However, the results are heterogeneous and different conclusions apply to each of the 4 countries. The findings are discussed in the context of successful immigration policies as screening devices, which induce a self-selection of immigrants with transferable and adaptive skills. Potentially important are also institutional differences with respect to how inclusionary and conducive to the integration of immigrants into the host country policies are.

This article provides an insight into the educational needs, experiences and school support for deaf high school students attending a mainstream school, from the perspectives of the deaf students themselves, their teachers and support staff. Themes emerged from interviews with the students and staff around learning, communication, school culture and social interactions. The gathered information highlighted that the deaf students' ability to communicate directly with the school staff and their peer group formed a central part of their educational experience. This article also provides an insight into the practical strategies perceived as effective by the students and staff, which were discussed and highlighted to ensure an overall visual approach can be employed when working with deaf students. (Contains 1 footnote.)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine the extent to which youth have ready access to alcohol and the extent to which immediate family influence affects consumption. Design/methodology/approach: This qualitative descriptive exploratory study undertook semi-structured peer-group interviews with 20 participants from four New Zealand high schools. The interviews centred on exploring the "general" experiences of youth related to alcohol access--but with a focus on alcohol access "at home" and the parental role. Findings: The study confirmed that the home unit was the main source of alcohol for most youth and parents were the most common source of provision. Parents provided financial access to alcohol by giving their child money to purchase it themselves through older family members or friends. It was also found that youth used negotiation strategies with their parents to influence their consumer purchases of alcohol. Research limitations/implications: Youth frequently used strategies such as pressure tactics, exchange tactics, ingratiating tactics and consultation tactics to influence their family's decision-making process and to pressure their parents into supplying them with alcohol. Practical implications: It is important to recognise the role that family play as "gatekeepers" for readily allowing access and supplying youth with alcohol--and the reasons for doing so. Social implications: Alcohol plays an important part in many societies. It is important to understand how young people consume and access alcohol--particularly when the family plays a major role in access and consumption. Originality/value: Many studies have been conducted in relation to youth and alcohol consumption. Very few, as far as we can tell, explore the role of the family from the young consumers' perspective and especially from a qualitative narrative perspective.

Providing feedback on students' written work is a key professional activity in tertiary education. Although there has been research into the effectiveness of lecturers' feedback, there is a need for more studies comparing students' perceptions with those of their teachers. This article discusses the design and implementation of an innovatory approach to both peer review and associated collaborative action research in an undergraduate writing course in a New Zealand university. Data were collected from extracts of students' written reflective journals and a focus group of the teaching team. These data were subjected to grounded analysis to identify the extent to which the respective perceptions converged. The findings from both sources indicated that the students' initial apprehensions about giving and receiving peer feedback changed, and their skills improved during the course. The article concludes by explaining how this project was framed as mutual scaffolding in a zone of proximal development.

Belonging has long been conceptualised as a fundamental human need, essential for the good health of individuals and communities. In relation to young children, belonging may be linked to their developing sense of identity, as well as the way they perceive and respond to others. Belonging is emerging as an important aspect of contemporary early childhood education and care (ECEC) curriculum such as "Te Whariki" from New Zealand and "Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia" (EYLF). There is the potential for belonging to become a romanticised, simplistic and taken for granted notion within ECEC. Following Sumsion and Wong's ("Contemp Issues Early Child" 12:28-45, 2011) call for belonging to be taken up in critical and reflective ways in ECEC, and Peers and Fleer's ("Educ Philos Theory", doi:10.1080/00131857.2013.781495, 2013) concerns regarding the inadequacy of everyday understandings of belonging to the full realisation of the intent of the EYLF, this paper is an attempt to begin problematizing the notion of belonging in early childhood, particularly in relation to infants in family day care (FDC). Conceptualisations of belonging across disciplines are discussed, with particular attention to the notions of a "sense of belonging" and the "politics of belonging". Particular aspects of FDC that may be important to consider in relation to belonging are drawn out, namely its purported home- and family-like nature. Finally, in relation to infants, we argue that any discussion of infants' belonging in ECEC must include the peer group and the active role that infants may play in the politics of belonging.

This paper discusses the role of peer support groups (PSGs) in realising graduate attributes in the research degree. The literature indicates that top-down embedding of graduate attributes has met with only limited success. By taking a bottom-up approach, this paper shows that PSGs offer an opportunity to improve the graduate attribute outcomes of universities. This paper presents the experiences of research students in three PSGs in New Zealand, Australia and Malaysia, and the results of an exploratory opinion survey that required past and present PSG members to share their learning experiences about the development of graduate attributes. The participants favoured five attributes: communication, critical thinking, self-motivation, research organisation and teamwork. Viewing the development of graduate attributes through the lens of the students adds to our understanding of how PSGs help them to develop graduate attributes and contribute to university efforts to instil these attributes by taking into account experiential learning.

In Pacific Rim countries parents of children with developmental disabilities have organized peer support organizations. One form of peer support is Parent to Parent based on one to one connections between two parents. The movements to create and sustain peer support in the U.S., New Zealand, China, and Korea are described. Qualitative evidence from interviews in the US indicates several reasons why Parent to Parent is effective for some of the people who obtain social provisions from the organizations. Peer support helps parents resist social stigma, gain hope, and obtain persuasive guidance. They are able to exchange situated knowledge from their lived experiences with children with disabilities (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989). This kind of information may not be available through other sources.

Data were obtained from about 1,700 New Zealand adolescents annually for three years to assess their connectedness to family, school, peer group and community as well as other indicators of adolescent functioning. Key results were that a sense of connection predicted better psychological wellbeing over time; in turn, wellbeing predicted higher family and school connectedness over time; and of the four types of connectedness, family connectedness proved to be the most powerful and salubrious. Over the three years of the study, family and school connectedness declined, peer connectedness remained relatively stable, and community connectedness increased. Policy implications are discussed. (Contains 1 table and 5 figures.)

Mentoring has become increasingly popular during recent years and particularly so in the provision of leadership development, including the mentoring of school principals. In New Zealand, many of these mentoring programmes are developed and funded by central government and are mostly designed to meet the needs of those in their initial years of principalship. Mentoring for experienced principals has not typically been resourced in this manner and tends to be less prevalent and more ad hoc in nature. This article reports on an evaluation of one peer-mentoring group of experienced primary (elementary) school principals in Auckland, New Zealand. While the principals identified a number of components of the mentoring process as being valuable, issues related to status, learning and safety were particularly highlighted. The results informed the development of a model of peer mentoring processes for experienced principals based on the notion of communities of practice. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

Article discusses two adolescent peer-led interventions in New Zealand designed to offer support to young people dealing with important issues - sex, drugs, and alcohol. The relevance of the unique cultural environment of New Zealand is discussed, and a description of the two interventions is provided. Suggestions for possible future directions are presented. (Author/JDM)

Objectives: To describe what is reported in the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) literature on small group learning formats in medicine, including the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) CPD Peer Review Groups (PRGs).Method: A literature review of international peer-reviewed publications in relation to the use of small group learning formats for CPD in medicine.Results: Small groups are commonly used as a learning format in medical CPD, primarily in general practice, but are little researched. Such groups take differing forms and they are valued by participants for a range of purposes, having effects on professionalism, clinical performance and doctors' wellbeing.Conclusion: We believe that the contribution of these groups to medical CPD should be further explored. To this end, this review forms the first part of a research project focussing on the RANZCP PRG model used by Australian and New Zealand psychiatrists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]