Opportunity to learn about disciplinary literacy in senior secondary English classrooms in New Zealand

ABSTRACT

The New Zealand education system is recognised internationally for its overall high quality. At the same time, there is a persistent gap in achievement between students in low socio-economic status (SES) schools in which there is an over-representation of Māori and Pasifika students, and students in more affluent communities. In this paper, we present the findings of a study that explored the participation and achievement rates of secondary school students in selected literacy standards, and used classroom observations to record practices and resources used in literacy teaching. Our findings show the extent to which unequal opportunities to learn (OTLs) for Māori and Pasifika and other students from low SES communities exist at the systems level as well as at the level of classroom instructional offerings. We discuss the factors specific to the New Zealand curriculum and assessment systems that contribute to the current situation and suggest possible ways to achieve a more equitable outcome for all students.

KEYWORDS:

• Equity
• secondary school literacy
• Māori and Pasifika students
• student participation
• student achievement
• observational research, Starpath project

Acknowledgements

This study was undertaken as part of the Starpath Project for Tertiary Participation and Success, established in 2005 as a Partnership for Excellence between the University of Auckland and the New Zealand Government and administered by the Tertiary Education Commission (www.starpath.auckland.ac.nz). We acknowledge the support of the Starpath team, the contribution of the teachers who volunteered for the observational part of the study, and Benny Tong Zhu for assistance with statistical analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aaron Wilson

Aaron Wilson is a lecturer in the School of Curriculum and Pedagogy and the programme leader of the literacy strand of the Starpath Project, Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland.

Email: [email protected]

Irena Madjar

Irena Madjar is a senior research fellow with the Starpath Project, Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland.

Email: [email protected]

Stuart McNaughton

Stuart McNaughton is professor in the School of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland and Director of the Woolf Fisher Research Centre. In 2014, he was appointed as the Chief Education Scientific Advisor for the Ministry of Education.

Email: [email protected]