School of Social Sciences and Public Policy

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https://hdl.handle.net/10292/2105
There is a wide range of research activity in AUT's School of Social Sciences and Public Policy. The school has an active research community, with staff and postgraduate research in areas such as psychology, sociology and public policy.

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    An approach to teaching the writing of literature reviews [Online]
    (Zeitschrift Schreiben, 2008) Turner, E; Bitchener, J
    Students face difficulties in writing literature reviews that relate in particular to limited knowledge of the genre (Bruce, 1992; E. Turner, 2005). While there has been valuable research relating to genre and discourse analysis of the literature review (such as Bunton, 2002; Kwan, 2006; O’Connell and Jin, 2001), there is a lack of research into the effectiveness of published writing support programmes. Furthermore, with exceptions such as Ridley (2000) and Swales and Lindemann (2002), there is little explicit advice on how to approach the teaching of the literature review. This paper reports on one of two studies described at the 4th International EATAW conference 2007. It describes an evaluation of the effectiveness of an approach at a New Zealand university to teaching the writing of literature reviews. It focuses on a 15-hour unit of teaching as part of a six-day EAL graduate writing course. The study found clear evidence of improvement in all areas that were targeted.
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    Pasifika youth in South Auckland: family, community, gangs, culture, leadership and the future
    (The Families Commission, 2009) Nakhid, C; Collins, E; Tanielu, R
    Pasifika youth make a significant impact on the demographic profile of South Auckland and are a major focus of the many projections regarding population, employment and education in Aotearoa/New Zealand. The place of family and community is regarded as an important influence on the future of Pasifika youth yet how these youth view the place of Pasifika families in the future is not adequately covered in the research literature. As more Pasifika youth are thought to be joining gangs, there are also concerns as to whether the gangs have replaced the family for Pasifika youth and whether the street has become home to these youth.
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    ePortfolios in cooperative education: do they work?
    (Australian Collaborative Education Network, 2010) McDermott, K; Gallagher, S; Campbell, M
    This paper documents the process of integrating eportfolios from the multidisciplinary perspectives of the Schools of Languages, Social Sciences and Education. The experiences of Coordinators, Flexible Learning Advisors, Academic Supervisors and students, the stakeholders in Cooperative Education, will be considered. Significant issues will be analysed regarding the use of eportfolios such as cost, time, adequacy of training, software challenges, technical support, availability of computer laboratories, implications for moderation and marking as well as the effectiveness of the communication amongst all involved. Finally, the evolution of the project will be evaluated and future developments identified.
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    The Waitangi Tribunal and the regulation of Māori protest
    (New Zealand Sociology for Massey University, 2011) Tauri, J; Webb, RD
    Much of the current academic and political discourse related the development and operations of the Waitangi Tribunal over its first twenty years portray it as a forum that provided Māori with a meaningful avenue for settling Treaty grievances compared to the formal legal systems performance in the preceding 100 years. In contrast, we argue that from its inception and throughout much of the 1980s, the Waitangi Tribunal functioned primarily as an informal justice forum that assisted the New Zealand state’s regulation of Māori Treaty activism during the transition from a Fordist to a Post-Fordist mode of capital accumulation.
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    Misuse of foreign diplomatic passports
    (Queensland University of Technology, 2011-10) Deckert, A; Tauri, JM
    A number of internet consultancies advertise their highly-priced intermediary services for obtaining a genuine diplomatic passport. Clients are promised increased status, tax relief, and diplomatic immunity. Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961, diplomatic immunity – meaning exemption from lawsuits and prosecution – shall be granted to accredited diplomats only; however several real-life examples prove that genuine diplomatic passports can be obtained from a number of African and Pacific countries and are being used to claim diplomatic immunity even though passport holders have not been officially accredited as diplomats in a host country. This paper firstly describes how a genuine diplomatic passport is obtained, despite the passport holder’s lack of accreditation. Secondly, it analyses the evidentiary value such a passport holds under international diplomatic law, especially in regards to proving the passport holder’s right to claim diplomatic immunity. It explores how Article 40 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961 enables ‘fake diplomats’ to successfully claim diplomatic immunity, and whether the misuse of genuine diplomatic passports constitutes a new form of white-collar crime.
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    Bangladesh: an umpired democracy
    (International Foundation for Research and Development (IFRD), 2012) Crothers, CH; Azad, A
    This paper reveals that there has been a continuous political confrontation between two archrival political forces in Bangladesh since independence in 1971. In the course of the confrontation, the country has seemingly been divided into two forces: BAL forces and anti-BAL forces. The democratic development in this country since 1991 is a by-product of this confrontation. In 1991, because of the continued mistrust between the two confronting forces, a unique system of interim government (non-party caretaker government) was produced that kept working as a catalyst of power transfer in a democratic way from one government to another till 2008 election from 1991.
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    Analysing Social Structures
    (InTech, 2012) Crothers, CH
    No abstract.
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    Appendix: the New Zealand literature on social class/inequality
    (New Zealand Sociology, 2013) Crothers, CH
    No abstract.
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    Measuring changes in family wellbeing in New Zealand 1981 to 2006
    (New Zealand Sociology, 2013) Crothers, CH; Cotterrell,, G; Von Randow, M
    Since the mid-1980s, New Zealand has experienced extensive economic, social and political reforms. The economic impact of these changes has been closely monitored and much commented upon. However, the social impacts of the reforms on different categories of families and households are less well understood. This article presents data from a project designed to monitor how the reforms have impacted upon these categories, via indicators of wellbeing constructed from census data. All of this reveals variable impacts by category, with single-parent family households faring worst over the 1981–2006 period.
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    Editorial: social class and inequality in New Zealand and Overseas: introduction to special issue
    (New Zealand Sociology, 2013) Crothers, CH
    No abstract.
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    A Critical Review of the Revised IELTS Speaking Test
    (Macrothink Institute, 2013-12-26) Roshan, Saeed
    The International English Language Test System (IELTS) is currently one of the English tests of repute, which is employed to assess the language proficiency of candidates planning to study or work in contexts where English is employed as the language of communication. This study is a critical review of the Revised IELTS Speaking Test (RIST) in order to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the revised version. The findings indicate that the reduction from 5 phases to 3 phases in the structure, the introduction of an Interlocutor Frame (IF), the change of the rating system from holistic to analytic, and validity are the strong points of RIST. The weaknesses in the RIST could be subjectivity of the test, deviation from IF, and potential cultural bias. The study provides some recommendations for improvement of the Revised IELTS Speaking Test.
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    Just transitions and a contested space: Antarctica and the Global South
    (Taylor & Francis, 2014) Verbitsky, JE
    This paper suggests that Global South states should prioritize Antarctica as a core trans-national issue because of the potential rewards it offers in terms of opportunities for advancing their common political and development agendas. Global South states are significantly underrepresented in Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) governance. Consequently, they have minimal input into the shaping and direction of ATS decision-making on issues such as Antarctic bio-prospecting, fishing and tourism or, critically, into debates about the role and status of Antarctica in the international system. Nevertheless, Antarctica represents opportunities for Global South states to realize shared cosmopolitan democracy and environmental justice goals. While contemporary media coverage of the southernmost continent has focused on its vital role in global climate change, Antarctica is also important for Global South states because it is a contested, non-sovereign area without a clearly defined status or future (international or global commons, Common Heritage of Mankind, global wilderness?) that could be integral to their future development. The paper advocates the benefits for developing states of participating in Antarctic governance, drawing on theories of cosmopolitan democracy and environmental justice to demonstrate that these can be utilized by Global South states to reinvigorate and move forward international debates about the role, status and future of Antarctica, and provides a central place for Global South states in that future. Additionally, these theories can be practically applied to Global South development goals with respect to issues such as the management of Antarctica, access to sustainable resources and benefit sharing from Antarctic resource extraction.
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    A Critical Comparative Evaluation of English Course Books in EFL Context
    (Macrothink Institute, Inc., 2014-02-14) Roshan, Saeed
    Choosing an English course book which suits students in EFL/ESL settings is always a contentious issue for practitioners. This study is an investigation into the comparative critical evaluation of New Interchange Intro and New Headway Pre-intermediate series - two well-known series employed in EFL/EFL contexts - and some teaching challenges the teachers encounter during teaching these books in the context of Iran. The evaluation is done in terms of two assumptions; firstly, cultural and ideological assumptions, and secondly, assumptions about language, language learning and best practice. Findings reveal that both New Interchange and New Headway texts reflect ideological and cultural assumptions through their focus on the US and UK way of life respectively. The pictures and the material are found biased towards the culture of these countries in their depiction of local cities and lifestyles and in the inclusion of subjects. Regarding assumptions about language, language learning and best practice, the books focus on both form and meaning, and the grammar included is inductive and implicit. In the context of Iran, however, New Headway seems to be better for school students while New Interchange would be suitable for students and persons who aim to migrate or travel overseas. The study gives some suggestions for improving the usability of these books in the context of Iran.
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    Fighting complacency and retrogression: reawakening gender equity activism In New Zealand
    (International Sociological Association (ISA), 2014-07-15) McGregor, J
    New Zealand enjoys an impressive reputation for gender equality. It was the first self- governing nation to grant women’s suffrage in 1893 and scores highly in international indexes such as the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap at seventh of 136 countries. In recent political history women held the top four constitutional positions: Prime Minister, Governor General, Attorney-General and Chief Justice, for a short period of time. Yet as feminist academic Prue Hyman (2010) notes, New Zealand has moved from a relatively equal society to one of its most unequal in terms of earnings and income. This paper explores the recent mobilisation of feminist civil society and female-dominated trade unions in New Zealand who are beginning to collectively advocate and litigate on human rights such as equal pay. They are using the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to harness their frustration, benchmark progress and hold the State party to account for implementation of women’s rights and to prevent retrogression. The paper explores the re-awakening of women’s activism around social and economic rights in a nation with a strong self-regard for its international reputation in progressing gender equality. The paper uses data collected from New Zealand's seven periodic reports to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the Committee's concluding observations and responses to successive governments in relation to Article 11, relating to equal pay and pay equity. It analyses the ebbs and flows of political will and explores the patterns of complacency, frustration and now mobilisation by women's civil society groups who are pressing the case for women’s human rights.
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    Fight the power: comparing and evaluating two measures of French and Raven’s bases of social power
    (University of Iowa, 2014-07-15) Wood, J
    Social power, or potential for social influence, has traditionally been conceptualized according to French and Raven’s (1959) power typology. The purpose of this analysis was to examine the relationship between a commonly used scale measuring the original 5-factor model and a more recently developed scale measuring the revised 11-factor model, and evaluate the predictive utility of each. Correlations between corresponding bases on the two scales were weak, suggesting a lack of convergent validity. In addition, the 5-factor scale accounted for a substantially greater proportion of variance than did the 11-factor scale when predicting global power.
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    New Zealand’s experiment: closing the gender gap in higher education leadership through cumulative cultural change
    (The Austrian Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy, 2014-09-03) McGregor, J; Ramsay, E; McCarthy, D
    The subject of this paper is a long-standing New Zealand (NZ) national university women’s leadership programme, NZWiL . Formally established in 2006, with the first program delivered in 2007, NZWiL was designed to address an issue all too familiar across the world – university women’s under-representation at senior leadership levels and over-representation at entry level classifications amongst academic and professional staff alike. In New Zealand this pattern has persisted well into the twenty-first century, despite a NZ woman, Kate Edger, in 1877 becoming the first woman to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree in the British Empire (albeit having enrolled without revealing her sex) and despite NZ being the first nation state in the world to enfranchise all women in 1893. Yet this pattern persists notwithstanding the steady increase in women’s numbers and achievements as both staff and students in NZ higher education, and after several decades of legislative and public policy frameworks aimed at eliminating sex discrimination and achieving greater equality between women and men in various areas of life, including in education and employment.
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    Antarctica: environment, justice, sustainability & development
    (United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), 2014-10-31) Verbitsky, JE
    This paper focuses on Antarctica and its status as a commons area with potential to facilitate both the human rights objectives and development agendas of global south states. It suggests that, using a combined and complementary environmental justice, just sustainability and cosmopolitan democracy (EJJSCD) framework, global south states can advance a human rights-based approach to development using monies generated from resource extraction in Antarctic waters. In this framework, environmental justice, just sustainability, and cosmopolitan democracy serve as new or emerging paradigms that offer previously untried ways of addressing issues of inter and intra-generational equity, democracy beyond borders, marginalization of global south states in environmental governance regimes, and lack of ongoing capital funding for development projects (both large and small scale) in the global south. The paper argues that the uncertain legal status of Antarctica, the presence of two separate, overlapping legal regimes in the area south of 60º South (the Antarctic Treaty System and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)), and rapid technological advances have permitted resource extraction in the form of bio-prospecting to occur without appropriate environmental governance oversight or regulation. This opens up opportunities for global south states, building both upon the concept of sustainable development embedded in the Brundtland Commission report and their common rights and development objectives, to collectively press for regulation of the industry and equitable benefit-sharing from resource extraction utilizing the EJJSCD framework in order to achieve the vital outcomes outlined in the UN Millennium Development Goals.
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    Stepping forward for gender equality: initiatives by the New Zealand Human Rights Commission
    (National Women's Education Center of Japan, 2014-11-21) McGregor, J
    No abstract.
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