Hablar de cine y de sus profesiones

There are 43 secondary schools located in the Bay of Plenty and Waikato regions of the central North Island of New Zealand and all were invited in November 2008 to be part of the research. This was initially advertised through the annual Head of Department science professional learning day, where a significant number of leaders of science departments take part in a one day conference in Hamilton city. Emails were also sent out to schools describing the proposed research. A pamphlet titled:

The PLUTO Project outlining the research and the overall aims of the project was

Table 3.5

School Selection

School Number of classes Year participated

_____________________________________________________________________

Te Puke High 1 2009-2011

Hamilton’s Fraser High 2 2009-2011

Waikato Diocesan for Girls 1 2009-2010

Tauranga Girls College 1 2009-2011

Te Aroha College 1 2009-2010

Putaruru High 1 2009-2011

Cambridge High 1 2010-2011

Morrinsville College 1 2009-2011

Forest View High 1 2010-2011

Fairfield College 1 2009-2011

Tauhara College 1 2009-2010

Te Awamutu College 1 2009-2010

Mercury Bay Area 1 2009-2010

Te Kuiti High 1 2009

____________________________________________________________________

A total of 14 different schools volunteered and participated in the study over the three years, 2009-2011. Table 3.5 summarises the participating schools with their names, number of classes and the year in which they participated.

The goal of the study was to involve a wide range of different schools across the two geographic regions with one, sometimes two, classes of year 9 or 10 students from each school. It was important to have a portion of students from a number of schools contributing to the research so that overall trends and patterns could be evaluated across the regions rather than from a small sample of schools in one area. Science teachers from the associated schools who showed initial interest were invited to take part in the research and hence the students were also invited to take part. A letter was posted to each school confirming their place in the research and it also explained the events that would take place over the course of the research for a year. An initial workshop in mid-February of each of the years was organized to inform the teachers

about the research and so that the teachers would get to know one another professionally with a common focus. There was no monetary cost to the teachers for their involvement in the research.

The reasons behind why only 14 out of 69 schools volunteered were likely due to teacher and school professional development commitment. Not all schools receive the same funding with regard to teacher class release in New Zealand and hence the school commitment was due to how much time a teacher could be released for the professional development workshops. There was also the personal teacher commitment, which was significant over the time of the study and teachers had to weigh this up with all their other commitments and school initiatives that go on.

3.7 DEMOGRAPHICS

The Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions cover 37,000 square kilometres of mainly rural land and coastal land. The regions are geographically divided by the Kaimai ranges and situated in the central and east of the North Island of New Zealand. The Waikato and Bay of Plenty economies are strongly based on: agriculture, especially dairy farming; horticulture where kiwifruit, avocadoes and apples are grown; forestry; and tourism. Sixteen per cent of NZ’s total population resides in the Waikato and the Bay of Plenty regions (The University of Waikato, 2011). There is evidence of both prosperous towns and communities in poverty throughout the regions. Some of the secondary schools in this research have students who live below the poverty line and some of these children struggle to bring lunch to school. On the other hand, one participating school, with a decile 10 rating, had students who would predominantly live with affluent parents. In each New Zealand school, there is a decile rating specified and the New Zealand Ministry of Education determines this rating value through the census statistics and enrolment data collected at the associated school. It is a measure of the school’s community wealth. School communities are rated on a scale of one to ten, with one being the poorest and ten the wealthiest. In this research, the schools had a decile range from 3 to 10. Nevertheless we must be reminded that there is still a wide range of students with very different socio-economic backgrounds attending each school. In eight out of 14 schools in this research, they were the only secondary school in that particular town. Hence, the

majority of students who reside in the particular community will most likely be attending their local high school and are unlikely to travel a lengthy distance to attend another secondary school.

English is the most widely spoken language and Te Reo Māori is the most common minority language spoken by 9.6% compared with 4.1% nationally (Environment Bay of Plenty, 2011).

In the 2006 Census, 67% of the resident population identified themselves as ethnic European. 27.5% of the Bay of Plenty and 22% in the Waikato regions’ populations identified themselves as Māori (Statistics New Zealand, 2006). According to local Māori traditions, the Bay of Plenty was the landing point of several migration canoes that brought Māori settlers to New Zealand. Both the Waikato and the Bay of Plenty regions have reasonable sized populations of Māori living in all the towns. Some schools do have large proportions of Māori and some of these have strong connections with their local Marae.

Of New Zealand’s population 7.2% are Pacific Island people and of those, 22% live in the Bay of Plenty and Waikato regions. Pasifika is a collective term used to refer to people of Pacific heritage or ancestry who have migrated or have been born in New Zealand. They identify themselves with Samoa, Cook Islands, Tonga, Niue, Tokelau, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and other Pacific countries. There are a small percentage of Pasifika students who also attend schools, some of them are represented in this research.