Sue Middleton

I have a background in secondary, intermediate and primary teaching and brought questions from my professional background into my academic studies in later life. Drawing on sociological and geographical concepts, my research  explores the changing educational ideas adopted and experienced by New Zealand's teachers and students in schools and higher education. Many of my projects have combined analysis of archival policy documents with personal records such as letters and life-history interviews. My current focus is on New Zealanders' involvements in and contributions to the "New Education" (or Progressive Education) movement of the 1920s-40s.

Details of my research and publications can be accessed in my Research profile. A full curriculum vitae is available as a pdf file on this web site.For details of specific themes of my recent and current research, click the links below:

• Doctoral Research in New Zealand (includes a project on Education as a discipline specifically and another on the Teaching and Learning of Māori doctoral students);
• 'The Seven Servants of Ham': Labourers' Letters from Wellington to Surrey, 1841-1845;
• The Impact of PBRF (Research Assessment) on the Subject/s of Education;
• The New (or Progressive) Education Movement in New Zealand (includes research on Sylvia Ashton-Warner specifically and my current project of the New Education Fellowship).
  

My teaching is influenced by a long-standing interest in women's studies,  post-colonial theory, and narrative research methods. I enjoy working with new technologies and have taught online since 1992.

RECENT BOOK:

The kiss and the ghost: Sylvia Ashton-Warner and New Zealand'. Edited by Alison Jones and Sue Middleton.

Sylvia Ashton-Warner (1908-1984) achieved fame as educator and novelist. This is the first book to make Sylvia Ashton-Warner’s passionately difficult relationship with New Zealand its central focus. Its contributors argue that, rather than stultifying her, the country she decried produced Sylvia and her work. In addition, infant schooling in New Zealand in the post-war years was relatively radical and progressive, and education officials seemed to welcome Sylvia’s ideas about literacy.

 

NZCER has published the New Zealand edition.  New Zealand edition by NZCER: New Zealand buyers click here	Sense publishers hold the copyright for the 'Rest of the World. Overseas buyers click here.

 

OLDER BOOKS: