The Fulbright-Cognition Scholar Award in Education Research is for a New Zealand educator or educationalist to pursue research in the US for three to five months, on a project designed to have an impact on New Zealand schooling and student achievement. This award is available to emerging or established researchers and the Cognition Institute strongly encourages practitioners/teachers to apply.

The award is available to applicants involved in one or more of the research, practice and policy contexts of schooling. Applications are welcome from the Early Childhood Education Sector, and from those working in the tertiary sector provided the focus of the research is on the schooling or Early Childhood Sector. The recipient will have an active interest in the broader schooling sector and use the award to establish key relationships with education researchers or research organisations in the US, and collect, collate, analyse and use data available in the US for a research project.

The first recipient of the Fulbright-Cognition Scholar Award in Education Research, Jenny Horsley, spent four months in Baltimore, Maryland at the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins University.

“The experience of sharing a research environment with like-minded people who were focused on making provision for students of high-academic ability was truly inspirational,” she said. “This award enabled me to establish connections with many of those people who are acclaimed experts in the field of high-ability education, academics whose names I had only previously seen in print.

“These academics have established a range of opportunities to support students demonstrating high-academic potential who are from low income families and/or are from ethnic minority groups. It was evident that many of these initiatives have applicability to the New Zealand educational context.”

Last year’s recipient, Enosa Auvaa leaves shortly to research ethnic minority leadership at the University of Hawaii. He will study the stories and experiences of minority school leaders in the US, to find out how aspiring minority teachers are encouraged towards leadership positions including principalship.

Grantees are required to allow the Institute to publish the research arising from this award and disseminate it in the New Zealand education sector and other relevant arenas, something which Jenny has found helpful.

“With the sustained support I have received from the Cognition Institute, I am continuing research in this area now that I have returned to New Zealand,” said Jenny.

“The personal and professional relationships I established with the faculty at Johns Hopkins have meant that I am able to collaborate with these experts and receive their on-going support and interest in this New Zealand study. Without the largesse of the Fulbright programme and the Cognition Institute this simply would not have been possible”