Joce Nuttall

Jocelyn "Joce" Grace Nuttall is a New Zealand education academic, and is a full professor at the University of Canterbury, specialising in teacher education, early childhood curriculum policy and workforce capacity-building.

Academic career
Nuttall qualified as a teacher at the Dunedin College of Education and the University of Otago, and taught in primary schools in New Zealand and Australia before moving into early childhood education. She was appointed as a senior lecturer at Christchurch College of Education in 1990. Nuttall completed a master's degree in education in 1992 titled Women, capitalism and feminisation: workers' experiences in private and non-profit childcare centres at the University of Canterbury. In 2004 she completed a PhD at Victoria University of Wellington, with a thesis titled Why don't you ask someone who cares?. Nuttall first worked at Monash University before moving to the Australian Catholic University in 2011, where she was Research Director of Teacher Education. Nuttall then joined the faculty of the University of Canterbury, rising to full professor. As of 2024 Nuttall is Executive Dean for the School of Education at Canterbury.

Nuttall's research focuses on the education of teachers and educational leaders. She is also interested in how to develop workforce capacity-building in early childhood education, and in early childhood curriculum policy.

Nuttall edited the first two editions ofWeaving te Whāriki: Aotearoa New Zealand’s early childhood curriculum document in theory and practice, a series of critical reflections on the New Zealand early childhood curriculum, and was joined by Alexandra Gunn for the third edition.

Honours and awards
Nuttall was elected a Distinguished Member of the Australian Teachers Education Association in 2019. She was awarded the Australian Catholic University Vice-Chancellor’s Medal for Research Excellence in 2018.

Selected works

 * Alexandra Gunn and Joce Nuttall (eds) Weaving te Whāriki: Aotearoa New Zealand’s early childhood curriculum document in theory and practice New Zealand Council for Educational Research. 3 editions. ISBN 978-1-98-854280-5 (3rd edition)