A century of psychology
From Ernest Beaglehole, the first professor of psychology in New Zealand, to his daughter Jane Ritchie, the country’s first woman to graduate with a PhD in psychology, to this year’s launch of New Zealand’s first Bachelor of Psychology, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington has a long history with the subject.
Jane Ritchie OBE, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Waikato, died in April this year. She is remembered by her daughter, Dr Jenny Ritchie, as an incredibly dedicated student and woman.
“She took every subject really seriously and as you’d expect, got exceptionally good marks.
“She was one of those academics that could remember the most specific details. She could recall things that had happened 30 odd years ago; what the person was wearing and what the name of the restaurant was—she was phenomenal.”
Jane completed her Master of Arts degree, with first class honours, in 1957. Her Master’s thesis, Childhood in Rakau: A Study of the First Five Years of Life, formed part of a series of four studies describing the development of the personality of modern Māori from birth to adulthood, under the direction of her father, Ernest Beaglehole.
Ernest’s own work had also focused on anthropology of and psychology within Pacific Island cultures, conducting several ethnographic surveys of various islands throughout his career—and frequently consulted for his expertise. Notably, he was one of the primary authors of UNESCO's The Race Question, an international statement by sociologists about the unscientific and immoral nature of racism and race theories.
Dr Ritchie says it is no surprise that her mother became a professor of psychology at the University of Waikato, since the Beaglehole family always strongly valued higher education. The list of Beaglehole professors at Victoria University not only included Jane’s father Ernest, but her uncle J.C. and cousin Tim, who were both professors of history, and Jane’s brother David, who was a professor of physics.
In 1963, Jane obtained her doctorate in psychology—the first woman to do so at a New Zealand university. Her thesis was born out of her Master’s work. Titled Māori Families: an Exploratory Study in Wellington City, it examined the ways in which Māori families at the time have met and are meeting the problems of city living.
It is because of this work that Dr Ritchie imagines her mother would be a huge supporter of the University’s new Bachelor of Psychology—which incorporates Mātauranga Māori into all its core courses.
Dr Tia Neha, a Māori and Indigenous psychology lecturer at the University and the lead of the first Māori Psychology major in the new Bachelor, says she whole-heartedly agrees.
“The development of this new degree, it began with people like Jane. Pioneers in New Zealand psychology, who even thirty, forty years ago, were so supportive of concepts like this—who recognised the value of a whānau-based approach.”
She remembers Jane as a well-considered, humble, and mindful woman, but importantly, an advocate for empowering Māori communities and research.
“I met her in the late 90s when I was a student, and I was enamoured—you could have knocked me over with a feather. This woman, who could have just brushed me off as a student, was interested in me, my work, and my lived experience as a tauira Māori.
“And that’s what our new Bachelor is all about. Our solutions lie within our communities, and by incorporating these realms of meaningful knowledge from our people and for our people—like Jane did all those years ago—we can continue the journey of realising and enacting that potential.”
For her work, in 1989 Jane was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and in 1993 she was recognised by the New Zealand Psychological Society as a Pioneer Woman in Psychology in New Zealand.
Her legacy, and the legacy of her family, lives on in scholarships, the names of buildings around campus, and in their work and its effect on Aotearoa.
Dr Ritchie herself is now also in academia, working as an associate professor within the University’s School of Education. It’s a legacy she says she never intended to carry on.
“I had a negative impression of academia. I hated high school, and I thought the last thing I want to do is go and have more people trying to tell me what I had to learn about.”
But, after “mucking around for quite some time” with other jobs, she began working with her aunt Ruth Beaglehole, Jane’s younger sister, in early childhood care and education where she found “something close to a calling.” She qualified and worked both as a kindergarten teacher and then as a counsellor, and in 1990 began her role as a lecturer in early childhood care and education at the University of Waikato, eventually joining Te Herenga Waka in 2014.
“Coming back here 50 years after my family had left Wellington, as some kind of anonymous Beaglehole—I realised I was inadvertently carrying on the family legacy, but these days, it’s one I’m proud to be part of.”