ABSTRACT
Since the Second World War the New Zealand universities have been trying to cope simultaneously with two major pressures: a mounting social demand for higher education, and a persistent academic demand for higher standards. The New Zealand universities are shaped by the interaction of these four pressures: financial stringency, social demand, academic demand, and ideological reorientation. These four factors, their nature and their interplay, determine the character of university education in New Zealand. In some areas of the social sciences, New Zealand does possess quite unique opportunities—for example, in anthropology, sociology, politics, and economics, and in history in so far as historians are prepared to serve under these banners. More generally, New Zealand society as a whole is a fair field for the social scientist. A significant part of the research undertaken in New Zealand universities should follow the directions set by the country's history and likely future development into the Pacific region.
