Barbara Calvert

Barbara Calvert (, 19 October 1918 – 24 April 2008) was a New Zealand educational sociologist, accountant, and was professor emerita at the University of Otago. Calvert was the first woman to head a New Zealand university department of education and is considered one of the earliest female professors in the field.

Early life and education Calvert, born Barbara Johns, was the eldest of three daughters born to Mr and Mrs V. R. Johns. She was born in Waipawa, where her grandfather was a vicar, but grew up in Auckland. Johns attended Auckland Girls Grammar School, where she was dux and head prefect. At school she became friends with Dorothea Horsman, and the two remained friends for life. Calvert followed this with a Master of Arts in education titled The causes and the significance of discrepancies between I.Q.s determined by the mental age and the point scale methods from the same data also at the University of Otago, completed in 1944. She also won a university prize in philosophy. In 1950, Calvert was one of only two New Zealand academics awarded an Imperial Relations Trust Fellowship in education, awarded by the Institute of Education at the University of London. While in the UK she left her three small children in the care of their grandmother and other family members, for which she was criticised. She had already caused a stir by wearing slacks rather than skirts to lectures at the university. Calvert used her year-long fellowship to develop her master's work in education through the development of a non-verbal intelligence test. She may be the first woman to hold a professorial chair in a New Zealand education department.

In 1976 Calvert became the first woman to be head of a New Zealand university department of education. She remained head of education until her compulsory retirement at the end of 1983. At her retirement, she was described as "a modest and unassuming woman whose quiet demeanour conceals an active and lively mind." It was also noted that she "arrived at a troublesome time in the history of the department and provided a steady hand at the helm to guide it through that difficult period."

In her early nutrition research, Calvert had worked to provide an alternative source of Vitamin C supplements during wartime, when citrus fruit became scarce. She identified rosehips as a good source, and developed a process for the production of rosehip syrup. Calvert also gave lectures to Playcentre and other groups, on subjects such as the role of fathers. After her retirement, Calvert worked as a volunteer for the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study.

Selected works Barbara Calvert, The role of the pupil. London; Boston: Routledge and K. Paul 1975