Se’i lua’i lou le ulu taumamao: privileging Pacific notions of success in higher education

Abstract

ABSTRACT In Aotearoa New Zealand, despite decades of education policy reforms attempting to address Moana/Pacific underachievement, Moana/Pacific knowledge is often still absent in universities. Moana/Pacific scholars have long argued that recognising and including indigenous knowledges in university curricula has positive benefits for students, institutions and wider society. We posit that embedding indigenous knowledges within institutions is the difficult work that must be done first; understanding what Moana/Pacific learners mean by success is one area that would benefit from a deeper engagement with indigenous knowledges, as success is a term that is widely used in education but is often not clearly defined. The Samoan proverb – se’i lua’i lou le ulu taumamao – means to pick fruit from the furthest branches of the breadfruit tree. This metaphor refers to the action of privileging Moana/Pacific notions of success in higher education, by focusing on our successful Moana/Pacific learners on the furthest branches. In this article we present, using our Lalaga/Lalanga approach to privilege Moana/Pacific voices, the definitions of success gathered from two distinct research projects. These two projects explored the experiences of successful Moana/Pacific learners. Our Lalaga/Lalanga approach to purposefully consider our projects together helped us to surface three tensions for Pacific student success: (1) measures/’testing’ of success; (2) transitioning between educational contexts; and (3) being Moana/Pacific learners in tertiary settings. Our Lalaga/Lalanga approach also reflects our ‘positional methodology’, a term we introduce here to capture the considerations around who we are in relation to our research rationale as our positionality always influences our methodological choices.