The location and dislocation of Pacific knowledge and experience in New Zealand social studies (1997–2007)

Abstract

Introduction We are what we remember--a is what it remembers or chooses to remember. And education plays a crucial role in the creating/storing/and transmitting of those memories. (Wendt, 1985) Just over a decade ago, as a secondary school social studies teacher taking some time out of the classroom for postgraduate studies, I saw an opportunity for in-depth study that combined my areas of experience as well as commitment: social studies and the education of Pacific learners. Encouraged by my supervisor, I analysed several aspects of the newly developed social studies curriculum statement (Ministry of Education, 1997) for my master's thesis (Samu, 1998). With the release of New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007), which will become mandatory in 2010, I believe it is timely to revisit and review one aspect of that analysis--the location of Pacific and experience in the New Zealand social studies curriculum. In this article I will describe and discuss where and how Pacific was located in the social studies curriculum statement of 1997, and how this has changed with the revised New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007). I will set out a rationale for the legitimacy, validity and even necessity of Pacific being knowledge in the New Zealand school curriculum via social studies. I will then describe two approaches that encourage teachers to include Pacific in their social studies curricula. Curriculum as valued Part of my academic journey involved engaging with theories and ideas about the socially constructed nature of and the political nature of curriculum change. I found the work of radical education sociologists Young (1971) and Apple (1990, 1996) to be particularly challenging to my taken-for-granted beliefs about the neutrality of curricula. Apple (1996), for example, argued that curriculum statements are official knowledge, and what is official is what is legitimate knowledge, therefore rendering what is absent as not official. If is not officially sanctioned in the curriculum, Apple argues, it is viewed as not as important, legitimate or valid. selectivity of is a vital feature of curriculum development and design. Apple stated: curriculum is never simply a neutral assemblage of knowledge, somehow appearing in the texts and classrooms of the nation. It is always part of a selective tradition, someone's selection, some group's vision of legitimate [italics added]. (1996, p. 22) An important question is--which groups get to decide, to select? Why are some groups' visions of what counts as held over others? Regardless of the specifics of the processes involved, The decision to define some groups' as the most legitimate, as official knowledge, while other groups' hardly sees the light of day, says something about who has power in society (Apple, 1996, p. 22). Such ideas caused me to scrutinise my taken-for-granted assumptions. Because of my commitment to Pacific peoples as a multiethnic minority in Aotearoa New Zealand, I became anxious to find out how curriculum change in social studies would affect the ways Pacific peoples' and experiences would be legitimated in the New Zealand curriculum. Even more fundamental--would Pacific and experience see the light of day as social studies topics? Locating Pacific in the 1997 New Zealand social studies curriculum statement 1997 New Zealand social studies curriculum statement identified a number of compulsory settings for units of learning--New Zealand, the Pacific, Europe, Asia, Other Settings and Global Settings. According to the statement: Settings in the Pacific, Europe and Asia have been emphasised because of their particular significance to New Zealand. …