Abstract
This article will explore the practices of teaching social work students in Aotearoa New Zealand to equip them for bicultural practice. This includes te reo Māori (the Māori language) and tikanga (culture) papers as well as specific teaching on the Treaty of Waitangi provisions. It will discuss some of the results, which suggest students know about Treaty provisions but are less able to translate this knowledge into practices, which are bicultural. It then suggests some strategies for moving this teaching forward so that students start to feel accustomed to and confident in practices which are suited to a bicultural setting. In this, it is suggested that it might be necessary to take a cross-cultural position and take aspects from diversity or cross-cultural training to enhance students’ understanding and ability in working with Māori in the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. One of the difficulties with taking this approach is that most of these models emerge from a western rather than an indigenous framework of understanding and practice. In using this work, it is attempted to integrate indigenous methods and worldviews.
Highlights
Mäori in Aotearoa New Zealand today still occupy relatively disadvantaged positions (Statistics New Zealand, 2012), despite 30 years of the renewed application of a framework to try and redress the balance
The original Treaty of Waitangi of 1840 and its provisions were intended to provide both a constitutional basis and framework for a partnership between Päkehä and Mäori in Aotearoa New Zealand – the nation was officially constituted as being based on two equal cultures in ‘partnership’ (Fleras and Spoonley, 1999)
All I want to stress that developing effective social work education in this area as in others is a dynamic process
Summary
Mäori in Aotearoa New Zealand today still occupy relatively disadvantaged positions (Statistics New Zealand, 2012), despite 30 years of the renewed application of a framework to try and redress the balance. The original Treaty of Waitangi of 1840 and its provisions were intended to provide both a constitutional basis and framework for a partnership between Päkehä and Mäori in Aotearoa New Zealand – the nation was officially constituted as being based on two equal cultures in ‘partnership’ (Fleras and Spoonley, 1999). The younger generation in Aotearoa New Zealand is significantly less resistant than their elders and this is undoubtedly at least partly due to the changed education around the Treaty and its history in recent years. It has become a significant, if variably implemented, requirement for professional education, especially the socially oriented people professions.
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