Maori Students Research Articles

Ethnic Differences in Students’ Attitudes to the Arts: Providing Validity Evidence to Make Comparisons

<p style="text-align:justify">Previous research suggests that non-cognitive factors play an important role in promoting success at school and beyond, aligning with the multifaceted goals of education. Enhancing students’ attitudes to learning in school is expected to have positive impacts on various schooling outcomes. To date, very few studies have focused on measuring and understanding students’ attitude to the arts. This study aims to address a gap in current research in this area by introducing instruments designed to measure attitude to dance, drama, music and visual arts. Confirmatory factor analysis and measurement invariance analyses are employed to examine the factorial validity and measurement equivalence of the scales of attitude to the arts disciplines for different ethnic groups in New Zealand. Findings support the utility of the scales as valid measures of attitude to dance, drama, music and visual arts. Noticeable differences are reported among New Zealand European, Maori, Pasifika and Asian students regarding their attitudes to dance, drama, music and visual arts.</p>

Lessons for teachers: Maori and Pacific Islander students’ reflections on educational experiences

ABSTRACT Educational underachievement is well documented for minority students living in Australia. Our work with Mãori and Pacific Island (MPI) students highlights several factors that impede their participation in education. Drawing on four case studies of MPI university students, we report on the educultural factors that functioned to constrain or positively impact their academic participation. Template analysis was used to analyse in-depth interviews with the students and highlighted some cultural and relational tensions as possible barriers to successful participation. However, a number of mitigating factors including student-teacher relationships, teacher characteristics and pedagogies supported their pursuit of, and engagement in higher education. The data suggests that MPI students benefit from strong relational connections with teachers throughout their educational experience. This conclusion has implications for an educultural pedagogy to be considered in teacher education courses and for in-service professional learning for teachers working across education sectors.

Confronted by Indigenous Metaphysics in the Academy: Educating against the Tide

Discussions about indigenous philosophy are always difficult because of identities, chief among these being: what is the primary assumption that coalesces the varied philosophies of indigenous groups that then entitles me to talk about a single “indigenous” philosophy? Although I don’t make this the focus of my paper, I take as a uniting thought the holism which defines metaphysics for several indigenous groups (see e.g. Deloria, 2001; Mika, 2017; Smith, 2012). For this article, I centre on the implications of indigenous holism for both indigenous and non-indigenous students and the indigenous teacher of metaphysics in the academy. This paper often takes a turn for the anecdotal as I consider my experiences in the New Zealand context as a Maori lecturer in philosophy of education who teaches Maori metaphysics to Maori and non-indigenous students. There are difficulties that exist for me as an educator in this area and also for the students, although I have observed that non-indigenous and Maori students encounter Maori metaphysics in quite unique ways. A common feature in both cases, though, is that there is a lack of appropriate language to draw on to describe Maori metaphysics. I conclude this article by suggesting ways that philosophising can take place in correspondence with a Maori metaphysics of things as world-constituted.

Teacher-Talk: Supporting Teacher Practice.

Teacher-talk is a key tool for engaging students in learning. This report examines a process whereby data was used to support teachers in reflecting on their teacher-talk. The context for the study was a small rural New Zealand area school with predominantly Maori students and staff. Emphasis was on strategies that engage, in particular, Maori students. Analysis showed that a combination of data analysis and anecdotal reflection are, in combination, powerful tools for teacher development and change. Mixed methods observations in three participant-teachers’ classrooms were followed up with professional learning discussions. The combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies proved a strong base for co-constructed reflection and goal-setting. It was clear, through the process used, that Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour (RTLB) can provide personalised teacher-directed professional development, using the inquiry model as a framework.

Educating new teachers for culturally complex classrooms

New Zealand schools are rapidly gaining complexity as cultural and linguistic difference accelerates. Disparities in learning outcomes for students are often sharply defined, at least in part, in terms of ethnicity. This is unacceptable. Recent research focusing on what actually happens in classrooms, particularly in respect of Maori students, is helping to clarify both the causes of these inequities and the remedies for them. This research indicates clearly that the teacher, pedagogy, and the quality of relationships are key factors. A major challenge facing teacher educators is how to prepare new teachers for this reality. This paper explores that challenge in the context of pre-service teacher education.

Nau te rourou, naku te rourou Māori education: Setting an agenda

Current educational policies and practices in Aotearoa/New Zealand were developed and continue to be developed within a framework of power imbalances, which effects Maori the greatest. An alternative model that seeks to address indigenous Maori aspirations and Treaty of Waitangi guarantees for self determination is presented here. This model suggests how a tertiary teacher education institution might create learning contexts wherein power-sharing images, principles and practices will facilitate successful participation by Maori students in mainstream classrooms. This model constitutes the classroom as a place where young people's sense-making processes (cultures) are incorporated and enhanced, where the existing knowledges of young people are seen as acceptable and official and where the teacher interacts with students in such a way that new knowledge is co-created. Such a classroom will generate totally different interaction and participation patterns and educational outcomes from a classroom where knowledge is seen as something that the teacher makes sense of and then passes on to students.

Bilingual behaviour checklists: Initiating a student, teacher and parent partnership in behaviour management

Three bilingual (Maori and English) behavioural checklists formed part of a project designed to facilitate student, teacher and whanau collaboration in overcoming behavioural difficulties experienced by Maori students, (Hei Awhina Matua). The checklists assessed rankings by 163 students, 21 teachers and 96 whanau members of (1) contexts in which problem behaviours occur, (2) specific problem behaviours and (3) specific most valued behaviours. Data were gathered in three schools: a mainstream intermediate school with a Maori medium syndicate of three classes, a rural Kura Kaupapa Maori (Maori-controlled total immersion school) and a bilingual contributing primary school. While the three schools differed markedly in location, size, and in the proportion of Maori students enrolled, the rankings of settings and behaviours by students, teachers and whanau in each school were highly similar. The paper discusses how these data contributed to the design and development of the Hei Awhina Matua video and training manual, and provided a first step towards a collaborative student teacher and parent partnership in the management of student behaviour.

A Bicultural Education

In 1995 I Taught a Course in New Zealand Literature at Tokyo University. The Students Were Attentive, and Curious About New Zealand, but they found my Kiwi English hard to follow, being accustomed to American or British varieties. I wondered about their seeming tolerance recently while teaching a similar course to undergraduates back home, at Victoria University, in Wellington, when one of the Maori students complimented a Pākehā (New Zealand European) colleague for her Maori pronunciation. Like most Pākehā, I have a rudimentary grasp of Māori, enough to be familiar with the words and phrases that have entered everyday speech and those in the poetry and fiction I teach. But I cannot conduct a conversation in Māori or read a Māori text, and I am as embarrassed by the irritation that my pronunciation of te reo (the Māori language) causes Māori speakers as I was by the difficulty my rising terminals and strange accent posed for competent English speakers in Japan.

1999 Professorial address: Nau te rourou, naku te rourou ... Māori education: Setting an agenda

Current educational policies and practices in AotearoafNew Zealand were developed and continue to be developed within a frameiuork of power imbalances, which effects Maori the greatest. An alternative model that seeks to address indigenous Maori aspirations and Treaty of Waitangi guarantees for self determination is presented here. This model suggests how a tertiary teacher education institution might create learning contexts wherein power-sharing images, principles and practices will facilitate successfid participation by Maori students in mainstream classrooms. This model constitutes the classroom as a place ivhere young people's sense-making processes (cultures) are iri'corporated and enhanced, where the existing knowledges of young people are seen as acceptable and official and where the teacher interacts with students in such a way that neiu knowledge is co-created. Such a classroom will generate totally different interaction and participation patterns and educational outcomes from a classroom where knowledge is seen as something that the teacher makes sense of and then passes on to students.

Te Kotahitanga: The Effective Teaching Profile and its Impact on Māori Student Achievement.

Te Kotahitanga is a Kaupapa Maori research and development programme that aims at improving Maori student achievement. Through interviews with students, teachers and whanau, the characteristics of teachers who made a difference were identified. These characteristics were drawn together to form the Effective Teaching Profile (ETP). This literature review provides a brief background on the Te Kotahitanga programme with an emphasis on the ETP, and its impact on Maori students’ achievement in secondary schools. The educational disparities that exist and perpetuate for indigenous (Maori) learners in Aotearoa/New Zealand are discussed as a rationale for implementing Te Kotahitanga in schools. This literature review explores the principles of the ETP and how these impact on Maori achievement. The ETP is also considered from a Resource Teacher: Learning and Behaviour (RTLB) viewpoint.

Living on New Zealand Street: Maori Presence in Parramatta

Conventional narratives of Maori encounters with non-Maori logically cohere around the geographic space of Aotearoa, New Zealand, and tend to focus on the post-1840 (treaty) period and on Maori encounters with Europeans. This article examines two institutions in Parramatta, now a suburb of Sydney, Australia, at which Maori students were present in the first decades of the nineteenth century—the New Zealand Seminary and the Native Institution—in order to explore what can happen to our understandings of Maori history if we start at a small street in that suburb named New Zealand Street. In Parramatta, Maori presence is diasporic, early, complex, and deeply entangled in the histories of other indigenous people.

SY02-4 * ELECTRONIC ALCOHOL SCREENING AND BRIEF INTERVENTION

Introduction. This presentation will summarise the findings from several controlled trials of electronic screening and brief intervention (eSBI) for hazardous and harmful alcohol use. Method. Several randomised controlled trials have been conducted among (1) university students in Australia and New Zealand, (2) Maori and non-Maori students, and (3) out-patients at a large ambulatory care (out-patient) centre in Australia. Results. Single-centre trails have shown significant reductions in alcohol intake, alcohol-related problems and, among university students, in academic performance. The effect size has been less in multi-centre trials.Whereas Maori students showed significant reductions in alcohol intake, there were only minor effects in non-Maori students.No reduction in alcohol intake and problems was evident among patients attending the ambulatory care centre. Conclusion. As eSBI is extended to multiple sites, it seems that the efficacy reduces. Likewise, when it is offered pportunistically in clinical settings, it may not have the effect seen among student populations or that therapist-delivered brief interventions have. Caution must be exercised in assuming the benefits of eSBI will be repeated in broad dissemination initiatives.

Dreaming Ourselves and Aspirations Into Places of Higher Education

Dreams and aspirations are at the core of what higher education is about. Students and scholars alike, the world over, are engaged in the realization of dreams that bring forth new opportunities, new ways of seeing and being and of changing the world. Many Maori students dream of making a difference and see the pursuit of higher education as a way to bring their dreams into reality. Often their dreams reflect family and community aspirations bringing with it a significant burden of responsibility and obligation. And for Maori academics and researchers like me, my dreams are not too different to those of my own students except that where students pursue a pathway towards becoming relevant, academics are challenged to remain so. In this chapter, I will share some of my/our hopes and experiences and how Maori went about dreaming ourselves into the staff make up, curriculum and research activities in the School of Psychology at the University of Waikato.

Equality of educational opportunity, merit and the New Zealand education system

Pacific students in New Zealand (NZ) quickly learn that they are not very smart. The statistics tell them this. They also come to believe that they do not try very hard. The talk of equal opportunities tells them this, especially when it is coupled with negative statistics. This is not surprising. Education in NZ has been embedded in notions of egalitarianism and merit throughout its history, and this has been accepted in a ‘common sense’ way. Many New Zealanders still believe that an individual's ability to be successful is based on their merits, generally viewed as a combination of factors including innate abilities, working hard, having the right attitude, and having high moral character and integrity. New Zealanders not only tend to think that is the way the system should work, but most actually accept uncritically that this is how it does work. This paper discusses the historical understandings of merit and equality of educational opportunity in NZ and how these understandings have informed historical education policies for Maori and Pacific students in NZ.

A Response to "Supervision and Culture: Meetings at Thresholds".

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience of school supervision and working with Maori students.

Ethnicity as a Factor in Student Beliefs

The few studies that have examined student beliefs by ethnicity have shown differing perceptions on constructs such as self-regulated learning, attribution and perceptions of class climate. Further, the findings have varied from one cultural context to another. However, no studies have examined student beliefs about several psycho-social variables by ethnicity. The current study addressed this gap in the literature by examining student self-concept, motivation, perceptions of class climate and self-expectations of European, Maori, Pasifika and Asian students within the New Zealand context. Several differences were found. The educational implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

INDIGENOUS STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES OF THE HIDDEN CURRICULUM IN SCIENCE EDUCATION: A CROSS-NATIONAL STUDY IN NEW ZEALAND AND TAIWAN

The tacit messages transmitted to indigenous learners in the science classroom provide a lens through which indigenous disengagement with school science can be better understood. In this paper, the findings of a cross-national comparative study conducted with indigenous Maori students in New Zealand and Seediq/Atayal students in Taiwan are discussed from a sociological perspective. The purposes of the present study were to explore the ways in which indigenous elementary school students in two industrialized nations experience the science curriculum and to identify the socialization processes through which patterns of indigenous under-achievement in science are maintained and reproduced. The findings suggest that the peripheral positioning of indigenous culture and knowledge within the science curriculum in developed nations underpins a series of tacit pedagogical codes that contribute to indigenous student disengagement with the subject.

Culturally responsive leadership: How one principal in an urban primary school responded successfully to Māori student achievement

Addressing the achievement disparities that exist within New Zealand education for Maori is identified by the Ministry of Education as being a critical challenge for school leaders that requires committed and responsive leadership (Ministry of Education, 2008b). The case study presented in this article describes the leadership practices of a primary school principal whose school is one where the majority of the Maori students were meeting or exceeding national expectations (for all students) in reading in 2009. The principal's theorising and associated practices provide a potential model for what constitutes culturally responsive leadership that facilitates success for Maori students.

Critical issues for whānau in English-medium schools

Whanau are integral to the educational wellbeing of Maori students in English-medium education. However, very little Maori educational research has been carried out with an explicit focus on identifying the critical issues for whanau in education. This article presents whanau aspirations in English-medium education, and identifies elements that advance whanau educational aspirations. The article concludes with reflective questions that aim to help teachers keep whanau involved in their teaching work.

Professional development, changes in teacher practice and improvements in Indigenous students’ educational performance: A case study from New Zealand

This paper considers the relationship between a professional development programme designed to bring about changes in teacher practice through iterative cycles of implementation and evaluation and associated changes in Indigenous students’ educational performance. The paper does this by documenting the outcomes of the implementation of the Te Kotahitanga research and development project between 2007 and 2009 in schools in the third and fourth phases of the project. Evidence shows that the professional development programme of Te Kotahitanga has been implemented consistently in Phase 3 schools since 2004 and in Phase 4 schools since 2007. Changes in teacher practice and associated improvements in Māori student outcomes were seen in Phase 3 schools between 2004 and 2006. The first question is, therefore, have these changes been maintained during the period 2007–9, that is, during the fourth to seventh years of the project’s implementation in these schools. If so, then what implications does this maintenance of practice have for sustainability? The second question is, have the changes that were seen in the Phase 3 schools in the first three years of the project’s implementation, 2004–2006, been replicated in the Phase 4 schools in their first three years of the project. If so, what implications does this have for determining the strength of the association between improved student performance and the implementation of the professional development programme. In other words does a repeated measure over two different groups of schools at different times indicate that changes in Māori student outcomes are strongly associated with changes in teacher practice, even if we cannot demonstrate a direct cause–effect relationship.There are also other areas of significance. These include the indications as to what constitutes a pedagogy that improves Maori students’ experiences of schooling and achievement along with the more general interest in educational improvement for Indigenous students in other countries. In addition, while these findings in themselves are not sufficient to indicate that the changes in teacher practice and student outcomes that are associated with the professional development programme will be sustained, it is suggested that the conditions of maintenance and replication are necessary to form the basis of long-term sustainability.11While the term sustainability in common usage would refer to Maori student achievement being able to be maintained at a certain level, in this paper we also use the term in a more inclusive sense to mean the provision of a means whereby the reform is able to be deepened and extended by teachers, school leaders, and policy makers in response to changing student curriculum, and contextual matters over time and circumstance. In other words, the creation of conditions, including pedagogic reform, supported by changes in school vision and goals, institutions and policies, leadership practices, inclusion, use of evidence and ownership of the goals of the reform, that will mean that schools will continue to be able to improve Maori achievement levels until they reach that of their non-Maori peers.