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There are many known factors that can help or hinder Indigenous students undertaking tertiary study, but little is known about how Māori students experience Māori studies courses specifically. Against the backdrop of low Māori student retention in universities and the short history of Māori studies as a field of study, this article shares findings from a thematic analysis of interviews with Māori students in Māori studies. It proposes a framework, Te Ara Mātauranga, which organises new findings about Māori cultural enclaves, aspirations, engagement, learning opportunities, and support. Ultimately, this article distinguishes the experiences of Māori students in Māori studies from previous generic research about Māori students in tertiary education and identifies a set of consequential challenges and opportunities.

Indigenous peoples in the 21st century colonial contexts face many challenges, not least of which is the struggle to retain cultural identity, beliefs, knowledge and traditions. While Western psychological theories offer insights into how identities are formed, there is a need for models of cultural reintegration and identity development that recognise colonial histories and realities and affirm indigenous aspirations. The purpose of this article is to explore how Māori (the indigenous people of New Zealand) negotiate Māori identities in the 21st century. Māori students and their family members were interviewed about their experiences at a state secondary school, and a thematic analysis of interviews was conducted to produce a framework of indigenous identity development. Within this framework, four identity states that correspond to stages in Māori creation narratives are identified, and the pōwhiri (Māori welcome ceremony) is used as a metaphor for Māori cultural reintegration and identity development. The Pōwhiri Identity Negotiation Framework incorporates factors central to indigenous identities, accommodates personal identity aspirations, reflects the dynamic nature of identities by allowing identity transitions to occur and affirms multiple identity positions.

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Researchers have speculated that children and adolescents who experience an incongruity between the cultures of home and school (termed "home-school dissonance" or HSD) perform more poorly in the school setting and evidence poorer adjustment in general. A sample of 476 Māori and 1,024 European New Zealand (ENZ) adolescents, aged 11-16 years at Time 1, completed self-report measures of HSD, family connectedness, school connectedness, aspirations, positive relations with teacher, self-reported schoolwork quality, and other related measures three times separated by 1 year each. As predicted, Māori youth reported higher levels of HSD compared to ENZ youth. In addition, latent growth curve modeling showed that an increase in HSD over 3 years positively predicted negative outcomes and negatively predicted positive outcomes. We concluded that Māori youth experience a disconnection between the contexts of home and school, and this dissonance is associated with a range of poor psychological and educational outcomes.