In order to better understand the present trends in New Zealand's schooling contexts, there is a clarion call for educators to develop sensitivity and sensibility towards the cultural backgrounds and experiences of Ma -ori students. This paper reports on the work of four scholars who share research that has been undertaken in educational settings with high numbers of Ma -ori students, and discusses the importance of creating culturally-safe schools -places that allow and enable students to be who and what they are. The theoretical frameworks drawn on are based on both a life partnership analogy as well as on a socio-cultural perspective on human development and learning. The Ma -ori worldview presented in this paper is connected to the Treaty of Waitangi, The Educultural Wheel and the Hikairo Rationale. Data were collected from two ethnographic case studies and analysed through these frameworks. Practical suggestions are then made for using restorative practices and creating reciprocal relationships in classrooms within an environment of care. The paper reports on an evidence-based approach to creating culturally-safe schools for Ma -ori students.

The effect of self-management procedures on objective writing responses and on the subjectively assessed quality of children's writing was investigated. All experimental procedures were applied to each of the 37 children in a regular Grade 3 class, and 14 of these children were randomly selected for data collection. Following baseline conditions, self-assessment plus self-recording of writing responses was introduced. This did not increase the number of sentences, number of different action words, or number of different describing words, or improve the quality of the stories. Self-determined and self-administered reinforcement was added to the self-assessment and self-recording procedures contingent on each of the writing responses in turn. Rates of responding were substantially increased and the stories received higher subjective ratings of quality from two independent judges. An increase in on-task behavior was correlated with self-reinforcement of writing responses.

In this article, a group of four indigenous Māori educators and one non-Māori educator comment on a proposed amendment to the New Zealand National Curriculum Framework to replace the current separate sets of skills, values and attitudes with five generic performance-based key competencies. The paper discusses important parallels between western/European sociocultural theorizing on human development and learning (on which the key competencies seemed to be based), and the values, beliefs and preferred practices that are embodied within an indigenous Māori cultural worldview ( Te Ao Māori). A Māori worldview is characterized by an abiding concern for the quality of human relationships that need to be established and maintained if learning contexts are to be effective for Māori students, and for these relationships to balance individual learning and achievement against responsibilities for the well-being and achievement of the group. Within such a worldview, education is understood as holistic, collective, experiential and dependent upon a free exchanging of teaching and learning roles. The article describes five specific cultural constructs within this worldview that highlight Māori traditional understandings of human development and learning and teaching, and aligns and compares these constructs with the five key competencies proposed. The article argues that the worldviews of Māori people in New Zealand provide an extensive and coherent framework for theorizing about human development and education, and are able to contribute strongly and positively to the development of a national school curriculum for the benefit all students. Implications for other contexts can also be drawn.

No abstract

This paper illustrates how important changes can occur in science learning and teaching if teachers take the trouble to understand and respect the cultural worlds of Indigenous students, and incorporate something of this understanding within their teaching practice. Ten teachers participated in a specially-designed one-year university postgraduate course, which encouraged them to incorporate into their classroom learning two Māori pedagogical principles, ako and whakawhanaungatanga. Ako is a responsive and reciprocal process, through which both teaching and learning roles are shared. Whakawhanaungatanga is the process of constructing relationships in the classroom between people, between students' cultural knowledge and domain knowledge. This paper draws on co-constructed narratives from four of the teachers, two Māori and two Pākehā (New Zealanders of European descent). The teachers built trusting and respectful relationships with their Māori students by facilitating connections between Western and Māori worldviews of science. They shared their teaching role with Māori elders (kaumātua) and members of the extended family of their students (whānau). The teachers learned a great deal from their Māori students who became highly engaged and agentic in their science learning. Students took collaborative responsibility for asking learning questions, and sought information on science topics from both Western and Māori worldviews.