Colonization, Education, and Indigenous Peoples

Responding to Superdiversity Whilst Upholding Te Tiriti O Waitangi: Challenges for Early Childhood Teacher Education in Aotearoa New Zealand

“…The assumption of white/western superiority is a commonality across historical colonisation internationally, underpinning the ongoing racism directed in our country towards those who are not visibly Pākehā (Pihama & Lee-Morgan, 2018), and it is a responsibility of teacher education programmes to disrupt these entrenched discourses. Whilst our brief application of CDA to the documents has illuminated reliance on such Te Tiriti related discourses as 'partnership' [ostensibly between the Crown and Māori], the subtler implications of recognition of the rights of tangata whenua, whilst discursively acknowledged, are easily dismissed, fading into the shadows in the light of more dominant teaching-related discourses.…”

Paradigm lost

“…In New Zealand, the impact of the factory model of schooling on Māori students has been particularly disadvantageous (Pihama & Lee-Morgan, 2019;Sleeter, 2015). Compulsory mass schooling was imposed with little evidence of consultation with the Māori population over their agreement for this model of schooling, despite the Māori population, at the time of the introduction of the policy, considerably outnumbering the tauiwi (immigrant) population.…”

A Fire in the Belly of Hineāmaru: Using Whakapapa as a Pedagogical Tool in Education

“…Persistent poor educational outcomes for Māori suggest that programmes of learning need to be redesigned to raise the cultural efficacy and the academic expectations Māori students have of themselves, with a view to improving their motivation and educational outcomes. Despite the educational success of a number of Māori individuals, the statistics show that the western schooling system has often been problematic and usually not worked for Māori as a collective (Pihama and Lee-Morgan 2018). The statistics bear this out.…”

“…One component of racism within an educational context is the ways Western pedagogies, knowledge, and curriculum are prioritised . In privileging whakapapa as Māori knowledge revitalisation in the education space, we can challenge the powerful institutions of colonisation that have routinely demoralised Māori students and dismissed Māori knowledge and ways of being as irrelevant to a modern education (Pihama and Lee-Morgan 2018). Because Māori have traditionally been denied access to the educational power structures that legitimise such knowledge, this article has offered us a rare scholarly opportunity to demonstrate the numerous ways integrating whakapapa in the education of Māori students can be validating and motivating.…”

“…Despite this, education remains one of those areas that has been difficult to reconcile. While most Māori would agree that some formalised education in the mainstream system is necessary for us to survive in the modern world, there still exists immense distrust in the schooling system that has historically treated Māori identities, culture, and language so brutally (Pihama and Lee-Morgan 2018). Even in contemporary times, Māori scientific knowledge and wisdom has little uptake in schools responsible for teaching our children, despite persistent calls by Māori for comprehensive change (Manning and Harrison 2018).…”