Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: Connecting New Zealand Teachers of Science with their Māori Students

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.

Relational and culturally responsive supervision of doctoral students working in Māori contexts: Inspirations from the Kingitanga

“…She has extensive experience in classroom teaching and senior school leadership. The first author and Therese met through the delivery of a University of Waikato Special Topic Science Education Masters course (Glynn, Cowie, Otrel-Cass, & Macfarlane, 2010), focused on improving the engagement and learning of primary school Māori students in science. Mere and Therese similarly met through her postgraduate study.…”

Sociocultural Studies and Implications for Science Education

“…The three principles are illustrated with vignettes taken from the classroom-based work I have undertaken with colleagues as part of the LISP (Assessment) study (Bell and Cowie 2001 ); the Classroom InSiTE study (Cowie et al 2013 ); the Quality Teaching Research and Development project (QTR&D) (Glynn et al 2010 ); and Culturally responsive pedagogy and assessment project (CRP&A) (Cowie et al 2011 ).…”

The iSPACES Framework for Rethinking a Culturally Responsive Secondary Science Curriculum in Tanzania

“…Math instruction would incorporate everyday-life concepts, such as economics, employment, various ethnic groups' consumptive habits (e.g., farmers, cattle herders, retailers, etc.). Science instruction would engage students' development, expressing and sharing cumulative understanding of science while caring and respecting relationships among people in classrooms and among students' cultural (or informal science) and subject content knowledge (Glynn, et al, 2010).…”