Māori and Educational Leadership: Tū Rangatira

Abstract

Aotearoa/New Zealand is experiencing major changes in its demographic profile, indicating that the proportion of Māori (the indigenous people) will progressively increase (Statistics New Zealand, 2004). Projected changes are likely to impact particularly on the school-aged population and this has implications for the nation's educational leadership, including the need for greater Māori representation (Durie, 2005). This raises questions around what Māori educational leadership may need to look like in order to impact positively on Māori achievement in English and Māori-medium schooling. A Best Evidence Synthesis Iteration (BES) has identified dimensions of educational leadership that are linked to raising student achievement. In this article we examine the extent to which the dimensions resonate with traditional and contemporary conceptualisations of Māori leadership.

Relational leadership – An indigenous Māori perspective

“…Further on M aori leadership continues to reflect interdisciplinary approaches. For example, Waitere discusses cultural leadership with a focus on M aori leadership in education (Waitere, 2008), Hohepa and Robson examine the extent to which the dimensions of Best Evidence Synthesis Iteration resonate with traditional and contemporary conceptualisations of M aori leadership (Hohepa and Robson, 2009) whilst Holmes considers the use of humour as a means of providing a flexible indirect strategy for constructing leadership in ways that avoid conflict with traditional M aori cultural values (Holmes, 2007). Jackson (2013) engages critical discourse analysis to examine the emergent discourses of rangatiratanga within the context of M aori Esheries management, whilst Katene draws on Weberian models of leadership (bureaucratic, traditional and charismatic) and more recent leadership theories including transformational leadership to frame a discussion on M aori leadership.…”

Indigenous Urban School Leadership: A Critical Cross-Cultural Comparative Analysis of Educational Leaders in New Zealand and the United States

“…Case study research was chosen for the inquiry design as it builds on previous leadership studies that attempt to understand leadership in CLD contexts (Gooden & Dantley, 2012;Hohepa & Robinson, 2008;Jean-Marie & Normore, 2008). As such this inquiry serves to emphasize detailed contextual analysis of a limited number of events, conditions, and relationships (Yin, 1994).…”

“…Similar to Kaupapa Māori research methods and Indigenous heuristic action research (Kahakalau, 2004;Moustakas, 1990;Tuhiwai Smith, 2012), ACL has an Indigenous/ people-of-colour orientation inherent to our author identities. As such, this contribution builds on the work of Diamond ( 2003), Durie (2005), Pihama and Gardiner (2005), Walker (2006), Hohepa and Robinson (2008), and the synthesized Tū Rangatira Ministry of Education NZ (2010) report by promoting the notion of "leadership for the people by the people." Providing findings from the ACL research as shared characteristics of applied critical leaders provides a research-based sample with which to compare Kerehi's Indigenous urban school leadership practice.…”

Educational Leadership and Indigeneity: Doing Things the Same, Differently

“…3 We were successful in managing the tensions to the extent that we were able to inform our identification and understandings of the dimensions via knowledge and understandings we were also developing about traditional and contemporary Māori leadership. The leadership dimensions, how they were derived, and the degree to which they resonate with historical and contemporary Māori conceptualizations of leadership, are discussed in depth in Hohepa and Robinson (2008).…”

“…The position taken is that the identification of a Māori educational leadership style would encourage stereotypical views and misrepresent the wide range of approaches to be found within Māori educational leadership. In cognizance of the danger of locating Māori educational leadership as a unitary construct, and in binary opposition to Pākehā (European New Zealander) leadership, distinctions are described in terms of knowledge, values, nature of duties, practices, commitments, and responsibilities that underpin leadership, rather than in terms of a leadership style (Hohepa and Robinson 2008;Robinson et al 2009). …”