Ted Glynn

Creating Culturally-safe Schools for Maori Students

In order to better understand the present trends in New Zealands schooling contexts, there is a clarion call for educators to develop sensitivity and sensibility towards the cultural backgrounds and experiences of Maori students. This paper reports on the work of four scholars who share research that has been undertaken in educational settings with high numbers of Maori 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 Maori 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 Maori students.

Indigenous epistemology in a national curriculum framework

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.

Researching in Maori contexts: An interpretation of participatory consciousness

Abstract A recent study of five research projects demonstrated how a group of researchers, both Maori and non‐Maori, had been re‐positioned within new ‘story‐lines’ that addressed the contradictory nature of the traditional researcher/researched relationship. The language used by the researchers contains the key to the new story‐lines; metaphor and imagery that are located within the research participants domain. The researchers either were or have moved to become part of this domain. In the narratives developed in this research project, the researchers demonstrated how they had been re‐positioned by the use of contextually constituted metaphor within the domain where others can constitute themselves as agentic. Within this domain there are discursive practices that provide the researchers with positions that enable them to carry through their negotiated lines of action. An examination of the language used by the researchers demonstrated researcher reflection on their somatic involvement in the research ...

Resource Teachers Learning and Behavior Collaborative Problem Solving to Support Inclusion

With the implementation of Special Education 2000, a new policy on special education, New Zealand has moved to develop a world-class inclusive education system for students with mild to moderate learning and behavior needs. This article outlines a professional development program for a group of resource teachers who are implementing a major element of the policy. The authors report on the establishment of the training program through the collaboration of faculty from three universities. They also comment on the challenges to such a program, the ways in which these challenges were met through collaborative problem solving, and some outcomes to date.

Creating Peaceful and Effective Schools through a Culture of Care.

Many schools in New Zealand, the USA, and elsewhere, are searching for ways to respond positively to the educational achievement disparities that exist between majority culture students and students from minority ethnic and cultural communities. Most of the approaches and strategies that have been implemented to date have either failed, or had minimal positive influence. This paper presents the results of over five years of research, conducted collaboratively by the authors, that has been focused on developing the theory and practice of a ‘culture of care’ in schools. Using a cultural lens to interpret the findings, these replicated studies offer the promise of positively influencing the culture of schooling in the USA, New Zealand and beyond. Creating a culture of care requires schools and teachers to be cognisant of how the school and classroom values, beliefs and practices make it safe for all students to engage, to contribute, to belong and to feel confident in their own cultural identities.

From Literacy in Māori to Biliteracy in Māori and English: A Community and School Transition Programme

Teachers and community in a small rural Māori-medium school in New Zealand were concerned that their students who were highly literate in Māori experienced difficulties in reading and writing in English on entry to secondary school (where English was the medium of instruction). Consequently, this school and community introduced a 10-week culturally appropriate home and school English reading and writing programme for their Year 6, 7 and 8 students. Specific tutoring procedures were implemented to assist students with their English reading, while a structured written brainstorm procedure, together with a responsive written feedback procedure, was implemented to assist with their English writing. Data demonstrate that students from all three year groups (Years 6–8) made marked gains in both reading and writing in English, and that these gains were not made at the expense of reading and writing in Māori. After 10 weeks in the programme students were able to read English at age-appropriate levels. The programme engaged the school and community in ways that affirmed cultural values and practices, and has since been incorporated into the schools regular pedagogical practice.

Supervising research in Māori cultural contexts: a decolonizing, relational response

ABSTRACT We have collaborated for 25 years as indigenous Māori and non-Māori researchers undertaking research with Māori families, their schools and communities. We have endeavored to meet our responsibilities to the Māori people (indigenous inhabitants of New Zealand) and communities with whom we have researched, as well as meet the requirements and responsibilities of our academic institutions. In this paper, we reflect on the implications of these responsibilities for our work as supervisors of master’s and doctoral students (Māori and non-Māori) who seek to draw on decolonizing methodologies as they undertake research in Māori cultural contexts. We draw on the experiences and interactions we have had with four different postgraduate students whose research on improving educational outcomes for Māori students has required them to engage and participate in Māori cultural contexts.