ABSTRACT
Increasingly, Pakeha-dominated educational organizations in New Zealand have been faced with challenges, from within and from outside, to change their structures, processes and outcomes to become more ‘bicultural’. These challenges have not been confined to education-organizations in all spheres of New Zealand society have been engaged in a similar journey. The term ‘biculturalism’ has been constructed with particular localized meanings. In New Zealand ‘biculturalism’ generally refers to Pakeha (non-indigenous) attempts to address the racisms and inequities which have been colonizing and oppressing Maori, the tangata whenua (indigenous peoples). In addressing such racisms and inequities, biculturalisms are conceptualized as ways to develop structures and processes which ‘honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi’ (the Treaty of Waitangi), the founding document of the country signed between many rangatira (chiefs) and the British Crown in 1840 (see Glossary in Table 12.1).
