ABSTRACT

Cultural identity impacts on academic identity. When research students come from historically marginalized groups, supervisors have an additional task in ensuring they are supported through often difficult identity transitions. New Zealand government statistics reveal the shortfall in doctoral success between Maori or Pasifika candidates and everyone else in the country. Literature tends to emphasize the challenges for Maori and Pasifika research students, who typically have family commitments and financial difficulties. Supervisors can find it discomfiting to discover that Maori and Pasifika students inhabit a worldview different from their own. When the research involves students' own communities, supervisors may suddenly find themselves in the role of learner, a learner with very little experience. Indigenous students are often leaders within their communities and warrant respect for the roles they play outside academia. The incorporation of culturally-based knowledge systems for theoretical and methodological debate remains a contested space within western academic systems, mainly due to their limited exposure in peer-reviewed publications.