ABSTRACT
This chapter examines educational resistance by the indigenous Maori of New Zealand to the assimilating influences of dominant Pakeha culture. The education system in general and schooling in particular are major sites for Pakeha assimilationist practices and policies. The chapter considers the wider social, political, economic, and cultural implications of the emergent Kura Kaupapa Maori in response to the escalating crisis of Maori language and cultural erosion. The reinterpretation of history is followed by a description of Kaupapa Maori schooling and then by a critical assessment of its educational implications with particular reference to the wider social, political, economic and cultural relevance for Maori people located within a societal context of differential power relations. Kaupapa Maori schooling asserts the right of tangata whenua and their culture to exist and continue to flourish in Aotearoa the land in which their language and culture are rooted.
