ABSTRACT

It has been clear for a long time just how poorly many indigenous students have fared in mainstream education systems (Shields et al. 2005). For example, M-aori students in New Zealand have disproportionately higher levels of absences, early leaving certificates, stand downs, suspensions and expulsions and lower levels of qualifications on leaving school than do non-indigenous P-akeh-a students (Ministry of Education 2002). This chapter discusses the disparity in educational outcomes of indigenous M-aori students, from both societal and cultural perspectives. It does this in relation to Te Kotahitanga, a New Zealand Ministry of Education funded research and development initiative designed to improve educational outcomes of M-aori students and used in a number of New Zealand secondary schools since 2001 (Bishop et al. 2003; Bishop et al. 2007a; Bishop et al. 2007c). It begins by introducing some historical discourses and practices associated with the more common societal view of the underachievement of M-aori students in schools, and that continue to pathologize M-aori. It explains these discourses and practices from a sociological perspective associated with issues of power and control, and reflects on psychological viewpoints that are legitimized by these discourses. It continues by discussing how problems experienced by indigenous or minority ethnic peoples can most effectively be understood through the cultural lens of these people themselves. It suggests that cultural understandings such as these may well, as in the case of Te Kotahitanga, predispose to solutions that are effective given they fit with the group’s own world view and cultural experiences, and are generated by that group, rather than being externally theorized and imposed.