Madelaine Gravatt 1177801

As a beginning teacher in Aotearoa New Zealand, it is important that I

develop a critical understanding of my own social and cultural location in
order to reflect on how this impacts on my teaching. Firstly I will look at
my own social and cultural location as a Pkeh New Zealander and
analyse how my identity has advantaged me in many ways. Secondly, I
will examine the Treaty of Waitangi and efforts to assimilate Mori through
education, as these as crucial to understanding the context of Mori
education today. Lastly I will explore two critical cultural competencies,
manaakitanga and ako, that are central to enabling Mori to succeed as
Mori and discuss how these can be embodied by beginner teachers.

Born in Aotearoa New Zealand with European ancestry, I have grown up

belonging to the dominant culture of New Zealand. I have always had a
strong sense of belonging to New Zealand, but was always vague on what
I should identify my culture as, if indeed I had one at all. If pressed for an
answer I would you have defined myself as New Zealander. However as
Avril Bell argues, this inherently says that the culture of white New
Zealanders is the defining culture of New Zealand (1996). This completely
disregards the importance of Mori as tangata whenua, as well as ignoring
all the other cultures that exist in New Zealand. Yet this is a commonly
held view amongst Pkeh, which implicitly reflects the situation of white
privilege in New Zealand whereby societys structures and underlying
values are those of the dominant Pkeh culture. As Joan Metge
highlights, this is reminiscent of previous assimilation policies that aimed
to make Mori and other minorities take on the characteristics of the

Madelaine Gravatt 1177801

dominant Pkeh majority (2010). Since being made aware of these
inherent notions of disregard and dominance, I now idenitfy myself as
Pkeh. This recognises the interdependent relationship Pkeh have with
Mori, as well as acknowledging the many other ethnicities co-existing in
New Zealand (Bell, 1996).

I have enjoyed many privileges due to my social and cultural position as a

middle class, Pkeh New Zealander. Both my parents are of British origin
from working-class backgrounds. Growing up in small town New Zealand,
they realised the importance of education as a means of social
advancement and went on to receive bachelor degrees. My father was
later awarded a doctoral scholarship to Oxford Univeristy and went on to
have a successful career in the pharmaceutical industry. My bother and I
therefore had an upper-middle class upbringing and succeded both
acadmically and socially. My success in education is partly due to me
being rich in the cultural capital of New Zealands education system. As
Huia Tomlins-Jahnke and Krystal Te Rina Warren emphasise, schools serve
to enforce and maintain the cultural and ideological hegemony of the
dominant power group (2011, p.29.). This means that Mori and other
ethnic minorites are disadvantaged in the school system due to the
unfamiliar cultural environment they find themselves expected to fit into.
This is one of the reasons for the large disparites in education outcomes
between Mori and Pkeh today.

Madelaine Gravatt 1177801

The Treaty of Waitangi and policies aimed to assimilate Mori through
education are crucial to understanding the context of Mori education
today. Since colonisation, the education system has been at the heart of
government attempts to assimilate Mori into the dominant Pkeh
culture. However, the first experience of Mori schooling was initially very
successful and Mori achieved high rates of literacy, largely because
instruction was in te reo Mori (Jones & Jenkins, 2008) . Yet the primary
aim of Mori education was to assimilate them into brown britons and
following the establishment of New Zealand as a colony in 1840, English
was enforced as the language of instruction. By 1880 the use of Mori
language in schools was prohibited, resulting in generations of Mori
children literally having their language bet out of them. This policy of
English monocultralism initiated the decline of the Mori language and the
marginalisation of Mori within the schooling system. This also led Mori
parents to see English as the language necessary to survive and succeed
in an increasingly Pkeh world and discouraged them to teach Mori to
their children. The exclusion of te reo and the monoculturalism of the
schooling system had devestating effects on Mori language and culture.
This was heightened as many Mori moved away from rural tribal areas
into cities in the decades following World War II. These efforts to
assimilate Mori form the basis for ongoing Mori underacheivement in
education and go against the rights of Mori in the Treaty of Waitangi.

The rights of Mori entrenched in the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealands

founding document, are crucial to understanding the context of Mori

Madelaine Gravatt 1177801

education today. The Treaty was signed by Mori chiefs in 1840 to protect
their lands and authority in the face of increasing numbers of settlers. The
Treaty affirms Mori tino rangatiratanga, self determination, while giving
the Crown the right of governorship, as well as guaranteeing Mori
equality with British citizens. In relation to education, these rights entitle
Mori to a determining role in their own education and access to their
Mori identity, language and culture. The current mainstream education
system is failing Mori students, as shown in the alarming disparity in
educational acheivement: 48.9% of Pkeh school leavers met the
university entrance criteria, compared with only 20.8% of Mori school
leavers (Hoskins & McKinley, 2011) . This breaches the promises of the
Treaty to equality in education and all other human rights. The efforts of
Mori activism from the 1970s resulted in the greater recognition of the
Treaty by the government and an official policy of biculutralism and
partnership with iwi. There has been a shift in policy from deficit
explanations of Mori underacheviement to looking at how the education
system as a whole is failing to ensure Mori achievment. In contrast to
previous policies, the aim is now Mori achieving education success as
Maori (New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2013). This honours the right
of Mori under the Treaty to have access to their language and cultural
knowledge in order to succeed in the Mori world, as well as having
access to global knowledge in order achieve on the same level as their
peers (Hoskins & McKinley, 2011) . The questions now being asked are
how teaching can be delivered in a context of Maori culture and values
and how effective student-teacher relationships can be created.

Madelaine Gravatt 1177801

To best enable Mori to succeed as Mori in education, teachers need to

be well equiped in the cultural competencies manaakitanga and ako.
Manaakitanga is demonstrating integrity, sincerity and respect towards
Mori beliefs, language and culture (New Zealand Ministry of Education,
2011) . This involves teachers caring for students as Mori, understanding
the different ways they see and interact with the world and incorporating
this into their teaching. There are many simple ways for teachers to
display respect towards Mori language and culture, such as correctly
pronouncing Mori names and words correctly and incorporating te reo
into the everyday language of the classroom. This encourages students to
speak te reo and validates its use for Mori and non-Mori students. Other
important aspects of manaakitanga are having knowledge and respect for
local iwi and Mori culture and incorporating this into curriculum delivery
and design. Manaakitanga also encompasses showing respect and care to
Mori students and their whnau and valuing their perspectives. This can
include simple things such as always speaking positvely about Mori
students and understanding the humour of Mori students in the class.
Making an effort to consistently display respect and gain understanding of
Mori beliefs, language and culture is an important means of validating
the identity and backgrounds of Mori students and enstillling confidence
in young Mori learners.

Another cultural competency critical for teachers to embody is ako. With

ako, effective teaching relationships are formed in which teachers learn

Madelaine Gravatt 1177801

from the students just as students learn from the teachers (New Zealand
Ministry of Education, 2011) . A crucial element of ako is engaging with
the wealth of relevant knowledge that Mori students bring to the
classroom. Teachers must engage with students prior knowledge, first by
finding out what it is they know and secondly by validating this knowledge
and incorporating it into the delivery and content and the curriculum. To
achieve this, teachers need to position themselves in the role of learner
and

have

reciprocal,

dialogic

relationship

with

their

students.

Importantly, validating the cultural experiences of students will have

positive impacts not just for Mori students but for all learners (Hoskins &
McKinley, 2014) . Ako also incorpoartes the importance of teachers being
responsible for their own learning and that of their Mori students by
developing their own skills, strategies and tools for helping Mori students
learn. This includes recognising individual learning preferences, planning
learning programmes to assist any Mori student not meeting expected
acheiviement levels and providing positive and constructive feedback to
both students and whnau (Bishop & Berryman, 2009) . Furthermore, a
crucial component of ako is teachers having high expectations for all
Mori students and never giving up on them. It has been shown that high
teacher expectations have positive impacts on student acheivement,
while low expectations contribute to student failure. This is especially true
for indigenous and minority students and those from low socio-economic
backgrounds, as they are more dependent on school for their motivation
and self-efficacy. The work of Hana Turner has shown that New Zealand
teachers tend to have lower expectations for Mori students than all other

Madelaine Gravatt 1177801

ethnicities (Turner, Rubie-Davies, & Webber, 2015) . These findings
illustrate that a change in mindset is still desperately needed in order to
achieve equity in education.

This policy of culturally responsive education to foster Mori succeeding

as Mori demonstrates an effort by the government to challenge its own
systems. In comparison to New Zealands history of monocultural
education policies this is very radical. However it is is yet to be seen if it
will be truly successful as it requires a change in the mindsets of those in
the education sector. A limitation of this policy is that it places the
responsibility of ensuring equitable outcomes in education largely on
schools themselves.

While schools and teachers have a crucial role to

play in raising Mori acheivement, schools are not able to adequately

solve wider issues regarding inequality and power. Education, health,
crime and poverty are all intertwined and relate to wider structures of
power in society. New Zealand therefore requires an integrated, whole
government commitment to reducing the socio-economic disparities for
Mori in all of these areas in order to deliver equitable outcomes for Mori
(Hoskins & McKinley, 2011) . As well as a more comprehensive approach
to wider issues of inequality and power in New Zealand, greater levels of
Mori authority are also required to achieve these goals. Although Mori
have contributed to defining the goals of the Ministry of Educations
policy, Maori have little controll over how the policy is created,
communicated, implemented and measured, thus limiting its potential
success (Hoskins & McKinley, 2011) . Giving Mori greater authority over

Madelaine Gravatt 1177801

Mori education is an important expression of their right to selfdetermination and, as argued by Russell Bishop and Mere Berryman, in
order

to

attend

determination

to

within

Mori

peoples

nondominating

cultural
relations

aspirations
of

for

self-

interdependence,

teachers and school leaders must support these contexts in emerging in

our classrooms and schools (2009, p.32.) . This must happen if New
Zealand is to reach a true state of partnership with Mori in reality, not
just on paper.

It is crucial that all teachers develop a critical understanding of their own

social and culture location in order to recognise the assumptions and
values they bring to teaching. It is also crucial for teachers to have a deep
understanding of the significance of the Treaty of Waitangi and the history
of Mori in the New Zealand education system. This history of
disadvantage and marginalisation through education is currently trying to
be reversed by focusing on Mori achieving success as Mori. To acheive
this goal, teachers must embody critical cultural competencies such as
ako and manaakitanga. By embodying a culturally responsive pedagogy
and reciprocal relationships with students, teachers can foster the success
of not only Mori in education, but of all their students.

Madelaine Gravatt 1177801

References
Bell, A. (1996). 'We're Just New Zealanders': Pakeha Identity Politics. In P.
Spoonley, D. Pearson & C. Macpherson (Eds.), Nga Fatal: Racism and
Ethnic Relations in Aotearoa/New Zealand (pp. 144-158). Palmerston
North, New Zealand: Dunmore Press.
Bishop, R., & Berryman, M. (2009). The Te Kotahitanga Effective Teaching
Profile.2, 27-33.
Hoskins, T., & McKinley, E. (2011). Mori Education and Achievement. In T.
McIntosh, & M. Mulholland (Eds.), Maori and Social Issues (pp. 49-65).
New York: Huia New Zealand.
Hoskins, T., & McKinley, E. (2014). Maori education in Aotearoa New
Zealand: Contexts, challenges and priorities. In M. Crossley, G.
Hancock & T. Spragu (Eds.), Education in Australia, New Zealand and
the Pacific (pp. 159-175). London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Jones, A., & Jenkins, K. (2008). Invitation and Refusal: A Reading of the
Beginnings of Schooling in Aotearoa New Zealand. History of
Education, 37(2), 187-206.
Metge, J. (2010). Tuamaka : the challenge of difference in Aotearoa New
Zealand. Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University Press.

Madelaine Gravatt 1177801

New

Zealand

Ministry

of

Education.

(2011).

Tataiako:

cultural

competencies for teachers of Maori learners. Wellington, New Zealand:

Ministry of Education.
New Zealand Ministry of Education. (2013). Ka hikitia: accelerating
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2013-2017.

().

Wellington,

New

Zealand:

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of

Education.
Turner,

H.,

Rubie-Davies,

C.

M.,

&

Webber,

M.

(2015).

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Expectations, Ethnicity and the Achievement Gap. New Zealand

Journal of Educational Studies, , 1-15.

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