scholarly journals Together as brothers: A catalytic examination of Pasifika success as Pasifika to teu le va in boys' secondary education in Aotearoa New Zealand

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Martyn Reynolds

<p>Pasifika education, the education of students with connections to the Pacific in Aotearoa New Zealand, is intercultural; Pasifika students are generally taught by Palangi (European-origin) teachers in a system originally designed to meet the perceived needs of European settlers. The field has a history of inequity, consigning many Pasifika students to mediocrity in formal education. A cultural reading of the situation connects a need for emancipatory self-description with the achievement of social justice within the kind of participatory democracy imagined by Dewey. Recent government initiatives such as the Pasifika Education Plan have sought ‘Pasifika success’ through targets and initiatives, the most visible focusing on success as achievement understood by comparison to other ethnic groups. This has been critiqued as not seeking success as, but of Pasifika, in effect another assimilative practice. This thesis interrogates how success in formal education is understood, described, and explained by male Pasifika students as they enter the secondary sector. This is complemented by: paying attention to experiences of success in primary education; extending discussion to families; and the catalytic use of Pasifika community-sourced data to create opportunities for teachers to re-vision their practice. The inquiry is a bounded case study in the atypical context of a high-decile single-sex state school. A framework which combines a critical theory, critical race theory, and a Pacific Indigenous research paradigm provides a nuanced strengths-based approach. A dialogical-relational methodology argues for a mediated dialogue to teu le va (care for the relational spaces) between participants. The thesis demonstrates how catalytic attention to relationality can help teachers positively re-vision their practice. Attention to relationality also supports a complex positionality where a Palangi researcher seeks to edgewalk between Pasifika and Palangi concepts and communities, teachers and students, and Pacific-orientated research and the academy. Findings suggest that male Pasifika students hold a wide basket of forms of success which both contrast with and complement success as achievement: ideas about a ‘good education’, acceptance, participation, comfort, resilience, and the contextual extension of competence. These can be understood through Pacific origin concepts such as va (relationality), malaga (journey) and poto (wisdom), disturbing existing thinking about Pasifika education. As a result, the thesis has potential to assist a re-framing of theory and practice in the field as well as providing a model of relational inquiry for further social justice research into intercultural fields such as Pasifika education.</p>

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Martyn Reynolds

<p>Pasifika education, the education of students with connections to the Pacific in Aotearoa New Zealand, is intercultural; Pasifika students are generally taught by Palangi (European-origin) teachers in a system originally designed to meet the perceived needs of European settlers. The field has a history of inequity, consigning many Pasifika students to mediocrity in formal education. A cultural reading of the situation connects a need for emancipatory self-description with the achievement of social justice within the kind of participatory democracy imagined by Dewey. Recent government initiatives such as the Pasifika Education Plan have sought ‘Pasifika success’ through targets and initiatives, the most visible focusing on success as achievement understood by comparison to other ethnic groups. This has been critiqued as not seeking success as, but of Pasifika, in effect another assimilative practice. This thesis interrogates how success in formal education is understood, described, and explained by male Pasifika students as they enter the secondary sector. This is complemented by: paying attention to experiences of success in primary education; extending discussion to families; and the catalytic use of Pasifika community-sourced data to create opportunities for teachers to re-vision their practice. The inquiry is a bounded case study in the atypical context of a high-decile single-sex state school. A framework which combines a critical theory, critical race theory, and a Pacific Indigenous research paradigm provides a nuanced strengths-based approach. A dialogical-relational methodology argues for a mediated dialogue to teu le va (care for the relational spaces) between participants. The thesis demonstrates how catalytic attention to relationality can help teachers positively re-vision their practice. Attention to relationality also supports a complex positionality where a Palangi researcher seeks to edgewalk between Pasifika and Palangi concepts and communities, teachers and students, and Pacific-orientated research and the academy. Findings suggest that male Pasifika students hold a wide basket of forms of success which both contrast with and complement success as achievement: ideas about a ‘good education’, acceptance, participation, comfort, resilience, and the contextual extension of competence. These can be understood through Pacific origin concepts such as va (relationality), malaga (journey) and poto (wisdom), disturbing existing thinking about Pasifika education. As a result, the thesis has potential to assist a re-framing of theory and practice in the field as well as providing a model of relational inquiry for further social justice research into intercultural fields such as Pasifika education.</p>


Author(s):  
Meg Parsons ◽  
Karen Fisher ◽  
Roa Petra Crease

AbstractIn Aotearoa New Zealand, co-management initiatives are increasingly commonplace and are intended to improve sustainable management of environments as well as foster more equitable sharing of power between the settler-state and Indigenous Māori iwi (tribes). In this chapter we examine one such co-management arrangement that recognises and includes Ngāti Maniapoto iwi in decision-making about their ancestral river (the upper section of the Waipā River Catchment) and whether the implementation of initiative translated into tangible benefits for the iwi. Our research findings highlight how co-management agreement is perceived as overwhelming positive by both government and Ngāti Maniapoto representatives. However iwi note that they still face substantive barriers to achieving environmental justice (including the lack of formal recognition of their authority and power, and limited resourcing).


2021 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 52-59
Author(s):  
Lucila Carvalho

Schools and universities in Aotearoa New Zealand have been transitioning into new spatial configurations. These spaces are being carefully (re)designed to accommodate technology-rich activity, and to enable collaborative teaching and learning in ways that actively engage students in scaffolded inquiry. As teachers and students shift from traditional classroom layouts into flexible learning arrangements, educators are having to deeply rethink their own practices. In addition, the recent Covid-19 outbreak raised new questions in education about the role of technology in learning. This article argues that it is critical that Aotearoa educators understand (i) how to (re)design and (re)configure learning spaces in ways that support what they value in learning; and (ii) how they can tap on the digital to extend students experiences, both across and beyond schools and universities’ physical settings. The article introduces a way of framing the design and analysis of complex learning situations and reports on qualitative findings from a recent survey, which explored educators’ experiences of learning environments across Aotearoa New Zealand.


Author(s):  
Meg Parsons ◽  
Karen Fisher ◽  
Roa Petra Crease

AbstractIn this concluding chapter, we bring together our earlier analyses of the historical and contemporary waterscapes of the Waipā River (Aotearoa New Zealand) to consider the theory and practice of Indigenous environmental justice. In this chapter, we return to review three key dimensions of environmental justice: distributive, procedural, and recognition. We summarise the efforts of one Māori tribal group (Ngāti Maniapoto) to challenge the knowledge and authority claims of the settler-colonial-state and draw attention to the pluralistic dimensions of Indigenous environmental (in)justice. Furthermore, we highlight that since settler colonialism is not a historic moment but still a ongoing reality for Indigneous peoples living settler societies it is critically important to critically evaluate theorising about and environmental justice movements through a decolonising praxis.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Rinehart

In this piece, I explore two related issues of new critical Indigenous research. First, building on previous work, I recap the similarities and differences—in terms of social justice issues—of several historical cases regarding Indigenous peoples. I then examine the role of respect—especially “reciprocal respect”—in Pan-Pacific Indigenous research and give exemplars from New Zealand, Filipino, Aboriginal, and Samoan contexts as discussion points that ground a larger examination of mutual respect, mutuality, and cooperative behaviour. Finally, I suggest that the historical treatments of various Indigenous peoples to this day impact upon the form and tenor of critical Indigenous research.


Te Kaharoa ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gretchen Wietmarschen

Threatened language groups worldwide have experienced language loss due to official language policies of the state, including forced assimilation.  A number of these populations are attempting to aid the revitalisation efforts of their traditional languages by implementing mother-tongue medium education revitalisation programmes within the framework of the formal education system.  This research examines the use of intergenerational language transfer as an instructional tool within the formal education language revitalisation programmes of Aotearoa New Zealand.  Compelling the researcher to pursue this topic is the apparent lack of cross-generational interaction in schools (grandparents/community members involved in the learning process) regardless of the population served, combined with need for fluent speakers of threatened languages to aid in further language revitalisation.  Through a predominantly qualitative research approach this research investigates how many language revitalisation programmes within formal education classrooms in Aotearoa/ New Zealand utilise the linguistic knowledge held by the native speaker community, in particular members of the grandparent generation to impart their knowledge and work with the students.  It examines how this method is utilised, or if it is not utilised, why this is the case.  In addition to the collection of preliminary pedagogical demographic data from schools, interviews with Kaumatua and classroom teachers, and case study observation of classrooms, provide further depth to this research. 


2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashleigh Price

INTRODUCTION: Non-government organisations (NGOs) make a significant contribution to social service delivery in Aotearoa New Zealand. The purpose of this research is to understand how government policy impacts social work practice in non-government organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand. How NGO social workers apply and maintain ethical principles and standards in the current socio-economic climate was explored. The study aimed to increase understanding of how NGO social workers remain dedicated to the pursuit of social justiceand social change in their day-to-day practice, within conflicting policy environments and the government’s social investment approach.METHODOLOGY: A qualitative research methodology informed by a constructivist epistemology was adopted as the research strategy for this study. The interest was in exploring personal perspectives so qualitative in-depth interviews were carried out with five experienced NGO social work practitioners.FINDINGS: Thematic analysis of the research data found that contemporary NGO social work is a practice characterised by a sense of powerlessness. From this sense of powerlessness, five sub-themes were identified: freedom and powerlessness; the application of the principle of social justice at a macro level; professional dissonance; issues of funding and resourcing constraints as a result of neoliberal economic policy; and finally, different realities and a notion of othering.CONCLUSION: This research found that the social justice element of social work practice may be at risk should the dominant neoliberal social policy environment remain in existence.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Francesca Benocci

<p>This thesis is a case study in literary translation. It consists of a creative component (60%) — an anthology of contemporary New Zealand women poetry translated into Italian — and a critical component (40%) — an interdisciplinary commentary outlining the historical, linguistic, cultural, literary and translational aspects underpinning my work as editor, literary translator and scholar. My interest in New Zealand literature began with my Master’s thesis, when reading Keri Hulme’s 1985 Booker Prize winning novel the bone people exposed me to the linguistic and cultural specificities of literary works produced in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This interest was further ignited by reading Marinella Rocca Longo’s pioneering study of New Zealand poetry, La poesia neozelandese dalle origini inglesi ai contemporanei, published in 1977. To this day, Hulme’s novel remains untranslated in Italian and Rocca Longo’s monograph is the only comprehensive study about New Zealand poetry for an Italian-speaking readership, one with which I have engaged constructively and critically in the course of my studies. This doctoral thesis thus combines translation and poetry. More specifically, it asks itself what it means to translate contemporary New Zealand women poets into Italian. This choice is motivated by three aims, which complement the wider ambition to make New Zealand writing better known to Italian readers: to better reflect the ethnic richness of New Zealand literature; to highlight the major role played by women in developing and expanding New Zealand poetry; to discuss translation theory from a post-colonial and feminist viewpoint. These factors are reflected in the structure and contents of this thesis. A historical overview of New Zealand literature in general and of New Zealand poetry in particular as an example of post-colonial literature is followed by a discussion on which theories and practices of translation are ethically as well as aesthetically the most appropriate for the translation of post-colonial poetry written by women. The comprehensive anthology I have compiled and the commentary that accompanies it bring this discussion to life, celebrating not only the creative and scholarly contribution of the translator as an intercultural negotiator, but also the ethical responsibility underscoring this task. The opportunity to undertake this research in Aotearoa/New Zealand has made this study particularly intense as well as personal, as I negotiated and renegotiated the space between theory and practice, pushing myself to expand and deepen the choices a translator is called to make as a reader, as an interpreter, as a critic, and as a writer. I hope that this goal has been achieved in the negotiation between the theoretical, scholarly and creative parts of this project that are embodied in the outcome of this thesis.</p>


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document