Educational Philosophy and Theory, Vol. 43, No. , 2011
[recto head:] Theoretical Claims and Empirical Evidence in Maori Education
Discourse
[verso head:] Elizabeth Rata
Theoretical Claims and Empirical Evidence in Maori
Education Discourse
ELIZABETH RATA
Faculty of Education, University of Auckland
Abstract
Post-Marxist critical sociology of education has influenced the development of
indigenous (‘kaupapa’) Maori educational theory and research. Its effects are
examined in four claims made for Maori education by indigenous theorists. The
claims are: indigenous kaupapa Maori education is a revolutionary initiative; it is a
cultural solution to Maori educational under-achievement; it has reversed the decline
of the Maori language; it provides a valid educational alternative for an ethnically
and culturally distinctive population. The analysis suggests that the indigenous theory
approach is representative of the position-taking strategy that characterises postMarxist critical sociology of education, concluding that claims made in kaupapa
Maori voice discourse are not supported by the empirical evidence which indicates a
more complex social reality.
Keywords: critical sociology of education, voice discourse, indigenous
education, empirical research, social realism, Maori education
1. Introduction
The development of an indigenous sociology of education by Maori academics in
New Zealand in the past decade contributes to a wider network of indigenous theory
and research that has emerged in the United States, Canada, and the Pacific (L.T.
Smith, 1999; Grande, 2009; Kovach, 2009). The international indigenous academic
network also has implications for education policy development. For example, Berger
(2006, p. iv) in his Report on the Nunavut Project, in recommending that ‘a strong
program of bilingual education must be adopted’ for the Inuit of the Nunavut territory,
proposes a model based on New Zealand Maori language nests. These are the early
childhood centres, known as kohanga reo, that are the first stage of the kaupapa Maori
(Maori-based or indigenous) education system. The model is supported by the
UNESCO Report ‘Education for All Global Monitoring Report’ (UNESCO, 2010)
which describes how ‘New Zealand’s kohanga reo movement has demonstrated what
a powerful force indigenous language revitalisation can be, not only for education but
also for social cohesion’ (2010, p. 206). The leading role played by New Zealand in
developing indigenous sociology of education is noted by Weis, Fine, and Dimitriadis
(2009, p. 438) who, in referring to the ‘intellectual and political ascendancy gained by
critical Indigenous scholarship which privileges local knowledge and cross-site
Indigenous knowledges’ specifically mention kaupapa Maori theorists, G. H. Smith
(2000) and L. T. Smith (1999, 2005).
© 2011 The Author
© 2011 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia
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2 Elizabeth Rata
The ‘voice discourse’ of kaupapa Maori theorists is part of the shift in the New
Sociology of Education (NSOE) from the 1970s’ focus on socio-economic class to
social categories such as race (Moore & Muller, 2010). Yet according to Davies
(1995), the voice discourse approach of identity movements maintained the
‘immanentism,—the practice of asserting a necessary movement of history that
confers subordinate groups with objective interests in radical change’—of postMarxist sociology of education (p. 1451). Treated as a ‘collective agent’, identity
groups were regarded as ‘irreducible categories of subjectivity and social relations’
(1995, p. 1456). Despite the inherent contradiction between Marxist universalism and
the particularism of identity politics, cultural politics was regarded in NSOE as
progressive left-wing politics (for example; Apple, 2003; McLaren & Kincheloe,
2007) in contrast to writers, such as Friedman (2006) and Rata (2003), who
considered identity politics to be a reaction against progressivism—an ideology of
regression.
The influence of United States academics who have played leading roles in
NSOE were influential in the New Zealand shift to the voice discourse approach of
indigenous theory (Rata, 2010). These include: Michael Apple (for example,
1979/2004, 2001, 2003); Henry Giroux (for example, 1992, 1997, 2001); Peter
McLaren (for example, 1989, 1995); Joe Kincheloe (2008); McLaren & Kincheloe
(2007), and McLaren and Jaramillo (2007). By contrast, in the United Kingdom, the
influential critical sociologist of education, Michael Young (for example, 1998, 2006,
2008) was urging caution about over-politicising critical sociology of education and
over-emphasising the emancipatory role of teachers; features that characterise the
American critical pedagogy writers in particular. (See also Gerwitz & Cribb, 2009 for
similar concerns). According to Geoff Whitty (2006, p. x), since the 1979 publication
of Apple’s Ideology and Curriculum, there has been a ‘relative lack of similarly
compelling empirically grounded work in the United States’. A recently edited
collection of major articles published since 2000 (Maton & Moore, 2010)
demonstrates the widening gap between the United States critical theorists on the one
hand and the social realists from the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Australia on
the other. In critiquing the voice discourse approach of the politicised critical
sociology of education, the ‘social realism approaches (also) aim to see through
appearances to the real structures that lie behind them’, but social realists
‘acknowledge that these structures are more than the play of social power and vested
interests’ (2010, p. 4).
The support by American critical sociology of education for indigenous theory
centres around the belief that indigenous education is: rights-based social justice; a
peoples’ revolution; liberation from oppressive colonial power relations, ideologies
and structures; and the rejection of Western hegemony. However, kaupapa Maori
education theory, like American Indian ‘red sociology’ (Grande, 2004, 2009), while
acknowledging that ‘Indigenous and critical scholars do share a common ground’
(2009, p. 199) draws a distinction between critical scholars’ ‘vision in Western
conceptions of democracy and justice that present a “liberated” self’ and ‘indigenous
scholars (who) ground their vision in conceptions of sovereignty that presume a
profound connection to place and land’ (2009, p. 200). This is an important
difference, one that tends to be disguised in the shared discourse between indigenous
theory and critical pedagogy. For example, Grande’s statement that ‘pedagogy (is)
inherently political, cultural, spiritual and intellectual, an education for decolonization
(through a) praxis of collective agency (based upon) indigenous knowledge’ (Grande,
2009, p. 210) is remarkably like McLaren and Jaramillo’s (2007) call for a ‘new
© 2011 The Author
Journal compilation © 2011 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia
Theoretical Claims and Empirical Evidence in Maori Education Discourse 3
critical humanist pedagogy’. This is ‘an approach to reading the word and the world
that puts that struggle against capitalism (and the imperialism inherent in it) at the
centre of the pedagogical project, a project that is powered by the oxygen of
socialism’s universal quest for human freedom and social justice. When the Bean
Chaointe (keening woman) announces the death of humanity, it will not be a eerie
wail from the flapping criss-crossed jowls of Barbara Bush, but the slow rasp of an
emphysemic, dying planet, a planet failed by the human consciousness to which it
gave birth’ (2007, p. 20).
However, despite the shared discourse, incompatibilities exist between the
political goals of the two theoretical approaches. Critical sociology of education is
driven by democratic ideals of equality and universal human rights. It is determinedly
egalitarian, a position McLaren and Jaramillo (2007, p. 197) make clear in referring to
‘critical pedagogy’ as a ‘commitment to socialism’. In contrast, the goal of kaupapa
Maori education theory and research is to advance the ‘Maori call for tino
rangatiratanga’ (tribal sovereignty) (Durie, 2001, p. 1). The fundamental contradiction
between democratic universalism and group rights based upon an ethnic criteria for
social membership is implicit in the comment made by leading Maori educationalist,
Mason Durie, that ‘the special rights claimed for indigenous groups seems to clash
with the notions of democratic citizenship’ (Durie, 2001, p. 8). He also looks beyond
the democratic nation state to international indigenous self-determination movements
saying that ‘in exercising their indigeneity, Maori might wish to establish closer
relationships with many other groups, … including other indigenous peoples, even to
sign treaties with them . . . it would be short sighted not to explore other relationships
and to see how other groups living in modern states are able to reconcile conflicting
principles of citizenship and indigeneity’ (Durie, 2001, p.8).
The movement for Maori-based education is a sociological phenomenon located
in the ‘increasing decoupling between the instrumentality of the state (i.e. citizenship)
and the ethnic, cultural and historical roots of identity’ that characterises western
liberal democracies since the 1970s (al Sayyad & Castells, 2002, p. 3). My purpose
here is not to examine that phenomenon. Instead this article is limited to questioning
claims made by critical sociologists of education and indigenous theorists in support
of schooling based on a Maori model of cultural, linguistic and political identity. Four
specific claims are examined: that Maori education is a revolutionary initiative; that it
is a cultural solution to underachievement; that it has reversed the decline of Maori
language use; and that it is a valid educational alternative for a distinctive population.
In contrast to these claims, I summarise a variety of studies which indicate that Maoribased education is: declining in attendance and popularity; does not clearly result in
higher achievement; is not reversing the decline in the proportion of the population
who are competent Maori speakers; and does not address the realities of a racially
mixed rather than a binary social situation.
I do not question the role of intellectual movements themselves in the
development of ethnic based education. Indeed the interplay of ideas and institutions
is a process by which educational innovations occur in New Zealand as elsewhere.
Nor is the critique of claims made for Maori-based education a rejection of the
importance of improving Maori educational achievement. Instead, I argue that the
voice discourses in post-Marxist critical sociology of education, such as indigenous
theory, are a ‘position-taking strategy’ (Moore & Muller, 2010, p. 65) in the perceived
interests of the marginalised group. Through its support for Maori education, this
approach has encouraged some educators and policy makers in New Zealand to adopt
a problematic policy. Intellectuals are, of course, not the only supporters but while a
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Journal compilation © 2011 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia
4 Elizabeth Rata
cultural-based approach to education has attracted various supporters from across the
political spectrum the influence of critical sociologists and indigenous theorists has
been considerable (Openshaw, 2009).
2. A Successful Peoples’ Revolution?
The post-Marxist discourse of ‘revolution’, ‘resistance’ and ‘transformation’ as a
response to ‘crisis’ and ‘oppression’ (Davies, 1995; Maton & Moore, 2010) in
exemplified in the portrayal of the early childhood and primary Maori-based
institutions as successful initiatives (Nepe, 1990; G. H. Smith, 1997; L. T. Smith,
2006). The UNESCO Report, Education For All (2010) notes that the movement
began in 1981 and ‘thirteen years later there were 800 kohanga reo catering for
14,000 children’ (p. 206). However, the rapidly declining numbers of kohanga reo do
not support the rhetoric. While numbers grew rapidly following the establishment of
the first centre in 1982 to a peak of 767 in 1996, since that time the mid-1990s there
has been a decline to 464 kohanga in 2009 (Education Counts, 2009a).
The most dramatic increase in the number of kura kaupapa Maori (primary
schools for kohanga graduates based on kaupapa Maori values and practices) also
occurred during the 1990s. This followed the 1989 legislation which recognised the
schools as public institutions eligible for state funding and enabled already existing
schools to be re-designated as kura kaupapa Maori. The literature provides a picture
of a growing schooling sector, however, only 3.8 per cent of all Maori students attend
the kura (Education Counts, 2006). Altogether ‘15.8% of Maori learners are in Maorimedium education where Maori language made up at least 12% of teaching and
learning’. ‘This is a decrease of 2.9% since July 2006’ (Education Information and
Analysis Group, 2009, p. 2).
It is possible that the decrease in the kohanga population is beginning to be seen
in declining numbers in kura kaupapa Maori and other types of Maori-medium
immersion schools. In contrast to the Annual Report on Maori Education 2007/08
referred to above (Education Information and Analysis Group, 2009, p. 2) which
shows a 2.9 per cent decrease, the School Roll Summary Report of 2009 show a much
greater decrease. According to that Report ‘Enrolments at Maori immersion schools
decreased by 10.9 per cent (755 students) since July 2008’ (Education Counts,
2009b). The lack of clarity in the Report makes it difficult to understand where the
decrease is occurring but it appears to be at the immersion schools where instruction
is in the Maori language 81-100 per cent of the time. In addition, there is a sharp
decrease in Maori enrolling in Maori-medium schools when students move from
primary schooling (Years 1–8) to secondary school (Years 9–13). In schools where
Maori is the medium of instruction for 81-100 per cent of the curriculum, the number
of Maori learners drops from 1,092 in Year 8 to 545 in Year 9. Where the instruction
is in the Maori language for 52-80 per cent of instruction, the drop in numbers is more
than half; from 610 students in Year 8 to 257 in Year 9 (Education Counts, 2010).
While the explanation for that drop in student numbers is that there are very few
Maori-medium secondary schools, neither is there a demand by parents for such
schools. Research by Berryman and Glynn (2004) and May and Hill (2004) found the
reason why parents of kura children withdrew their children well before Year 8 was in
order to ensure that their academic English is developed sufficiently for educational
achievement at secondary school. In the early years of kaupapa Maori education,
when children attending kohanga reo began to turn 5 years of age and were ready to
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Journal compilation © 2011 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia
Theoretical Claims and Empirical Evidence in Maori Education Discourse 5
move to primary school, the kaupapa Maori movement established seven kura
kaupapa Maori schools between 1987 and 1989 for these children and ran a political
campaign to secure government funding. Despite claims that this movement was a
‘flaxroot’ peoples’ struggle (Nepe, 1990), the 1987–1989 campaign was conducted by
a small, highly effective, lobby group led by university-educated professionals,
including a disproportionate number of academics. Their networks of influence within
the state, amongst politicians and government officials, were the decisive factor in the
campaign’s rapid success (Rata, 1996).
As early as 1989 McCulloch cast doubt on the idea of a struggle by Maori
against a hegemonic state arguing that there was actually ‘little evidence of this
resistance and struggle’ in New Zealand education (1989, p. 50). Despite this, the idea
appears in a 2008 teacher education text. ‘Kaupapa Maori theory is a critical theory
approach that examines resistance and struggle, and has an emancipatory focus’
(McMurchy-Pilkington & Trinick, 2008, p. 134), and is re-stated in an article by
students from a Maori-medium teacher education programme. The students describe
how their courses enabled them to ‘become more conscious of the ways of the
oppressor’ (Morehu et al., 2009, p. 3). The idea of a peoples’ revolutionary struggle
against such oppression is taken for granted in the international literature (for
example, see Kincheloe, 2008; Kovach, 2009). Nicholas Burbules (2000, p. 268)
accepts Alison Jones’ description of Maori students resisting pakeha students’
‘cannibal desire to know the other’, which is ‘a further sort of exploitation’.
3. Educational Achievement
The long-term and on-going under-achievement of Maori, especially males (Clark,
2007), is a serious problem for New Zealand education. If ethnic or racial categories
are used to differentiate student achievement, Maori students are at the bottom of the
scale. According to Salmond (2009, p. 5) ‘66 per cent of Asian and 44 per cent of
European students leave school with University Entrance and /or Level 3 NCEA
(National Certificate of Educational Achievement), only 20 per cent of Pacific and 18
per cent of Maori students gain these qualifications’. The cultural explanation for
Maori underachievement is that Maori continue to live in colonial imposed structural
inequality, expressed through culturally oppressive pedagogical relations between
teachers and Maori students. For example, ‘what precludes significant advancement
being made in addressing Maori achievement in mainstream education institutions,
including teacher education institutions and classrooms, is that current educational
policies were developed and continue to be developed within a framework of
colonialism and as a result continue, consciously or unconsciously, to serve the
interests of colonialism’: Bishop, 2000, p. 3). The solution is considered to lay in
recognising cultural identity by either providing separate Maori institutions, which
according to the Ministry of Education have ‘made a major contribution to the
education system as a whole by giving learners a new means through which to
achieve education success’ (Education Information and Group Analysis, 2009, p. 2),
or by changing teachers’ pedagogy for the approximately 85 per cent of Maori
students who are in mainstream education.
The cultural immersion approach in Maori-medium schools is supported with
reference to improved results for Year 11 students in immersion education. ‘Year 11
candidates at Maori-medium schools were more likely to meet both the NCEA
literacy and numeracy requirements than the other Maori candidates’ (Education
© 2011 The Author
Journal compilation © 2011 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia
6 Elizabeth Rata
Information and Group Analysis, 2009, p. 2). The UNESCO Report ‘Education For
All’ (2010, p. 206) also uses the Year 11 figures. ‘Year 11 Maori students in
immersion schools have recorded significantly better achievement rates than their
Maori peers in English-medium schools’. Yet the comparison of Maori achievement
in these schools with those in the mainstream system is not straightforward, with the
UNESCO claim that rates are ‘significantly’ higher not standing up to scrutiny. The
only in-depth comparative analysis of Year 11 Maori student achievement is a study
of the 2003–2004 results by Murray (2005), updated in 2007. This does support
Ministry findings that there was ‘a higher rate of attainment for Year 11 Maorimedium students’ doing NCEA levels 1 and 2 compared with Maori in mainstream
schools (Ministry of Education, 2005, p. 12). ‘Candidates in these settings were more
likely to gain NCEA level two compared with their Maori peers in English-medium
(mainstream) schools’ (2005, p. 13) and ‘candidates at immersion and bilingual
schools (in 2003 and 2004) were more likely to gain a National Certificate of
Educational Achievement (NCEA) than Maori candidates in English medium schools’
(Murray, 2005, p. 2).
However, the ‘proportion of immersion school candidates to meet both the
literacy and numeracy requirements was similar to the proportion of Maori in
mainstream schools who met both requirements. In addition, mainstream Maori
candidates were more likely to meet the numeracy than the literacy requirement’
(Murray, 2005, p. 9). Of serious concern is the ‘low achievement of (immersion and
bilingual) students in the science learning area’ (Murray, 2005, p. 2). ‘Around half
(51%) of the Year 11 immersion school candidates who gained an NCEA (at any
level) achieved no credits in science subjects. In comparison, 88% of Maori
candidates in mainstream schools who gained an NCEA gained some credits in
science subjects’ (Murray, 2005, p. 5). In addition, Murray (2005) points out that
comparisons between Maori achievement in Maori medium with mainstream schools
need to be read with considerable caution. Given the small numbers of students in
Maori medium education it is not yet possible to say that Maori medium education
offers greater success to Maori students. Indeed, the 2007 comparison is between only
509 Year 11 students in Maori-medium and a much larger number (11,079) Maori at
other schools (Education Information and Data Analysis, 2009, p. 26).
Not all Maori students are underachieving. There is ‘wide variation in the
achievement levels within the Maori pupil population with the largest difference
between Maori pupils who were high achievers and those who were low achievers
‘related to the availability of educational resources in the home’ (PISA, 2000, p. 21).
It is likely that the increasing wealth gap within the Maori population (Callister, 2007)
will affect education outcomes given that the differences in formal attainment
between students from schools in different socio-economic locations suggests a strong
link between social-economic class and educational achievement. For example, 25 per
cent of Maori who left school in 2005 had little or no formal attainment, two and a
half times higher than for pakeha (i.e. British descent) students (Ka Hikitia, 2006).
The majority of those Maori students are in low decile schools. (In New Zealand,
decile categories are used to rank schools’ socio-economic location with low decile
indicating low socio-economic location and high decile referring to schools in
wealthy areas.) Twenty-one per cent of students from decile 1-3 schools left school in
2004 with no formal attainment compared to six per cent from schools in the decile 810 band. (DMAD, 2006, p. 82). Given the high proportion of Maori students in decile
1-3 schools (78,952 in decile 1-3 compared with 20,643 in the decile 8-10 range
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Theoretical Claims and Empirical Evidence in Maori Education Discourse 7
[DMAD, 2006, p. 60]), it is very likely that socio-economic class location is strongly
implicated in Maori educational achievement.
A number of sociologists do support the socio-economic class explanation for
the educational under-achievement of a group of Maori, though not of all Maori.
Research by Marie, Fergusson and Boden (2008, p. 183) found that educational
underachievement amongst Maori can be largely explained by disparities in socioeconomic status during childhood. This supports earlier research by Roy Nash (2001)
and Simon Chapple (2000). According to Chapple ‘it is sole Maori with low literacy,
poor education, and living in geographical concentrations that have socio-economic
problems, not the Maori ethnic group as a whole. There are probably also sub-cultural
associations with benefit dependence, sole parenthood, early natality, drug and
alcohol abuse, physical violence, and illegal cash-cropping. In other words the policy
issue may need to be viewed primarily at a sub-cultural and socio-economic level
rather than the coarse ethno-cultural level of Maori/non-Maori binaries’ (Chapple,
2000, p. 115). Similarly, Roy Nash’s research found that ‘bulk of the Maori
population is located in the working-class, indeed, into the lower skilled fraction, and
as a consequence of that has adopted, through processes of acculturation into specific
class cultures, practices with a distinctive character’ (2001, p. 35).
Despite these studies, the kaupapa Maori approach is promoted as a successful
means of addressing long-term Maori educational under-achievement. ‘The
achievements in Maori education have been determined if not remarkable. Maori
participation rates in tertiary education are high and Maori educational institutions
have proven to be sustainable and resilient in the face of inequalities in the system’
(L. T. Smith, 2006, p. 251). Wananga (Maori government funded tertiary institutions
based on a kaupapa Maori approach) are promoted as the way to attract young Maori
males who have failed at school back into education by offering culturally appropriate
basic education. There is a widespread perception that this approach is successful.
‘There is a quiet revolution occurring in education throughout the nation and it is
taking place in Maori-led institutions, the largest of which is Te Whare Wananga o
Aotearoa’ (George, 2009, p. A11). However, Paul Callister’s research into the choice
of tertiary institution, if any, ‘that have been successful at bringing young Maori men
into basic level education’ found that while ‘wananga as a group have overall
achieved real success in attracting Maori students, both numerically and as a
percentage of their overall rolls, they are attracting relatively few young Maori men in
level 1-3 courses’. Contrary to his expectation, Callister found that the non-ethnic
‘polytechnic sector have been the most successful in enrolling young Maori men’
(2009, p. 13).
4. Maori Language Revival
The commitment by post-Marxist sociologists of education to the kaupapa Maori
approach is further strengthened by the claim that Maori-medium education will
revive the Maori language. However, as with the claim for improving educational
achievement, the evidence is contradictory, even confusing, and suggests a less
optimistic picture. For example, the Ministry of Education Annual Report on Maori
Education 2007/08 (Education Information and Group Analysis, 2009) records the
research from Te Puni Kokiri (the Ministry of Maori Development) as showing
‘significant gains’ across all language skills and most age groups. Overall, results
© 2011 The Author
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8 Elizabeth Rata
show more people are actively using their Maori language skills at home and in the
community.
Overall, between 2001 and 2006, ‘speaking proficiency rose 4.2%, reading
proficiency rose 9.6% and writing proficiency rose 5.2%’ (Education Information and
Group Analysis, 2009, p. 20). But, in the next paragraph, with reference to the 2006
census and the Survey on the Health of the Maori Language, the Ministry Report
presents opposing evidence—strangely described as ‘highlights’. Apart from a very
small increase in ‘the total number of Maori who can hold a conversation about
everyday things in Maori language, an increase of 1128 people from the 2001 census’,
the remaining statistics show a static or declining trend in Maori language use. ‘Onequarter of Maori aged 15 to 64 years can hold a conversation in Maori language
(unchanged from 26.4% in 2001)’. ‘Just under half (47.7% of Maori aged 65 years
and over can hold a conversation in Maori language (compared to 53.1% in 2001)’.
The statistic that is worth noting, however, is that which shows a decline in Maori
language use by younger people. ‘More than one in six Maori (35,148) people)
(16.7%) aged under 15 years can hold a conversation in Maori language (compared to
19.7% in 2001)’ (Education Information and Group Analysis, 2009, p. 20). Given
these statistics, it is difficult to understand the statement in the Ministry report that
‘the survey shows significant (my italics) increases in the number of Maori adults
who speak, read, write and understand Maori language’ (Education Information and
Group Analysis, 2009, p. 21).
The picture of Maori language decline is supported by Winifred Bauer’s (2008)
research. She describes ‘a fairly bleak’ picture of Maori language use in the home in
2001, with children who attend Maori-medium education ‘not particularly likely to
respond in Maori: only 9% of respondents in 2001 said that under-twelves spoke
Maori half or more of the time’. According to Bauer, this ‘suggests that for the most
part, children are developing passive skills, and if they have active skills, they are not
taking them out of the educational domain into the home’ (2008, p. 41). Sceptical of a
reported increase in 2006, she argues that ‘the overall picture is one of decline rather
than increase in the younger age groups’ (2008, p. 43). The children’s stronger
language is English despite total immersion education in the Maori language for the
small percentage of Maori children in Maori-medium education.
5. A Different Pedagogy for a Different People?
Kaupapa Maori education is predicated on the idea that Maori and non-Maori are
separate peoples with different cultures and worldviews. One consequence of the ‘two
peoples’ belief is the promotion of a separate and different pedagogy. For example, in
referring to a ‘cultural mismatch’ between Maori and pakeha, Bishop (2000, p. 17)
claims that ‘in Aotearoa/New Zealand for indigenous people, teachers have
traditionally denied the authenticity of Maori experiences and voice through control
over pedagogy and curriculum’. The idea of ‘culturally responsive pedagogy’ is now
incorporated into Ministry of Education policy. A new programme, ‘Te Kakano,
focuses on growing culturally responsive pedagogical school leadership—leadership
that actively takes account of the culture of Maori learners to build relationships that
result in achievement success’ (Education Gazette, 2009, p. 12).
Kaupapa Maori pedagogy is based on kinship (whanau) social relations. In an
account of a kaupapa Maori school, Doug Smith describes how ‘everyone in this
school shares responsibility for education through kinship ties to an extended family’
© 2011 The Author
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Theoretical Claims and Empirical Evidence in Maori Education Discourse 9
with the school organised according to ‘cross-age connections, vertical (whanau)
grouping which is a key idea in kaupapa Maori approach’ (D Smith, 1996, p. 88). The
concept of the collective as the basis for learning is also found in advice about Maori
pedagogy from a teacher urging other teachers in mainstream schools to ‘plan lessons
and activities that make the class work together as a unit, a cohesive whole. The aim
is to create an esprit de corps, a corporate spirit. This type of class will readily band
together against any perceived threat from outside [my italics]. Maori children
generally work best as individuals when they know that they are part of a group which
in turn is part of a larger group, a secure hapu (sub-tribe) and iwi (tribe) base in the
classroom’ (Cormack, 1997, p. 165).
The impression given in the discourse is of a society divided into two quite
separate racial groups, with different and distinctive languages, values, customs, and
daily lives. It is the picture promoted by critical sociologists, such as Jones and
Jenkins, who refers to the ‘hypen’ between Maori and pakeha as the marker of a
permanently desirable division (2008). But the social reality is more one briefly
captured in an education newsletter reporting on Ministry of Education views; ‘it is
sometimes a difficult task for schools to identify which of their students are Maori’
(Team Solutions Newsletter, 2009, p. 2). Callister’s (2003a) analysis of the allocation
of ethnicity to children provides some insight into the reasons for this ‘difficult task’.
He urges caution in interpreting ethnic statistics, particularly in respect to the
prioritisation principle, which until 2006, meant that individuals with Maori as one of
their ethnicities were recorded as Maori only although, as Chapple found (2000, p.
105) ‘the majority of Maori ethnic children growing up today have a non-Maori
parent’.
Although ‘all Maori have some degree of non-Maori ancestry’ (Butterworth &
Mako, 1989, p. 1), individuals have their own reasons for the way they report their
ethnicity. ‘Metge (1976, p. 42) provides examples of individuals recording themselves
in the census as “full Maori” even when they have non-Maori grandparents. This is
because they “feel full Maori”’ (Callister, 2003b, p. 23). Callister (2003a) also notes a
more recent and growing tendency amongst young people to claim more than one
ethnic heritage. In the population as a whole there is a wide range of identification.
‘Some people of Maori descent have a strong ethnic Maori identity; others have little
or none. For some, their Maori identity is central to their lives; for others, different
aspects of their social and personal identities … seems to take precedence’ (Chapple,
2000, p. 104).
6. Conclusion
My purpose in this article is to show how the voice discourse approach in critical
sociology of education provides an incomplete, even distorted, picture of Maori
education. It illustrates the ‘dramatic interpretations over slender evidence’ of which
‘resistance theorists have been accused (Davies, 1995, p. 1459) and shows how
complex political strategies, such as the use of indigeneity as both an instrument of
possession and dispossession (Li, 2010), are ignored for an approach which places
theory at the service of politics. According to Friedman, ‘all cultural creation is
motivated. And the motives lie within the contemporary existences of creating
subjects’ (1994, p. 13). Only research that is empirically grounded can produce
sociology of education that investigates these ‘creating subjects’, along with the
contradictions and ambiguities of real social existence and the ideologies used to
© 2011 The Author
Journal compilation © 2011 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia
10 Elizabeth Rata
justify political approaches to social reality. There is no doubt that very real problems
remain for a section of the Maori population in New Zealand. Despite the
commitment of critical sociologists of education and indigenous Maori theorists to
improving the life chances of young Maori, I have argued that the voice discourse
approach tends to obfuscate the contradictions and ambiguities of a complex social
reality.
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