Culturally Responsive Leadership in New Zealand Primary Schools: Above and Beyond the National Curriculum

• In Event: 68.040 - SALEACOM Network: Sharing Global Knowledge to Improve Learning for the Most Disadvantaged Youth

Abstract

Objectives:
The purpose of this paper is to examine culturally responsive leadership as it pertains to factors that promote or constrain the national curriculum in Aotearoa New Zealand, from the perspectives of primary school site leaders of Indigenous Māori students, their families, and communities.

The research features the Māori Achievement Collaborative (MACs) which is comprised of school principals who are experts in lifting Māori achievement by providing culturally responsive professional learning conferences and hui (gatherings) for clusters of schools engaged in building appropriate relationships between local iwi (tribes), whānau (families) and the school. Authors engage this intersectional work (e.g., culture, language, heritage, discipline) to bring the often-disparate fields of Educational Leadership and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy together to advance social justice and equity for those who have been and are educationally marginalized, dispossessed, and excluded noting oppression as a common and universal theme for many in the world (e.g., Maori in NZ, Roma in Spain, Negro in Brasil, etc.). As SALEACOM asserts these phenomena are universal. It is the authors’ hope we will also identify some of successful actions to contribute to the call of the research collaborative.

Theoretical framework:
There is a rigorous body of research-based literature on culturally responsive pedagogy that is germane to Aoteroa New Zealand (Bishop & Berryman, 2006; Bishop, Berryman, Cavanagh, & Teddy, 2009; Durie, 2001; MacFarlane et al., 2007). It is important to understand the approach takes the perspective from within a socio-political and geographic space shared by “descendants of the European colonisers and Indigenous Māori people” (Bishop et al., 2009, p. 734). These researchers (2009) maintain this uneven power dynamic manifests as social, economic and political disparities reflected in educational outcomes for Māori learners at every level.


Methods and data sources
The leadership practices of 50 MACs primary principals was considered alongside theory and research on what it meant to be culturally responsive and the ways these practices pushed boundaries of the national curriculum. This work builds on innovative research methodology employed by Author and associates (2012; 2014), promoting the use of conceptual inquiry as a viable qualitative research design. Utilizing this methodological approach, the authors entered into critical discussions bridging educational leadership and culturally responsive pedagogy disciplines by way of data collection and analysis.
Data included interviews, reflective statements collected following professional development meetings, and documents for each school site.

Results:
Leadership actions featured included those that are successful in terms of what research and the literature says and what MACs principals did.

Scientific or scholarly significance:
This contribution is a departure from national curriculum and leadership programmes providing Māori students with opportunities to learn as Māori. There have been few contributions of this nature geared toward primary school leaders. Findings expanded processes and outcomes providing aspiring and practicing leaders with practical knowledge toward being more culturally responsive while raising achievement for Māori and other priority learners in primary schools.

Author

• Lorri Michelle Johnson Santamaria, The University of Auckland