Equity, Inclusivity, and Shared Humanity: Responding to Intergenerational Failure of Schooling for Indigenous Students

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 3:05 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Prioritizing Racialized, Indigenous, and Refugee Student Experiences (Table 11)

Abstract

Despite decades of education reform aimed at indigenous Māori students succeeding in schooling, the New Zealand education system’s failure to engage effectively with Māori is persistent with Māori underachievement remaining chronic and seemingly intractable. This research examined the interface between Crown-led policy and leadership professional learning in a single secondary school. The findings uncover layers of bias within colonial schooling which historically have prevented Māori from making a full contribution to their children’s education. Two key leadership foci, closing the achievement gap between Māori and non-Māori and retaining Māori students into senior levels of schooling, diverted a focus on shared humanity, equity and belonging. The model of decolonisation and indigenisation that emerged has implications for Indigenous peoples across the globe.

Author

• Margaret Egan, University of Waikato