Māori pedagogy, pedagogical beliefs and practices in a Māori Tertiary Institution : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education, Massey University

Abstract

This thesis seeks to describe a Māori pedagogy, i.e., Māori preferred ways of teaching and learning. It argues that the pedagogy described in the literature and reflected in the reported practice of the small cohort of research participants teaching at a Māori tertiary institution emerges from a “relational ontology”. This is because it privileges discourses around the primacy of the student and the student-teacher relationship, group work, multisensory approaches and reflection among many others. Theories of student learning, teacher characteristics, learning environments and curriculum content are also described within a model that enables the synthesis of previously disparate elements. The study utilises Kaupapa Māori and Narrative Enquiry methodologies. It hopes to make a contribution to the ongoing transformative praxis of kaupapa Māori institutions such as Kohanga Reo, Kura Kaupapa Māori and Wānanga as well as mainstream institutions involved in remediating historic Māori underachievement in education.