Re-framing Pacific education, teacher knowledge and practice: innovations from within Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

In many countries including Aotearoa New Zealand, rapidly changing population demographics have led to increasing cultural diversity in classrooms. Developing equitable outcomes for diverse learners including those from indigenous and migrant heritage requires educators to both respect cultural diversity and enact intercultural understanding and capability. This has implications for both pre-service and in-service teacher education and more broadly educational policy. In this article, we draw on examples from New Zealand of shifts in Pacific education policy and practice related to teacher education. We track policy development over the past three decades that originated from concerns about inequity for Pacific students in schooling to more recent policy initiatives that engage deeply with Pacific learners, families, and communities. We illustrate the shifts in educational policy and teacher education by using three cases of the Pacific led initiatives to exemplify the reframing of Pacific education, teacher knowledge, and practice, by listening to and privileging the voices of Pacific people. We argue that to address equitable education for diverse student communities, teacher education needs explicitly to recognise and acknowledge structural inequities and racism inherent in education systems while providing opportunities for reflection and deep learning about differing knowledge systems and ways of being.