Hei oranga Māori i te ao hurihuri nei. Living as Māori in the world today: An account of kura kaupapa Māori

Abstract

Kura kaupapa Māori provide education for primary school aged children (5–12-year-olds) within a Māori language and cultural environment. They offer a logical progression from the Māori medium pre-school education known as Te Kōhanga Reo. The main aim of kura kaupapa Māori is to enable children to ‘live as Māori’. According to Durie (2003, p. 199), the goal of enabling Māori to live as Māori should be an objective of educationists when preparing Māori children for the future. However, the notion of ‘living as Māori’ is a very complex idea, not least because in New Zealand we live in a society governed by the English language and a set of values and social structures that are far removed from the traditional world of Māori. This thesis interrogates the ideas about ‘living as Māori’ that underpin the objectives of kura kaupapa Māori. A selection of graduates from the first kura kaupapa Māori in Auckland are interviewed in order to develop a critical sense of the empirical and other possibilities of ‘living as Māori’ in the modern world, and the effectiveness of the kura kaupapa Māori in realising these possibilities. There is much anecdotal evidence about the positive outcomes of kura kaupapa Māori. Whānau members often comment on the benefits of the kura for their children’s education, but there is little systematic research to substantiate claims that kura kaupapa Māori provide an educational environment that prepares their students to live as Māori. The question guiding this study is: What are the tensions that face kura kaupapa Māori graduates as they seek to live as Māori in a world that is often at odds with the objectives of kura kaupapa Māori? This study examines in detail what the kura kaupapa Māori objectives have meant to those who experienced being students in three of the first kura kaupapa Māori that were created in Auckland. It was in these kura kaupapa Māori that the objectives were developed and the path set for kura kaupapa Māori into the future.