Health for the Maori? : health and the Maori village schools, 1890-1940

Abstract

This study discusses the role of health in the Maori village primary schools which were attended by approximarely half of Maori children in the period 1890 - 1940. The focus is on the ideas and attitudes underlying health both as a subject in the schools, and in the role of teachers as providers of health care and advice. The system of Maori village schools was controlled by Pakeha. Therefore the focus on and approach taken to health in the Maori school,was decided by (middle class) Pakeha. Health teaching in this period reflects Pakeha beliefs about Maori culture and life, and about what Pakeha thought the place of Maori in New Zealand society should be. This study focuses on the attitudes and ideas of those who controlled the system, and implemented the policies. Ideas about health are socially constructed. They interact with and are influenced by beliefs about such things as morality, social organisation, and race. It is argued that the emphasis placed on health in the Maori schools was not simply the result of straightforward humanitarian concern at the poor health of the Maori in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; Througout the period studied health also served as an important instrument of the po1icy of racial assimilation, by which it was hoped Maori would be absorbed by Pakeha society and culture.