Abstract:
There is evidence that partnership between teachers and Māori whānau need in many situations to be improved. Teachers report that they do not know why efforts are unsuccessful, regardless of many attempts to have whānau be a part of their child’s learning in a proactive way. The purpose of this research is to better understand how teachers seek to involve Māori whānau in their child’s learning and the success of their efforts. In-depth critical dialogue interviews were used, that were designed to elicit teachers’ theories of action, and to contrast teachers’ accounts with those of whānau. Attention was also given to understanding the reasons why teachers interact in the way that they do; in particular their beliefs, and the impact their actions have on whānau. A Problem Based Methodology framework (Robinson & Lai, 2005) was used to make sense of the participants’ responses. Data was analysed to reveal the actions, constraints (reasons for the actions), and consequences in two focus areas: homework and learning progress discussions. The research was undertaken in one large primary school and semi-structured interviews were conducted with six whānau members, and seven teachers. The data was collected and presented in separate case studies for each teacher and parent. Additionally, three sets of teachers and parents were matched pairs of the same child, which offered the unique opportunity to reveal both perspectives about actions and consequences of teachers’ efforts to engage whānau.
