No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
The difficult task of turning walls into tables.
Abstract
The historical universalization and naturalization of Western ways of knowing and being,
disseminated violently through colonialism is very resistant to change, particularly when it sees
itself as ‘open’ to diversity. This creates what can be thought of as an invisible ‘brick wall’ of
resistance, which creates great frustration for those hitting their heads against it. In this
chapter, we draw on Sara Ahmed’s book On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional
Life (2012) to explore four hidden bricks in this wall and to talk about the difficult process of
turning walls into tables where people can name hidden barriers and negotiate equity and
equality on more equal grounds (Ahmed 2012). In her book, Ahmed outlines how the will to
diversity becomes a wall to diversity: she sets out to explore how universities use the
commitment to diversity to reinforce the naturalization of the ‘norm’ and prevent diversity
from becoming habitual. We will outline four different ways in which this happens (the four
hidden bricks in the wall): how by making diversity/Indigeneity visible, the mainstream is made
invisible/normal; how policies about diversity make the brick wall invisible; how benefitting
from diversity commitments creates a debt for diverse bodies; and how the strategy of
‘switching’ is both a burden and a possibility for transforming institutional resistance. This
chapter will discuss how Ahmed’s walls have the potential to be transformed into tables
through Indigenous relational ontologies. These tables can then be used to begin and
maintain conversations on how Indigenous knowledge and peoples can be meaningfully
incorporated into higher education and how institutions can engage with diversity beyond
tokenistic gestures.
... The contingent nature of the designation of deservingness within racial capitalism means it can be rescinded any time a non-white person appears to threaten or violate the norms of whiteness and capitalist productivity, and thus ceases to be perceived as a proper object of empathy and instead starts to be perceived as a problem or a burden (Ahenakew & Naepi, 2015;Ahmed, 2012). Conversely, contingent deservingness may be rescinded if non-white people are perceived to be "taking" educational and employment opportunities that are thought to rightfully belong to white U.S. students (Coloma, 2013). ...
... 405), international students from non-Western countries reported being ignored and subject to verbal abuse, and in some cases, physical abuse. Beyond targeted incidents, international students are situated within the larger racialized environments of U.S. universities (Ahenakew & Naepi, 2015;Cole & Harper, 2017;Davis & Harris, 2015;Gusa, 2010). Ahmed (2007) unpacks how "diversity" has become depolicitized and commodified toward improving an institution's public image, as commitments to diversity are understood as less threatening than framings like "anti-racism" or "racial equity." ...
... Beyond affirming "the order to which one is supposed to contribute something," celebrations of international staff and students tend to frame their mobility as a conditional gift for which they as recipients must perform gratitude (Ahenakew & Naepi, 2015;Ahmed, 2012). Celebrations of their contributions therefore reproduce what Patel (2015b) describes as the "political economy of contingent merit," within which one's worth is assessed according to oftenimplicitly racialized categories of value. ...
This article analyzes U.S. university presidents' public responses to the Trump administration's first travel ban in January 2017. Within these responses, most presidents voiced their support for international students, staff, and faculty. However, it remains necessary to consider the discursive frames through which this support is articulated. I found that support for international members of the campus community was largely expressed in ways that implicitly naturalized the regulation of immigration according to racialized assessments of human value. This article considers the role of universities in reproducing and/or interrupting the logics and practices of white supremacy, racial capitalism, and nationalism, and the ethical limits of responses to the ban that are framed through discourses of conditional inclusion and perceived contributions to the campus and country.
... Thus, many higher education scholars and practitioners lack a frame of reference for substantively engaging decolonial and abolitionist critiques. Further, even if these critiques are engaged, they may be decontextualized, extracted, and grafted back into mainstream frames and practices, whether intentionally or not (Ahenakew, 2016;Spivak, 1988;Tuck & Yang, 2012). This happens, for instance, when "decolonization" is reduced to adding a few non-white, non-western authors to a syllabus. ...
... While this transformation will not happen overnight, decolonial and abolitionist analyses point to the continued necessity to imagine otherwise. However, I suggest that before we can truly imagine higher education otherwise, we need to pause for long enough to identify the limits of what is fathomable within the inherited higher education field-imaginary, so that we can also sense the absence of other imaginaries that have been silenced and erased (Ahenakew, 2016). ...
... Decolonial and abolitionist critiques point to the need to support and regenerate forms of knowledge and education that have been suppressed by the hegemony of the modern university (Grande, 2018;Santos, 2007;Smith, 2012). At the same time, they challenge common, extractive modes of engagement with these other knowledge systems -including: expecting these knowledge systems to hold 'solutions' to the problems modern higher education has created; presuming entitlement to access and 'master' these knowledges; and arrogantly assuming that outsiders to these knowledge systems are able to understand what is being said within them (Ahenakew, 2016). However, especially given these common colonial patterns through which non-Western knowledges are appropriated and romanticized, there are different perspectives regarding the extent to which these other forms of higher education and knowledge can or should be incorporated into existing universities, and/or whether there should be a focus on supporting and developing other, alternative higher education spaces (Grande, 2018;Teamey & Mandel, 2016). ...
In this article, I offer a critical reading of the higher education field-imaginary and its orienting assumptions, inspired by decolonial and abolitionist critiques. These critiques identify the constitutive and ongoing violence that underwrites modern institutions of higher education, and thus, the higher education field itself. In so doing, they challenge scholars and practitioners to reckon with the implication of higher education in systemic harm and unsustainability, and to reimagine higher education as we know it. However, this reimagining should move beyond the common tendency to aspire to transcend the existing imaginary without disinvesting from the harmful promises it offers.
... Social mobility (particularly as it results in capital accumulation) is increasingly viewed as the primary "end" of higher education, through the "means" of competition, meritocracy, and self-determination. While Indigenous and racialized students have been historically excluded and/or underrepresented in higher education within the settler colonies (Ahenakew and Naepi, 2015;Airini et al. 2010b;Ahenakew et al., 2014;Andreotti et al. 2015;Curtis et al. 2012;Gusa 2010;Mayeda et al. 2014;Kuokkanen 2008;Mila-Schaff and Robinson 2010;Patterson 2012;Roshanravan 2012, etc.), the increased presence of these students presents not only the possibility of, but also the ethical demand for, disruption of these institutionalized Eurocentric educational norms. In this chapter, we respond to this demand by examining the potential for Pasifika 2 epistemologies to inform alternative approaches to 'diversity' in higher education than are commonly deployed by universities. ...
... We also argue for greater consideration of the ways that higher education teaching practices reinforce epistemological dominance, despite pledges to the contrary. In particular, we will focus on Ahmed's (2012) assertions that higher education institutions reproduce whiteness through diversity; that diverse bodies are offered conditional hospitality; that inclusion of diverse subjects creates a "diversity debt"; and that whiteness is re-centered when discussing racism (see also Ahenakew and Naepi, 2015). ...
... As shown with teu le va, even with the best intentions, dominant spaces can turn Indigenous interventions into tick box procedures that do not address the dominance of the Eurocentric framework. As described in Ahenakew and Naepi (2015), we have laid out our mat and now wait for others to join us in this talanoa. NOTES 1. Aotearoa is the Ma ori (Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand) name for New Zealand. ...
Higher education institutions have used the banner of "diversity" for a wide range of initiatives that aim to support the presence of "different" bodies and perspectives within academic spaces. However, these initiatives tend to reproduce rather than transform dominant ways of knowing and being. Drawing on the work of Sara Ahmed, Pasifika scholarship, and using the methodology of social cartography of Rolland Paulston, this chapter explores what practices of diversity and inclusion could look like if epistemological dominance was recognized as problematic. Focusing on Pasifika in Aotearoa New Zealand, the authors explore how higher education institutions practice diversity and how Pasifika peoples in higher education have attempted to bring their own epistemological understandings into the Eurocentric space.
... This not only imposes colonial institutional norms of achievement and success onto Indigenous peoples, but also punishes those who push back against these norms and advocate for different or deeper forms of institutional change (Jimmy et al., 2019). Some point out that decolonization-as-inclusion is often framed as a conditional 'concession' to Indigenous peoples (Ahenakew & Naepi, 2016), rather than as an important but insufficient form of redress for systemic and historical colonial harm. Others note that simply adding 'decolonization' to existing EDI efforts, placing EDI under an umbrella of decolonization, or adding Indigenous peoples to the list of marginalized communities, tends to flatten the specificity of different experiences of systemic marginalization. ...
... 16 This exclusion can in part be attributed to the foundational whiteness of universities. 17 They are spaces and places where a monocultural knowledge system based on Western values is reproduced by those who have a significant investment in continuing their dominance in knowledge production. 18 Higher education spaces in settler-colonial contexts such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the USA have traditionally been dominated by Western ways of "knowing and being"," thereby privileging dominant neoliberal discourses of education. ...
The proportion of Pacific academics in permanent confirmation path positions at New Zealand universities (1.4 percent) continues to lag far behind the Pacific share of New Zealand’s population (7 percent). In this paper, we use a thematic talanoa to explore the experiences of Pacific early career academics (PECA) at the University of Auckland to highlight the key themes, challenges and features of our daily lives in the colonial, Western, and Pākehā institution that is the university. This paper sheds light on the systemic and structural barriers that impact PECA journeys through higher education and suggests actions that universities in New Zealand can take to further support, nurture, and develop PECA pathways into and upward through the academy.
... For instance, in the contemporary Canadian context, the national discourse on "reconciliation" regarding the country's history of forcibly placing Indigenous children in residential schools represents a moment in which a settler colonial country and its institutions -including universities -are forced to adjust their practices in response to decolonial demands. As expected, however, these adjustments largely take the form of conditional inclusion (Ahenakew 2016;Ahenakew & Naepi 2015;Ahmed 2012). ...
New and resurgent movements to decolonise higher education are increasingly found throughout the globe in the context of settler colonies, former colonies, and former colonial metropoles alike. As Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars located in what is currently known as Canada, in this chapter, we reflect on what we have learned from mainstream efforts to address the country’s history of harm toward Indigenous peoples, and specifically, to address the ongoing role of higher education in colonialism. These efforts have created precarious openings for not only reflecting on but also transforming universities within a still-colonial society. Without dismissing the possibilities enabled by these openings, we find that in practice many circular patterns emerge that reproduce underlying colonial ways of knowing, doing, desiring, and being that make up the primary infrastructures of modern modes of existence. While the mainstream academic imperative would require that we follow-up this diagnosis with prescriptive solutions for how to interrupt these colonial patterns in order to arrive at a predetermined decolonised future (decolonisation as a singular event), we suggest instead that decolonisation requires a long-term commitment to sit with and work through our individual and collective investments in harmful patterns so that we might disinvest from them and learn to be otherwise (decolonisation as an ongoing process). Particularly in the context of contemporary crises that are themselves a product of harmful and unsustainable modes of life – climate change, political instability, economic insecurity – only the latter approach to decolonisation offers the potential to open up new possibilities for current and future generations to learn to live together differently on a finite planet. Our conception of decolonisation takes on a holistic view, one that transcends or rather challenges an anthropocentric worldview and begins to take seriously our collective commons as the starting point for conversation around justice, in its substantive form. Further, in this context, the need for alternative horizons of possibility takes on a renewed urgency.
We begin the chapter by briefly reviewing the primary dimensions of colonialism and current efforts to address colonialism in the Canadian higher education context, so as to situate our contribution. Then, we review critical commentaries on the limits of approaches to decolonisation that are premised on the inclusion of (Indigenous) difference and do little to address the underlying colonial conditions of possibility for the institution. Rather than diagnose the problem of inclusion as one of tokenism that can be addressed through more radicalised inclusion (e.g. centring marginalised knowledges), we suggest that inclusion itself is a flawed proposition as it presumes the underlying continuity of what we diagnose as an inherently unsustainable and violent system with its accompanying set of institutions and subjectivities. In order to gesture toward what might be possible if we did not presume that the modern/colonial university can or should be salvaged, we propose two pedagogical invitations that gesture toward the decolonisation of higher education as a complex, multi-layered process of learning to be otherwise: 1) Starting and staying with the complexities and difficulties involved in making change, including the structural complicity of those making change, so as to develop the necessary stamina for long-term transformation; 2) Drawing on Santos’s notion of an ecology of knowledges and ignorances, while developing the ability to discern the contextually-relevant gifts and limitations of all ways of knowing, so as to ultimately cultivate socially, historically, and ecologically accountable pluralistic propositional thinking.
... The low number of Māori and Pacific academics employed in full time, permanent positions in New Zealand universities has recently been highlighted by several studies (McAllister et al., 2019;Naepi, 2019;Naepi et al., 2020). This raises concerns about the responsibility of the university as an institution within New Zealand to decolonise its systems to become more inclusive for Māori and Pacific students and staff (Ahenakew & Naepi, 2015;Kidman & Chu, 2019;Naepi et al., 2017;Naepi et al., 2020). Progressing towards decolonised tertiary education is necessary as universities underpinned by foundational whiteness reproduce a monocultural knowledge system entrenched in Western ontologies and epistemologies (Ahmed, 2012;Kidman & Chu, 2017;Naepi, 2019;Osei-Kofi et al., 2010;Stein, 2019;Tamdgidi, 2012;Thaman, 2003). ...
Limited attention has been paid to the experiences of Pacific Early Career Academics (PECA) in utilising their culture-specific systems of knowledge in their pedagogical practice. As a cross-section of PECA employed in a variety of disciplines and faculties, we explore how our Pacific identities infuse our pedagogical approaches in a way that forefronts the significance and validity of Pacific knowledges. We argue that, despite academia perpetually undervaluing Pacific knowledges and even without formal Pacific pedagogical training, PECA prioritise Pacific knowledges in the way we think, teach, and communicate in the classroom. Further, PECA contribute to a reshaping and remodelling of curriculum and delivery that is culturally responsive and enhances learning and teaching spaces significantly. Thus, we believe that universities need to commit to not only hiring more Pacific academics, but also provide greater institutional and financial support for the development of PECA networks across different faculties, schools and disciplines. We also argue that to help retain PECA, Pacific pedagogical praxis must be understood as part of wider pastoral care efforts.
... Yet, previous research has described the high workloads that Mäori and Pacific academics have that include academic and pastoral care of Mäori and Pacific students, being the voice on Mäori and Pacific issues (e.g., providing advice and consultation on research) and service to the wider community. Moreover, Mäori and Pacific academics report cultural taxation when working in universities-repeatedly sharing stories of being overworked (Ahenakew & Naepi, 2015;Kidman & Chu, 2017Kidman et al., 2015;Naepi, 2019Naepi, , 2020Naepi et al., 2017;Patterson, 2018). Brower and James (2020) also noted that PBRF scoring focuses on quality rather than quantity, and previous research suggests that men publish more than women (Elsevier, 2017). ...
Māori and Pacific academics make up less than 4% and 1% respectively of New Zealand professors. We investigated ethnic inequities in promotions and earnings in New Zealand universities. Using New Zealand’s Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) data (2003, 2012, 2018) we found that Māori and Pacific men and also women academics, compared with non-Māori non-Pacific men academics, had significantly lower odds of being an associate professor or professor (professoriate) or of being promoted, and had lower earnings. These inequities were not explained by research performance (measured by PBRF scores), age or field, and remained over time, particularly for women. Māori and Pacific women academics earned on average $7,713 less in 2018 than non-Māori non-Pacific men academics and had 65% lower odds of being promoted into the professoriate from 2003 to 2018. Our findings suggest that current inequities for Māori and Pacific academics will persist without systemic change in New Zealand universities.
... While our colleagues are pushing to keep these courses on the books, attempting to introduce Māori and Pacific content or supporting in restructuring the course content completely, there is still a significant amount of work to do to achieve the type of discipline imagined by Māori and Pacific academics, students and community. Some of this work is not possible within our disciplinary field and will involve pushing our institutions to change (Ahenakew and Naepi, 2015;Chu, 2017, 2019;McAllister et al., 2019b;Naepi et al., 2017). ...
Rather than being exceptional for Māori and Pacific Peoples, Covid-19 is the latest iteration of virulent disease that arrived with European colonisation. The various pandemics are connected; they exacerbate and intensify existing conditions of colonial inequality and injustice. The political and economic marginalisation of Māori and Pasifika within Aotearoa New Zealand ensures that Covid-19 will have disproportionate impacts upon them. Covid-19’s impacts will be felt in the academy as everywhere else. The immediate issue will be the culling of less popular ‘uneconomic’ courses, and of precarious instructors (where Māori and Pacific teachers are over-represented). Colonisation never ended. Ongoing domination is secured through the reproduction of social life, including via social institutions like the university. While sociology likes to think of itself as the critical edge, it often fails to be so in relation to its own assumptions. In order for sociology to be part of the solution, instead of simply perpetuating the problem of racism as it is wont to do, its practitioners must recognise our place in the world, must speak to our ways of knowing and being, and must validate the aspirations of Māori and Pacific communities, Māori and Pacific students and Māori and Pacific staff.
... This movement by Pacific peoples to engage in decolonizing research is one that other Indigenous peoples around the globe are engaging in (Battiste, 2013;Chillisa, 2011;Denzin, Lincoln, & Smith, 2008;Mihesuah, 2004). Research has consistent ly framed Indigenous peoples in problematic ways, through misunderstanding and mis representing Indigenous knowledges and peoples; as a result, researchers have helped to inform harmful policies for and social perceptions of Indigenous communities (Ahenakew & Naepi, 2015;Alfred, 2004;Anae, Coxon, Mara, Wendt-Samu, & Finau, 2001;Hau'ofa, 1993;Naepi, Stein, Ahenakew, & Andreotti, 2016;G. Smith, 2011;L. ...
Pacific research methodologies refer to Indigenous research that is conducted from the
ontological and epistemological standpoint of Pacific peoples. Pacific research methodologies
are an act of decolonial resistance that recognizes the legitimacy of Pacific ontologies
and epistemologies, enabling research that is truly reflective of Pacific peoples. They
are a response to colonial research patterns that have framed and stereotyped Pacific
peoples in problematic ways. Pacific research methodologies are a resurgence practice
that empowers Pacific people to define and critique the Pacific from a Pacific viewpoint.
They include but are not limited to vanua, kakala, talanoa, ula, and fa’afaletui. They can
be regionally specific, such as the vanua or kakala, and they can also be pan-Pacific and
refer to shared values, such as respect, reciprocity, communal relationships, collective responsibility,
gerontocracy, humility, love and charity, service, and spirituality. Pacific duality
means that Pacific research methodologies can be both pan-Pacific and regional. Pacific
research methodologies continue to be developed as more Pacific people enter the research
space.
... The effects of conditional inclusion in Canadian higher education have been identified by many Indigenous scholars. Conditional inclusion places the labour of transformation onto Indigenous peoples who are expected not only to adapt to existing organisational cultures, but also to advocate for Indigenous peoples and communities in ways that do not make their non-Indigenous colleagues uncomfortable (Ahenakew & Naepi, 2016). Considerable time is spent explaining to non-Indigenous administrators the values, importance, and foundations of Indigenous knowledges, and Indigenous students and faculty are expected to speak on behalf of all Indigenous people, while non-Indigenous students and faculty are rarely asked to do to the same (Marker, 2004). ...
In response to the contemporary context of reconciliation in Canada, colleges and universities have made efforts to ‘Indigenise’ their campuses, extending earlier, Indigenous-led efforts to create more space for Indigenous peoples and knowledges. While many welcome these efforts, others express concern that they fail to go beyond conditional inclusion to fundamentally shift relationships between settlers and Indigenous peoples. In this article, I examine these developments and suggest that most institutions and individuals have yet to face the full extent of their complicity in colonisation. I argue that perhaps it is only by doing so, and thus, arriving at the impossibility of reconciliation, that a transformation of settler–Indigenous relationships might be possible.
... The Knowledge Makers program is led by All My Relations, making it possible to connect Indigenous student researchers with the wider Indigenous research community. The traditional institutional barriers to Indigenous programs (Ahenakew and Naepi 2015) were identified and addressed to make this program possible. This article will discuss the key values and steps in the Knowledge Makers program. ...
... This includes: Tuck & Yang, 2012; Walia, 2013); and, The selective recognition of difference in equity and inclusion efforts, which are only enacted when they can be instrumentalized to maintain (without substantively challenging) the legitimacy of the nation-state or capital (e.g. Ahenakew & Naepi, 2015; Bell, 1979; Coulthard, 2014). Decolonial critiques identify European colonization and slavery in the 15 th century as the genesis of modernity's epistemological and ontological violence. ...
In this paper I consider the need to rethink existing ethical approaches to the internationalization of higher education. In particular, I consider the risk that the same developmentalist assumptions that reproduce the highly uneven global higher education landscape also shape many of our efforts to address these inequities. To do so, I situate the current moment within a longer history of colonial relations and identify five pressing ethical challenges for higher education scholars and institutions to address. Ultimately, I suggest the need to be more attentive to the harmful investments and colonial frames of reference that keep us from imagining a radically different ethics of internationalization.
“Uplifting Moana Perspectives: Emerging Pacific Researchers and New Directions in New Zealand-Based Pacific Research” presents a shared vision for the future of Pacific research by Pacific early career academics (PECA) primarily based in Aotearoa–New Zealand. The task of charting new directions in imagining possibilities for Pacific research is a critical one, which speaks to our communities’ long and storied history in Aotearoa: a reality incongruent with the lack of Pacific scholars employed in permanent positions in New Zealand universities.[i] This special issue challenges the idea that there is a dearth of Pacific research, asserting rather that our underrepresentation in academia is a structural issue, not necessarily one of scarcity. As special issue editors, we intentionally draw in a cross-section of emerging Pacific researchers in our country to confidently write with emerging Pacific scholars on the other side of our Moana-Oceania region, writing back to the exclusionary nature of conventional disciplinary norms and divides that we are forced to navigate. In doing so, our contributors challenge and transcend disciplinary boundaries and push against the Eurocentrism of our tertiary education system. This work is crucial, as the ability to build an academy that prioritises and centres our ways of knowing, doing, relating, and being is a key component of addressing cultural safety and inclusiveness in university lecture theatres, curriculums, and epistemological norms for both PECA and Pacific students in Aotearoa–New Zealand.
This article provides insights into the ethnicity of people employed in Aotearoa New Zealand’s publicly-funded scientific workforce, with a particular focus on Māori and Pasifika scientists. We show that between 2008 and 2018, Māori and Pasifika scientists were severely under-represented in Aotearoa New Zealand’s universities and crown-research institutes. Despite espousals by these institutions of valuing diversity, te Tiriti o Waitangi and Māori research, there have been very little changes in the overall percentage of Māori and Pasifika scientists employed for a period of at least 11 years. Notably, one university reported having not employed a single Māori or Pasifika academic in their science department from 2008 to 2018. We highlight the urgent need for institutions to improve how they collect and disseminate data that speaks to the diversity of their employees. We present data that illustrate that universities and crown-research institutes are failing to build a sustainable Māori and Pasifika scientific workforce and that these institutions need to begin to recruit, retain and promote Māori and Pasifika scientists.
In this article I offer a series of critical reflections about existing efforts and achievements in Indigenous Education, with particular emphasis on the risks, tensions, and paradoxes that arise where different knowledge systems meet, and when Indigenous peoples ourselves hold contradictory educational desires. I focus on the idea of the land as first teacher and on the difficulties of enabling institutional educational processes that conceptualize it as a living entity, rather than an object, a resource a property. I seek to complicate our conversations to take account of the ways that colonial interests, competing investments, and structures of schooling shape the education that Indigenous youth today receive, and how this circumscribes the kinds of education it is possible for us to imagine. I conclude by offering a cartography that enables us to map how Indigenous youth encounter different ideologies of education and schooling, I also offer some thoughts about pedagogical possibilities that emerged from a course in which students were invited by Elders to witness a Sun Dance ceremony in Turtle Island.
This paper offers a brief analysis of aspects related to the significance and the complexities of introducing “different” epistemologies in higher education teaching and learning. We start by introducing the metaphors of abyssal thinking, epistemic blindness and ecologies of knowledge in the work of Boaventura de Souza Santos. In the second part of the paper we use Santos’ metaphors to engage with the tensions of translating aboriginal epistemologies into non-aboriginal languages, categories and technologies. In the third part, we offer a situated illustration of an attempt to introduce epistemological pluralism in addressing central concepts in teaching in higher education. In our conclusion we emphasize that political, ontological and metaphysical questions need to be considered very carefully in the process of introducing different epistemologies into higher education.
A programme of culturally relevant peer support was trialled with first-year Māori and Pasifika students studying in degree and diploma programmes at the Open Polytechnic. One hundred and fifty students were contacted via telephone during semester one 2008 and offered support. The programme was informed by Kaupapa Māori Theory and principles of inclusive teaching practice and aimed to enhance student engagement and success. Specifically, the programme’s objectives were:
1. To welcome students to the Open Polytechnic learning community and help make a positive start to study.
2. To help students plan their study and manage assignment tasks.
3. To help students identify areas where they needed support and provide that
support.
4. To encourage students to contact their tutor or other staff for assistance with
any concerns.
The programme was based on proactive contact with students rather than relying on
student self-referral and contact was at times that have been identified as critical
points in students’ progress through their courses (Simpson, 2000).
The peer supporters worked from a script developed by Learning Advisers in
conjunction with tutors which provided a guide for conversation rather than a
prescription. All conversations were recorded in a database, salient points noted and
issues for referral to tutors and learning support staff identified.
At the conclusion of the programme, information from the peer support records,
students’ academic records and the student survey was examined and basic themes
extracted. Results reveal that first year Māori and Pasifika students, studying at a
distance, value the opportunity to have regular contact with knowledgeable peers in
addition to their tutors. They find the contact encouraging and motivational; it enables
them to deal more effectively with the demands of study and to feel part of a learning
community. This contact, which occurs at key decision-making points in students’
progress through their courses, assists in the identification of iissues that might be a
barrier to that progress and provides opportunities to resolve these in a timely
manner.
Six suggestions for learning support practice are given: provide academic counselling
and pre-enrolment advice; offer academic preparation and study skills assistance;
provide opportunities for meaningful and regular contact with students; make peer
mentoring and support services available; advise and assist students who indicate
they might withdraw from their studies; offer teacher professional development.
This article is part of a transnational collaboration between Indigenous scholars concerned about the provincialization of Indigenous struggles within modern metaphysics. This can be seen at work in notions of land as property, tribe as (modern) nation, and sovereignty as anthropocentric agency grounded on rational choice. Drawing on critiques of modernity articulated by Latin American scholars, as well as Indigenous scholars exploring the limits of current forms of political resistance, we argue that this modern metaphysics generates a form of politics that neglects an important existential dimension of Indigenous heritages. We use Indigenous education as an example to affirm that epistemic provincialization has been both necessary and problematic in the current context. We argue that the limitations of strategies for recognition, representation and redistribution need to be complemented by existential insights that can revitalize possibilities of existence based on ancestral wisdom and on the urgency of considering our shared fate in a finite planet facing unprecedented challenges.
What does diversity do? What are we doing when we use the language of diversity? Sara Ahmed offers an account of the diversity world based on interviews with diversity practitioners in higher education, as well as her own experience of doing diversity work. Diversity is an ordinary, even unremarkable, feature of institutional life. Yet diversity practitioners often experience institutions as resistant to their work, as captured through their use of the metaphor of the "brick wall." On Being Included offers an explanation of this apparent paradox. It explores the gap between symbolic commitments to diversity and the experience of those who embody diversity. Commitments to diversity are understood as "non-performatives" that do not bring about what they name. The book provides an account of institutional whiteness and shows how racism can be obscured by the institutionalization of diversity. Diversity is used as evidence that institutions do not have a problem with racism. On Being Included offers a critique of what happens when diversity is offered as a solution. It also shows how diversity workers generate knowledge of institutions in attempting to transform them.
The Canadian federal government mandates that First Nations bands adopt provincial curricula as a requirement for assuming control of their education. This mandate perpetuates Eurocentric cognitive imperialism in Aboriginal schools and the marginalization of indigenous languages and culture. Indigenous languages, culture, and knowledge are inextricably interwoven and must be at the center of a decolonized education. Contains 25 references. (SV)
Drawing on the example of indigenous Ma¯ori pedagogical and research principles in Aotearoa/New Zealand, this paper explores how still widely held 'deficit' notions of Ma¯ori students can be addressed and replaced by an alternative model that emphasises empowerment, co-construction and the critical importance of cultural recognition. This model constitutes the classroom as a place where young people's sense-making processes (cultures) are incorporated and enhanced, where the existing knowledges of young people--particularly Ma¯ori--are seen as 'acceptable' and 'official', and where the teacher interacts with students in such a way that new knowledge is co-created. Such a classroom will generate very different interaction and participation patterns and educational outcomes from a classroom where knowledge is seen as something that the teacher makes sense of and then passes onto students.
span>Flexible delivery of educational resources must take account of cultural variables and recognise the specific learning needs, preferences and styles of learners. In designing instruction, there may be a tension between the need to ensure access for a diverse student population, while at the same time taking into account the need for localisation to accommodate learners' particular cultures, cognitive styles and preferences. Considering the micro and macro cultural levels of instructional design is therefore essential if appropriate learning environments are to be created. The acceptance, use and impact of WWW sites is affected by the cultural backgrounds, values, needs and preferences of learners.
One of the limitations in current instructional design models is that they do not fully contextualise the learning experience, and are themselves the product of particular cultures. The design of Web based instruction is not culturally neutral, but instead is based on the particular epistemologies, learning theories and goal orientations of the designers themselves. Recently, theorists have argued for a cultural dimension in the design process and the need to provide culturally sensitive learning environments.
In this paper, we trace the design processes involved in the development of an online learning environment for indigenous Australian learners preparing to enter university, and account for the cultural issues that impacted on creation of learning tasks and styles of communication. The paper argues for cultural localisation, which means incorporating the local values, styles of learning and cognitive preferences of the target population. It also means going beyond surface level design considerations, to achieve culturally inclusive constructivist learning environments. Examples of tasks, activities and forms of online interaction are provided in the context of a bi-cultural model of learning that recognises diversity and different learning needs. It is recommended that when creating WWW based course support sites for cultural inclusivity, systematic attention must be given to particular design guidelines, which include responsiveness to learner needs, community based learning and cultural contextualisation of learning activities.</p
This research uses a mixed-methods approach to study the Pacific findings from New Zealand’s first national secondary school student health and wellbeing survey and tries to determine the relationship between culture and educational outcomes. Narrative interviews further explored the significant associations from the quantitative analysis. Adapting Bourdieu’s theory of social space, ‘polycultural capital’ is coined as a theoretical construct which describes the potential advantage Pacific second generation (New Zealand-born) may experience from ongoing exposure to culturally distinctive social spaces. It is argued that having Pacific cultural capital as well as capital sourced to dominant social spaces assists in realising cumulative advantage and may be associated with improved education outcomes.
Success for all: Improving Māori and Pasifika learner success in degree-level studies
- Airini Brown
- D Curtis
- E Johnson
- O Luatua
- F O'shea
- M Ulugia-Pua
Airini., Brown, D., Curtis, E., Johnson, O., Luatua, F., O'Shea, m., & Ulugia-Pua, M. (2010).
Success for all: Improving Māori and Pasifika learner success in degree-level studies.
Wellington, NZ: Teaching and Learning Research Initiative.
Indigenous knowledge and pedagogy in First Nations education: A literature review with recommendations
- M Battiste
Battiste, M. (2002). Indigenous knowledge and pedagogy in First Nations education: A literature
review with recommendations. Ottawa: Apamuwek Institute.
Decolonizing education: nourishing the learning spirit
- M Battiste
Battiste, M. (2013). Decolonizing education: nourishing the learning spirit. Saskatoon, Canada :
Purich Publishing Limited.
Decolonizing Education in Canadian Universities: An Interdisciplinary, International, Indigenous Research Project
- M Battiste
- L Bell
- L M Findlay
Battiste, M., Bell, L., & Findlay, L. M. (2002). Decolonizing Education in Canadian Universities:
An Interdisciplinary, International, Indigenous Research Project. Canadian Journal of
Native Education, 26(2), 82-95.
Look to the mountain: An ecology of indigenous education
- G Cajete
Cajete, G. (1994). Look to the mountain: An ecology of indigenous education. Durango, CO: Kivaki
Press.
Tawhaki and Māui: critical literacy in Indigenous epistemologies
- G Cooper
Cooper, G. (2008). Tawhaki and Māui: critical literacy in Indigenous epistemologies. Critical
Literacy: Theories and Practices, 2(1), 27-42
Tātou Tātou/Success for All: Improving Māori Student Success
- E Curtis
- E Wikaire
- T Lualua-Aatai
- B Kool
- W Nepia
- M Ruka
- M Honey
- F Kelly
- P Poole
Curtis, E., Wikaire, E., Lualua-Aatai, T., Kool, B., Nepia, W., Ruka,M., Honey, M., Kelly, F., &
Poole, P. (2012). Tātou Tātou/Success for All: Improving Māori Student Success. Ako
Aotearoa Retrieved from: http://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/download/ng/file/group-1652/tatoutatou--success-for-all-improving-Māori-student-success.pdf.
Whānau, Education and Māori Potential. Paper presented at Hui Taumata Matauranga V
- M Durie
Durie, M. (2006). Whānau, Education and Māori Potential. Paper presented at Hui Taumata
Matauranga V. Retrieved 21 February 2014 from:
http://education.massey.ac.nz/massey/fms/Te%20Mata%20O%20Te%20Tau/Publicatio
ns%20-%20Mason/HTML%20Charcode.pdf.
Maui-of-a-thousand-tricks: His Oceanic and European Biographers
- K Luomala
Luomala, K. (1949). Maui-of-a-thousand-tricks: His Oceanic and European Biographers (No. 198).
Other" education down-under: Indigenising the discipline for psychologists and specialist educators
- A Macfarlane
Macfarlane, A. (2012). "Other" education down-under: Indigenising the discipline for
psychologists and specialist educators. Other Education: The Journal of Educational
Alternatives, 1(1), 205-225.
Vaka I Taukei: The Fijian way of life
- A Ravuvu
Ravuvu, A. (1983). Vaka I Taukei: The Fijian way of life. Suva, Fiji: Institute of Pacific Studies,
University of the South Pacific.
Kaiako pono: mentoring for Māori learners in the tertiary sector
- P Tahau-Hodges
Tahau-Hodges P. (2010). Kaiako pono: mentoring for Māori learners in the tertiary sector, Ako
Aotearoa Retrieved from: http://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/download/ng/file/group-4/kaiakopono-mentoring-for-Māori-learners-in-the-tertiary-sector---full-report.pdf.