Ahakoa he iti: Early childhood pedagogies affirming of Māori children's rights to their culture

Abstract

This paper considers the position of tamariki Māori, the indigenous children of Aotearoa (a Māori name for New Zealand), in relation to the impact of colonization on their rights, including a focus on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the current educational policy arena. It then provides an explication of a Māori perspective of tika and tikanga, Māori rights as enacted through a Māori worldview. We then proceed to offer some illustrations from our recent research projects in this country of ways that teachers are engaging with tamariki and whānau Māori (Māori children and families) in endeavours which give expression to pedagogical enactment respectful and reflective of tikanga Māori (values and cultural practices). It is concluded that there are possibilities for early childhood pedagogies which enable a re-narrativizing of Māori ways of being, knowing and doing, in affirmation of children’s rights to identity possibilities sourced in their own tikanga (knowledges and practices which are culturally right).