title: Ora Kainga Rua: Experiences of Kura Kaupapa Māori Graduates

authors: Waller, Arianna Leigh Mana

subjects: indigenous auto ethnography

abstract: There is a wealth of indigenous scholarship examining the impacts of imperialist policies and ideologies on the learning identities of indigenous students. However, within the New Zealand context, there is a lack of literature which focuses solely on the experiences and aspirations of total immersion students to tertiary education settings. 
Using Kaupapa Māori and auto ethnography this thesis privileges the student voice by investigating the transitional experiences of four female kura Kaupapa Māori graduates into mainstream settings particularly their transition to the University of Waikato. 
The thesis argues that there are two main spaces of synergy between an indigenous research paradigm and auto ethnography. The first is the criticality of the “self” in the work, without a sharp separation between the researcher and the subject (dual meaning intended). The second is the shared modality and intentional use of storytelling as a method. By combining insights from in-depth interviews with the researcher’s life story, the thesis identified the coping mechanisms the participants employed and the services The University of Waikato provides that were utilised to help them transition into a new educational setting. 
The participants’ experiences demonstrate that the unique cultural educational experiences of kura Kaupapa Māori differ significantly from the educational and environmental experiences offered at University. The participants’ narratives demonstrated that the clear sense of identity gained from the kura Kaupapa Māori context gave them the inner strength to cope with these differences. In addition to their strong sense of Māori identity, the main coping mechanisms that the students drew on, was the wealth of institutional knowledge that family members and role models provided of the university context as past students and current staff members. The benefits that these students experienced can be strengthened by building stronger relationships between Māori total immersion schools, the wider Māori community and universities ensuring that Māori total immersion students are able to access the academic and institutional knowledge they need to succeed. 
Furthermore, the thesis argues that the kura Kaupapa Māori movement can deliver more for their students if they do not shut out the Pākehā world but rather teach their students to walk between and within the two worlds. In order to better understand this balancing act, the lived experiences of immersion students requires more research, particularly as more and more kura graduates transition into Aotearoa New Zealand tertiary settings.

text: Ora Kainga Rua: Experiences of Kura Kaupapa Māori Graduates There is a wealth of indigenous scholarship examining the impacts of imperialist policies and ideologies on the learning identities of indigenous students. However, within the New Zealand context, there is a lack of literature which focuses solely on the experiences and aspirations of total immersion students to tertiary education settings. 
Using Kaupapa Māori and auto ethnography this thesis privileges the student voice by investigating the transitional experiences of four female kura Kaupapa Māori graduates into mainstream settings particularly their transition to the University of Waikato. 
The thesis argues that there are two main spaces of synergy between an indigenous research paradigm and auto ethnography. The first is the criticality of the “self” in the work, without a sharp separation between the researcher and the subject (dual meaning intended). The second is the shared modality and intentional use of storytelling as a method. By combining insights from in-depth interviews with the researcher’s life story, the thesis identified the coping mechanisms the participants employed and the services The University of Waikato provides that were utilised to help them transition into a new educational setting. 
The participants’ experiences demonstrate that the unique cultural educational experiences of kura Kaupapa Māori differ significantly from the educational and environmental experiences offered at University. The participants’ narratives demonstrated that the clear sense of identity gained from the kura Kaupapa Māori context gave them the inner strength to cope with these differences. In addition to their strong sense of Māori identity, the main coping mechanisms that the students drew on, was the wealth of institutional knowledge that family members and role models provided of the university context as past students and current staff members. The benefits that these students experienced can be strengthened by building stronger relationships between Māori total immersion schools, the wider Māori community and universities ensuring that Māori total immersion students are able to access the academic and institutional knowledge they need to succeed. 
Furthermore, the thesis argues that the kura Kaupapa Māori movement can deliver more for their students if they do not shut out the Pākehā world but rather teach their students to walk between and within the two worlds. In order to better understand this balancing act, the lived experiences of immersion students requires more research, particularly as more and more kura graduates transition into Aotearoa New Zealand tertiary settings.

year: 2016

title: Genre and authentic written discourse in Maori and their relevance to the education of students in upper secondary and tertiary Maori-medium educational settings

authors: Houia-Roberts, Ngaere

subjects: Māori medium education

abstract: I report here on part of a research project whose primary aim was to investigate a range of authentic Māori texts in terms of the search for commonly occurring organisational and cognitive patterns, and to consider the pedagogic implications of this investigation in terms of the teaching of writing skills in Māori-medium educational settings. An examination of a range of text segments written by educated and highly proficient users of Māori suggests that, in terms of textual relationships, there are characteristic patterns of organisation that characterise the three genres that appear to be most commonly required of student writers in Māori-medium upper secondary and tertiary educational contexts, that is, the genres of arguing, explaining and describing. Another part of the project – an examination of whole texts in terms of overall, structuring – is reported in the next issue of this journal.

text: Genre and authentic written discourse in Maori and their relevance to the education of students in upper secondary and tertiary Maori-medium educational settings I report here on part of a research project whose primary aim was to investigate a range of authentic Māori texts in terms of the search for commonly occurring organisational and cognitive patterns, and to consider the pedagogic implications of this investigation in terms of the teaching of writing skills in Māori-medium educational settings. An examination of a range of text segments written by educated and highly proficient users of Māori suggests that, in terms of textual relationships, there are characteristic patterns of organisation that characterise the three genres that appear to be most commonly required of student writers in Māori-medium upper secondary and tertiary educational contexts, that is, the genres of arguing, explaining and describing. Another part of the project – an examination of whole texts in terms of overall, structuring – is reported in the next issue of this journal.

year: 2003-09

title: Understanding 'the National Sport for New Zealand Women': A Socio-Spatial Analysis of Netball

authors: Marfell, Amy Elizabeth

subjects: Netball

abstract: Since the early 20th century, netball has been heralded ‘the national sport for New Zealand women’ and it continues to represent one of the few team sport environments not characterized by the interests and participation of men. Created by and for women, netball promotes and preserves a sense of women-onlyness. There is, however, a link between netball and femininity that has gone largely unexplored among contemporary studies of sport.
	This research focuses on the social production of netball space and the ongoing and complex relationship between netball and heteronormative femininity in New Zealand. Drawing upon interviews with 16 recreational players and ethnographic fieldwork conducted over two years, I examine how women experience, negotiate and challenge notions of gender, sexuality, corporeality and subjectivity in spaces of netball. Adopting a poststructural feminist interpretation of Henri Lefebvre’s spatial theory, I demonstrate how the relationship between women’s sporting bodies, space and social relations is mutually constituted.
In this thesis, I explain spaces of netball as reproducing and celebrating particular gendered and sexualized identities and thus, prioritizing a relatively narrow but culturally valued heteronormative feminine athletic ideal. Whilst some women enjoy and are empowered by the social conditions of this sport, the power relations operating on and through netball spaces can also work to subordinate and exclude alternative or ‘other’ femininities and bodies. Yet, as my research reveals, netball also offers opportunities for resistance as some netballers engage in oppositional politics and/or use this space to disrupt normative discourse. This is particularly evident in the ways some players resist the involvement of men, how mothers use netball space to obtain momentary reprieve from the expectations of motherhood, and how pregnant, ‘fat’ and older bodies challenge the discursive construction of the contemporary (feminine) athletic ideal via their participation in this sport. To this end, this research not only demonstrates the social geography of netball in the everyday lives of New Zealand women, but also the potential of theoretical syntheses between Lefebvre and feminism for offering productive new ways to think about the interrelationships between active bodies, identities, space, power and resistance in sport and female physical culture.

text: Understanding 'the National Sport for New Zealand Women': A Socio-Spatial Analysis of Netball Since the early 20th century, netball has been heralded ‘the national sport for New Zealand women’ and it continues to represent one of the few team sport environments not characterized by the interests and participation of men. Created by and for women, netball promotes and preserves a sense of women-onlyness. There is, however, a link between netball and femininity that has gone largely unexplored among contemporary studies of sport.
	This research focuses on the social production of netball space and the ongoing and complex relationship between netball and heteronormative femininity in New Zealand. Drawing upon interviews with 16 recreational players and ethnographic fieldwork conducted over two years, I examine how women experience, negotiate and challenge notions of gender, sexuality, corporeality and subjectivity in spaces of netball. Adopting a poststructural feminist interpretation of Henri Lefebvre’s spatial theory, I demonstrate how the relationship between women’s sporting bodies, space and social relations is mutually constituted.
In this thesis, I explain spaces of netball as reproducing and celebrating particular gendered and sexualized identities and thus, prioritizing a relatively narrow but culturally valued heteronormative feminine athletic ideal. Whilst some women enjoy and are empowered by the social conditions of this sport, the power relations operating on and through netball spaces can also work to subordinate and exclude alternative or ‘other’ femininities and bodies. Yet, as my research reveals, netball also offers opportunities for resistance as some netballers engage in oppositional politics and/or use this space to disrupt normative discourse. This is particularly evident in the ways some players resist the involvement of men, how mothers use netball space to obtain momentary reprieve from the expectations of motherhood, and how pregnant, ‘fat’ and older bodies challenge the discursive construction of the contemporary (feminine) athletic ideal via their participation in this sport. To this end, this research not only demonstrates the social geography of netball in the everyday lives of New Zealand women, but also the potential of theoretical syntheses between Lefebvre and feminism for offering productive new ways to think about the interrelationships between active bodies, identities, space, power and resistance in sport and female physical culture.

year: 2016