title: Kia tata mai te pae tāwhiti: Nurturing success in psychology for Māori and Pasifika

authors: Bidois, Devyn

abstract: Embarking on the university education journey is commonly perceived as a pathway to success and enhanced career prospects. However, for Māori and Pasifika students in psychology, this trajectory is distinctly burdened with challenges beyond their control, particularly concerning low clinician representation and educational achievement. This thesis thus explores the experiences, barriers, and aspirations of Māori and Pasifika students engaged in psychology studies in Tauranga Moana. Guided by the principles of Kaupapa Māori, the overarching goal of this thesis is to empower and advocate for students, shedding light on their unique journeys and fostering a platform for meaningful change within the academic landscape. Two group interviews with undergraduate students and two individual interviews with postgraduate students were conducted to explore the research topic. These were then analysed using inductive thematic analysis, and a social constructionist epistemology within a Kaupapa Māori paradigm, to contextualise participant experiences. Three core themes are identified in this analysis. The first theme, the Western Educational Environment, underscores the challenges students face within a system shaped by Western norms. A monocultural, individualistic approach to curriculum, assessments, and teaching methods impacts the diverse cultural perspectives of students, shaping their overall study experiences. The second theme, Pathways, explores the nuanced journeys of tauira navigating various options related to papers, qualifications, and future career prospects. The third theme, Equity, critically examines the (lack of) equity in relation to facilities and services at the Tauranga campus compared to those in Hamilton. Recommendations for the School of Psychology focus on improving discipline relevance for Māori and Pasifika students through methods integrating Kaupapa Māori content and strategies as well as addressing historical issues aims to empower, retain, and support students to higher positions in psychology.

text: Kia tata mai te pae tāwhiti: Nurturing success in psychology for Māori and Pasifika Embarking on the university education journey is commonly perceived as a pathway to success and enhanced career prospects. However, for Māori and Pasifika students in psychology, this trajectory is distinctly burdened with challenges beyond their control, particularly concerning low clinician representation and educational achievement. This thesis thus explores the experiences, barriers, and aspirations of Māori and Pasifika students engaged in psychology studies in Tauranga Moana. Guided by the principles of Kaupapa Māori, the overarching goal of this thesis is to empower and advocate for students, shedding light on their unique journeys and fostering a platform for meaningful change within the academic landscape. Two group interviews with undergraduate students and two individual interviews with postgraduate students were conducted to explore the research topic. These were then analysed using inductive thematic analysis, and a social constructionist epistemology within a Kaupapa Māori paradigm, to contextualise participant experiences. Three core themes are identified in this analysis. The first theme, the Western Educational Environment, underscores the challenges students face within a system shaped by Western norms. A monocultural, individualistic approach to curriculum, assessments, and teaching methods impacts the diverse cultural perspectives of students, shaping their overall study experiences. The second theme, Pathways, explores the nuanced journeys of tauira navigating various options related to papers, qualifications, and future career prospects. The third theme, Equity, critically examines the (lack of) equity in relation to facilities and services at the Tauranga campus compared to those in Hamilton. Recommendations for the School of Psychology focus on improving discipline relevance for Māori and Pasifika students through methods integrating Kaupapa Māori content and strategies as well as addressing historical issues aims to empower, retain, and support students to higher positions in psychology.

year: 2024

title: Te Puea Herangi: an ethno-biographical study

authors: King, Michael

abstract: Early explanations of Maori leadership (for example Buck 1950) tended to emphasize the principle of male primogeniture - the expectation that community leadership would in the normal course of affairs pass to the eldest sons of lines of first-born males. Later studies of Western-educated leaders and those with a non-traditional power base (see Butterworth 1969, Cody 1953, Condliffe 1971, and Henderson 1972) continued to emphasize male primacy. Against the tenor of these studies, however, is the fact that in the first half of the twentieth century the Maori King Movement was dominated and welded together by a woman who preached male primogeniture though her life seemed to contradict the principle; Te Puea Herangi was not of a senior descent line and neither compensated for its absence by a substantial degree of European education nor consolidated her position by marriage. Nor was she simply a forceful leader in Maori terms only: Professor J.G.A. Pocock (in The Maori and New Zealand Politics) called her “possibly the most influential woman in our political history”.

This study examines Te Puea's leadership role: how she came to assume it, how she exercised it, and its consequences. Analytical concepts like Max Weber's distinctions between charismatic, traditional and rational-legal authority, have been avoided. The danger of adopting them is that the themes and emphases of research material can be easily and unintentionally warped to fit the model, in the interests of tidiness and intelligibility. Instead, this study proceeds by way of a detailed and chronological examination of the major events of Te Puea's life, and an evaluation of actions and statements as they occur and in the context in which they occur. It is, in other words, a consideration of Te Puea's life in terms of her own concepts, and in relation to the Maori and wider public affairs of her day. Explanations for her behaviour are sought within the boundaries of her own life and culture rather than from the imposition of alien models.

text: Te Puea Herangi: an ethno-biographical study Early explanations of Maori leadership (for example Buck 1950) tended to emphasize the principle of male primogeniture - the expectation that community leadership would in the normal course of affairs pass to the eldest sons of lines of first-born males. Later studies of Western-educated leaders and those with a non-traditional power base (see Butterworth 1969, Cody 1953, Condliffe 1971, and Henderson 1972) continued to emphasize male primacy. Against the tenor of these studies, however, is the fact that in the first half of the twentieth century the Maori King Movement was dominated and welded together by a woman who preached male primogeniture though her life seemed to contradict the principle; Te Puea Herangi was not of a senior descent line and neither compensated for its absence by a substantial degree of European education nor consolidated her position by marriage. Nor was she simply a forceful leader in Maori terms only: Professor J.G.A. Pocock (in The Maori and New Zealand Politics) called her “possibly the most influential woman in our political history”.

This study examines Te Puea's leadership role: how she came to assume it, how she exercised it, and its consequences. Analytical concepts like Max Weber's distinctions between charismatic, traditional and rational-legal authority, have been avoided. The danger of adopting them is that the themes and emphases of research material can be easily and unintentionally warped to fit the model, in the interests of tidiness and intelligibility. Instead, this study proceeds by way of a detailed and chronological examination of the major events of Te Puea's life, and an evaluation of actions and statements as they occur and in the context in which they occur. It is, in other words, a consideration of Te Puea's life in terms of her own concepts, and in relation to the Maori and wider public affairs of her day. Explanations for her behaviour are sought within the boundaries of her own life and culture rather than from the imposition of alien models.

year: 1977

title: Space invaders in surfing's white tribe: Exploring surfing, race and identity

authors: Wheaton, Belinda

abstract: As has been well documented, surfing has a long history as a Polynesian cultural form that, through colonization, was appropriated by white North Americans and Australians in the mid-twentieth century. As part of this process of appropriation, the activity was redefined and reorganized,drawing “nostalgically on an imagined cultural authenticity from Hawaii's Pre-colonial surfing past.” Since the 1950s, the quintessential image of the surfing body has been “phenotypically White,” specifically, a young, white, male subject, slim, toned, tanned—but not dark skinned—with a mop of sun-bleached hair. Fuelled by the Hollywood beach movies, and the surf music craze epitomized by the Beach Boys,in the United States the white, blonde surfer became so iconic he—and increasingly she—became the face of California. As Walker details in Waves of 2 Resistance this Colonial appropriation has not been without resistance in Hawai’i . Yet this particular image of surfing has subsequently been perpetuated more globally in both the surfing niche media and through wider mass media surfing discourses. Thus, although surfing’s imagery as a white, male, youthful, privileged activity and space is a relatively recent and contextually specific social construction, globally it has been, and remains the hegemonic one. 
My focus in this chapter is the experiences of surfers who do not fit this hegemonic ideal—specifically, those racialized as nonwhite. Surfing participants often claim—indeed believe—that surfing culture is inclusive of all,and that race and gender don’t matter. However, despite a desire for an inclusive and cosmopolitan citizenship, as I illustrate, surf culture and the surfing media continue to perpetuate what Chivers-Yochim terms an “imagined community” of whiteness. This chapter draws on a research project that explored the formative and contemporary experiences of minority ethnic surfers, predominantly African Americans, who lived and surfed around Los Angeles, California. I explore how these black surfers negotiate space and identity in the surfing culture, and their experiences of belonging and exclusion. 
First, I situate the case study within a broader understanding of sport, whiteness, and exclusion, highlighting research that reveals surfing in the United States and beyond as a gendered and racialized space. I also consider the central and problematic roles that surfing media and industry play in developing our sporting imagination. I then turn to the contradictory experiences of belonging of the black surfers in my case study, identifying some of the difficulties and barriers experienced by these surfers carving a space in a white-dominated cultural practice. While some aspects of their experiences and identities were shared with white and other ethnic-minority surfers, what was most revealing was the range of difficulties or constraints that many of these surfers had faced and which they saw as barriers to other African Americans becoming surfers.

text: Space invaders in surfing's white tribe: Exploring surfing, race and identity As has been well documented, surfing has a long history as a Polynesian cultural form that, through colonization, was appropriated by white North Americans and Australians in the mid-twentieth century. As part of this process of appropriation, the activity was redefined and reorganized,drawing “nostalgically on an imagined cultural authenticity from Hawaii's Pre-colonial surfing past.” Since the 1950s, the quintessential image of the surfing body has been “phenotypically White,” specifically, a young, white, male subject, slim, toned, tanned—but not dark skinned—with a mop of sun-bleached hair. Fuelled by the Hollywood beach movies, and the surf music craze epitomized by the Beach Boys,in the United States the white, blonde surfer became so iconic he—and increasingly she—became the face of California. As Walker details in Waves of 2 Resistance this Colonial appropriation has not been without resistance in Hawai’i . Yet this particular image of surfing has subsequently been perpetuated more globally in both the surfing niche media and through wider mass media surfing discourses. Thus, although surfing’s imagery as a white, male, youthful, privileged activity and space is a relatively recent and contextually specific social construction, globally it has been, and remains the hegemonic one. 
My focus in this chapter is the experiences of surfers who do not fit this hegemonic ideal—specifically, those racialized as nonwhite. Surfing participants often claim—indeed believe—that surfing culture is inclusive of all,and that race and gender don’t matter. However, despite a desire for an inclusive and cosmopolitan citizenship, as I illustrate, surf culture and the surfing media continue to perpetuate what Chivers-Yochim terms an “imagined community” of whiteness. This chapter draws on a research project that explored the formative and contemporary experiences of minority ethnic surfers, predominantly African Americans, who lived and surfed around Los Angeles, California. I explore how these black surfers negotiate space and identity in the surfing culture, and their experiences of belonging and exclusion. 
First, I situate the case study within a broader understanding of sport, whiteness, and exclusion, highlighting research that reveals surfing in the United States and beyond as a gendered and racialized space. I also consider the central and problematic roles that surfing media and industry play in developing our sporting imagination. I then turn to the contradictory experiences of belonging of the black surfers in my case study, identifying some of the difficulties and barriers experienced by these surfers carving a space in a white-dominated cultural practice. While some aspects of their experiences and identities were shared with white and other ethnic-minority surfers, what was most revealing was the range of difficulties or constraints that many of these surfers had faced and which they saw as barriers to other African Americans becoming surfers.

year: 2017