Researchers from the Culturally Nourishing Schooling project have shared insights and research findings at a Māori education symposium in New Zealand.
Speaking at the New Zealand Association for Research in Education conference at Massey University, the CNS team presented findings from working with schools in the second year of the CNS project ⎼ which is investigating new ways of equitable, quality schooling for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
Associate Professor Kevin Lowe gave an overview of the project and Dr Keiko Bostwick presented data on teacher perceptions of First Nation’s students. Dr Rose Amazan discussed the development of teachers’ critical consciousness – one avenue for the whole-of-school change required to embed culturally responsive teaching practices and improve outcomes.
“The conference was a great opportunity to present CNS work to an international audience ⎼ especially one that has a significant Indigenous presence and scholarship,” said A/Prof Lowe. “We were able to share some of the valuable insights from our work as well as get feedback and have conversations with scholars and activists in Aotearoa.”
“There were so many presentations in parallel spaces that helped us to connect and deepen our methodological and conceptual understandings of our work, especially with regard to community engagement and school leadership,” Dr Bostwick added.
“Having renowned Māori scholars give keynotes and presentations about the purposeful application of transformative research and how that can lead to systems wide change through incremental steps.”