Mā wai ngā hua? 'Participation' in early childhood in Aotearoa/New Zealand

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He tatau pounamu. Considerations for an early childhood peace curriculum focussing on criticality, indigeneity, and an ethic of care, in Aotearoa New Zealand

This article discusses some of the philosophical and pedagogical considerations arising in the development of a peace curriculum appropriate for use in early childhood education centres in Aotearoa New Zealand, with and by educators, parents/families and young children. It outlines contexts for the proposed curriculum, which including the history of colonisation, commitments to honouring the values and epistemologies of Māori, the indigenous people, and juxtaposes the proposed peace programme alongside current early childhood education pedagogical discourses in Aotearoa

Kei tua i te awe māpara : countercolonial unveiling of neoliberal discourses in Aotearoa New Zealand

In this paper, we traverse both historical and contemporary discourses pertaining to early childhood care and education in Aotearoa New Zealand, offering a genealogical discursive analysis of assumptions of white superiority. It is proposed that such an analysis delivers a platform from which to launch a project of unmasking the recent and ongoing impact of neoliberal policies in our country. Two key documents are highlighted: the founding document of our nation, Te Tiriti o Waitangi/The Treaty of Waitangi, and the New Zealand early childhood curriculum, Te Whāriki. These documents are unusual both within our country, and internationally, in that they offer a framework for bi-epistemological approaches to both education and social organisation more widely. Revisiting these documents in the context of uncovering the subtle racism that underpins assumptions of white superiority provides a platform for countercolonial, ethical reenvisioning of our educational becomings

Neoliberalism and Discourses of ‘Quality’ in Early Childhood Care and Education in Aotearoa New Zealand

In order to proceed to unveil the impact of neoliberal policies on early childhood care and education in Aotearoa New Zealand, we have considered it preliminarily necessary to investigate our historicity, identifying the whakapapa/geneology of the discursive power effects underpinning relationships between the Indigenous Māori and the colonisers of Aotearoa. This article firstly demonstrates the use of critical historical discourse analysis as a form of counter-colonial resistance, backgrounding discourses prevalent in Aotearoa since colonisation, that now underpin the current context in which the neoliberal enterprise impinges on our lives. This is followed by an uncovering of the multiple and conflicting lines of flight arising in the process of implementation of the “bicultural” national early childhood care and education curriculum, Te Whāriki , in the 15 years since it was promulgated, with a particular focus on the ways in which neo-liberalism has reconfigured the early childhood landscape. The past 25 years have seen a resurgence of Māori voice within the education sector and elsewhere in Aotearoa. The article also focuses on how our research methodology builds on ways in which Māori have transgressed striated spaces, reclaiming their positioning as indigenous partners alongside the descendents of the colonisers, creating smooth spaces in which to reassert their desires, ways of being, and knowing

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

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)