Whāia te Ara a Tāwhaki – Pursuing Pathways to to Keep E Māori young people in the New Zealand care system engaged in Education.

Tania Cliffe-Tautari (Tania Cliffe-Tautari), The University of Auckland

The purpose of this scoping exercise is to explore the research potential of a key issue emerging from my PhD thesis which was titled ‘Cultural identity as a resilience factor to reduce Māori youth offending’. One research area highlighted in my PhD is that there is a need to explore how Māori learners at risk of educational disengagement transition from Māori-medium and bilingual education settings to mainstream classrooms. 

Research findings from my PhD indicated that rangatahi Māori felt that there was a lack of support provided due to being a second language learner of English. They felt that this impacted on their  under achievement in the classroom. Consequently influencing their disengagement in education. Therefore, this scoping exercise will primarily be targeted towards Māori young people and children who have been in the care system and are at risk of future offending. 

However, it will need to explore more broadly at this stage to ensure that the research has not been already addressed in some way. Overall, it is critical to ascertain what key factors would enable Māori learners to make a smoother transition to mainstream settings and how teachers and schools could be more responsive.