Culture Counts: Changing Power Relations in Education

Current educational policies and practices in most Western countries were developed and continue to be developed within a framework of colonialism - a context of epistemological racism that is fundamentally embedded in the dominant culture.

The model for addressing cultural diversity that is presented in this book is based on an indigenous Kaupapa Maori response to the dominant discourse within New Zealand. It promotes self-determination as guaranteed in the Treaty of Waitangi as a metaphor for power-sharing and has as its goal the advancement of educational outcomes and life opportunities for Maori children and those from other cultures.

In this model the classroom is a place where young people's sense-making processes (cultures) are incorporated and enhanced, where the existing knowledge of young people are seen as "acceptable" and "official", and where the teacher interacts with students in such a way that new knowledge is co-created and not seen as something that the teacher makes sense of and then passes on to students.