Edgewalking And Wayfinding: Exploring The Values Of Whānau Pasifika In Our Education System

New research has explored the attitudes and beliefs of whānau Pasifika in relation to the NZ education system, particularly their notions of success.

The report, Whānau Pasifika navigating schooling in Aotearoa New Zealand, forms part of the New Zealand Council for Educational Research’s COMPASS project, which examines how kaiako, ākonga and whānau navigate educational experiences and contexts.

NZCER explored the perspectives of 362 whānau Pasifika, analysing the values that guide them through educational spaces – with particular focus on how these interact with Pacific notions of success.

The findings highlight how whānau Pasifika enact these values in the school environment, and how educators can be responsive, understanding and sustaining in supporting ākonga Pasifika to succeed. It also identified critical factors for whānau Pasifika, including:

• Whānau Pasifika must be understood and engaged as wayfinders, paramount to tamariki navigating successfully in educational contexts.
• The navigation of choppy educational seas is alleviated by whānau maintenance of reciprocal relationships and positive connections to communities.
• Respect and support for tamariki Pasifika is necessarily relational, maintaining a harmony where whānau walk alongside their tamariki, co-navigating adversity, keeping their eyes on the horizon, and steering them towards success.
• Whānau Pasifika are “edgewalkers”—helping their tamariki to adapt to being a part of the diaspora and achieving success by storying the powerful links between enacting culture and being curriculum focused for achievement.

“Whānau Pasifika effectively work as a yavu – a solid foundation for the success of their Tamariki,” notes report author Renee Tuifagalele.

“As tamariki become wayfinders themselves, whānau want to be deeply involved and encouraging in their schooling life, ensuring they embody the values that the whānau are enacting.

Schools need to understand those values and characteristics so they can meet whānau Pasifika in a complementary way, while policymakers and educators more generally need to find ways of embedding the values in this report into teaching practice.”

The full report is now available from Rangahau Mātauranga o Aotearoa | New Zealand Council for Educational Research.

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