The location and dislocation of Pacific knowledge and experience in New Zealand social studies (1997–2007)

Tanya Wendt Samu

Abstract

This article revisits the New Zealand social studies curriculum statement (Ministry of Education, 1997) in terms of the location of Pacific knowledge and experience. The “revised” school curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) is reviewed and compared in terms of Pacific knowledge. The main argument of this article is that teacher decision making is a political process that has become an even stronger determinant for whether or not Pacific topics will be included in school social studies programmes, given that national curriculum directives for such topic inclusion no longer exist. Such a dislocation raises questions and concerns relating to teacher decision making. The paper presents a rationale for the inclusion of Pacific knowledge and experience, for teacher consideration. It explores two approaches that might encourage teachers to include Pacific knowledge via social studies.

Introduction

We are what we remember—a society is what it remembers or chooses to remember. And education plays a crucial role in the creating/storing/and transmitting of those memories. (Wendt, 1985)

Just over a decade ago, as a secondary school social studies teacher taking some time out of the classroom for postgraduate studies, I saw an opportunity for in-depth study that combined my areas of experience as well as commitment: Social studies and the education of Pacific learners. Encouraged by my supervisor, I analysed several aspects of the newly developed social studies curriculum statement (Ministry of Education, 1997) for my master’s thesis (Samu, 1998). With the release of The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007), which will become mandatory in 2010, I believe it is timely to revisit and review one aspect of that analysis—the location of Pacific knowledge and experience in the New Zealand social studies curriculum.

In this article I will describe and discuss where and how Pacific knowledge was located in the social studies curriculum statement of 1997, and how this has changed with the revised The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007). I will set out a rationale for the legitimacy, validity and even necessity of Pacific knowledge being “official knowledge” in the New Zealand school curriculum via social studies. I will then describe two approaches that encourage teachers to include Pacific knowledge in their social studies curricula.

Curriculum as valued knowledge

Part of my academic journey involved engaging with theories and ideas about the socially constructed nature of knowledge and the political nature of curriculum change. I found the work of radical education sociologists Young (1971) and Apple (1990, 1996) to be particularly challenging to my taken-for-granted beliefs about the neutrality of curricula. Apple (1996), for example, argued that curriculum statements are official knowledge, and what is official is what is legitimate knowledge, therefore rendering what is absent as not official. If knowledge is not officially sanctioned in the curriculum, Apple argues, it is viewed as not as important, legitimate or valid. The selectivity of knowledge is a vital feature of curriculum development and design. Apple stated:

The curriculum is never simply a neutral assemblage of knowledge, somehow appearing in the texts and classrooms of the nation. It is always part of a selective tradition, someone’s selection, some group’s vision of legitimate knowledge [italics added]. (1996, p. 22)

An important question is—which groups get to decide, to select? Why are some groups’ “visions” of what counts as knowledge held over others? Regardless of the specifics of the processes involved, “the decision to define some groups’ knowledge as the most legitimate, as official knowledge, while other groups’ knowledge hardly sees the light of day, says something about who has power in society” (Apple, 1996, p. 22).

Such ideas caused me to scrutinise my taken-for-granted assumptions. Because of my commitment to Pacific peoples as a multiethnic minority in Aotearoa New Zealand, I became anxious to find out how curriculum change in social studies would affect the ways Pacific peoples’ knowledge and experiences would be legitimated in the New Zealand curriculum. Even more fundamental—would Pacific knowledge and experience “see the light of day” as social studies topics?

Locating Pacific knowledge in the 1997 New Zealand social studies curriculum statement

The 1997 New Zealand social studies curriculum statement identified a number of compulsory settings for units of learning—New Zealand, the Pacific, Europe, Asia, other Settings and Global Settings. According to the statement:

Settings in the Pacific, Europe and Asia have been emphasised because of their particular significance to New Zealand. These settings must be included in a school’s social studies programme. (Ministry of Education, 1997, p. 20)

The descriptor for the Pacific as a setting stated that New Zealand has “close relationships, interactions and historical links with its South Pacific neighbours”, and that “students will develop understandings of the societies, cultures and environments of Tagata Pasifika” (Ministry of Education, 1997, p. 20).

Primary and secondary schools were to teach social studies units with Pacific content at least once every two years. Prior to this directive, Pacific social studies topics were not mandatory, although they were popular in schools with significant numbers of Pacific students; for example, those situated in Auckland (Siteine & Samu, 2008).

The curriculum statement did not detail what was meant by New Zealand’s “close relationships, interactions and historical links with its South Pacific neighbours” (Ministry of Education, 1997, p. 20). it was left up to interpretation by teachers in schools, as part of the process of school-based curriculum development. As a consequence, the development of social studies units that would enable New Zealand students to develop their knowledge of the Pacific region and the role of their nation within the Pacific region, as well as the contemporary identity of New Zealand as a Pacific nation itself, was heavily reliant on the kinds of curriculum decisions schools made. The official curriculum, in terms of “creating/storing and transmitting” the memories of Pacific peoples, depended on teacher knowledge and understanding.

Changes under The New Zealand Curriculum (2007)

A new curriculum document, The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) was introduced in 2007. It was the outcome of a lengthy, deliberate and purposeful review of the national curricula developments that began in 1993 and progressed over the rest of that decade. After reviewing The New Zealand Curriculum, I found a very significant difference. The two directives relating to Pacific-based topics have not carried over. Unlike the 1997 social studies curriculum statement, there are no mandatory settings or contexts for learning in social studies in the new curriculum. Rather, contexts are to be “… drawn from the past, present and future and from places within and beyond New Zealand” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 30). There are eight principles to guide school-based curriculum decision making. School curricula, for all learning areas, must be “consistent” with these principles (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 9). However, unlike The New Zealand Curriculum Framework (Ministry of Education, 1993), no specific cultural or ethnic groups are identified or highlighted, with the exception of Māori within the Treaty of Waitangi principle.

There are, however, two principles in the new school curriculum that hold interpretative value—these are cultural diversity and inclusion. The cultural diversity principle states: “The curriculum reflects New Zealand’s cultural diversity and values the histories and traditions of all its people” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 9). (An example of a Pacific topic decision such as “Pacific peoples’ migration to and settlement in New Zealand” would reflect the cultural diversity principle.)

The inclusion principle states: “The curriculum is non-sexist, non-racist, and non-discriminatory, it ensures that students’ identities, languages, abilities, and talents are recognised and affirmed and that their learning needs are addressed” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 9). Pacific topics that reflect the cultural identities of Pacific students within the school would reflect the inclusion principle. But what about the study of other Pacific nations?

I contend that for the new school curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007), topics about New Zealand’s economic, social, political and historical links with its Pacific neighbours are now totally dependent on teachers’ perceptions and beliefs about the importance and value of such knowledge for what the new curriculum describes as (i) New Zealand’s “unique identity” and (ii) the importance of facilitating students’ exploration of citizenship (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 9). The “devolution of responsibility” for topic definition and interpretation (Openshaw, Clark, Hamer, & Waitere-Ang, 2005, p. 203) to the level of the school curriculum continues—even more so now, for social studies.

I do not subscribe to the view that the inclusion of Pacific knowledge and experience is solely about Pacific voice and representation in New Zealand school curricula. There are arguably a number of robust reasons for its inclusion.

Why should Pacific knowledge be included in the official knowledge of the New Zealand school curriculum?

New Zealand has strong links with its Pacific neighbours—specifically with samoa, Niue, the Cook Islands, Tokelau, tonga and Fiji—for a number of reasons. One reason is historical colonial ties. Samoa is a former colony, gaining its independence from New Zealand in 1962. It has ongoing political ties with New Zealand via the Treaty of Friendship signed that same year. Niue, Tokelau and the Cook Islands are also former colonies. In the 1970s, New Zealand established self-governing status for each of these nations, which enables nationals from these Pacific nations to hold New Zealand citizenship (Hoadley, 1992).

From the 1950s through to the early 1970s, Pacific migrants supplied New Zealand’s manufacturing sector with much-needed unskilled and semiskilled labour. Vibrant migrant communities from Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, the Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau have become established in New Zealand (Samu, 1998). Second-and even third-generation members of these Pacific migrant communities continue to live and work in New Zealand today, with the fourth generation now coming through New Zealand schools (Anae, 2004). New Zealand’s Pacific communities maintain strong links with their homelands, as evidenced by high levels of remittances (de Raad, 2007) and flows of people (Callister & Didham, 2007) to and from the islands on short-term visits.

A second reason for New Zealand’s strong relationship with nations of the Pacific is trade and development. A journalist commented in the mid-1990s:

Despite their small size, and generally low levels of economic development the Pacific Islands generate about $1 billion of foreign currency revenue for New Zealand a year, up from only $30 million in 1970. About three-quarters of this is merchandise trade and the rest is in services such as construction, tourism, and communications. (Howie, as cited in Samu, 1998, p. 237)

Such relationships have continued into the 21st century. New Zealand plays a leading role in the Pacific Forum within which trade agreements are a regular matter for discussion. New Zealand has an international aid budget of just over $NZ400 million (0.27 percent of GNI). A significant proportion of this budget is directed into bilateral aid projects with Pacific nations such as Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and Papua New Guinea (NZAID, 2006).

The integration of Pacific peoples within New Zealand society over the past five decades (and the implications for the future of their distinctive demographic profile), and New Zealand’s political, economic and social interactions with Pacific nations, has helped to shape its national identity. New Zealand is a Pacific nation.

However, the way Pacific knowledge is taught in schools may not reflect this situation well. Dr Judith Simon’s research (1992) on the way social studies teachers taught New Zealand history demonstrated how these were often limiting and even detrimental to contemporary Māori–Pākehā relations. She found that this lack of historical knowledge (and the absence of opportunities to engage in more critical inquiries) had the worrying consequence of enabling children to “… carry a baggage of prejudices” (1992, p. 268) throughout their years of formal schooling.

I believe there is a similar risk factor in the education of New Zealand learners about Pacific peoples, places and world views—particularly if they do not have opportunities to examine events of the past in order to be critically informed about issues in the present. For example, in 2003 New Zealand’s prime minister Helen Clark made a formal apology to the government and people of samoa. To what extent did a fundamental knowledge of New Zealand colonial administration of samoa (1914– 1962) inform the debate that ensued in the media?

Other examples include the issues that periodically emerge relating to Pacific peoples in New Zealand society—such as, the dawn raids of Pacific peoples who had overstayed their short-term work permits in the 1970s; the Privy Council decision in the early 1980s regarding New Zealand citizenship for Samoans born during New Zealand colonialism; and the recent controversy about a highly contested report written by Massey University academic Dr Greg Clydesdale, which was reported by The Dominion Post as concluding that “Pacific Islanders’ crime rates, poor education and low employment are creating an underclass and a drain on the economy” (Ling, 2008, p. a1). If social studies and other social science disciplines are intended to help students “… develop the knowledge and skills to enable them to … engage critically with societal issues …” (Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 30), then in-depth studies of New Zealand’s historical interactions in the Pacific, and with Pacific peoples in New Zealand, need to feature in the school curriculum.

In addition, there is the ever-evolving complexity of Pacific peoples as a multiethnic group in New Zealand. According to Samu, Mara and Siteine (2008, p. 146) this group “… comprises different Pacific cultures and languages, including newer forms of identity [italics added] that are not necessarily tied to a specific Pacific cultural heritage”. Very popular and commercially successful expressions of identity have emerged within music, drama, film, fashion and even television. For example, the music of rappers such as Tha Feelstyle (who raps in Samoan); the annual Westfield style Pasifika fashion show; the film Sione’s Wedding (Graham, 2006) and the television cartoon series BroTown (Mitchel, 2004). Such Pacific representations arguably reflect the ever-increasing proportion of Pacific peoples who are New Zealand born and raised (Samu, 2006), and the more recent responsiveness of mainstream New Zealand society to actively consume such expressions and regard them as uniquely New Zealand (Stirling, 2006).

Encouraging teachers to include Pacific knowledge and experience in the school curriculum

Given the power that teachers have to control what is included within the “legitimate knowledge” of the school curriculum, two questions need to be explored. First, how are teachers currently including Pacific knowledge and, second, what will be effective in encouraging them to include appropriate material?

Increasing knowledge and awareness about the Pacific

One way to encourage teachers to include Pacific knowledge in social studies curricula is by increasing their knowledge and awareness of the Pacific.

In 2005, I became involved in a small-scale, ongoing research project about “… the ways in which Pacific peoples and their knowledge is represented” in social studies (Siteine & Samu, 2008, p. 6). We established that there were low levels of teacher knowledge and confidence about the Pacific and that this was an important reason for the avoidance of Pacific topics by some teachers. We also found that some teachers perceived Pacific topics within social studies as playing a significant role in helping Pacific students understand their Pacific identity, and this is what influenced their decision-making process (Siteine & Samu, 2008, p. 5).

Although this research is by no means complete, we have argued that when teachers do choose to develop Pacific topics, their perceptions of the Pacific will determine the nature of the content that students will engage with (Samu et al., 2008; Siteine & Samu, 2008). We have proposed and detailed a conceptual framework that “… allows teachers to cast a more critical lens to inform their decision making” (Siteine & Samu, 2008, p. 6) and which identifies three perspectives of the Pacific—the Oceanic perspective of the Pacific, the “Small Island” perspective of the Pacific and the Tourist Approach (Samu et al., 2008, pp. 153–154).

The first stage of our small-scale study was initiated by a pilot intervention project sponsored with a grant from the Pacific Cooperation Foundation. The Social Studies Teachers Pacific Awareness Programme had the explicit aim of increasing the knowledge and awareness of participant preservice teachers about the social, cultural, geographical and historical aspects of life in a Pacific nation. It specifically sought to influence planning practices within a Pacific-based social studies unit, by incorporating field experience in a Pacific nation. We took four preservice teachers through a series of New Zealand-based experiences and then to samoa on a field trip.

The project helped identify three important components that could address the issues related to teacher knowledge of the Pacific and small-island perspectives of the Pacific in social studies programmes. These components are: deepening teachers’ understandings of and about Pacific content; developing teachers’ personal connections with subject matter; and validating Pacific voices in resource development and programme planning.

Each of the participants expected to extend their knowledge but noted the deepening of their understanding. One participant described a sense of clarity related to his understanding of a significant historical event:

By being able to visit monuments in and around Apia, looking at the archives in the Nelson Memorial Library and physically being in the environment where the historical events took place, I feel that I have a greater overall sense of the events around the Mau movement and Black Saturday.

Participants also commented that the project helped them develop personal connections with the subject matter. Another participant referred to the way cultural context enhanced her understanding of ecotourism:

The field trip supported me in being able to make human connections … Through these human connections I was able to experience the Samoan culture, which was important because culture is not something you can understand by simply reading about it … I was able to understand a little about what feelings and knowledge, needs and wants occur which lead to people’s decisions about how the environment should be used.

Participants expressed views regarding the validity and accessibility of Pacific voices. According to one participant:

On occasion I was reminded of the different settings of New Zealand and Samoa in the Pacific, and especially how individuals in each country have their own personal world view of the world and how they make their connections and links.

As researchers, we have recognised that subsequent stages of our research require a theorising of the relationship between these components and social studies education in New Zealand (Samu & Siteine, 2006).

Making quality publications available

Another possible avenue for encouraging teachers to include Pacific knowledge is through making quality Pacific-based publications available.

At the time I was introduced to sociological, philosophical and political theories about curriculum in my master’s studies, I was involved in a textbook project for a major publishing company. As the lead writer, I could not help but “see” the textbooks as an opportunity to influence teacher choice. In other words, Pacific knowledge (written and presented from our perspective as Pacific writers) at junior secondary school level would be legitimated if teachers chose the textbooks for inclusion and use in their school social studies curriculum.

I was also of the view that the more important factors for such teacher choice would be the quality and affordability of the textbooks (and not necessarily the Pacific topics). I believed that: “In order to be ‘exceptional’ as a social studies resource, the … texts incorporated a structure and many learning activities that to date are absent in other social studies publications” (Samu, 1998, p. 216).

The textbooks came out in 1996. A prominent auckland-based social studies educator reviewed the first book of the series for New Zealand Education Review. She identified and commented on the structural and presentation strengths as a textbook—describing the “… good balance of content with learning activities”; the clear structure enabling learners to recognise “… the purpose of the information by being guided by the headings used and the continuation of the vibrant colours …” She also described the textbook as “… one of the most exciting social studies texts to appear in a long time”, one of the key reasons in her opinion being it “… models the essence of social studies teaching and learning and inclusiveness” (Cubitt, 1996, p. 19).

Since publication in 1996, each book in the series has been reprinted three times. The first book, Our People, Our Lands (Samu, Papali’i, & Carter, 1996) was re-written in Braille. The books have been purchased and used in secondary schools throughout New Zealand, and not just in schools with high percentages of Pacific students. This provides support for the assumption I made over a decade ago that high-quality, innovative, student-centred, affordable published resources with Pacific content will influence teacher choice and decision making. I deduce that publishers play a significant role in making the Pacific an option for topic selection by initiating the writing, publication and marketing of such resources.

Conclusions

New Zealand has a new national curriculum for schools. This is where the revised social studies curriculum is located as part of the social sciences learning area. Unlike the previous social studies curriculum (Ministry of Education, 1997), there are no specific directives to schools to include Pacific topics. This dislocates Pacific knowledge in terms of its potential as official knowledge. It has become completely reliant on teacher or school-based decision making.

This article has examined the main influences on teachers’ decisions to include Pacific topics in their social studies programmes since 1997 and argued that these will be the same for the revised social studies curriculum. The need for more in-depth and rigorous research is acknowledged— research that will develop insights that will have direct relevance and use for teachers’ decision making.

However, the overall conclusion of this paper is that teachers need to become more aware of their political power—to be mindful that their interpretation of curricula and subsequent selection of topics determines the official curriculum of the nation. In terms of Pacific knowledge and experience, this means that New Zealand primary and secondary schools have a major responsibility via their social studies programmes to ensure that New Zealand society remembers how and why it is a Pacific nation:

A society is what it remembers. New Zealand society should ‘remember’ that it is both Polynesian and Papalagi. (Wendt, 1985)

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The author

Tanya Wendt Samu has been a classroom teacher and a writer of resources and texts in the social sciences including social studies (New Zealand, samoa). She is currently a teacher educator (inservice, preservice) with international experience in curriculum development in the social sciences. She is a senior lecturer in the School of Critical Studies in Education (CRSTIE) and a member of the Kainga Pasifika, one of its academic groupings. CRSTIE is located within the Faculty of Education, the University of Auckland.