What Do Maori Children Think of Themselves?

In 1973 Robert Havighurst, an eminent American anthropologist and educator who had worked in New Zealand previously, spent a few months talking to New Zealand educators and visiting secondary schools in Northland. He had just completed a major study of the education of North American Indians, and suggested that it would be worthwhile comparing the opinions of themselves held by Maori and Pakeha secondary school students. He suggested it should be on a similar basis to a survey which he had supervised to study the self-concepts of Indian-American and Anglo-American students. This idea was taken up by the Maori Research Unit (Te Wahanga Maori) of NZCER. The principal researcher for the project was Mr Peter Ranby, who is currently on the staff of the Anthropology Department of the University of Auckland.