supporting tiriti-based curriculum delivery in mainstream early ...

thesis, enabled the investigation of Tiriti-based curriculum to proceed. In
particular, the case studies explored how a whole team of early childhood
professionals at the same centre could implement Tiriti-based curriculum as
represented in Te Whāriki. Participants were teachers, owners, and managers of the
early childhood centres. This study used a several methodological approaches,
which were case studies, action research and appreciative inquiry, the latter two
which are critically examined and their application in this thesis reported in the first
section of this chapter.
Within this project, case study (Hancock & Algozzine, 2006; Hatch, 2002;
Yin, 2003, 2005) was a prominent tool and a range of specific methods were used.
These included observations, documentary analysis, interviews, and a corroborative
focus group. All of these, including the consideration and justification for
employment of case studies, are detailed later in this chapter because they are the
methods used within this project.
As noted earlier, the first two case studies used action research
methodology (Cardno, 2003; Davidson & Tolich, 1999; Kemmis & McTaggart,
1988; Wellington, 2000), but the third employed an appreciative inquiry approach
(Hammond, 1998; K. Walker & Carr-Stewart, 2004; Whitney & Trosten-Bloom,
2003; Yoder, 2005). The particular form of action research used in this project is
described, including the specific implementation of action research in Case Study
One and Case Study Two. The section concludes with a discussion detailing my
eventual concerns about action research. In particular, the section posits that action
research, especially with regard to Case Study One and Case Study Two,
represented a deficit approach. Such a strategy might not always be preferable in
early childhood education. It is argued, therefore, that action research was not
wholly suited to this thesis.
Having started this investigation of the implementation of Tiriti-based
curriculum with action research, my assumptions based to a large extent upon
reading about this methodology, were that data would emerge quickly in a clear
orderly fashion. To a large extent this assumption was based on the diagrams of
neat cycles depicted in texts on action research (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988). In
addition, I had expected the data collection would occur within the original time
span of 3 months which had been designated for each case. At the beginning of
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