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

this project my way of thinking was inductive which Trochim and Donnelly (2007,
p. 17) define as “bottom-up reasoning that begins with specific observations and
measures and ends up with a general conclusion or theory”.
When I discovered action research was in reality very disorganised, slow
in unfolding, and routinely messy in terms of gathering “tidy” data, I felt compelled
to rethink action research as a viable methodology. After much reflection,
including presenting my concerns to two different groups of colleagues, I was
introduced to appreciative inquiry. This became pivotal for this study.
An investigation of the benefits of using appreciative inquiry encouraged
me to shift in the third case study to this methodology. This enabled me to test the
tentative hypotheses developed in the first two case studies. In other words I
moved to incorporate deductive reasoning, which is “bottom-down reasoning that
works from the general to the more specific” (Trochim & Donnelly, 2007). I
speculated about what was happening with Tiriti-based curriculum and was able to
test these out within Case Study Three. My „hunch‟ was that when teachers
attempt to implement Tiriti-based curriculum from a deficit approach they are
hindered by negative concerns about tokenism, lack of confidence, and fear of
inadvertently infringing Māori protocol and knowledge. I theorised that working
from a positive stance and building on already successful implementations would
enhance the delivery of Tiriti-based curriculum.
Therefore, in reaction to my critique of action research being founded on a
deficit model, the first section of this chapter introduces appreciative inquiry
because I saw this to be a more appropriate approach to deploy for the third case
study. It is argued that appreciative inquiry is suited to early childhood education
because it emphasises strengths and promotes strategies for facilitating progress.
In short, I argue that appreciative inquiry, as used in this study, meant teachers
were able to build on existing successes with Tiriti-based programmes, no matter
how minimal these accomplishments might have seemed at the time.
As well as making comparisons between action research and appreciative
inquiry, this section also explains further adaptations of methodology that I made to
produce a synthesis of the two approaches. I have termed this action development
and it literally involves, as will be described, a blend of appreciative inquiry and
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