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

Education, 1993). Cubey investigated Tiriti-based curriculum with a specifically
selected cross-section of early childhood community members from Wellington.
When Cubey began her research, the Ministry of Education had directed early
childhood centres to incorporate a commitment to Te Tiriti into their charter.
Cubey was interested in discovering how early childhood centres and organisations
were, during these early stages, incorporating their Tiriti policies into practice.
Questionnaires were sent to centres in the wider Wellington district. In addition,
she interviewed key personnel at three national early childhood organisations and
observed educators at work within their centres. However, by the time she had
completed her research, inclusion of Te Tiriti in charters had become voluntary,
although centres indicated they would continue to do this.
Burgess (2005) conducted a small number of face-to-face semi-structured
interviews with early childhood educators from eight Auckland centres in order to
investigate what they understood by biculturalism, and how this was reflected in
their practice. Burgess uncovered, amongst other matters, three possible ways of
perceiving biculturalism. These were about participants‟ beliefs in relation to
bicultural practices with the first group personally committed to te reo Māori me
ōna tikanga. The second group believed that as part of social justice and equity
Māori should be included as one of many ethnicities in a multicultural society. The
third group believed no culture should be valued more than another, but
incorporated aspects of biculturalism because they followed Te Whāriki in
programme planning.
In another research project, Shivnan (1999), whose methodology included
hui, interviews and participant observations, investigated seven “Māori families
within a mainstream early childhood centre, to identify what contributes to their
sense of empowerment” (p. ii). She found that having a physical environment in
which they felt comfortable and made them feel at home was important. Māori
families valued the whānau concept, with respectful and appropriate incorporation
of te reo Māori me ōna tikanga. They articulated that having staff of Māori
ethnicity was important, as that contributed to building trusting relationships as
well as making it possible for Māori children to build positive self-images.
Building on their previous individual research, Ritchie and Rau (2006b)
examined Tiriti-based curriculum particularly looking at whakawhanaungatanga,
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