The Extent, Nature and Effectiveness of Planned Approaches in ...

Knowing that Mäori kids like team activities, people oriented, group stuff they get into thatrather than, you know, the Mäori kids don’t seem to be interested in tennis, they just don’t.If you ran a tennis workshop with John McInroe or a golf one with Tiger Woods, youwouldn’t get many Mäori kids go to it, they wouldn’t be interested. They like team activities.Similarly, the misconception that whänau and traditional values were counter productive toidentification and provision for gifted and talented Mäori students was expressed by some teachers:There is a perception that it is seen as going against a lot of Mäori traditions, we’re notstanding out, rising above everybody here, we’re all part of this big whänau group.There is a stigma attached to maybe coming to our classes [enrichment classes] if you areMäori because it means that you have to stand out as an academic rising above the massand that’s not always seen to be “the” thing to do.It seems reasonable to assume that such misconceptions will have an influence on the opportunitiesprovided for gifted and talented Mäori students.A further barrier is the non-recognition of the important influence of culture and the consequentimplications of this for providing for gifted and talented students from ethnic minority groups. This istypified in the following quote:I don’t think there’s any discrimination. We don’t particularly look at them at all as beingdifferent children. To me they’re just children. They’re all just children.A final barrier is the belief that equity issues and meeting cultural needs are not part of the brief ofgifted and talented education. For example, in two instances it was specifically stated that the schooldid not think it necessary to consider ethnic representation in their gifted programmes. As one teacherstated:To base any of our programmes within the school on that and say we must make a specialeffort because they’re Mäori , we shouldn’t be doing that.At one secondary school when questioned about the under-representation of Mäori students in giftedand talented programmes, there were objections raised by focus group members. Similarly, when oneteacher whose school provided a wide variety of enrichment classes was asked whether enrichment inte reo Mäori was offered, she replied:If they’re [parents] particularly wanting their child to learn Mäori why don’t they sendthem to kura kaupapa? That’s how I’ve felt about it.Strategies to ensure gifted and talented students from under-represented groups are identified andprovided for. This section combines the strategies mentioned to counteract under-representation andthose used to overcome identified barriers. It should be noted that while these strategies were allmentioned by teachers they did not specifically comment on their effectiveness. Strategies can becategorised into five different groups: the whole school approach; parental and communityinvolvement; identification; provisions; and equity and accommodation issues.The whole school approach. Although of benefit to gifted and talented children, these strategies focuson incorporating cultural input into the whole school programme and on supporting ethnic minoritiesin general, rather than being specifically designed to extend gifted and talented students. The strategiesmentioned were: whole school consultation with Mäori parents and the Mäori community to see whatcultural input they wanted in their children’s programme; inclusion of Mäori content in programmesacross the school; whole-class units on children’s country of origin; drawing on parents’ culturalexpertise where relevant. (The most frequently mentioned strategy was asking parents to cook a247