values in the new zealand curriculum - Ministry of Education

loss of Pasifika cultures. The following sets of assumptions need to be continually
checked and critiqued when thinking about the contexts in which values of and about
Pacific peoples are asserted:
• Island identities may become lost by the fourth generation; what is actually
being lost is a static, traditional culture embodied in grandparents who were
born in the islands;
• A formal education may supersede island values and beliefs;
• New Zealand-born may take on values and beliefs of their non-Samoan
cosmopolitan counterparts;
• New Zealand-born may marry outside of their own ethnic group;
• New Zealand-born may be totally incompetent in their island tongue and thus
opt out of island rituals;
• New Zealand-born may have become upwardly mobile at the expense of their
island cultures;
• International movements erode the centeredness of an island identity; and
• Geographical dispersal may break the bonds of a central geographic locality
associated with belonging (pp. 105-106).
Anae provides counterpoints to these assumptions. Specifically she argues that culture is
an ongoing dynamic, and does not stop at some fixed point in time or place. Change does
not imply loss, rather a reformulation of identities set against the impacts of the above
changes and the history of colonialism, assimilation and/or homogenization of Pacific
Islanders. The implications for the quality of education participation of Pacific peoples are
that educators must be critically aware of their own cultural biases and how the New
Zealand educational structures may enforce such homogenizing and alienating tendencies
for Pacific learners. This is especially important as New Zealand born and raised Pacific
learners in New Zealand schools are set to increase over the next fifty years. Pasikale
(1999, cited in Coxon et al., 2002) identified three identity profiles, based on the extent that
Pacific youth identify with cultural traditions of their parents and grandparents as
traditional, New Zealand blend, and New Zealand made. Her comments are crucial when
considering how Pacific values can be incorporated into educational practices and
structures that are meaningful for a growing range of Pasifika youth without reducing what
Values in the New Zealand Curriculum: A Literature Review 35