values in the new zealand curriculum - Ministry of Education

these are expressed depends on the ethnic identity of parents, family and
community, and the degree to which this ethnic identity has been instilled in their
children (Anae, 2001, p. 112).
Learning, culture and values
The middle class nature of the values, attitudes and expectations of the schooling systems
in most Western countries is well documented. The challenge for minority ethnic groups is
how to succeed when a mismatch exists between the values and priorities of the home
and those of the school. Research findings are variable about how successfully ethnic
minority groups can compete and achieve in the light of such obstacles. The social
reproduction role of schools is also prominent in the literature on school achievement and
academic success. In other words, schools efficiently reproduce the inequalities in society
rather than change them, although that process does not occur in a smooth and
uncontested manner (Mara, 1998).
The learning culture of schools, the kinds of knowledge and ways of organising and
making knowledge accessible and contestable, will communicate what is valued (content)
and how values are communicated (whole school atmosphere, the politics of school power
structures, access to resources and extra-curricula supports, favoured pedagogy and
levels of community involvement). On one level what is valued at school will be
communicated by the emphasis that schools put on certain mission values and goals,
certain subjects, and of course, the outputs of learning. (It is at this level that values as
ideals about education can be explicitly discerned). On another level, school values will be
communicated by how schools engage with learners. Here, values infuse the official and
daily functioning of schools, and as Mara’s summary makes clear, often there is a
mismatch between home and school values for ethnic minorities. Professor Konai
Thaman (1998), a Tongan, provides an example of how values are both ideals and
material to the way cultures (including those of schools) are experienced.
I define culture as the way of life of a discrete group, which includes a language, a
body of accumulated knowledge, skills, beliefs and values. I see culture as central
to the understanding of human relationships and acknowledge the fact that
members of different cultural groups have unique systems of perceiving and
organising the world around them. I also believe that the ways in which we have
Values in the New Zealand Curriculum: A Literature Review 39