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Teachers' perceptions of the epistemic interface between indigeneity and technology in the Cook Islands

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Teachers' perceptions of the epistemic interface between indigeneity and technology in the Cook Islands

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Content Running Head: EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 1

TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE EPISTEMIC INTERFACE BETWEEN INDIGENEITY
AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE COOK ISLANDS

by

Cristina Tomie Stephany

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

December 2017

Copyright 2017 Cristina Tomie Stephany
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 2

Dedication
Nick, Joe, Keiko, Mom and Dad. You are the five people that have always been there
for me. I can’t tell you what each of you mean to me, but I will try, just a bit.
To Nick, thank you for understanding how important this was to me. Ever since I was
pregnant with Keiko and happened to read one of your papers when you were in the program,
you’ve always supported me in doing this. It was never practical for our family. It was never
about getting a job or reaching a higher salary, and you’ve always respected that. We may be
different, but we are best friends, and most importantly we share the same values. I can’t think
of a better way to spend the day than sitting next to you, even if you are annoying. J
Thank you, Joe, the sweetest boy I know. I am still working on being as kind and
understanding as you have been, these past three years. In all the many and varied things that
you accomplish, I am most proud of how you treat others.
Thank you, Keiko for always making my life fun and entertaining, even when I’ve had to
do my “disser-ruin-tation.” You were five when I started and now you are eight. Ever since you
were born you have been both young and old. I feel like our adventures together in books and in
real life are just beginning. We have so much to do with Dad and Joe!
Finally, to my parents, now Bachan and Jichan with nine grandchildren. I could never
have done this without you. Mom, you are the best person I know. You sacrifice everything and
have more compassion for people than seems humanly possible. Dad, you are the most generous
person that I have met. I will always remember not to lie, and never to think that I’ve done
something that someone else can’t do. I’ve learned from both of you that if you pretend, you
don’t really care. So I’m working on showing I really do care as much as you do.
This dissertation is dedicated to all five of you. I love you so much!
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 3

Acknowledgements
Just a short year ago, I was welcomed by Mrs. Upokoina Herrmann into the Learning and
Teaching Division. I thank Ina, and her husband John, for guiding and supporting me as I
learned about the rich, complex languages, culture, and traditions of the Cook Islands. I know I
have so much more to learn, but thank you, Ina, for all the time and energy you have given me. I
have only met one other person, my mom, with a heart as open and giving as yours. I am one of
the many people you treat as part of your family, and I will always look up to you.
I would also like to thank Dr. Jon Jonassen for choosing to come back to the Cook
Islands, instead of remaining in Hawaii. It has been such a privilege and honor to be privy to
your knowledge, listen to your stories, and have your support. Thank you for your time,
company, and guidance.
In addition, I give thanks to Dr. Teina Rongo and my fellow advisors at the Ministry of
Education, especially my manager Mr. Strickland Upu. The time that you have offered to listen
and provide feedback has helped me better understand the implications of my study. Your time
has been greatly appreciated.
To the Cook Islands National Research Committee and the Aitutaki Island Council, I am
honored to have had the opportunity to research in one of the most beautiful places in the world
with some of the most beautiful people I have ever met. Thank you for approving my study, and
deeming it a worthwhile endeavor. The trust that I have earned from some here means so very
much to me and always will.
And, to the teachers who participated in this study, I am incredibly grateful for your trust.
Thank you for giving freely of your time and believing in the importance of your voice. As
teachers and people, we may be very different, yet all of our voices matter and help us to better
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 4

understand others and ourselves. While interviewing you, there were what I can only describe as
magical moments, moments when I knew that I had discovered something not only for my study,
but for myself, to view the world in a different way. I have learned so very much from each and
every one of you.
Yet, this dissertation is a culmination of 3 years of learning as a USC student. I have had
the honor of learning from my dissertation committee members, Dr. Artineh Samkian and Dr.
Anthony Maddox. Dr. Samkian, thank you for truly modeling what it means to be a great
teacher. To be challenging and encouraging, demanding and caring, it’s tough to balance, but
you were able to do it. And, Dr. Maddox, thank you for making me see the wicked design of
teaching. I will always value being your TEMS apprentice and having the opportunity to witness
your largeness of character.
Last, but most importantly, thank you, Dr. Julie Slayton for caring enough to support a
student who moved to another country and had to start over. I can’t think of a harder working,
more dedicated person than you. It takes people like you to ask the tough questions that we need
to answer, before we can consider change for the better. No one has expected more of me than
you. So, thank you for believing in me to do more and do it better. I think about what I
wouldn’t know, and what I wouldn’t be able to see, if I hadn’t been your student. That is why I
am incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from and with you. It has been such a
privilege and honor to have you as my dissertation chair.
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 5

Table of Contents
List of Tables 9
List of Figures 10
Abstract 11
Chapter One: Overview of the Study 12
Background of the Problem 16
Indigenous Knowledge 16
Definitions of Indigenous Education 17
History of Indigenous Education in the Pacific Islands 18
Cook Islands Context 19
Social Demographics 20
Economics 20
History of Cook Islands Education 22
Cook Islands Education System 24
Teacher Workforce 26
Curriculum Framework 27
Current and Future Vision 30
Statement of the Problem 34
Purpose of the Study 35
Significance of the Study 36
Organization of the Study 38
Chapter Two: Literature Review 39
Cook Islands Maori Epistemology 43
Personality and Culture 45
Kite Pakari 45
Irinaki 46
‘Akakoromaki 46
Ora 47
Rota‘i’anga 48
‘Aka‘aka 48
Noa 48
Aro’a 49
Language and Culture 49
Economics and Culture 50
Landownership 51
Corporate Culture 51
Kaupapa Maori Epistemology 52
Koru of Maori Ethics 54
Culturalist Responses 56
Structuralist Concerns 63
Transformative Praxis 65
Hybrid Space 68
Social Constructivism and Sociocultural Theory 69
Third Space 70
Funds of Knowledge 73
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 6

Knowledge Interfaces 75
Culturally Based Education 81
CBE Definition 82
CBE Pedagogy 83
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 85
Culturally Sustaining and Revitalizing Pedagogy 87
CBE and Kaupapa Maori Epistemology 90
Place Based Education 92
PBE Definition 93
Liberal PBE 95
Critical PBE 96
Indigenous PBE 98
ICTs and Indigenous Education 100
Literacy, Globalization, and Power 101
New Zealand Maori Epistemology and Technology 103
Blending Paradigms and ICTs 105
Cultural Sustainability and ICTs 107
Critical Perspectives of ICTs 111
Teachers’ Cultural Perceptions of ICTs 115
Conclusion 117
Conceptual Framework 118
Assumptions and Expectations 119
Epistemic ICT Integration Continuum 120
Situation of Perceptions of ICT Integration 121
Epistemological Positioning 121
Sociopolitical and Socioeconomic Stances 122
Pedagogical Approaches 122
Learning and Teaching 123
Continuum of ICT Integration 123
Learning and Teaching 124
Global, Neutral Tool 124
Local, Cultural Tool 124
Hybrid Space 125
Critical Space 125
Continuum as Circle 126
Summary 126
Chapter Three: Methods 128
Research Design 128
Sample Population 129
Settings 129
Participants 130
Criterion 1 132
Criterion 2 132
Criterion 3 132
Criterion 4 132
Data Collection and Instruments/Protocols 135
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 7

Interviews 135
Collection of Documents and Artifacts 137
Data Analysis 137
Limitations and Delimitations 141
Credibility and Trustworthiness 143
Ethics 147
Conclusion 148
Chapter Four: Findings 149
Finding 1: ICT as a Cultural Tool to Revitalize Indigenous Cook Islands
Language and Culture as an Extension of Subverting the Western
Paradigm 151
Lived Indigenous Cook Islands Epistemic Stance 152
Language as Identity 153
Land as Life 157
Unity and Reciprocity 160
Students as the Hope to Remake Cook Islands Society 164
Indigenous Pedagogy to Re-center 169
ICT as Cultural Tool to Revitalize Language and Culture 178
Cultural Tool 178
Epistemological Change 180
Revitalization 182
Conclusion 185
Finding 2: ICT as a Cultural Tool to Sustain and Reposition Indigenous
Cook Islands Language and Culture as of Importance Within the
Western Paradigm 185
Indigenous Cook Islands Epistemic Stance 187
Language as Identity 187
Land as Life 190
Unity and Reciprocity 192
Positioning Students in Today’s Society 195
Pedagogy to Position and Navigate 200
ICT as a Cultural Tool to Sustain Language and Culture 208
Cultural Tool 208
Repositioning Maori 210
Connecting and Sustaining 213
Conclusion 217
Finding 3: ICT as a Cultural Tool to Balance Indigenous Cook Islands
Language and Culture with Western Perspectives 218
Hybrid Stance 219
Language and Identity 219
Land as Life 222
Unity and Reciprocity 224
Adapting Students to Global Society 226
Balanced Views of Pedagogy 229
ICT as a Cultural Tool to Balance Perspectives 233
Cultural Tool 234
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 8

Western Views of ICT 236
Indigenous Views of ICT 237
Conclusion 240
Finding 4: ICT as a Neutral Tool Representing Change to be Adapted
to as Parallel to Cook Islands Language and Culture 241
Indigenous Epistemic Stance 242
Engaging and Preparing Students in Society Today 245
Parallel Views of Pedagogy 247
ICT as a Neutral Tool Representing Change 251
Conclusion 255
Finding 5: ICT as a Neutral Tool That Engages Students in the Western
World by Providing Opportunities While Supporting Language and
Culture Learning 255
Western Stance Influenced by Indigenous Epistemology 256
Language as Identity 257
Land as Life 258
Unity and Reciprocity 258
Serving Students’ Individual Hopes and Ambitions 261
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy 263
ICT as a Neutral Tool to Individualize Learning 268
Neutral Tool 268
Supporting Language and Culture 270
Westernized Views 272
Conclusion 274
Finding 6: ICT as a Neutral Tool That Engages Students in the Western
World Through Preparation for the Workforce 275
Western Epistemic Stance 276
Preparing Students for the Workforce 278
All Students Learn the Same 280
ICT as Neutral Tool for Job Readiness 282
Conclusion 287
Summary 287
Chapter Five: Discussion 291
Implications and Recommendations 296
Practice 302
Policy 304
Research 308
Conclusions 309
References 311
Appendix A: Individual Interview Protocol 328
Appendix B: Pre-Screening Protocol 331
Appendix C: Consent Form 332
Appendix D: Letter of Acceptance 334
Appendix E: Permit for Research 335
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 9

List of Tables
Table 1: Resident population by ethnic origin. From MFEM (2015) 20
Table 2: Schools in the Cook Islands. From CIMOE (2016) 25
Table 3: Participant sample by island and school 131
Table 4: Summary of teachers’ background information per finding 292
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 10

List of Figures
Figure 1: Sectors of employment. From MFEM (2015) 21
Figure 2: Map of schools in the Cook Islands. From CIMOE (2016) 25
Figure 3: The tree of learning. From CIMOE (2002) 28
Figure 4: Levels of achievement, class, and year bands. From CIMOE (2002) 30
Figure 5: Conceptual map. From Pardo et al. (2015) 62
Figure 6: Epistemic ICT integration continuum – conceptual framework 120
Figure 7: EMP focus areas. From CIMOE (2008) 297
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 11

Abstract
Externally constructed change initiatives within Indigenous contexts, such as information
communication technology (ICT) integration, require careful consideration before
implementation. This study analyzed the intersection between Indigenous epistemology, culture
based education, place based education and ICT integration. The purpose of this study was to
examine how teachers within the Cook Islands made meaning of teaching with technology. In
particular, this study investigated teachers’ perceptions of the role of technology to sustain,
share, and connect with Indigenous Cook Islands language and culture and/or engage with the
Western world. Within this qualitative study, analysis of interview data from 21 teachers on the
islands of Rarotonga and Aitutaki yielded findings that represented a continuum. Findings
showed that teachers’ Indigenous, hybrid, or Western epistemic stance mediated their
perceptions of ICT. In addition, teachers’ beliefs about the purpose of education emerged in
their perceptions. The range of findings indicated that teachers located within an Indigenous
stance articulated tensions in power, knowledge systems, equity, sociopolitical and
socioeconomic stance, as well as the intersection of culture and pedagogy within their
perceptions of ICT. In contrast, as teachers were positioned closer to a Western epistemic
stance, they progressively did not perceive these tensions. From an Indigenous perspective,
teachers expressed the complexity of grounding students in a Cook Islands Maori identity in a
system that supported change initiatives envisioned from foreign perspectives. This study offers
an awareness and understanding of the complex issues and possibilities of ICT initiatives within
the unique context of the Cook Islands.
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 12

CHAPTER ONE: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
Reform movements in education have heralded change as progress (Hargreaves &
Shirley, 2009). Yet, authors have questioned the use of the term “change” to describe
improvement in education. Elmore (2002) contends, “Improvement is a discipline, a practice
that requires focus, knowledge, persistence and consistency over time” (p. 13). Thus, for
Elmore, “change” is an overused and under-defined term that is regarded as positive even when
the change yields no discernable improvement in schools. Educational initiatives sweep through
school systems and are addictively imbued without thought toward the moral purpose and
sustainability of the reform (Hargreaves & Shirley, 2009).
Mehta (2013) offers further understanding of the flawed nature of “change” initiatives.
He asserts that the history of American educational institutions has set the path of the education
system to be highly dependent on bureaucratic levers. Top down approaches to educational
reform that focus on control fail, since improvement requires systemic efforts, which include the
voice and contribution of different parties through shared outcomes (Mehta, 2013). Mehta
contends that a spiraling upward approach through the codification of a knowledge base that is
heuristic in nature could inform the “complex, interactive, context-dependent, and value-
conflicted enterprise” of learning and teaching (p. 481).
From an Indigenous education lens, the term “change” takes on new complexities.
According to Bowers (2008), change, defined as an inherently progressive force, is the construct
of Western philosophers and relies on abstractions to induce improvement. This Western
approach makes the assumption that what came before, the intersections of intergenerational
knowledge, tradition, and patterns of social interactions, is somehow not relevant to forward
movement. The construct of change as progression is rooted in histories of colonization that
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 13

have positioned Eurocentric or Western knowledge systems in dominant opposition to
Indigenous knowledges (Battiste & Youngblood, 2009). Deficit thinking as a result of the
polarization of these knowledge systems has hindered progression through a lack of
collaboration and contestation of differing values and beliefs (Bhabha, 1994). Bowers (2008)
argues for progressive reform movements to include conservatism as a means to mitigate
“change” as another form of hegemony. From Bowers’ perspective, conservation involves
possessing an awareness of the ecological importance of intergenerational knowledge, skills, and
patterns of interactions that embody traditions.
The development of information communication technology (ICT) and Internet services
since the 1990s have revised communication strategies and actuated governments to infuse ICTs
within the social and economic fabric of both industrial and developing countries (Souter et al.,
2010). These global initiatives have filtered into education sectors around the world to prepare
students for our new technological society built upon the exchange of information (Zhao, 2012).
ICTs are a characteristic of change initiatives in schools that serve Indigenous populations and
stem from the rhetoric around globalization, 21
st
century learning, and sustainable development
(Clothey, 2015). Although the integration of ICTs in learning and teaching have great potential,
the uptake of these tools has consequences in addition to benefits, especially for places with
Indigenous languages and cultures at risk of disappearing (Clothey, 2015; Dyson, 2004).
Uptake of ICTs within the classroom is situated within the conversation around teachers’
epistemic stances: what can be known, how to know it, and why it is of value (Horn & Kane,
2015). Labaree (1997) argues that problems in education are fundamentally political, since
issues arise from choice-making rather than technical problems. To some extent, education
systems struggle with contradictory social and political contexts that give rise to contradictory
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 14

purposes of education. If socio-political and socioeconomic forces frame education, teaching is
an extension of those factors and grounded in an individual’s cultural ways of knowing and
doing. Thus, teaching with ICTs can be enacted from different epistemic stances, and those
stances have negative and positive consequences for students and their communities. The use of
ICTs in education systems that serve Indigenous populations requires careful thought and
consideration, since “change” through the use of ICTs can become an external imposition upon
classroom practice grounded within Indigenous knowledge. As an external imposition, rather
than an initiative generated from contextualized problems of practice, ICT integration can result
in a loss of the values and interactions that shape Indigenous cultures.
In Indigenous communities, knowledge is not abstract or gleaned from written texts;
knowledge is active, situated within systems of interactions, between the animate and inanimate,
across generations (Brayboy & Maughan, 2009). Yet, local Indigenous knowledge systems can
be overlooked, since education is a political act tied to changes in global economic and social
landscapes (Brayboy & Maughan, 2009). Broader socioeconomic and sociopolitical contexts
incite change initiatives to be implemented in localities. External, abstract, global initiatives
often fail to consider and integrate the intergenerational knowledge of Indigenous populations
within education systems (Bowers, 2008). By seeking to understand Indigenous contexts
through thick description, educators can begin to cultivate a deep understanding of cultures, and
thus begin improvement processes (Bowers, 2008). Thick description within Indigenous
communities must be narrated by those who live the knowledge (Bhabha, 1994). Within thick
description is the foundation of knowledge to be understood, valued, and conserved, before
implementing new initiatives.
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 15

Within the Cook Islands, these ideas surface within the education system. The Cook
Islands education community serves Indigenous Cook Islanders, part Cook Islanders, and
persons of foreign descent (MFEM, 2011). As the Cook Islands education community continues
to develop ICT infrastructure, educators within this context, where multiple discourses collide,
must wrestle with the loss and gain in pursuing new pathways in learning and teaching. As a
unique place, the Cook Islands require homegrown initiatives to facilitate educational
improvement for local youth. In particular, the Cook Islands are a place where literacy, an
already complex construct, becomes even more complex with the existence of two languages and
dialects of Maori blended with an English-speaking society (Crocombe & Crocombe, 2003).
Furthermore, the Cook Islands are a place where past cultures and traditions interface and
develop with modern ideals. Thus, the Cook Islands education community faces challenges in
navigating new and uniquely situated pathways for student learning.
The purpose of this study was to discover how teachers, in the environment of the Cook
Islands shaped by the blending of Indigenous and Western knowledge systems, made meaning of
technology integration. In a sense, this study offered teachers the “right to narrate” their belief
systems (Bhabha, 1994), approaches to teaching, and epistemic stances in regards to
contextualizing the use of technology in their classrooms. From a global perspective, the “digital
divide” narrative points to meaningful technology integration as the great equalizer (Gruenewald
& Smith, 2008); yet, this study interrogated the meaning of equality in ICT integration and
sought to expose the ecological complexity of global changes upon individuals situated in a
unique local context.
In the remainder of this chapter, I set the context of this study by discussing the
background of Indigenous knowledge systems, and the intersection of Cook Islands education
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 16

with ICT initiatives. I then present the purpose, research questions, significance, and
organization of the study.
Background of the Problem
According to Battiste and Youngblood (2009), the animation of Indigenous knowledge in
teaching and learning is a growing field of inquiry for educational innovators and problem-
solvers. As Indigenous knowledge academics reveal the richness of Indigenous languages,
experiences, and worldviews, the potential to transform learning for underserved populations is
promising. Yet, epistemological barriers exist that institutionalize thinking in contemporary
schools across the globe. Throughout history, Eurocentric or Western knowledge systems have
been positioned in dominant opposition to Indigenous knowledges (Battiste & Youngblood,
2009). Thus, the introduction of global ICT initiatives within unique contexts such as the Cook
Islands, where there was tension between Western and Indigenous ways of knowing and doing,
required careful understanding of teachers’ perceptions of uptake. The context of this study
includes a discussion of Indigenous knowledge, the Cook Islands context and education system,
and global perspectives of ICTs in education.
Indigenous Knowledge
Since Indigenous knowledge has been constructed as the subordinate other to Western
knowledge, Eurocentric worldviews have been associated with progress and are privileged in
education systems around the globe (Battiste & Youngblood, 2009). Yet, Battiste and
Youngblood (2009) claim that Indigenous scholars and professionals are cultivating a
renaissance of Indigenous epistemology through the deconstruction of traditional Eurocentric
views. The value of Indigenous knowledge continues to grow on a global scale as the
consequences of globalization emerge within local contexts. In the understanding that sustaining
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 17

Indigenous cultural and linguistic practices requires systemic development, youth education is a
key focus of the renaissance (Battiste & Youngblood, 2009)
Definitions of Indigenous education. According to Jacob, Cheng, and Porter (2015), to
understand this field of inquiry, the terms, Indigenous, Indigeneity, and Indigenous education
must be defined as foundational knowledge. Jacob et al. (2015) define Indigenous as “that which
is local, original, or native to a geographic region,” which broadly includes plants, animals, and
peoples (p. 2). Indigeneity is a much more complex “concept that extends the significance and
power of identifying oneself as an agent of continuity and change” (p. 2). Indigeneity includes
the cultures, identities, knowledge systems, and technologies of Indigenous peoples, as well as
the Indigenous rights and norms associated with political membership within communities.
Lastly, Jacob et al. (2015) define Indigenous education as “the path and process whereby
individuals gain knowledge and meaning from their indigenous heritages” (p. 3). Through
Indigenous education, knowledge is constructed, acquired, and adapted, as well as shared and
reshaped across generations and geography.
Harris and Wasilewski (2004) expand upon the concept of Indigeneity as a broader
contribution to global discourse around Indigenous peoples. From a Native American and New
Zealand Maori perspective, the authors define four values that they believe sit at the core of
Indigenous societies: relationship to all things, responsibility to relatives, reciprocity or the
cyclical nature of life, and redistribution or balance of relationships. Although framed by two
Indigenous perspectives, Harris and Wasilewski (2004) state that the four core values also cross
generations, geography, and tribe. While important as concepts, these values also represent
action within dialogic, present spaces that guide future pathways. Thus, Harris and Wasilewski
(2004) further define Indigeneity as a dynamic spiral forward that is inclusive of relationships
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 18

and worldviews across society, sectors, geographic boundaries, and generations. Foundational to
this spiral is the ancient dialogic “social technology” that signifies democratic participation
within the discussions that facilitate optimal, mutual learning opportunities.
History of Indigenous education in the Pacific Islands. Throughout history,
Indigenous communities have not been included in constructing formalized education systems
(Hermes, Bang, & Marin, 2012). Indigenous peoples first came together during prehistoric times
to form intentional sustainable communities with systems of education that were previously
unrecognized by Westerners (Jacob et al., 2015). More specifically, Scaglion (2015) offers a
general understanding of the history of Indigenous education within the Pacific region.
According to Scaglion (2015), the Pacific Ocean constitutes the world’s largest
geographic feature, and the settling of the entire region is one of humanity’s greatest
accomplishments. The Indigenous systems of knowledge such as seafaring and navigation
enabled this achievement, and education preceded and supported it. Scaglion (2015) contends
that Indigenous education to support island social systems was informal and community
oriented. Education was available to all through the participation in daily activities, yet
specialized knowledge was kept secret and passed down through apprenticeship models.
European missionaries were the first to bring formal education to the islands, which was
followed by colonial governments.
According to Scaglion (2015), as a result of the intersection of two divergent agendas for
education, questions regarding language, spiritual, moral, practical, academic, local and
standardized instruction arose. He claims that over 35,000 years of isolation across Pacific
Islands developed an astounding number of languages and cultures. With language barriers in
place, missionaries and colonial governments focused on gaining power through chiefs to
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 19

support the development of colonizing projects such as formal school systems. Scaglion (2015)
contends that the Western school system removed children from participating in village activities
and diminished the teaching of specialized knowledge to future generations. Yet, he claims,
“The resurgence of Polynesian long distance voyaging using traditional ecological knowledge,
and contemporary studies of local medicinal plants and their usages are all examples of new
trends to recapture some of what was lost and preserve what remains” (p. 286).
Cook Islands Context
The Cook Islands Ministry of Education’s (CIMOE) Education for All (EFA) report
(2014) provides the context within which the education system was situated at the time of the
study. The Cook Islands consist of 15 islands scattered over some 2 million square kilometers of
the Pacific Ocean. The islands lie in the center of the Polynesian Triangle, with Niue and Samoa
on the west and Tahiti and the islands of French Polynesia to the east. The Islands are divided
into the Northern and Southern group, with a total population of approximately 14,000 during the
collection of census data.
The island of Rarotonga, which sits within the Southern group is considered separate
from the rest of the islands, or Pa Enua (outer islands). Rarotonga holds the majority of the
population, tourism industry, and government administration. The Southern group consists of
seven islands, all located within 200-300 kilometers from Rarotonga. The Northern group
consists of Palmerston Island, 500 kilometers from Rarotonga, and six other islands between
1000 and 1400 kilometers from the population center. The following statistics show the
breakdown of the population: 58.6% of the population resided on Rarotonga, 28.39% resided in
the Southern group, 12.85% resided in the Northern group.
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 20

Social demographics. According to the Cook Islands Ministry of Finance and
Economics Management’s (MFEM) (2011) census data, almost all of the resident population,
81% or 12,180 persons, identified themselves as Cook Islands Maori. Seven percent or 1,005
persons identified as part Cook Islands Maori, and 12% identified as foreign descent. The bulk
of those persons of foreign descent identified themselves as New Zealand European. Table 1
shows the breakdown of ethnicities by island. Most persons of foreign descent resided on
Rarotonga, while the proportion of Cook Islands Maori and part Cook Islanders was 96% on the
outer islands (MFEM, 2011). Ethnicity rather than place of birth was used to estimate foreign-
born population, since all Cook Islanders have New Zealand nationality, and many Cook
Islanders were born in New Zealand (MFEM, 2015).
Table 1.
Resident Population by Ethnic Origin
Region/Islands
Cook Islands Maori Part Cook Island Maori Other Ethnic Origin
2001 2006 2011 2001 2006 2011 2001 2006 2011
Rarotonga 7,886 8,146 8,060 676 891 873 862 1,189 1,639
Southern Group 3,550 3,477 3,061 143 126 113 84 128 116
Northern Group 1,702 1,309 1,059 52 28 19 35 32 34
COOK ISLANDS 13,138 12,932 12,180 871 1,045 1,005 981 1,349 1,789

In 2011, the MFEM’s census data showed that 55% of the total resident population lived
in the same place where they were born. On Rarotonga, over 50% of the residents were born on
Rarotonga, 31% were born overseas, 13% were born in the Southern Group islands, and 4% in
the Northern group. These statistics communicated the transience of Cook Islanders across
islands and abroad.
Economics. Cook Islanders possessing access to the New Zealand and Australian job
markets had led to a decline in population. As a result, labor shortages were often filled by
foreign workers. In 2011, there were around 1,500 foreigners aged 15 or above living in the
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 21

Cook Islands (MFEM, 2015). The following census data showed a more specific picture of the
foreign worker population, which provided a clearer understanding of the international
community within the Cook Islands:
About 16 percent of the labor force are foreigners residing in the Cook Islands. Most of
these are from New Zealand (365 people; or 6% of the employed), Fiji (303; 4%), the
Philippines (158; 2%), other Pacific islands (French Polynesia, Kiribati, Niue, Samoa,
Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Tonga, and Vanuatu) (90; 1%) or Australia (59; 1%). (MFEM,
2015, p. 16)
During the time of the study in the Cook Islands, two thirds of the jobs were provided by
the private sector, roughly one third of the jobs were in the public sector, and a small percentage
of jobs were provided by other civil society organizations (MFEM, 2015). Figure 1 shows the
breakdown of employment in both the private and public sectors, offering a snapshot of the
economic activity within the Cook Islands.

Figure 1. Sectors of employment, by number and sex of those employed as main activity, Cook
Islands, 2011. From “Economic Activity and Labour Force: Analysis of the 2011 Population and
Housing Census” by Cook Islands Ministry of Finance and Economic Management, 2015, p. 23.

According to the analysis of 2011 census data, almost two thirds (72%) of the 4,370
households across the country were engaged in agricultural activity, while 63% grew produce
mainly for subsistence (own consumption) purposes (MFEM, 2016). Approximately one third of
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 22

households engaged in fishing activities across the country. In the Southern and Northern
Groups, agricultural and fishing activities for subsistence were more common due to the high
cost of importing goods.
History of Cook Islands Education
Vai’imene (2003) explains the history of formal schooling within the Cook Islands.
Without influence from foreigners, Polynesians occupied the islands for 1000 years and learned
by watching, listening, and doing with others. In the 1820s, the London Missionary Society
introduced formal schooling, which was accepted by Cook Islands leaders. With the
missionaries’ arrival, Vai’imene (2003) claims that the purpose of education materialized as the
preparation for living in the world, not only island life. The missionaries gave converts the
opportunity to learn to read and write in Cook Islands Maori, and by the 1880s almost all
children were able to do so. As families converted to Christianity, elements of culture such as
tattooing, dancing, and marital relations were suppressed.
Supporting Scaglion’s (2015) analysis of the historical patterns within the Pacific, in
1888, the Cook Islands became a British Protectorate. The first British resident, Frederick Moss,
introduced a Public Schools Act in the belief that education based in English would promote
democracy and economic development (Vai’imene, 2003). Thus, government schools were not
to teach Maori language, and in 1895, the London Missionary Society opened Tereora College to
support this initiative towards higher education. Vai’imene (2003) asserts that during this time
“Cook Islands culture was treated as something for the home, and probably something to be
‘overcome’ with ‘progress’ and ‘development’” (p. 170).
When the Cook Islands were annexed to New Zealand in 1901, the new Resident
Commissioner, Colonel Gudgeon left education matters to the London Missionary Society. In
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 23

1915 New Zealand passed the Cook Islands Act, which shifted educational decision-making to
administrators in Wellington, confusing the purpose of education in the Cook Islands
(Vai’imene, 2003). For the first half of the 1900s, New Zealand Maori ministers controlled the
education sector. According to Vai’imene (2003), the development of New Zealand models of
education within the Cook Islands coincided with emigration of parents in the 1940s to provide
educational opportunities for their children. As a response to this phenomenon, in 1955, Tereora
College reopened as a state school staffed by New Zealand teachers. Pa Enua or outer islands
children were selected via a quota system to attend the College, and students, as well as whole
families, moved to Rarotonga. Scholarship systems sent children to church schools, but also
secular colleges, universities, and tertiary training in New Zealand with the objective of those
students returning as leaders within the Cook Islands community. Through these selection
processes, fluency in English was subconsciously held in high esteem and linked to modern
rather than traditional culture (Vai’imene, 2003). Increased migration from the outer islands for
students to attend Tereora resulted in the placement of expatriate teachers within schools in the
Southern group. Ironically, the foreign influence may have contributed to further migration
(Vai’imene, 2003). In contrast, the Northern group of outer islands with few foreign influences
retained more traditional culture.
Vai’imene (2003) explains that when the Cook Islands became self-governing in 1965,
English was still the language of instruction with the speaking of Maori as a punishable offense
in schools. In the early 1970s, a Cook Islands Education Policy Statement was published by the
Ministry of Health and Education (combined at the time), which stated that the purpose of
education was to meet the needs, resources and environment of the Cook Islands. In particular,
Vai’imene (2003) claims that the policy focused on the following: promotion of bilingualism,
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 24

pre-schools and compulsory education starting at age 5, extension of secondary education,
upgrading and expanding of curricula in all areas, the introduction of Cook Islands school
certificates, interschool cultural and sports competitions, and the upscaling of professional
training. In the years up until the 1980s, funding and the drive to provide meaningful education
for all shifted discussions toward the development of Cook Islands Maori language and culture
(Vai’imene, 2003).
Vai’imene (2003) states that access to and advancements in technology, coupled with
tourism shifted previous educational advancements in culturally sustaining practices. First video
and television in the 1980s and then computing and telecommunications in the 1990s entered
into Cook Islands society. Policy reports on education were commissioned calling for a range of
changes including language and culture instruction. The 1990s saw rapid economic growth
abroad, high rates of Cook Islanders leaving the country, and an increase in non-Cook Islanders
entering the country. Throughout these shifts, Vai’imene contends that the informal Indigenous
education instilled by grandparents within their grandchildren through conversations and
practices within the home or church was interrupted by the introduction of ICT such as
television.
Cook Islands Education System
During the time of the study, the Cook Islands education system consisted of the
following 31 education providers: 11 primary schools (10 of which had early childhood
education centers (ECE) attached), 4 secondary schools, 14 area schools that provided education
from ECE through the secondary level on one site and management structure, and a tertiary
institute that provided alternate pathways of education. Figure 2 offers a visual of the geographic
location of these schools, while Table 2 details the schools in the Cook Islands by region, island,
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 25

status, and education level. The Cook Islands’ structural, geographic, and demographic
constraints had an impact on schools, especially the Northern group, since resourcing the islands
was costly.
Figure 2. Map of schools in the Cook Islands. From “Ministry of Education Statistics Report”
by Cook Islands Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 6.

Table 2
Schools in the Cook Islands–By region, island, status and education level

Note: From “Ministry of Education Statistics Report” by Cook Islands Ministry of Education, 2016, p. 32.
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 26

In the CIMOE’s (2016) Statistics Report, 4,071 students were enrolled in school served
by a total of 264 teachers. The following numbers of students showed the enrollments in
primary education by region: 1,858 nationally, 1,270 on Rarotonga, 429 in the Southern Group,
159 in the Northern Group. The following numbers of students showed the enrollments of
secondary education by region: 1,685 nationally, 1,201 on Rarotonga, 344 in the Southern
Group, and 140 in the Northern Group. Although each classroom varied, the CIMOE (2016)
offered the number of teachers and students within each level of education to provide an
understanding of the national averages for class size ratios. Within the ECE classrooms
typically, 32 teachers served 528 students, resulting in a 1:17 student to teacher ratio. Within the
primary classrooms, 107 teachers served 1,858 students, resulting in a 1:17 ratio. Lastly, 125
teachers served 1,685 students in secondary classrooms, resulting in a 1:13 ratio. Approximately
202 students in the Cook Islands received learning and remedial support from 31 student support
aides and 20 school support staff.
All schools had a school committee or PTA, which played an important role in
conjunction with the principal and staff in strategic planning, policy formulation, review and
endorsement of policies, and fundraising (CIMOE, 2016).
Teacher workforce. Teachers in the Cook Islands were of Cook Islands descent, part
Cook Islands descent, or foreign recruits mostly from New Zealand (MFEM, 2015). Teachers
could be trained within the Cook Islands or abroad, mostly in New Zealand and Australia. In
partnership with the University of the South Pacific (USP), local teachers could work in schools
while completing their teaching certificate (CIMOE, 2016). Teachers were required to meet
minimum qualifications such as a Bachelor of Education, but they were also encouraged to
further their education through postgraduate studies in education, educational leadership, and
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 27

educational policy and planning. Furthermore, teachers could pursue a Master of Education
from USP.
Curriculum framework. In 2002, the Ministry of Education published the Cook Islands
Curriculum Framework document that established the policy for learning and assessment in
Cook Islands schools. As a framework for developing learning programs, it set principles for
teaching and learning, identified essential learning areas and skills for students, and incorporated
the values and attitudes of Cook Islands society (CIMOE, 2002). Conceptually, the framework
was represented by The Tree of Learning (Figure 3). Chosen as a symbol of the Cook Islands
people’s interconnectedness to nature, land, spiritual beliefs, and economic well-being, the Tree
was firmly rooted in local society. The roots represented the values and attitudes that needed to
be developed through schooling, beginning at the ECE level. The trunk of the tree represented
essential skills, such as literacy and numeracy across the curriculum, which contributed to the
knowledge of essential learning. The branches represented the eight essential learning areas that
were intended to provide a balanced education. Languages were positioned as the central branch
to communicate the importance of language as access to traditional cultural knowledge. From
the values of honesty (tuatua tika), integrity (tiratiratū), charity (ngakau öronga) and love
(‘inangaro) within the soil, to the values inherent in the foliage of the learning areas, the Tree
linked students to the values in the air outside the country that impacted Cook Islands society
(CIMOE, 2002). An understanding of change was inherent in the framework and was responded
to within the grounding of students in Cook Islands values and beliefs (CIMOE, 2002).
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 28

Figure 3. Cook Islands curriculum framework: The tree of learning. From “The
Cook Islands Curriculum Framework” by Cook Islands Ministry of Education,
2002, p. 3.

The Cook Islands Curriculum was upheld by the following principles:
• Fosters achievement and success for all learners.
• Reflects the unique nature of the Cook Islands including cultural and spiritual beliefs
and values.
• Recognizes the primary importance of language in the delivery of the curriculum. It
promotes the use of an effective bilingual approach.
• Encourages students to be life-long learners and to take responsibility for their own
learning.
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 29

• Promotes relevant, meaningful, and useful learning. It emphasizes the need for
students to have a broad and balanced education.
• Provides for a coherent progression of learning and enables that progress to be
measured against clearly defined achievement objectives.
• Provides the flexibility to meet the needs of individual students, local conditions, and
change.
• Recognizes the importance of an integrated approach to learning.
• Provides equity of educational opportunity, recognizing that students have different
ways of learning and learn different things at different rates.
• Recognizes the Cook Islands’ place in the wider world including its special
relationship with New Zealand and its role in the Pacific. (CIMOE, 2002, pp. 5-7)
All learning area curriculum statements were aligned to the Levels of Achievement, Class
and Year Bands (Figure 4). There were eight levels of achievement that assist teachers in
assessing students’ individual progression throughout their years of schools. These achievement
levels recognize that individual students work at a range of levels and rates. Students were
offered 13 years of school, beginning at the age of 5. Prior to age 5 students were enrolled in
ECE centers to prepare for schooling. In Figure 4, underneath the labeled years of school, were
the eight levels of achievement. To align with the New Zealand qualifications and achievement
levels, Year 7-13 was also identified as Form 1-7. It was expected that by the end of Form 4,
students were achieving at Level 5. The curriculum statements for Levels 6-8 were closely
aligned to New Zealand’s qualifications to allow for these assessments to be available for Cook
Islands students.
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 30

Figure 4. Levels of achievement, class and year bands. From “The Cook Islands
Curriculum Framework” by Cook Islands Ministry of Education, 2002, p. 27.

Current and future vision. Within the Learning for Life Cook Islands Education Master
Plan 2008-2023 (EMP), a guiding vision for education spoke to Vai’imene’s (2003) concerns
regarding the consequences of development upon the future of Indigenous Cook Islands
language and culture (CIMOE, 2008). Grounded in the Education Sector Policy Framework, the
goals of the National Sustainable Development Plan (NSDP), the Cook Islands Millennium
Development Plan, and the recommendations of the Education Sector Reviews, the EMP focused
on learning for life for all people within the Cook Islands. To introduce the EMP, John J.
Herrmann, then Secretary of Education, offered the following statement:
Strength in language, culture and nationhood will enable our people to face the
challenges of a world that is forever changing. This plan recognizes the wealth of
knowledge, skills and expertise prevalent at both the local and global level and the utmost
importance of the need to work collaboratively and collectively in partnerships at various
levels. … The challenge for all those involved in the implementation of this plan will be
to listen to each other and the wider community, to be responsive to what they hear and to
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 31

focus on the outcomes for the many learners this plan is designed to support. (CIMOE,
2008, p. 2)
Recognizing these challenges and the need to build upon existing initiatives, the EMP offered
four areas of strategic focus for Cook Islands education over the next 15 years: Taku Ipukarea
Kia Rangatira, Learning and Teaching, Learning and the Community, and Infrastructure and
Support. Taku Ipukarea Kia Rangatira focused on strengthening Maori language and culture to
ground a learner’s identity as a Cook Islander, and thus better prepare him/her for engaging with
the world (CIMOE, 2008). It was the central tenet of the EMP. The second focus was Learning
and Teaching, which offered equitable access to all learners through a range of quality programs
to meet individual needs and talents. Learning and the Community focused on increasing the
participation of parents and community members in determining quality educational outcomes.
Finally, Infrastructure and Support focused on appropriate legislation, research, guidelines, and
standards to support and enhance learning opportunities.
In 2015, the CIMOE published the Statement of Intent that outlined the priorities for the
next 5 years based on the current status of education in the Cook Islands. The first priority
focused on functional literacy (Maori and English) and numeracy outcomes as foundational
support for access to other learning areas. The second priority identified teacher quality as
essential to increasing student achievement. The third priority focused on learning environments
being student centered, resourced, and physically sound. The fourth priority focused on building
a quality tertiary education sector. The fifth priority focused on sector management to respond to
development within the changing environment, as well as inciting innovation in learning.
These priorities were connected to external organizations that had established
relationships with the Cook Islands. In particular, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 32

Cultural Organization (UNESCO) focuses on holistic policies that can address the new thinking
necessary for sustainable development in the face of uncertainty, instability, and connectivity in
our globalized world. Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are a focus for UNESCO’s World
Heritage program. Although SIDS have proven to thrive in challenging times, the multiple and
varied problems that these communities face are of particular concern to UNESCO (2016).
Within Cook Islands education, UNESCO had worked to provide basic education for all,
improved quality of teaching, and vocational training (CIMOE, 2015). UNESCO’s influence as
well as the New Zealand Ministry of Education’s influence were apparent within the priority
outcomes of the Cook Islands Ministry of Education.
Evidence of success for the first and second priority were directly linked to the New
Zealand Qualification Authority’s (NZQA) system of National Certificate of Achievement
(NCEA). NCEA is a standards-based qualification in which students gain credits by providing
evidence of their performance in criteria of a learning area/discipline (CIMOE, 2016). Evidence
is provided through external examination or internal assessment of students throughout the
school year with awards of merit or excellence resulting in qualification or credits. As evidence
of functional literacy and improved teacher quality outcomes, the Cook Islands priorities
identified an increase in NCEA literacy and numeracy outcomes, as well as an increase in
students enrolled in NCEA courses. Furthermore, UNESCO’s education for all focused on basic
skills as the foundation for learning.
According to the CIMOE (2015) Business Plan and third priority of the Statement of
Intent, ICT integration into learning programs was a new focus for the Cook Islands education
system. In the 2002 Cook Islands Curriculum Framework, technology was broadly defined as “a
planned process of applying knowledge, skills and resources to satisfy needs that arise in
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 33

everyday life” (CIMOE, p. 17). As a learning area for the Cook Islands, technology was
previously envisioned as a broad area used to prepare students for further studies in fields from
graphic design to horticulture. The specific focus on ICT integration was a new priority area for
the Cook Islands, especially with the increase in hardware purchases by school sites, as well as
the provision of unlimited Internet data in educational institutions since May of 2016.
This priority was framed by global initiatives set forth by partner organizations such as
UNESCO. UNESCO (2016) asserts that ICTs have broadened opportunities for people to
participate in society, and acknowledges the risk of advancing technologies creating a digital
divide in which those without access are excluded from sharing the advantages of new global
communication channels. Within the third priority, evidence of success for creating student
focused learning environments was identified by “school benchmarking that indicates
transformative use of ICT in learning” (CIMOE, 2015, p. 4). This connection overlapped with
the global rhetoric linking ICTs and 21
st
century skills and competencies as a cry for new and
innovative ways of combating the type of rote learning that had been prevalent in schools since
the Industrial Age (Heckman & Montera, 2009; Mehta, 2013; Partnership for 21
st
Century Skills,
2015). Within initiatives regarding the teaching of 21
st
century skills are the global recognition
that ICTs provide opportunities for learning that were not previously available in the past
(Ananiadou & Claro, 2009; Lim & Oakley, 2013).
The initiative of transforming practice through the use of technology within Cook Islands
schools was a transition for teachers as they learned to navigate the resources on hand, the
learning of the Indigenous students whom they serve, and the materialization of their values and
beliefs within their practice.

EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 34

Statement of the Problem
Educational change initiatives within Indigenous contexts, such as the integration of ICTs
within the Cook Islands, require careful thought and understanding before being undertaken.
Since ICTs are shaped by the society that created them, their use can have particular negative
and positive consequences for users, especially within Indigenous contexts (Livingstone, 2012).
The Cook Islands are a unique context, encompassing a rich, dynamic culture (Crocombe &
Crocombe, 2003). This Indigenous context speaks to the complexity of the already difficult and
contradictory nature of decision-making in regards to the purpose of education. ICT integration
in schools, like other classroom practice, is the materialization of a socio-politically and
socioeconomically framed purpose of education collectively perceived by a nation (Labaree,
1997). Labaree (1997) presents the following crucial questions that educators must consider as
they waver between choosing what purpose to enact:
Should schools present themselves as a model of our best hopes for our society and a
mechanism for remaking that society in the image of those hopes? Should schools focus
on adapting students to the needs of society as currently constructed? Or should they
focus primarily on serving the individual hopes and ambitions of their students? The way
you choose to answer this question determines the kind of goals you seek to impose on
schools. (p. 41)
Within the Cook Islands Ministry of Education’s (2015) Statement of Intent, the priority of
teachers creating modern learning environments in part through the use of ICTs can be in
competition with other priorities that focus on the cultivation of Maori language and culture.
The CIMOE’s focus on Taku Ipukarea Kia Rangatira or the grounding of Cook Islands youth
within Indigenous language and culture was fractured from the globally rooted initiative of
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 35

implementing the transformative use of ICTs in the classroom. As a predominately Western
initiative, ICT integration could have been enacted as an imposition of educational goals that
stray from the Indigenous identity, values, and epistemic stance of Cook Islanders.
As Delpit (1988) claims, liberal intentions may be good intentions, such as ICT
integration, but can often exist to perpetuate or exasperate societal inequities. Appropriate
education for children can only be devised in consultation with adults who share their culture;
thus, it “takes a very special kind of listening, listening that requires not only open eyes and ears,
but open hearts and minds” to understand how to approach teaching students of different
backgrounds (Delpit, 1988, p. 297). To contextualize ICT integration is a complex task. Steyn
et al. (2011) claim, “The appropriation (or not) of technology cannot be understood without
understanding the complex socio-psychological and cultural domains of human plurality” (p.
xxi). Teachers’ perceptions of the purpose of schooling filter into their uptake of technology in
the classroom. By listening to individual teachers’ perspectives and approaches to ICT
integration, the Cook Islands education community was better positioned to understand how
ICTs were situated in the ecological complexity of this unique, local context.
Purpose of the Study
This study explored the ways in which Cook Islands teachers made meaning of teaching
with technology. In particular, this study focused on how teachers’ epistemic positioning
influenced their perceptions of ICT to sustain, share and connect with Indigenous language and
culture and/or engage with the Western world. By offering alternate narratives of the story of
technology integration, this study raised questions for Cook Islanders to consider as ICT
infrastructure continues to be built. As access increases to the Internet and more devices are
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 36

purchased within schools, this study offered the education community more to consider when
determining the ways in which ICTs would continue to be used in schools.
The research question and two sub-questions guiding this study were:
How do teachers within the Cook Islands education community make meaning of
teaching, as they have known it, to teaching with technology?
• What role do teachers see technology integration playing in relation to sustaining,
sharing, and connecting with Indigenous Cook Islands language and culture?
• What role do teachers see technology integration playing in relation to engaging with
the Western world?
Significance of the Study
The Internet and mobile communications have revolutionized the way people access and
distribute information globally. As a result, new ways of teaching through international
collaboration and E-learning have emerged. Souter et al. (2010) claim that technology has long
played a crucial role in economic and social development, since it limits what is technically
possible and economically viable. From a broad perspective, this study addresses Selwyn and
Facer’s (2014) call for the cross pollination of ICTs among other topics in educational research:
Indeed, digital technologies are such an integral component of education that ‘the digital’
should not just be limited to those researchers who have a particular interest in
technology, media and ‘ICT’. Instead digital technology should be a broad concern for
all education researchers, regardless of specialization or background. (p. 438)
Furthermore, Schrum et al. (2015), in a collective paper that communicates teacher educators’
perspectives from several countries in regards to digital technologies and student learning, call
for researchers around the world to work together to understand the complexity of the
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 37

pedagogical affordances of current technologies. Yet within schools that serve Indigenous
populations, ICTs have added considerations beyond the scope of the classroom.
Currently, research that investigates the complexity of the intersection between
Indigenous education and ICTs is sparse. In particular, Clothey (2015) claims that further
research is needed to make ICTs a viable solution for promoting Indigenous knowledge. As in
the case of the Cook Islands, the development of ICT infrastructure is often a separate
conversation from the sustainable development of Indigenous language and culture. Yet,
“technological developments have had both positive and negative impacts on the foundation of
sustainability” (Souter et al., 2010, p. 10). The development of ICT infrastructure affects the
sustainability of Indigenous language and culture in potentially negative and positive ways. For
example, Taylor’s (2012) description of the uptake of mobile technology among Aboriginal
Australian populations shows the need for careful monitoring of education programs to mitigate
the potential harms of youth accessing the Internet. Taylor (2012) claims that the bulk of
Internet content becomes laden with Western ideologies, including materialism and
individualism, which can provide conflicting interests within Indigenous communities.
In places such as the Cook Islands, where multiple ways of knowing and doing
continually interface to shape culture, understanding the positionality of teachers toward ICT use
is important before moving forward with change initiatives. In my position as a Learning and
Teaching Advisor, I focused on supporting teachers to integrate the use of technology within
their classroom practice. Asking teachers to narrate their epistemic perceptions of technology
was grounding for my role supporting teachers in developing their practice. Thus, this study was
significant in understanding how to approach the negotiation of loss and gain when adopting
externally constructed educational reform initiatives. Through this study, awareness and
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 38

understanding of the complex issues and possibilities of ICT initiatives within this unique
context was made apparent.
Organization of the Study
In this chapter, the background, problem, research questions, purpose, and significance of
the study were introduced. Chapter Two offers an in-depth discussion of the foundation of
literature upon which the study rested. Chapter Three provides the details of the research design,
sample, population, methods, data collection process, and data analysis. Chapter Four shares the
findings that emerged from the analysis of the interview responses from 21 teachers to answer
the research questions. This chapter links the findings to the literature and conceptual
frameworks discussed in Chapter Two. Chapter Five concludes the dissertation, provides
implications of the findings, and offers recommendations for practice, policy, and research.
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 39

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
The research question and two sub-questions for this study asked:
How do teachers within the Cook Islands education community make meaning of
teaching, as they have known it, to teaching with technology?
• What role do teachers see technology integration playing in relation to sustaining,
sharing, and connecting with Indigenous Cook Islands language and culture?
• What role do teachers see technology integration playing in relation to engaging with
the Western world?
As grounding to answer these questions, I utilized an interactional, focused and broad lens to
review the literature surrounding this topic. First, I focused on Cook Islands Maori
epistemology. Then, I adjusted my focus to include Indigenous Kaupapa Maori epistemology, as
a systemic reform movement to meet the learning needs of New Zealand Maori, who have close
ties to Cook Islanders. I then looked through the broader lenses of third space, culturally based
education, and place based education to theorize how these epistemologies had been enacted, and
thus, to better understand how Cook Islands teachers would interpret this transition. Finally, I
focused on the intersection of these lenses with the use of information communication
technology (ICT) in Indigenous education.
First, I offer a discussion of Cook Islands epistemology from the perspective of those
who have lived the culture. Through these voices, I construct an understanding of Cook Islands
epistemology, which offers a direction for thinking about teachers’ perceptions of technology.
Although the Cook Islands are a place of many different and diverse perspectives, this first
section provides a starting point to envision the intersection of personality, language, and
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 40

economics in culture. As a frame for the rest of the literature review, Cook Islands epistemology
acts as the initial thought from which the rest of this literature review can be understood.
Second, I present Kaupapa Maori epistemology. Although the Maori community within
the Cook Islands is distinct from the Maori of New Zealand, New Zealand perspectives of
education have a strong influence upon the Cook Islands education system. Understanding
Kaupapa Maori epistemology enabled me to gain insight into the extent to which teachers were
grounded in this epistemology. I anticipated that the way they articulated what they believed
counted as knowledge and how that knowledge should be acquired would inform or influence
their perceptions regarding technology as an instructional tool. I then move to a discussion of
cultural studies that show how Kaupapa Maori epistemology has been enacted in school settings.
In addition, I share literature that discusses how Kaupapa Maori epistemology informs
educators’ views about the purpose of schooling. Through structuralist responses to political and
economic dominance, as well as Smith’s (2003) conception of transformative praxis, the
applications of Kaupapa Maori epistemology beyond the classroom become apparent. These
applications informed my study since education is tied to societal perceptions about the
knowledge and skills necessary to compete in the job marketplace. The lens of Kaupapa Maori
epistemology shares cultural and critical ways in which Maori in New Zealand have envisioned
what education should entail within the classroom and beyond.
Third, I extend this conversation about epistemology and what counts as knowledge by
focusing on how the intersection of knowledge systems occurs within classroom interactions. I
introduce the conceptual constructions of hybridity, third space, and funds of knowledge as
another lens to analyze teachers’ perceptions of technology integration. This lens offers a
broader understanding of how Kaupapa Maori epistemology is enacted in the classroom.
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 41

Bhaba’s (1994) contention that the polarization of cultural systems creates false binaries of
thinking frames this section. In a globalized, multicultural world, educational spaces become
poly-contextual or defined by hybridity (Gutierrez, Baquedano-Lopez, & Tejada, 2009). I
contend that the Cook Islands are aligned to definitions of hybridity as a place and a people.
Rooted in Indigenous knowledge systems that have blended with Western ideals from a history
of colonization, the Cook Islands is a place where people that have origins in a variety of
different belief systems enact multiple ways of knowing and doing. While I use hybridity as a
general term to describe the place, people, and education system of the Cook Islands, the concept
of third space is specific to the classroom. Grounded in social constructivism and sociocultural
theory, the concept of third space is generally described as the intersection between household
knowledges and school-based knowledges. Teachers create third spaces and may have different
purposes for doing so. The different ways authors have envisioned third space offered a
continuum to discover how teachers positioned themselves in regards to technology integration
in their classrooms. Furthermore, I elaborate on funds of knowledge (FoK) for students and
teachers, the familial and personal knowledge brought to the classroom, utilized to create third
space. I explain how processes of identifying and utilizing FoK in curriculum creation has
informed teachers’ perceptions about classroom practice as a means to understand how Cook
Islands teachers took up technology integration.
Fourth, I present relevant literature regarding culturally based education (CBE) as another
lens for this study, which relates to the culturalist concerns of Kaupapa Maori educators. Within
this section, I first define CBE as a general framework, and then focus on culture and teaching.
Through the lens of pedagogy, I continue the conversation from the previous section’s focus on
FoK and curriculum creation to a discussion of how to teach with students’ diverse backgrounds
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 42

in mind. Within this discussion, I traverse literature that offers a progression of understandings
of culturally based teaching as insight into the positions Cook Islands teachers may take toward
teaching with technology. I begin the discussion of CBE pedagogy with a discussion of Delpit’s
(1988) “culture of power” as a frame for the presentation of Ladson-Billings’ (1995) culturally
relevant pedagogy. I then move to Paris and Alim’s (2014) revision of culturally relevant
pedagogy as a refocus on the critical interpretations of Ladson-Billings’ work, termed culturally
sustaining pedagogy. Finally, I present the extension of culturally sustaining pedagogy to
include revitalizing Indigenous ways of knowing and doing disconnected from youth and their
communities. As a continuum, CBE pedagogy offered the lens of multiple positions from which
teachers possibly stood as they approached technology integration within the hybrid space of the
Cook Islands.
Fifth, I present a brief discussion of place-based education (PBE). PBE offers another
intersecting layer to the conversation around critical pedagogies and can be located within the
culturalist concerns of Kaupapa Maori educators. Also, I present PBE as the ecological
perspective in which CBE is situated. Framed by Seawright’s (2014) analysis, I present three
different conceptions of PBE: Liberal, Critical, and Indigenous. These different conceptions of
PBE offer another continuum to understand teachers’ positions toward ICTs and their relation to
place. Next, I also present criticisms against PBE as a critical pedagogy to shed light on the
multiple perspectives from which PBE is approached. As in the continuum offered by the
evolution of CBE, the evolution of PBE from a pedagogy to improve the structures of schooling
to a pedagogy to subvert the structures of schooling is questioned. I end this section with a
discussion of the sociopolitical and socioeconomic issues that arise when the Western world
engages with Indigenous localities to promote change initiatives. As another lens for this study,
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 43

PBE offered me a broader understanding of how teachers connect what happens in schools to the
web of interactions made apparent from the perspective of place.
Within the last body of literature, I present how the lenses of hybrid space, CBE, and
PBE intersect with ICTs through the broader lens of Indigenous education. To frame this
section, I first discuss the intersection of ICTs, literacy, globalization, and power. Then, I
discuss how ICTs intersect with New Zealand Maori epistemology to understand how
technology can be perceived differently, depending upon one’s epistemic stance. Next, I apply
the lenses of third space and CBE to a short discussion of blending Western and Indigenous
paradigms through ICT deployment and use. I then move to a discussion of how ICTs have been
conceptualized and utilized to promote cultural sustainability. Finally, I discuss studies that
focus on understanding teachers’ positions toward ICTs depending upon their epistemic and
cultural stance. Understanding how ICTs intersect with individuals’ epistemology and culture,
as well as the political and economic context of places, afforded multiple perspectives to make
meaning of teachers’ perspectives.
I conclude this chapter with the presentation of my conceptual framework, which
provided a visual of how I had made meaning of the relevant literature to this study.
Cook Islands Maori Epistemology
Philosophical stances or worldviews frame our understanding of what counts as reality or
truth (Creswell, 2014). The continuum of worldviews informed my understanding of how
teachers validated knowledge, and the grounding required for teachers to understand that
knowledge, often perceived as singular, can actually be considered plural. The positioning of
individuals upon the continuum between positivist and constructivist orientations can support or
hinder their understanding of Indigenous knowledge systems (Merriam, 2009). According to
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 44

Merriam, positivism assumes that reality exists outside the individual and is observable, stable,
and measurable. In contrast, constructivism or interpretivism positions individuals as meaning
makers. From a constructivist stance, individuals are social actors who seek understanding of the
world in which they live (Creswell, 2014). Multiple realities exist as individuals mentally
construct their worlds (Creswell, 2014). Belief in the subjective nature of knowledge positions
individuals to conceive of multiple knowledges existing simultaneously (Merriam, 2009).
Understanding that individuals have these broad, different views about what counts as
knowledge and how knowledge is constructed framed my understanding of Cook Islands
epistemology.
Thus, although I use the term “Cook Islands Maori epistemology,” I do not intend to
communicate the false assumption that there is one Cook Islands Maori epistemology, for the
Cook Islands are many different islands with different languages and different dialects of Maori.
Furthermore, each individual Cook Islander is situated within his or her own family and
community, and as a result has a different, unique view of what counts as knowledge. Within
this section, I offer a brief discussion of what has been published and can be referred to as Cook
Islands ways of knowing and doing. Yet, ways of knowing and doing are dynamic, since culture
is dynamic and tempered by the interactions between individuals, both insiders and outsiders to a
locality.
Crocombe and Crocombe (2003) offer insider perspectives to the Cook Islands living
culture. From these perspectives, I share three that communicate one broader understanding of
Cook Islands epistemology. These perspectives include the intersections of Cook Islands
personality, languages, and economics with culture. To conclude this section, I share studies that
discuss the intersection of Cook Islands culture and education. Through a glimpse of Cook
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 45

Islands Maori epistemology, I was able to frame my understanding of the relevant literature
within the context of this study. Most importantly, I was able to better understand how Cook
Islands teachers perceived the nature of knowledge. From an Indigenous Cook Islands
perspective, knowledge is intergenerational, built from a closeness to land and place,
interconnected between a web of relationships, which cannot be segregated and segmented.
Teachers’ distance or proximity to Cook Islands Maori epistemology informed my understanding
of how they viewed the role of Maori language and culture in education, which filtered into their
perceptions of ICTs.
Personality and Culture
Jonassen (2003) offers a perspective of Cook Islands Maori personality that encompasses
the traditional and fluid view of cultural character. Utilizing Kia orana, the most common
greeting in the Cook Islands, Jonassen creates an acronym for what he terms the “eight essential
interconnected and aspired pillars in Maori personality and culture” (p. 128). I share Jonassen’s
pillars as a glimpse into the ways of knowing and doing that are valued and cherished by Cook
Islanders, yet I do not intend to present these as shared or agreed upon by all of the different
islands that are identified as the Cook Islands. His perspective offered insight into the beliefs
and values that Cook Islands teachers filtered into their perceptions of ICTs.
Kite pakari. Kite pakari means wisdom of all ages, and as Jonassen (2003) claims, is
accumulated from family, tribe and village. Through various ceremonies from rites of passage to
deaths of family members, knowledge is gained in the form of understanding, common sense,
and negotiation skills. There is reciprocity in wisdom from community member to community
and a potential for gain or loss in terms of knowledge. Jonassen emphasizes the importance of
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 46

Maori language in gaining wisdom. Traditional knowledge and a deep self-awareness is
developed through knowledge of the language. Jonassen states the following:
Language competence enables a person to fully appreciate the power of oral histories,
names and places. It equips a person to respond to three crucial questions that are basic
to any legitimate claim to being Cook Islands Maori: 1. Tei’ea to’ou marae? (Where is
your sacred ground?) 2. Tei’ea to’ou maunga? (Where is your mountain?) 3. Ko’ai koe?
(Who are you?). These issues are fundamental to the identity of being a true Maori of the
land or more symbolically a personality with the appropriate culture. (p. 128)
For Cook Islanders, genealogy is tied to land. Through chants and songs, answering these
questions shows that knowledge is intergenerational, linking the past to the present, and
emphasizing the nature of identity as steeped in family unity and ancestry.
Irinaki. Irinaki means faith or trust in a higher power, and Jonassen (2003) contends that
faith is rooted in the open sea voyages, and daily, traditional lived experiences of fishing,
planting, and socializing prior to European arrival on the islands. After missionaries introduced
Christianity to the islands, faith took a religious tone in the form of laws and etiquette.
Spirituality is thus an integral part of Cook Islands epistemology, and in its modern form a blend
of traditional and Western beliefs. Jonassen explains that in most other societies faith and trust
are separate, yet in the Cook Islands faith and trust are intertwined. He claims that those with
similar religions maintain trust between one another. Thus, knowledge of truth is tied to
spirituality, not an observable, measurable reality.
‘Akakoromaki. Another pillar of Cook Islands personality is patience and long suffering
or ‘akakoromaki. Jonassen states that this aspect of personality is underscored by integrity,
responsibility, and fairness and is integrated with faith. Reviewing the thoughts of ancestors
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 47

through oral histories requires patience and endurance. One’s spirit and essence is built through
understanding oral tradition; since oral tradition holds one’s genealogy and origins, patience and
long suffering brings life.
Ora. Ora is life, and Jonassen (2003) claims that te pito ‘enua (the navel of the land)
refers to the umbilical nature of Cook Islanders’ connection between land, culture, and
personality. Sharing a verse by Puati Mata’iapo, Jonassen explains the following:
Life needs stability and that begins by knowing your land and the sacred responsibility
pertaining to it. An important part is a realization that you have inherited knowledge and
traditions pertaining to land from your ancestors and that you are responsible for their
protection and growth. (p. 133)
Thus, in traditional regard, land is not simply the provider of food or shelter; it is a living entity
that embodies ancestry and identity, communicating the knowledge of oneself.
To elaborate on Jonassen’s (2003) acknowledgement of land as life, I share Short and
Holmes (2013) discussion of the importance of land in the Cook Islands. Short and Holmes
(2013) assert the following:
Maori do not share the Western concept of animate and inanimate in the natural world.
For Maori, all things have vaerua (spiritual dimension or life force). This is in part why
Maori conceive their world in different ways from Europeans.. . . To the Maori, the land
consisted of a tapestry of customs, traditions, and connections to a kōpū (family), ngāti
(tribe), or vaka . . . The Maori maintained skills and knowledge in history and genealogy,
which they valued greatly and guarded closely and which anchored them to their lands.
(p. 25)
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Thus, Short and Holmes distinguish Cook Islands Maori perceptions of the world as inherently
different from Western perspectives and echo Jonassen’s assertion that land and life are one and
the same.
Rota‘i’anga. Jonassen’s (2003) next pillar of personality is rota‘i’anga or unity. Unity
includes good citizenship by honoring duties to family, village, and country. Unity is expressed
through genealogy and history, as expressed in other pillars, but also in mythology. For
example, Jonassen points to the mythical heroes Maui and Naea, who voyaged from Rarotonga
to the Hawaiian Islands. These myths point to the international connections embodied in the
term unity for Cook Islanders. As Jonassen explains, since a majority of Cook Islands Maori live
within New Zealand and Australia, knowledge has become transnational, a reflection of
intermarriages and extensions of extended families.
‘Aka‘aka. Jonassen (2003) states that the next pillar, ‘aka‘aka or humility, has its origins
in the protocol and expectations tied to traditional ceremonies. Yet, he continues by explaining
that humility was also reinforced by the rules and regulations of Christianity and a colonial
government. Furthermore, humility takes the form of non-aggression or silent participation in
public, while privately, open discussions ensue. Jonassen claims that humility may not always
be a positive value, yet it is a part of the broader ways of doing in the Cook Islands.
Noa. Jonassen (2003) defines noa as freedom expressed within certain boundaries. Noa
can be expressed in social behavior, competitive sports, and Cook Islands music and dancing.
Yet, Jonassen also points to knowledge of the language as necessary for expressive freedom. He
shares the following verse of wisdom to discuss his viewpoint: Kare e ‘oko ‘iana te ‘irinaki’anga,
ki te ma-rama o te tuitui pikika’a. He interprets this verse to mean “hope is free but one has to
base it on reality” (p. 137). Jonassen (2003) asserts:
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That reality includes tua ta’ito (legend) and peu tupuna (ancient custom/re-enacted
legend) for they cannot be eliminated from being woven into the character or the Cook
Islands Maori. Adaptability to continuing changes are tackled by incorporating the
ancient arts of ‘atu (composing). (p. 138)
This expresses how freedom is bounded within a system that includes the discipline of humility,
and the resolve to learn the language to connect to the past.
Aro’a. The last letter in the word Kia orana also embodies aro’a or love. Jonassen
explains that love is expressed in the form of genuine caring and reciprocity. Reciprocating
through the giving of food, money, volunteer work, needed resources and relevant information
are considered norms of Cook Islands culture. In a sense, love is found and expressed in giving
and offers a way of knowing.
Jonassen (2003) ends his discussion of personality by sharing that Kia orana means “may
you live a long time.” He states, “In essence therefore, Kia orana is the unity of the heart, the
mind and the soul within each of those who make the expression and those who receive it. It is
an act of humility that positively reaches out to others” (p. 139). Within this greeting, elements
of Cook Islands epistemology are shared. Through the interconnectedness from past to present
and across the physical and spiritual domains, Jonassen claims that wisdom is rooted in Cook
Islands traditions and languages, but continues to shift over time.
Language and Culture
Cook Islands teachers’ perceptions of the Cook Islands languages are important to my
study. Jonassen’s (2003) discussion of personality in Cook Islands culture points to the
importance of understanding language to access knowledge. Yet, language within the Cook
Islands is a complex construct, since across the fifteen Cook Islands, each island possesses
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 50

differences in language. Although Cook Islands Maori is an Eastern Polynesian language, one of
the Cook Islands, Pukapuka, is Western Polynesian in origin (Goodwin, 2003). Goodwin
discusses the dynamic nature of Cook Islands languages as reflecting the changes in the lives of
the people. Thus, language as connected to knowledge is ever changing, and in turn, ways of
living and what counts as knowledge is ever changing. With English as one of the national
languages, Tongia (2003) offers the point that Cook Islands English differs from New Zealand
English, as sounds, spellings, and meanings are modified through use. His observation asserts
that language is constantly shifting, retaining the old and the new, as long as it is still spoken in
the everyday lives of people.
As purveyors of language and culture to youth, teachers’ perception of Cook Islands
languages as essential to sustaining intergenerational knowledge was important to understand for
this study. Teachers' views of the relationship between language, knowledge, and identity
influenced their perceptions of ICTs.
Economics and Culture
The purpose of education is often negotiated by the socioeconomic and sociopolitical
context in which institutions reside (Labaree, 1997). Therefore, a broader discussion of the
intersection between epistemology, globalization, and economics provides insight into teachers’
perceptions of technology integration in schools. While some embrace the broad educational
implications of globalization, others view globalization with a critical perspective. Wichman
(2003) presents his perspective of how economics and globalization have shaped Cook Islands
ways of knowing and doing. I share two of his perspectives that focus on landownership and
corporate culture.
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Landownership. Wichman (2003) explains that land rights are passed through kinship
links between families. As discussed earlier by Jonassen (2003), land and life are synonymous,
since land determines one’s ancestry and identity. In a sense, from a traditional perspective,
knowing oneself is tied to knowing one’s land. Economics and foreign interests in Cook Islands
natural resources and tourism have resulted in land being leased and subleased. Since local
families may not be able to initially develop land to later recoup the costs and derive income
from the property, larger businesses can offer leasing agreements. As a result, land leaves the
hands of the family’s protection. Furthermore, Wichman claims that most Cook Islanders live
overseas in New Zealand and Australia, which results in absentee ownership. As more Cook
Islanders leave, ties to the land are lost.
Corporate culture. The emergence of corporate culture in the islands can be analyzed
through a variety of perspectives. Wichman (2003) frames his discussion by noting criticism of
globalization as creating “imbalances by privileging the acquisition of material wealth over
human and spiritual values” (146). Thus, corporate culture is envisioned as a clash between
Western and Maori values. Wichman illustrates this clash in the fact that corporate giants
provide monetary prizes for cultural celebratory dance competitions, which can be interpreted as
devaluing the true, traditional meaning of the celebrations. His viewpoint is supported by
Mason’s (2003) statement: “One culture extols the virtues of giving and the other sees nothing
wrong with taking as long as it is done within the rules” (p. 192). Mason (2003) continues to
explain that some Cook Islanders have embraced the corporate culture, while others, especially
those who live on the outer islands still live a life of semi-subsistence, giving the goods they
grow to support a wider family, their community.
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The ways of knowing and doing throughout the Cook Islands are complex and dynamic.
Within this section, I offered a brief glimpse of insider perspectives regarding the nature of
knowledge in the Cook Islands and its influence on life. Although most Cook Islanders live
abroad, all their perspectives share a common understanding that sustaining ties to traditional
culture and language is essential to understanding what it means to be a Cook Islands Maori.
Understanding a Cook Islands view of the Maori ethos and the conflicts that arise from the
influence of Western perspectives upon this ethos, provided insight into how teachers viewed
ICT. With this understanding, I now turn to a discussion of Kaupapa Maori epistemology in the
context of New Zealand.
Kaupapa Maori Epistemology
Within this section, I provide insight into New Zealand Maori perspectives that influence
Cook Islands teachers’ epistemological position toward technology integration. Having insight
into Kaupapa Maori epistemology informed my understanding of how teachers viewed the
purpose of education and the role of education to transform the structural elements of society that
position Maori knowledge as periphery. I believed teachers’ understanding of these culturalist,
structuralist, and transformative views of Kaupapa Maori epistemology offered a lens to analyze
how teachers envisioned technology integration as a means to connect further with culture and
language or to connect further with Western ways of knowing.
To understand the literature of Kaupapa Maori epistemology, it is first necessary to
define the concept of discourse in relation to education. Gee (2008) defines discourse in the
following manner:
Distinctive ways of speaking/listening and often, too, writing/reading coupled with
distinctive ways of acting, interacting, valuing, feeling, dressing, thinking, believing, with
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 53

other people and with various objects, tools, and technologies, so as to enact specific
socially recognizable identities engaged in specific socially recognizable activities. (p.
155)
As children bud, their environment can grow, transform, or even kill primary discourses into
what Gee (2008) identifies as a Lifeworld discourse. Lifeworld discourse is the everyday,
private, home-based discourse that an individual enacts. Secondary discourses are acquired
within public institutions that lie outside the home, but have the potential to align, shift, or repel
Lifeworld discourse. When applied to Kaupapa Maori epistemology, Gee’s definition of
discourse sheds light on the extent to which teachers view the importance of school to home
discourses. A child’s primary discourses are affected by secondary discourses such as the school
environment. The awareness of this nexus is deeply engrained in the discussion of Kaupapa
Maori epistemology, since advocates of Kaupapa Maori desire a re-centering of primary
discourse as the foundation for schooling.
Kaupapa Maori was conceptualized in New Zealand during the 1980s to offer an
alternative source of knowledge production and cultural capital in response to the hegemony
imposed by Western mainstream paradigms (Rico, 2013). Kaupapa Maori means the Maori way
or agenda (Henry & Pene, 2001). Kaupapa means “ground rules, customs, and the right way of
doing things” (Pihama, Cram, & Walker, 2002). Henry and Pene explain that Kaupapa Maori
epistemology is grounded in a Maori cosmology and Maori ways of doing, being, and thinking.
Pihama, Cram, and Walker (2002) discuss Kaupapa Maori as the conceptualization of Maori
knowledge developed through oral tradition. Thus, Maori knowledge is situated within Te Reo
Maori, or the Maori language, which is understood to be the only medium that can access this
body of knowledge.
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 54

Koru of Maori Ethics
Henare (1998) claims that the Maori religion is not found in sacred texts, but rather
culture is religion and constantly shifts to seek tika or the right, ethical way. Founded on the
symbolic spiral that originates from the young fern frond and coiled ropes of the first canoes that
landed on New Zealand shores, Henare’s framework represents new life, potential energy, and
enlightenment. The deeper meanings of tapu, mana, mauri, hau and kotahitanga are at the core
of Maori values and social ethics. I describe each of these in turn.
Central to the Koru are traditional Maori beliefs about the origins of life (Henry & Pene,
2001). First, “Tapu is an intrinsic power imbued at the time of creation” (Henare, 1994, p. 217).
Once a thing becomes a thing, it generates a mana or “spiritual power and authority derived from
God that can be applied to persons, their words and acts” (p. 217). For example, in a Maori
community, a child would be prepared for the world of work through formal and informal
education about accessing and utilizing one’s tapu. Thus, in Kaupapa Maori epistemology,
individuals draw on an internal and intrinsic power to become who they are going to be.
Furthermore, individuals learn how to access and generate this power in their daily lives. Henare
claims that tapu and its connection to mana is the most significant Maori concept.
Henare (1994) states “Mauri is a unique power, a life-essence, a life force and the ethos”
(p. 218). Everything has mauri: people, animals, forests, and seas. The mauri enables these
things to exist. Humans also possess a mauri ora or life principle, in which a person’s body and
soul are bound together by the atua or spiritual powers. At death, the body and soul is separated.
Henare explains that mauri can be attacked or neglected, and as a result, diminished and abused.
In terms of education, a student who is inactive in learning will weaken his/her mauri.
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Henry and Pene (2001) state “Hau is the vital essence embodied in a person and
transmitted to their gifts or anything they treasure” (p. 235). A person breathes from the life
spirit from a source called the hau, which must be looked after like mauri and tapu. Thus, like
the mauri ora, earth elements such as the sea and forest have life principles originating in the
hau. The hau and the mauri of things are connected as one. During religious rituals, Maori
would feed the hau or make offerings to the sea. Over time, Henare (1994) states that hau
developed into a system of obligatory gift giving, which also embodies the value of reciprocity.
Lastly, te kotahitanga communicates the solidarity of kinship or group membership to
protect the individual (Henare, 1994). Walker, Eketone, and Gibbs (2006) explain that highly
specialized knowledge, such as whakapapa or genealogical information, is only entrusted to a
few, since it must be respected and protected. An important concept within Kaupapa Maori
epistemology is whakawhanaungatanga, meaning “the process of identifying, maintaining, or
forming past, present, and future relationships” (Walker et al., 2006, p. 334). Through extended
familial relationships, Maori establish connectedness between one another. The practices of
generosity, cooperation, and reciprocity are linked to the importance of family relationships.
Henare’s (1994) framework communicates the values and ethics behind Kaupapa Maori
epistemology. Again, the tika encompasses these core beliefs, and the koru or spiral of the fern
reveals these beliefs as the fronds unfurl. Henare (1994) claims that this tightly connected core,
with all of its potential, holds the energy of Kaupapa Maori. Henry and Pene (2001) summarize
the beliefs and values that undergird Kaupapa Maori epistemology through the following
statement:
Kaupapa Maori is both a set of philosophical beliefs and a set of social practices
(tikanga). These are founded on the collective (whanaungatanga) interdependence
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between and among humankind (kotahitanga), a sacred relationship to the ‘gods’ and the
cosmos (airuatanga), and acknowledgment that humans are guardians of the environment
(kaitiakitanga), combining in the interconnection between mind, body, and spirit. Taken
together, these ethics inform traditional Maori ontology and assumptions about human
nature; that is, ‘what is real’ for Maori. (p. 237)
When applied to education, these beliefs and values become the foundation of learning. By
grounding the structures and practices of schooling in Kaupapa Maori epistemology, Maori are
not positioned as the Other or periphery within education systems, but rather exist as the core or
standard (Pihama, Cram, & Walker, 2002). Henare’s (1994) Koru of Maori Ethics informed my
understanding of Indigenous New Zealand Maori ways of knowing. Seminal to Kaupapa Maori
epistemology, Henare’s framework offered a knowledge base of what Cook Islands teachers may
perceive to be important. In other words, the ontological and axiological assumptions that Cook
Islands teachers potentially imbued.
Culturalist Responses
Smith (2003) terms the resistance of Kaupapa Maori advocates to cultural dominance
through the means of education, culturalist responses. To acquire perspective as to how Kaupapa
Maori epistemology materializes within school practices, I investigated the literature around
culturalist responses. To provide understanding of the historical context of these studies, I first
review a brief history of Maori language immersion schools in New Zealand and their current
position within the education system.
The Treaty of Waitangi, signed in 1840 by the British Crown and various Maori chiefs, is
considered to be the founding document of New Zealand (Whitinui, 2010). Within the Treaty,
Maori ceded the right to governance to the British Crown, yet believed the Treaty still enabled
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 57

them to manage their own affairs. Not until the 1970s did Maori pursue the following rights
outlined in the Treaty: Maori share power over decision making in education, Maori define and
protect the treasures that sustain their way of life, and Maori possess equal opportunity and
outcomes in education (Whitinui, 2010). As a result, Maori activists circulated petitions for
Maori language to be taught in schools (Boshier, 2015). Grass roots Maori immersion schools
emerged in the 1980s as an attempt to revitalize the language (Whitinui, 2010). The New
Zealand Ministry of Education (2016) reports that from 2011 to 2016, the number of students
within Maori immersion schools rose from 16,547 to 18,444. According to Whitinui (2010) the
following Maori names identify the different levels of immersion schools: Te Kōhanga Reo
(total immersion Maori early childhood language schools), Te Kura Kaupapa Māori (total
immersion Maori elementary schools), Te Whare Kura (total immersion Maori high schools) and
Te Wānanga (Maori based tertiary institutions). Although the cohort of immersion schools is
small in New Zealand, the cultural learning and teaching occurring within these sites has had a
global impact upon the conceptualization of Indigenous education (Battiste & Henderson, 2009;
Boshier, 2015; Harris & Wasilewski, 2004). The studies emerging in light of immersion schools
shaped my understanding of what Kaupapa Maori epistemology looks like within school
settings.
Mutu (2005) describes the steps of how one Maori community, Te Whānau Moana of
Karikari in the Far North of New Zealand, has approached the task of language revitalization.
Firstly, Mutu (2005) explains that identity in the Maori world is of extreme importance and the
answer to the question, who are you, is stated through pepeha or a multitude of formulaic
expressions. These formulaic expressions can identify the individual’s hapū or extended family
through mountain, sea, ancestor, canoe, marae, tribe, and subtribe connections. From a Maori
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 58

cultural perspective, the question, who are you, is quite complex. Mutu (2005) states that this
particular community has recognized that Maori language could not be learned in absence of this
cultural grounding. By including elders and the most skilled traditional speakers of Maori as
stakeholders in educational decision-making, children have been able to access this information
about their identity. Parents have also been encouraged to attend evening classes to learn tribal
traditions from revered chiefs and a wide range of customs relating to the marae, the sacred
meetinghouses that were built when the first canoes arrived on New Zealand shores.
Yet, Mutu shares the difficulties in developing native fluency in younger generations of
Maori. Skilled, native speakers simply do not exist in abundance, and those who have the
traditional knowledge do not have the physical strength to work in schools. Furthermore, many
Maori teachers and parents are no longer native speakers and struggle to learn the nuances of the
language, in particular, grammar, to teach their students and children. To address this issue,
adult Maori courses have been created for teachers to attend. As Mutu contends, the process of
language revitalization is long and intensive, and it will require a community effort to be
realized. Mutu contextualizes Henare’s (1994) theoretical discussion of grounding Maori in
holistic kinship relationships, spanning from ancestors to youth. As Mutu claims, elders in
Maori communities continue to work to preserve and pass on the identity of each whanau
(extended family grouping), hapu (grouping of several whanau associated through genealogy and
locality), and iwi (grouping of several hapu associated through genealogy and locality).
Understanding that each community is unique shows the immediacy to ensure that their
particular discourses are sustained.
While Mutu (2005) offers a broader view of language and cultural teaching in school and
home settings, Whitinui (2010) shares the specific art of kapa (in rows) haka (dance) to improve
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educational outcomes for Maori students. Whitinui explains that kapa haka is a cultural treasure
specific to New Zealand that involves traditional Maori song and dance. “Individuals are able to
share their life stories through creative self-expression and pure emotion” within the act of kapa
haka (Whitinui, 2010, p. 4). Utilizing qualitative data from the voices of 20 Maori students and
27 secondary teachers, Whitinui (2010) highlighted kapa haka as a culturally preferred pedagogy
that enabled Maori students to engage in learning about their language, culture, and customs.
Through dance, Maori students used movement “to remember their cultural past and to bring
those memories, stories, narratives, life-histories, values, beliefs and ways of knowing and doing
into the present” (Whitinui, 2010, p. 7). Whitinui (2010) offered kapa haka as a way to engage
Maori students in cultural learning activities that could contribute to their overall academic
achievement.
From the interviews, Whitinui (2010) found that students viewed kapa haka as
empowering and integral to their learning. Over 80% of the Maori students interviewed believed
that kapa haka offered them more responsibility in learning by improving their confidence, work
ethic, self-awareness, discipline, and commitment to schooling. Sometimes viewed as an
elective or afterschool activity, kapa haka had been perceived as a periphery learning experience
separate from the school’s core curriculum. Asserting the need to shift this perspective, Whitinui
claimed that one key finding to emerge was that Maori students viewed kapa haka as equal in
status to other core subjects and believed that through kapa haka a Maori individual could learn
to show respect for oneself. Whitinui contended that the social, cultural, emotional, and spiritual
wellbeing that students experienced while participating in kapa haka enabled students to develop
from the Maori essence expressed in Henare’s (1994) framework.
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Culturalist responses to Kaupapa Maori epistemology have also been honed to science
education. Pardo et al. (2015) proposed a new curriculum and pedagogical methodology that
blended Kaupapa Maori epistemology with Western knowledge systems. Pardo et al. described
their multidisciplinary pedagogical methodology that revitalized and shared local, ancestral
knowledge in harmony with Western epistemological systems. They asserted that their
methodology could result in improved authentic outcomes for school communities. To develop
enhanced volcanic risk management with a native Maori tribe Ngāti Rangi Iwi, in the North
Island of New Zealand, Pardo et al. proposed a participative dialogue in which Western scientific
knowledge was not imposed upon the Indigenous community, but rather blended into the local,
ecological comprehension of the bonds between humans and volcanic processes. Firstly, Pardo
et al. recognized the Indigenous perspective of territory as an ecosystem, rather than the Western
concept of land. For Indigenous communities, land, a locality, was tied to identity, culture,
economy, and epistemology systems. Land was, in a sense, full of life and especially full of
spirit, since Pardo et al. claimed that all traditional societies that had managed resources well had
done so in part through value systems powered by religion. Secondly, Pardo et al. cited Foucault
in their consideration of the body as a cultural object. Within their approach, they identified
body language as collective expression, and somatic knowledge as a wide pedagogical field that
focuses on offering bodily experiences to make meaning of the world. In line with Whitinui’s
(2010) identification of kapa haka as a cultural medium to access learning, Pardo et al. focused
on dance and movement as a culturally responsive pedagogical approach.
With the aim to increase awareness of volcanic activity and Maori tribe participation in
emergency management if an eruption were to occur, the authors designed curriculum for a
series of five workshops for primary school children. Pardo et al. chose the Ngāti Rangi children
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as the receptors, questioners, participators, and communicators of knowledge within the tribe,
since their influence would span from grandparents to parents, and future generations. A
meeting between the Maori primary school principal and the volcanologist yielded a rich
database of overlapping concepts between Western scientific theories and Indigenous geological
knowledge systems that is illustrated in Figure 5. Juxtaposing both epistemologies on equal
ground created an innovative space where new ways of teaching and learning could be realized
for Maori children. Thus, the design of the multidisciplinary workshops was grounded in
knowledge developed through the performing arts. Pardo et al. began each workshop with the
Maori perception of the concept, and then added the scientific point of view. For example, the
first workshop consisted of movements, such as students lying down with their eyes closed to
feel the textures of the earth, to explore the Maori concept of the Earth’s genealogy and the
scientific concept of the Big Bang theory. Then, the students were shown images of the koru or
spiral fern frond unfurling as well as images of stardust as audiovisual aids. Students ended the
workshop by writing and presenting a poem (in native Maori) about the need for volcanic
eruptions to support life. As Pardo et al. claimed, “The entire aim [of the design] was to evidence
the agreement between both systems and bring about the need for respectful and reciprocal
interactions between people, natural processes and resources to prevent disasters” (p. 6).
Throughout this process, Pardo et al. discovered what scientific learning that was
grounded in Indigenous epistemology might look like, if scientists were willing to validate
Indigenous ways of knowing through dialogue. Knowing what learning may look like within a
unique, Indigenous context was important for analyzing where teachers were located in their
understanding of how Indigenous epistemology fit within the structures of schooling.
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Figure 5. Conceptual map that positions the Big Bang Evolution theories as
analogous to Maori genealogy from creation to mankind. Illustrates the
blending of Western geosciences and Maori epistemologies. From “Bridging
Māori indigenous knowledge and western geosciences to reduce social
vulnerability in active volcanic regions,” by N. Pardo, H. Wilson, J. N.
Procter, E. Lattughi, and T. Black, 2015, Journal of Applied Volcanology, 4,
p. 9.

The culturalist responses to grounding teaching and learning in Kaupapa Maori
epistemology have focused on language revitalization as a systemic initiative that dissolves
boundaries between home, school, community, and generations. Within language immersion
schools, rich curricular and pedagogical initiatives have emerged to create culturally responsive
learning experiences for Maori students. These learning experiences have included the actions of
traditional song and dance to make meaning of stories from the past. Furthermore, culturalist
responses focus on positioning Indigenous ways of knowing and doing as equal to those valued
by Westerners. Understanding the ways in which Kaupapa Maori epistemology has been
operationalized in school settings offered insight into how teachers envisioned educational
practices for Indigenous students. In addition to culturalist responses in schools, the focus on
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grounding learning in Maori ways of knowing has also given rise to structuralist concerns that
challenge the socialization of Maori students into dominant norms and expectations.
Structuralist Concerns
According to Smith (2003), the resistance efforts against cultural dominance have shifted
toward understanding the economic, ideological, and power dimensions related to Maori agency.
Smith termed this nexus the structuralist concerns regarding Maori emancipation from the effects
of colonization. New Zealand Maori have struggled to maintain traces of cultural reciprocity
within the labor market, which can help articulate how Cook Islands teachers may grapple with
Western economic ideals. Since education is a political act, the purpose of education is
continually revisited to address the needs of the time; education is often based on the perceived
skills necessary to compete in the current job marketplace (Zhao, 2013). One of the structuralist
questions that arise from Henare’s (1994) Koru of Maori Ethics is whether schools should be
educating Maori students to assimilate to a job marketplace based on the Western notions of self-
interest, profit, and comfort, rather than virtue. The literature discussing these concerns helped
me understand another layer of Indigenous epistemology, globalization, and schooling with
which Cook Islands’ teachers grappled.
To frame this discussion, I explain the economic and political dimension of Henare’s
(1994) framework. Henry and Pene (2001) agree with Henare (1994) that prior to the arrival of
Europeans in New Zealand, traditional Maori society was based upon an economy of affection
steeped in gift giving. This economy of affection sprang from a tribal society grounded in
kinship, relationships, responsibility and reciprocity. From Henare’s (1994) point of view, this
traditional Maori economic system interrogates the ethics of a Western capitalist economy of
exploitation. Henare (1994) claims that although Maori have lost control over the means of
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production, their control remains in work attitudes and behaviors. Thus, Maori values and ethics
challenge the notion of labor as a commodity and take a more humanistic approach to the
relationship between management and worker.
Henare, Lythberg, and Woods (2014) offer insight into how Kaupapa Maori
epistemology can be connected to the job marketplace through entrepreneurship. Henare et al.
(2014) share the expression Maoritanga, coined by Maori leaders in the 1820s and used to
describe the Maori culture-society and wellbeings. The wellbeings express an ecological system
of humans as spiritual beings interconnected through kinship and a local economy. As a further
discussion of the economy of affection, the wellbeings are grounded in Kaupapa Maori
epistemology and act as the foundation for viewing entrepreneurship as community
development. I understand this shift in perspective to show a nexus between Indigenous
epistemology within schools and Indigenous epistemology within the workplace. For me,
Henare et al.’s discussion shows a vision for how Kaupapa Maori epistemology can exist within
elements of the business world, which is seen as driven by Western viewpoints.
To continue this discussion, Henare et al. explain that innovation, an essential element of
entrepreneurship, occurs upon a continuum between chaos, the individual opportunity seeking
Potiki, and regimentation, the rigid Kaumatua. Henare et al. (2014) elaborate the following:
The Maori narrative of the Maui Potiki describes an ancestor hero who saw opportunities
and took advantage of them (Keelan & Woods, 2006). The Poitiki is recognized as the
genealogical embodiment of the qualities that enable Maori to explore and access new
opportunities. (p. 471)
Henare et al. (2014) continue by explaining that the Kaumatua (elders) represent heritage and
“have the primary responsibility for maintaining customary practices or tikanga” (p. 471).
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Henare et al. (2014) indicate that innovation takes place along a continuum at and between the
edges of chaos or individuality and stability or tradition. This interpretation of individual
economic wellbeing as seamless with community wellbeing can inform my understanding of
how teachers envision the purpose of technology use in educating youth. Innovation is often
seen as embodied within technological developments. Henare et al. conceive innovation to
require that technology use resides in a blended space between new opportunities and traditions.
Transformative Praxis
The discussion around Indigenous Kaupapa Maori epistemology also includes a
discussion of transformative praxis. According to Smith (2003) Kaupapa Maori discourse does
not only involve culturalist responses and structuralist concerns, but also embodies a critical
consciousness to free Indigenous Maori minds from dominant group thinking. Smith’s (2003)
concept of transformative praxis offers insight into the critical stances that educators within the
Cook Islands may enact as they make choices regarding technology use. Firstly, Smith (2003)
utilizes Paulo Freire’s (1972) concept of praxis to frame his thinking. Freire (1972) argues,
“only human beings are praxis–the praxis which, as the reflection and action which truly
transform reality, is the source of knowledge creation” (p. 73). Freire’s (1998) praxis is not
simply action based on reflection; it is action to realize human wellbeing, truth, and respect for
others. Secondly, Smith (2003) utilizes Freire’s (1998) concept of conscientization to describe
how Maori can become free from the hegemonies that linger from a colonized past. Freire
(1998) introduced the critical concept of conscientization to position human beings as agents
who actively transform their world. Freire (1998) contends the following:
It is as conscious beings that men are not only in the world, but with the world, together
with other men. Only men, as “open” beings, are able to achieve the complex operation
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of simultaneously transforming the world by their action and grasping and expressing the
world’s reality in their creative language. (p. 499)
To reach a critical consciousness, human beings must first be enlightened to the hegemonies that
condition their reality. In particular, Freire’s (1998) discussion of cultural action for freedom
and cultural revolution as the means to negate the dominating culture by regenerating the old
culture within the new, is reflected in Smith’s (2003) concept of Kaupapa Maori praxis. Smith
discusses six key principles of Kaupapa Maori praxis that attest to leaders and people
communing as one to transform current realities.
Smith (2003) identifies six key transformative elements in Kaupapa Maori praxis that
stem from Maori ways of knowing and doing. First, the principle of self-determination explains
the need for Maori to control key decision-making that reflects their culture, political, economic
and social preferences. Second, the principle of validating and legitimating cultural aspirations
and identity communicates the need to include the spiritual and emotional factors to maintain
cultural identity. Third, the principle of incorporating culturally preferred pedagogy focuses
teaching and learning on settings and practices that connect with cultural backgrounds and life
circumstances of Maori. Fourth, the principle of mediating socio-economic and home
difficulties positions school to be a positive experience for Maori children despite home
circumstances. Fifth, the principle of incorporating cultural structures which emphasize the
“collective” rather than the “individual” such as the notion of the extended family (whanau)
enables parents to be responsible for supporting the education of all children at school. Last, the
principle of a shared and collective vision/philosophy ensures that guidelines for a good Maori
education are met in addition to mainstream culture and skills for children to participate fully in
modern New Zealand society. Smith acknowledges that this list is not exhaustive, but instead
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provides an outline of Maori intervention understandings that frame transformative praxis and
are grounded in Indigenous Maori epistemology.
Through these change factors, Smith (2003) asserts that the Kaupapa Maori worldview
positions Maori to free themselves from multiple oppressions rooted in a history of exploitation.
As Smith claims, conscientization was “a shift away from [Maori] wanting things to be done to
them, to doing things for themselves, a shift away from an emphasis on reactive politics and an
emphasis on being more proactive” (p. 2). Kaupapa Maori replaces a linear conceptualization of
conscientization, resistance, and transformative praxis for a cyclical one in which Maori have
entered at any space. Smith positions every New Zealand Maori within the cycle and claims that
Indigenous educators and teachers must be trained to be change agents to transform their
undesirable circumstances of which include a devaluing of Indigenous ways of knowing and
thinking. Smith’s beliefs informed this study through a critical lens that does not place
Indigenous people in stages of empowerment to ascend. He asserts that empowerment occurs in
a cyclical fashion, in which we are constantly re-evaluating the purpose and meaning of our
actions. For this study, Smith’s key elements of Kaupapa Maori praxis show that grounding in
Indigenous Kaupapa Maori epistemology was not separate from developing a critical stance
toward addressing social injustices inherent in New Zealand’s colonial past. Smith offers a lens
that positions Maori epistemology as foundational and integrated into critical approaches to
education. As teachers’ narrated their beliefs about technology integration, Smith’s contribution
offered me a lens to understand the role that technology plays in educating Indigenous students.
Kaupapa Maori epistemology is foundational to culturalist responses, structuralist
concerns, and transformative praxis. The literature around Kaupapa Maori epistemology offered
multiple lenses to analyze how Cook Islands teachers made meaning of the transition to using
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technology. Henare’s (1994) Koru of Maori Ethics expresses Maori epistemology as a body of
cultural knowledge rooted in spirituality, reciprocity, and kinship. The focus on collective
wellbeing, power, and determination challenges the Western focus on individuality. By
examining how this epistemology emerged in Maori language immersion schools as well as how
this epistemology had interrogated dominant understandings of the purpose of schooling, I
gained multiple viewpoints to understand teachers’ perspectives. Again, Cook Islanders cannot
be assumed to take the same stance as New Zealand Maori in regards to cultural education and
economic and political positioning; yet the tenets of Kaupapa Maori epistemology offered
critical approaches to education that influenced Cook Islands educators to some extent. The
New Zealand Maori ways of knowing and doing, the discourses that have been built and rebuilt
through Kaupapa Maori praxis, informed my understanding of the reasons behind the different
positions toward the uptake of technology by Cook Islands teachers.
Hybrid Space
Shifting to a broader lens, this section frames the thinking employed within the Kaupapa
Maori approach to education in terms of how students’ cultural knowledge is valued and engaged
within schools. Bhabha (1994) argues that the polarization of knowledge systems supports false
binaries of thinking, such as the labeling of cultures as dominant or subordinate, positive or
negative. He asserts that educational innovation in our global age relies on a blending of cultures
and a resistance to cultural authority across hybrid spaces. According to Hogg (2010),
approximately 200 million people no longer live in their birthplace, and as a result, students
increasingly embody and experience intercultural and hybrid knowledge bases. Gutierrez,
Baquedano-Lopez, and Tejada (2009) define hybridity in classroom settings as polycontextual,
in which cultural, linguistic, historical, and epistemological contexts intersect with one another.
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Aligned with Bhabha, Gutierrez et al. (2009) explain that these tense social spaces of competing
discourses, or hybrid spaces, can give birth to innovative spaces of development. Within these
hybrid spaces or what Moje et al. (2004) and Gutierrez et al. (2009) discuss as third space, the
intersection between Western and Indigenous knowledge systems can then afford learners new
perspectives to build upon, construct, and contest knowledge. Gutierrez et al. (2009) contend,
“Hybridity and diversity serve as the building blocks of Third Spaces” (p. 287).
For this study, I sought to understand if the Cook Islands education system was a hybrid
space in which multiple knowledge bases and intercultural discourses interface. Within this
section, I discuss the concept of third space as another lens to understand Cook Islands teachers’
perceptions of technology integration. The concept of third space supported my understanding
of how teachers viewed the role of technology to engage students’ Lifeworld discourses in the
processes of learning.
Social Constructivism and Sociocultural Theory
To frame the relevant literature to this study concerning third space, I first present a
discussion of social constructivism and sociocultural theory. Au (1998) describes the nature of
constructivism being social, as the active engagement of meaning making, especially knowledge
developed as membership in a given social group. Au also discusses the issue of agency, and the
continuum of how knowledge can be constructed, from an individual standpoint, in small groups,
or communities at large. Thus, social constructivists claim that knowledge construction is
mediated by not only the individual, but also the intersubjectivity created by the interactions of
the group (Au, 1998).
Vygotsky, whose work is most closely identified with sociocultural theory, argues that
humans develop as they learn how to use cultural tools (speech and writing) to make meaning of
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their identities and societies (Smagornisky, 2013). Sociocultural theory focuses on the roles that
social interactions and cultural activities play in affecting development; thus, sociocultural theory
explains how individual meaning making is related to institutional, cultural, and historical
contexts (Scott & Palincsar, 2006). Vygotsky is also known for the construct of the zone of
proximal development, which is conventionally interpreted as an individual’s cognitive potential
that can be scaffolded into an individual competency through collaboration with a more
competent peer or adult (Smagorinsky, 2013). Yet, Smagornisky claims that this zone is not
devoid of a rich social and historical context, which involves the learners’ prior experiences, the
extent of intersubjectivity between actors, and the cultural tools utilized. Smagorinsky contends
that making sense of one’s environment, especially in settings where differences are respected
and honored, fosters feelings of personal security, worth, and achievement.
From this discussion, I gleaned that social constructivism and sociocultural theory
undergird the valuing and respecting of Indigenous ways of knowing and doing as equal to
Western discourses. Thus, understanding these theories was foundational knowledge for
viewing third space as a lens for this study.
Third Space
Within the institution of schooling, Gee (2008) claims that teachers must properly
balance acquisition or social practice and learning when teaching students of diverse primary
discourses. Rather than identifying local-community based discourses and global discourses
(used in schools, national media, government agencies and professional settings) as
dichotomous, Gee (2008) explains that they exist on a continuum that filters through primary
discourse. Yet, although global discourses from dominant, Western perspectives can misalign
with non-mainstream Lifeworld discourses, a misalignment still provides overlap, even if in a
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messy form. Third space is situated within the spaces of overlap, where various ways of
knowing and doing collide.
Moje et al. (2004) identify the integration of knowledges and discourses from the “first
space” of the home, community, and peer networks with the “second space” of formalized
institutions, such as work or school, “third space” (p. 41). The definitions of first and second
space respectively align to the descriptions of primary discourses (used in home, community,
informal social interactions) and secondary discourses (used in school and other formal
institutions) (Gee, 2008). Thus, third space, as an alternative space in which marginalized ways
of knowing and doing can be blended with dominantly positioned discourses, is what Bhabha
(1994) would describe as innovative space. Gutierrez et al. (2009) further this claim by
conceptualizing third space as a rich zone of collaboration and learning in which difference, a
collision of discourses and positionings, enable deep growth.
Moje et al. (2004) offer that third space has been envisioned in three slightly different
ways. Firstly, third space has been articulated as a scaffold for students of non-mainstream
backgrounds to be afforded the opportunity for success in the dominant discourses of schools.
Secondly, third space has been interpreted as a navigational space, the means by which
individuals traverse discourse communities. Lastly, third space has been communicated as a
space for epistemological change, an innovative space that speaks to Bhabha’s (1994) hybridity.
The concept of third space is interpreted in various ways depending upon one’s beliefs about the
purpose of schooling. If the purpose of school is to prepare a global workforce, then third space
becomes a place where students learn how to navigate dominant discourses while retaining their
own. If the purpose of school is to promote democratic ideals such as social justice, then third
space becomes a transformative space where students are afforded the opportunity to critically
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reflect upon the issues with which they currently grapple. The interpretation of third space as a
transformative space was of importance to this study, since Cook Islands education was deemed
to rest at an interface between Western and Indigenous knowledge systems.
Through the notion of script and counterscript as a heuristic or practical method to
analyze sociocultural practices in the classroom, Gutierrez, Rymes, and Larson (1995) elaborated
on the concept of third space as a blending of teacher’s and students’ internal dialogues.
Through their ethnographic study and microanalysis of language in the classroom, Gutierrez et
al. (1995) explained that there were underlying social spaces created by the teacher’s discourse
that determines who had access to learning. Gutierrez et al. (1995) explained that power
dynamics within the classroom were engrained within the configurations of interactive dialogues
between teachers and students. When teachers asserted monologic scripts that focused on
dominant discourses, they stifled authentic discussion and could disengage students of diverse
backgrounds from learning (Gutierrez et al., 1995). As a result of this displacement of students’
local and cultural knowledge, Gutierrez et al. contended that students developed counterscripts or
divergent dialogue to assert their alternate discourses.
Yet, Gutierrez et al. claimed that the teacher was not the sole proprietor in displacing
students’ primary discourses within the classroom. Classrooms resided in schools, which are
situated in larger sociocultural and political spheres of influence. Teachers’ monologic scripts
mirrored dominant perspectives regarding what counted as knowledge and were shaped by the
school’s community of social practices that “value school knowledge over indigenous forms of
knowledge” (Gutierrez et al., 1995, p. 448). According to Gutierrez et al. (1995), third space
was a point of intersection between the teacher’s and the students’ scripts. Furthermore,
Gutierrez et al. (1995) claimed that third space was a re-imagination of disruption and tension in
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the classroom as various cultures, discourses, and knowledges were simultaneously accessible to
all students as tools to mediate learning. Thus, in third space, teachers and students could co-
construct and redefine what counts as knowledge. The multiple interpretations of third space
offer different perspectives that Cook Islands teachers might take when integrating technology
into their current practices.
Funds of knowledge. Within third space, children bring their funds of knowledge (FoK)
to the classroom, which are recognized as social constructs situated in relationships with and
between schools, communities, peer groups, and families (Moje et al., 2004). Hogg (2010)
identifies FoK as a conceptual framework that entails teachers’ understanding and validating of
student knowledge and primary discourses that originate in the home. Hogg (2010) further
contends that the concept of FoK combats deficit theorizing regarding difference, since “the
potential of this approach lies in its ability to identify what is, rather than what is not; and to
engage with individuals, rather than assumptions and stereotypes” (p. 667). Thus, teachers use
their understanding of students’ FoK to scaffold learning in the classroom.
Gonzalez et al. (1995) elaborated on FoK as situated within the histories and social
networks of students’ lives. Through their research of Latino students’ households, Gonzalez et
al. defined FoK as an analysis of students’ social histories. This included the origin and
development of the family through work histories, which defined the bodies of knowledge that
supported livelihood and became the focus of the household activities. Gonzalez et al. (1995)
also defined FoK through family-to-family interactions that established social interdependence or
reciprocity. The social exchange of resources between families developed and shaped students’
FoK.
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Within their study that positioned teachers as ethnographers of their own students’
households, Gonzalez et al. (1995) discovered two shifts in teachers’ perspectives after
participation in students’ lives outside the classroom. Firstly, teachers’ perceptions of culture
being stagnant and conventionally represented in markers such as food and dance shifted toward
an understanding that culture was dynamic and multidimensional. Secondly, investigating the
concept of FoK enabled teachers to debunk deficit perspectives of the community and household
to then see students’ FoK as rich, valuable, and multidimensional. Participation in the study
enabled teachers to take the role of qualitative researcher, repositioning the teacher as a thinker
and a learner (Gonzalez et al., 1995). In addition, the parent-school relationship was
strengthened, as well as the teacher-student relationships. Finally, teachers were able to
operationalize their findings through the design of curriculum units that incorporated students’
FoK. By utilizing students’ household activities, strategies, and topics as the foundation for unit
study, teachers attempted to engage students through the knowledges they bring to the
classroom, rather than making the assumption that the teacher solely delivers the knowledge.
Zipin (2009) offers another layer of meaning to and interrogation of FoK as envisioned
by Gonzalez et al. (1995). Zipin contends that the use of FoK in designing curriculum for
students challenges the power of cultural capital gleaned from membership in dominant cultural
communities. For Zipin, FoK offers a redistribution of this cultural capital as well as recognition
of the ethical responsibility of educators to keep diverse cultures alive. In addition, Zipin
interrogates the focus on positive or “light” FoK, rather than negative or “dark” FoK to create
curriculum. Zipin contends that learners’ Lifeworld discourses include dark experiences tied to a
lack of resources; shying away from confronting these dark spaces may sanction institutional
barriers to developing critical perspectives within teachers and their students. Furthermore,
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Zipin identifies the use of FoK solely in the topic selection of curriculum rather than cultivation
of pedagogies as problematic. He claims that FoK has been operationalized as knowledge
contents devoid of interactive ways of knowing or funds of pedagogy. Thus, Zipin believes in
the need to recontextualize pedagogies to mirror knowledge transactions within students’
Lifeworld discourses.
The concept of FoK and how it can shift and guide teaching practices offered a lens to
analyze Cook Islands teachers’ approaches to technology integration. Technology is often
defined as a tool to support learning; yet how a teacher envisioned technology in the classroom
could be framed by the concept of FoK. FoK presents a perspective of technology integration as
a means to further incorporate students’ household knowledges within the design of learning
experiences. Furthermore, this discussion of FoK presented two perspectives that aligned with
the investigation of this study’s sub-questions. On one hand, FoK was a means to redistribute
cultural capital by providing students of non-dominant cultures access to the codes of the
dominant culture. On the other hand, the recognition of students’ FoK in schooling practices
offered an ethical frame to view education as a means to sustain diverse cultures from
disappearing into dominant discourses. Furthermore, this discussion of FoK led to a focus on
pedagogy versus content. In light of technology integration to sustain cultural ways of doing and
knowing, this discussion of FoK suggested a need to not only consider what was being taught,
but also how it was being taught to incorporate learners’ diverse Lifeworld discourses.
Knowledge interfaces. Students’ FoK can challenge and destabilize dominant ways of
doing and knowing in the classroom. For this study, I reviewed research that communicates the
ways in which Indigenous knowledge systems build upon and strengthen learning for teachers
and students. Researchers in various contexts have exposed the complexity of FoK as lived
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systems of thought that enhance traditional forms of learning. Within the following studies, I
focus on the ways in which the interface of FoK and dominant knowledge systems supports
growth in ways of knowing, being, valuing, doing, learning and teaching. For this study, I
position FoK as synonymous with shared Indigenous knowledge to connect the concept of FoK
to the broader sphere of Indigenous education. As I continued to share specific ways in which
FoK had been taken up by teachers and operationalized, I was afforded the opportunity to further
understand what drawing on students’ FoK looks like in the design of curriculum and how it
shifts pedagogy. I utilize Brayboy and Maughan’s (2009) study to introduce the understanding
of Indigenous knowledge systems as rooted in discussion of epistemologies, ontologies,
axiologies, and pedagogies. By sharing the story of how a Native American student teacher
would teach the growing of bean plants in her community, Brayboy and Maughan show the
complexity of FoK for not only student and teacher interactions, but also teacher and teacher
educator interactions.
Brayboy and Maughan (2009) explored the way that knowledge interfaces might be
transformed into sites of hope and possibility by highlighting interactions between an Indigenous
student teacher and a teacher educator positioned in Western ways of thinking. As researchers,
Brayboy and Maughan’s study was set within a Native American community in which a group of
Indigenous student teachers were taking courses taught by a teacher educator that was not part of
their community. The teacher educator introduced an interdisciplinary bean growing lesson for
teaching the scientific method. Following a Western paradigm, students were to test the effects
of soil choice and water amounts upon the growth of a bean. When asked how this lesson could
be taught in her community, one of the Indigenous student teachers communicated how the act of
growing could not be decontextualized from culture, spirituality, and land. From her Indigenous
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perspective, this “scientific experiment” lacked lived knowledge in exchange for generalizable
findings. She explained that the choice of seed and place of planting would depend on the
season, mirroring the “best” way or the way that planting has been done in the past and present
based on trial and error. This technology was cultivated through lived experience in places that
were rich in content and naturally interdisciplinary, rather than in the controlled, sterile
environment of a science lab. Furthermore, her narrative shared the circular worldview on which
Indigenous knowledge systems run. There was no distinction between the physical,
metaphysical, and ancestral knowledge that determined current and future practices. All of life
was interconnected, thus “knowledge and power must be handled with care and deliberation”
(Brayboy & Maughan, 2008, p. 14).
The Indigenous student teacher critiqued a Western paradigm of education that attempted
to generalize knowledge that was rooted in a specific context. Knowledge was not outside of the
individual to be delivered, but rather was constructed as part of a Lifeworld discourse situated
within a historical and social context. The teacher educator within this study learned new
approaches to teaching from the Indigenous student teacher, which showed how knowledge
systems could come together to create a unified vision of what made sense for students within
hybrid spaces. Brayboy and Maughan’s study shares the innovative thinking that can emerge
from including teachers’ FoK in professional learning experiences. Viewing FoK or Indigenous
knowledge as a valuable contribution to learning opens possibilities for teachers to be co-
constructors of blended knowledge systems.
While Brayboy and Maughan’s study focused on the interactions between student teacher
and teacher educator, Hedges (2012) elaborates upon the FoK of teachers by supporting the
claim that teaching practice cannot be based solely on research evidence, since it must be filtered
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through teachers’ experience and understandings. In a sense, Hedges offers a lens to look deeper
into teacher FoK as a blending of an individual teacher’s professional knowledge and informal
knowledge. Answering Loughran’s (2006) call to make the tacit, moment-to-moment analyses
of teachers’ decision-making explicit, Hedges (2012) offered an empirical study that supports the
prioritization of informal knowledge over theoretical knowledge in teachers’ pedagogical
decisions.
In a yearlong ethnographic study, Hedges explored what professional knowledge teachers
use to assess and respond to children’s interests and inquiry while teaching early childhood
education. By studying 10 teachers and 35 children through weekly observations, curriculum
document analysis, and teacher interviews, Hedges found that research-based knowledge was
filtered through funds of knowledge to inform spontaneous decision-making during classroom
instruction. Hedges claimed that without a clear relevance to personal and practice-based
experiences, formal theory might not be considered in teachers’ moment-to-moment decision-
making. Furthermore, Hedges categorized teachers’ FoK into three contexts: family-based,
center-based, and community-based. Teachers’ FoK was found to be constructed from family
lives, lives as parents, relationships with parents, socialization between teachers at school sites,
professional learning workshops and conferences, and academic reading. Hedges’s study offers
a deeper query into teachers’ FoK and repositions formal, evidence-based practices as
subordinate to teachers’ informal, personal knowledge. As a lens for this study, this description
of teachers’ FoK had bearing on Cook Islands teachers’ perceptions of technology integration
and offered a frame for analyzing teachers’ perceptions of technology use.
In addition to studies that highlight teachers’ FoK, there are studies that focus on how
teachers can create specific curriculum units based on students’ FoK. From an international
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perspective, two studies in Spain offer insight into how this process can be undertaken to also
include students’ funds of identity. Saubich and Esteban (2011) first utilized a process to
determine students’ FoK and funds of identity, which was then replicated by Joves, Siques, and
Esteban-Guitart (2015). Within each study, the researchers examined a different Moroccan
immigrant family’s household knowledge and beliefs with a small group of teachers. Joves et al.
(2015) defined identity as interactively built through culture, which was mediated and distributed
among people, artifacts, activities, and contexts. Joves et al. (2015) claimed, “While the units of
analysis of funds of knowledge are the resources, knowledge, and family skills of adults; funds of
identity focus on knowledge banks and specific skills of students” (p. 70). Funds of identity
could be defined by references to geographical locations, social relationships, cultural artifacts,
social institutions, and practical activities (Joves et al., 2015). Thus, to complement the
household and ethnographic analysis used, the researchers included the students’ creation of
identity artifacts that described the students’ funds of identity. The collection of students’ funds
of identity in addition to FoK enabled teachers’ further insight into students’ life experiences.
Teachers were then able to contextualize learning for students by connecting not only household
knowledges into school practice, but also students’ self-defined interests and foci in their lives.
In these case studies of immigrant families from Morocco living in Spain, Joves et. al
(2015) and Saubich and Esteban (2011) provided several research strategies to identify
participants’ FoK and funds of identity. Funds of knowledge were assessed through three
quantitative questionnaires that measured family, environment, and community relationships. To
assess funds of identity, the researchers used the following strategies that are explained further:
self-portrait, self-definition task, assessment of family artifacts, routines and educational routines
through pictures, and a significant circle activity. Through the self-portrait task, students drew a
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portrait of themselves to show who they were at the moment. Students were able to include
anything that they felt was relevant to their identity. Second, the self-definition task consisted of
students offering 10 different answers to the question: Who am I? Then they ordered their
definitions by importance. Next, the assessment of family artifacts consisted of a handout that
required the participant to answer three categories of information: artifacts, use, and place.
Through this strategy, researchers could understand families through the objects that they used in
their day-to-day lives. Fourth, students were asked to take pictures of their daily educational
activities for one week to determine how parents defined education. Lastly, in the significant
circle activity, students drew important people and important objects, institutions, and activities
within a big circle to represent themselves. From the data collected about the family’s funds of
knowledge, a total of six teaching units were developed and put into practice within the
classroom. Since the family was from Morocco, the units created were situated in features of
Morocco such as location, homes, animals, foods, and customs. Understanding how teachers
have approached the construction of curriculum based on students’ FoK offered insight into how
Cook Islands teachers might approach planning with technology. This approach shed light on
teachers’ positionality towards supporting Western paradigms and/or sustaining Indigenous
ideals.
Within this section, I presented the concept of third space and FoK as another lens to
view teachers’ technology integration. My reasoning for discussing third space was situated in
my identification of the Cook Islands as a hybrid space. The Cook Islands are not merely a place
where Indigenous discourses and Western ideals intersect. The Cook Islands represent a
multitude of discourses situated within diverse social, historical, and cultural contexts. Thus, to
understand the concept of third space and FoK, teachers must be rooted in social constructivism
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and sociocultural theory. These philosophical positions shed light on teachers’ ability to
envision students’ learning as mediated by a continuum of interactions from past to present. The
literature presented in this section extended my understanding of the sources from which
teachers enact their curriculum planning and pedagogy. Teachers’ classroom decision-making is
situated within a history of social interactions in various places of living. From the home, the
community, the workplace, and spaces of professional learning, teachers’ social interactions
shape their FoK, which in turn shapes their interactions with students. I explained how
researchers have attempted to codify a process for identifying and translating students’ FoK into
classroom practices, which enabled my deeper understanding of how teachers’ perspectives are
operationalized. As some teachers approached technology integration, their consideration of
students’ parental knowledge and personal, self-identified knowledge, those knowledges that
could be considered FoK and funds of identity shaped their perspective of how technology
should be integrated within school.
Culturally Based Education
Culturally based education (CBE) offers another lens to analyze teachers’ positionality
toward technology integration. First, from the context of Native American (American Indian,
Alaska Native, or Native Hawaiian) education, I offer a cohesive understanding of CBE as
constructed by Demmert and Towner (2003). Then, I focus on CBE pedagogy as the crux of this
section. While the literature of third space centered on curriculum creation, the literature of CBE
pedagogy focuses on the importance of how to teach other people’s children (Delpit, 1988). To
elaborate on this notion, I discuss Ladson-Billings’s (1995) culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP),
which has transitioned into culturally sustaining and revitalizing pedagogy (CSRP) through the
efforts of several authors, McCarty and Lee (2014), and Paris and Alim (2014). Similar to the
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progression from FoK to funds of pedagogy, CSRP suggests that Indigenous ways of knowing
and doing must carry over into pedagogical acts within the classroom to critically engage
students and teachers in meaning making processes. The literature describing the CBE and
CSRP frameworks offers a broader lens to understand how Cook Islands teachers may position
themselves toward educating Indigenous students within hybrid spaces. Finally, I return to
Whitinui’s (2010) study from the Kaupapa Maori section of this literature review to illustrate
how teachers’ perceptions of the importance of culture in learning shifts their pedagogical
practices. The literature regarding CBE and CSRP enabled me to have a deeper understanding of
how teachers envision these ideals materializing within the classroom.
CBE Definition
In a review of CBE literature, Demmert and Towner (2003) “present the position that
knowing, understanding, and appreciating one’s cultural base are necessary starting points for
initiating a young person’s formal education. The theory is that it sets the stage for what occurs
in a youngster’s later life” (p. 5). According to Demmert and Towner, there are three major
theories that underlie CBE: Culturally Compatibility Theory, Cognitive Theory, and Cultural-
Historical-Activity Theory (CHAT). All three theories are considered in Demmert and Towner’s
(2003) operational definition of culturally based education programs, which is expressed by six
key elements:
1. Recognition and use of Native American languages.
2. Pedagogy that stressed traditional cultural characteristics, and adult-child interactions.
3. Pedagogy in which teaching strategies are congruent with the traditional culture and
ways of knowing and learning.
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4. Curriculum that is based on traditional culture and that recognizes the importance of
Native spirituality.
5. Strong Native community participation (including parents, elders, other community
resources) in educating children and in the planning and operation of school
activities.
6. Knowledge and use of the social and political mores of the community. (p. 8-9)
While FoK research focuses on curriculum construction, two of Demmert and Towner’s (2003)
six key elements of CBE focus on pedagogy. The way that teachers teach the curriculum is
afforded similar weight to the curriculum itself.
CBE Pedagogy
Just as the concept of third space attempts to connect home to school discourses, the
discussion around CBE pedagogy is grounded in the notion that teachers educate other people’s
children (Delpit, 1988). Schools within hybrid spaces such as the Cook Islands serve children
that come from diverse backgrounds and differing familial cultures. To introduce CBE
pedagogy and its progression, I discuss Delpit’s (1988) understanding of culture and power
within the classroom as a further discussion of the home to school connection in teaching. From
a black minority perspective in the United States, Delpit presents an argument that continues to
be an issue within schools about pedagogy. Framing her argument by the pedagogical debate
over process-oriented versus skills-oriented writing instruction, Delpit claims that within these
dichotomous debates, we forget to address the real issue of the significance that culture plays in
pedagogy. To show the complexity of this issue, Delpit (1988) presents her “culture of power”
in reference to the ways of knowing and doing that are valued and privileged within the
classroom. Delpit (1988) proposes five aspects of power that are relevant to CBE pedagogy:
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1. Issues of power are enacted in classrooms.
2. There are codes or rules for participating in power; that is, there is a “culture of
power.”
3. The rules of the culture of power are a reflection of the rules of the culture of those
who have power.
4. If you are not already a participant in the culture of power, being told explicitly the
rules of that culture makes acquiring power easier.
5. Those with power are frequently least aware of – or least willing to acknowledge – its
existence. Those with less power are often most aware of its existence. (p. 282)
Delpit’s five aspects of the “culture of power” shed light on what she describes as the “silenced
dialogue.” When educators discuss pedagogy, these significant issues can be left out of the
conversation.
I derive two main points from Delpit’s “culture of power” that are relevant to this
discussion of CBE pedagogy. Firstly, pedagogy also includes linguistic forms, communicative
strategies, and presentation of self, or what Delpit identifies as codes or rules. Delpit explains
that ways of talking, writing, dressing, and interacting are all forms of power in the classroom
that can support or hinder success. Delpit further contends that those that do not share the
culture of power or dominant, privileged discourses, require explicit instruction in these codes or
rules to support mainstream success. Secondly, within the literature, I have already presented
that education does not exist within a void. Education is tied to politics and economics, and
therefore perspectives of the purpose of schooling are enacted in the classroom. Thus, the
critical conversation regarding CBE pedagogy is framed by Delpit’s “culture of power,” which
asks the broader structural question: What is the purpose of schooling, and who do schools
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serve? How do we determine the definition of success for students? Delpit shows that these
broader questions underlie decision-making regarding pedagogy. These two main points from
Delpit’s discussion connect to Ladson-Billing’s (1995) considerations in developing a theory of
culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP).
Culturally relevant pedagogy. Ladson-Billings (1995) shifted the dialogue around
educational improvement, equity, and diversity toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy
by sharing her ethnographic research that detailed eight exemplary teachers’ pedagogy in
teaching African American students in the United States. CRP focuses on the dynamism
between the home-school environments, rather than accommodating student culture into
mainstream culture (Ladson-Billings, 1995). The criteria of culturally relevant pedagogy and the
theoretical propositions detailed below offered insight into how Cook Islands teachers approach
teaching students of diverse backgrounds and ultimately how they believed technology should be
used in the classroom.
Firstly, Ladson-Billings (1995) defines CRP by three criteria that she required of the
teachers within her investigation: “the ability to develop students academically, a willingness to
nurture and support cultural competence, and the development of a sociopolitical or critical
consciousness” (p. 483). To further define these three criteria, academic success can also be
defined as facilitating intellectual growth for students. Cultural competence is the ability to help
students appreciate and celebrate their cultures of origin. Lastly, sociopolitical consciousness is
the ability to support students’ transfer of knowledge to real-world problems.
Secondly, from her fieldwork in the exemplary teachers’ classrooms, Ladson-Billings
(1995) offers three broad propositions for her theory that fall under the following categories:
conceptions about self and others, social relations, and conceptions of knowledge. Although the
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teachers met the criteria of being culturally responsive, their observable pedagogy was quite
diverse. As a result, Ladson-Billings (1995) focused on these broad propositions to
communicate her theory and link the teachers’ practice. In terms of conceptions about self and
others, Ladson-Billings posits that the teachers believed that all students were capable of success
and situated themselves as members of the community in which their students’ lived. They also
viewed teaching as an unpredictable art and positioned themselves as learners in their quest to
make meaning with students. Within social relations, Ladson-Billings explains that the teachers
developed a community of learners in which they maintained fluid relationships with all students
and encouraged collaborative learning. Under the last proposition, conceptions about
knowledge, Ladson-Billings found that the teachers were passionate about knowledge. They
believed knowledge is fluid, constructed and must be viewed critically. Furthermore, the
teachers facilitated learning through scaffolding and assessed different knowledges in a variety
of ways.
Ladson-Billings’s (1995) theory of culturally relevant pedagogy offered criteria and
broad propositions for me to identify pedagogy tuned to a cultural lens. Again, although the
teachers within the study possessed diverse teaching styles, they shared the common belief that
all students could learn and took ownership for their students’ learning (Ladson-Billings, 1995).
At the time, Ladson-Billings’ study communicated the importance of teachers’ beliefs and
ideologies in regards to educating culturally diverse students. Yet, understanding that
scholarship, like culture and teaching, is fluid, Ladson-Billings (2014) shifts her stance on CRP
to one proposed by Paris (2012) as culturally sustaining pedagogy, and McCarty and Lee (2014)
as culturally revitalizing pedagogy, to which I now turn.
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Culturally sustaining and revitalizing pedagogy. Paris (2012) proposed the revision of
Ladson-Billings’ (1995) culturally relevant pedagogy to culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) as
a repositioning of the theory toward emphasizing the valuing and maintenance of diverse cultural
practices. Within our globalized world, Paris (2012) argues that the ability to interface with and
appreciate linguistic and cultural diversity is a necessity in pluralistic schools and communities.
Paris (2012) claims that culturally sustaining pedagogy is a term that explicitly embodies the
purpose of schooling to forward democratic ideals. In this case, the democratic ideal of
“sustaining and extending the richness of our pluralistic society. Such richness includes all of
the languages, literacies, and cultural ways of being that our students and communities embody –
both those marginalized and dominant” (Paris, 2012, p. 96).
To extend CSP, Paris and Alim (2014) respectfully critique the body of research that they
term asset pedagogies. This alternate lens provided a deeper understanding into what culture
entails and what sustaining it means in the Cook Islands context. The conversation surrounding
third space and funds of knowledge previously discussed in this literature review embodies Paris
and Alim’s understanding of asset pedagogies. Firstly, Paris and Alim critique asset pedagogies
that focus solely on providing access to White middle class cultural norms. Paris and Alim
contend that in today’s world, we can no longer assume that academic and societal success are
dependent on these “dominant” norms. For Paris and Alim, access and opportunity in the near
future, if not already in the present moment, no longer resides in the acquisition of White cultural
norms, but rather the ability to communicate effectively across diverse linguistic, literate, and
cultural norms.
Secondly, Paris and Alim (2014) critique how asset pedagogies research has
oversimplified cultural practices as tradition or heritage, instead of communicating how culture
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shifts and evolves over time. In particular, they share how youth culture flows across boundaries
determined by tradition and heritage, and do so through the separation of heritage practices and
community practices. While heritage practices such as dress or linguistic differences are
identifiable and attributed to a specific ethnicity, they can still be shared among students of
diverse backgrounds that participate in a cultural community. Thus, Paris and Alim claim that
identities across a community shift and can be constructed from a variety of heritages.
Lastly, Paris and Alim (2014) critique how research surrounding asset pedagogies has not
confronted cultural practices of youth that perpetuate or even create further ills within society.
They claim that asset pedagogies have only presented youth culture through a positive,
progressive lens, while certain aspects of youth culture have reinforced practices of social
inequity such as stereotyping. For Paris and Alim, a revision of asset pedagogies literature
includes the stance that teachers, students, and researchers must work together to expose and
revise those youth practices to support the promotion of social justice. Paris and Alim’s (2014)
proposed revisions of asset pedagogies further defines CSP as an educational imperative. They
claim students’ cultural and linguistic flexibility has replaced White dominant culture as the new
gatekeeper for access to power within our global society. Furthermore, their critique shares a
perspective of teaching and culture that explicitly states the purpose of schooling as the
promotion of democratic ideals and social justice in the face of our fluid, multiethnic and
multicultural world. With this clarity, the work to be done in schools regarding asset pedagogies
is clearly communicated.
Finally, I present McCarty and Lee’s (2014) response to the progression of culturally
relevant pedagogy to culturally sustaining pedagogy. While Paris and Alim (2014) ground their
theorizing in minority cultures within the United States, McCarty and Lee (2014) offer a
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different perspective through a grounding in Native American contexts generalized as
Indigenous peoples. McCarty and Lee suggests that framed by the discussion of Indigenous
education, CSP must include culturally revitalizing pedagogy. From a critical stance, culturally
sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy (CSRP) consists of three components:
1. As an expression of Indigenous education sovereignty, CSRP attends directly to
asymmetrical power relations and the goal of transforming legacies of colonization.
2. CSRP recognizes the need to reclaim and revitalize what has been disrupted and
displaced by colonization. For many Indigenous communities this increasingly
centers on the revitalization of vulnerable mother tongues.
3. Indigenous CSRP recognizes the need for community-based accountability. (p. 103)
Through ethnographies of a public charter and magnet school both serving Native American
students, McCarty and Lee share a glimpse of what CSRP can look like in practice. Educators
within these two settings balance academic, linguistic, and cultural interests of the communities;
for example, the ability to engage students in culture framed by native language, while learning
to read and write in English. Thus, CSRP fosters multiple community-desired competencies,
which encompass plurilingual and pluricultural education, a tenet of CSP. In addition to
fostering cultural tools such as native languages, McCarty and Lee posit that CSRP is a critical
pedagogy to reclaim such tools from a colonial past and reconnect youth to their communities.
As a result, the Indigenous teachers and students engage in an “inward gaze” that can incite
emotional responses in reflection of what was lost culturally and how it was lost. From an
Indigenous perspective, CSRP provides a means to confront past practices and replace wrongs
with practices constructed through community-based accountability. As the end to a continuum
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of cultural lenses to teaching, CSRP offered a final position teachers took in their perspective of
technology integration in schools.
CBE and Kaupapa Maori Epistemology
To conclude this section, I return to one study in the Kaupapa Maori culturalist responses
section as a contextualized example of CBE. Whitinui’s (2010) study expresses how kapa haka,
traditional Maori dancing, engages Maori students in cultural learning activities that can
contribute to their overall academic achievement and wellbeing. Although over 20 of the 27
teachers interviewed recognized kapa haka as an academic subject that contributes to Maori
student achievement and acknowledged that different learning approaches are necessary to meet
the needs of students of diverse cultural backgrounds, Whitinui expresses concern with how
some teachers perceive culture as benefiting Maori students’ ability to achieve.
In a qualitative analysis, Whitinui (2010) explored the way in which Maori teachers
perceived the grounding of Maori students within the art of kapa haka. While Maori teachers felt
a deep responsibility to develop the whole child through kapa haka, a few Maori teachers also
felt the need to think more broadly about catering to the diverse needs of students, not just Maori
students. These Maori teachers believed that students should have the right to choose languages
other than Maori to study. In contrast, over two thirds, 14 non-Maori teachers expressed concern
over “singling [Maori] students out as being different” and privileging Maori students over
others by offering kapa haka in schools (p. 20). Furthermore, some non-Maori teachers in the
study indicated that they did not believe being Maori had anything to do with what students were
required to learn in their subjects. Whitinui pointed to these exceptions as evidence that teachers
still struggled with the notion of culturally relevant teaching, and especially understanding the
socio-historical context of teaching Maori students in New Zealand. Thus, the findings in this
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study showed how teachers’ backgrounds and beliefs contribute to their position on the
continuum of CBE, which in turn shed light on how teachers’ background might influence their
perceptions of ICT integration.
Whitinui’s (2010) study illustrates the tension that teachers experience as they approach
teaching students of diverse backgrounds. As teachers expressed their differing perspectives
about how culture relates to schooling, they revealed their readiness or how well they were
positioned to teach Maori students in culturally responsive ways. Since this school was not a
Kaupapa Maori immersion school, teachers were not aligned in their epistemological
assumptions, and as a result, were not grounded in Maori ways of knowing and doing as essential
for a Maori student-centered approach. Whitinui contended that culture was not stagnant; the
cultural identity and heritage of a place offered opportunities to experiment with new forms of
learning. When presented with hybridity, in this case, the blending of Maori and Eurocentric
cultural and epistemological differences, teachers’ beliefs and attitudes toward the purpose of
education shifted their view of CBE.
Whitinui’s (2010) study offered insight into the tensions that Cook Islands educators
experienced. The Cook Islands teaching faculty came from a range of experience and
backgrounds. With such diversity in background, teachers were positioned differently to teach
Cook Islands Maori students. As Whitinui asserts, there is a need to constantly re-evaluate
teachers’ beliefs and attitudes toward culture and how culture benefits students’ achievement,
since culture is not stagnant. In particular, a social constructivist worldview frames a teachers’
ability to acknowledge that an Indigenous student’s world is socially, culturally, and politically
different, and this different world tempers their construction of meaning individually and with
others. Thus, teachers position toward CBE influenced their position toward ICT integration.
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In this section, I have shared CBE as a lens centered on a progression of pedagogies to
address students’ diverse cultural backgrounds. Tied to third space and FoK, CBE offered
another means to understand teachers’ perceptions toward technology integration as culturally
situated. Comprehending that culture is fluid, teaching methods must shift with the times, which
speaks to how technology has become an enduring focus in teaching and learning. As Cook
Islands teachers have considered and utilized the increasing and ever-developing technologies in
their instruction, the different theoretical iterations of the intersections between teaching and
culture informed my understanding of the stances teachers took toward technology integration.
The literature in this section has offered multiple perspectives of how culture is engaged in
pedagogy. From Delpit’s (1988) connection between culture and power, the silenced dialogue
regarding the critical nature of infusing culture in pedagogy was heard in Ladson-Billings’
(1995) culturally relevant pedagogy. Paris and Alim (2014) then revised CRP to CSP to address
an explicit social justice purpose through the fostering of multilingual and cultural competencies
in light of globalization. To further the social justice stance taken by CSP, McCarty and Lee’s
(2014) CSRP adds revitalization of the many Indigenous languages and cultures that remain
disconnected from youth within their communities. While these multiple stances of CBE
pedagogy afforded deeper understanding of culture and teaching, I now turn to place based
education as another source for yet deeper understanding in this study.
Placed Based Education
Another perspective for this study resides in place-based education (PBE). While third
space and CBE focus on infusing culture into classroom curricular and pedagogical practices,
PBE takes a broader, ecological perspective towards education through the notion of place. PBE
shares the perspective that student identity is not only situated in culture, but also situated within
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the ecology of place. In terms of this literature review, PBE acts as an umbrella term for the
structuralist concerns regarding Kaupapa Maori epistemology. Thus, PBE offers a macro
perspective to analyze teachers’ different internalizations of the purpose of schooling. Within
this section, I first define PBE broadly and clarify the types of learning programs that fall under
this lens. Then, I utilize Seawright’s (2014) classification of PBE into three epistemic categories
to communicate PBE as a continuum. Within the discussion of each category of PBE, I share
criticisms of what is not being considered in the pedagogy. These different conceptions of PBE
and subsequent criticisms offered another lens to understand how teachers were positioned
toward technology integration in the unique place of the Cook Islands.
PBE Definition
Gruenewald and Smith (2008) argue, from a broad perspective, that PBE is a means to
reclaim localism in the face of economic globalization. “The narrative of globalization remains
largely unquestioned in schooling,” as educators focus on international standardized test scores
to benchmark the effectiveness of their educational programs (Gruenewald & Smith, 2008, p.
xv). Gruenewald and Smith claim that multinational corporations’ constant pursuit of cheaper
production costs has caused struggling communities around the globe to continue to experience
fewer economic opportunities. Thus, Gruenewald and Smith compare place-based education to a
new localism that attempts to create place-conscious, economic development by connecting
individuals to their communities through contextualized learning experiences in school. These
learning experiences have been contained within the following practices: work-related programs,
service learning, local history courses, outdoor education, and environmental studies in schools
(McInerney, Smyth, & Down, 2011). In addition, Smith (2007) extends PBE to include broader
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categories of learning such as cultural journalism, expeditionary learning, problem-based
learning, and contextual teaching and learning.
Place is defined as community, and McInerney et al. (2011) explain that PBE is focused
on creating opportunities for students to learn about caring for the ecological and social
wellbeing of the communities in which they inhabit. To further this definition of PBE,
McInerney et al. (2011) claim that one aim of PBE is the connecting of schools and
communities. With the onset of standards-based testing, McInerney et al. view PBE as a means
to accommodate local contexts into school curricula. Fukuda, Ah Sam, and Wang (2010)
explain that curriculum tied to a specific place adapts to the unique characteristics of a particular
commons, connecting schools to homes. Fukuda et al. further claim that PBE uses the natural
and cultural commons as the foundation for the curriculum, which can show students the strength
in their community. McInerney et al. explain that the thinking behind PBE is to promote student
agency in playing an active role in learning about and caring for their community.
PBE has roots in the understanding that places subjected to Western capitalism have
become devoid of personal and ontological meaning (Seawright, 2014). Seawright (2014) states
that place-based educators view Western conceptions of land as one-dimensional sources of real
estate or natural resources to be consumed. Seawright further explains that these conceptions of
land are founded in Western knowledge systems that also determine the foundations of
schooling. As a result, place-based educators assume that both Western epistemology and
schooling have become placeless (Seawright, 2014). Therefore, the purpose of PBE is to disrupt
these norms of schooling through centering instruction on unraveling the complexity of places as
economic, ecological, social, political, and spiritual (Seawright, 2014). Underneath this broad
purpose, Seawright classifies PBE into three cohorts: liberal, critical, and indigenous.
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Liberal PBE
Seawright (2014) claims that the liberal PBE cohort is defined mostly by David Sobel’s
work. The focus of this cohort is to promote greater balance between humans and their
environment through education that centers on the relationships between one’s homeground and
the larger ecological and social world (Sobel, 2004). Thus, according to Seawright (2014),
liberal PBE challenges the dominant culture’s relationship to the natural world, but does not
critically engage with the alternate meanings of places for different individuals.
As a critique of what Seawright (2014) terms liberal PBE, McInerney et al. (2011)
contend that in practice rather than theory, PBE becomes problematic. Much like the issues with
FoK, in PBE, the notion of place can be envisioned in a static, romanticized way, which fails to
express the dynamism of places. To add to this criticism of Seawright’s (2014) liberal PBE,
Bang and Medin (2010) argue that people live culturally; they draw upon sense-making practices
to navigate everyday life. Thus, Bang and Medin claim that cultural practices must be central to
a community-based curriculum. Furthermore, McInerney et al. explain that educators cannot
romanticize students’ notions of place and their communities as always promoting democratic
ideals. For example, stereotyping, as I presented in the CSP section regarding youth culture rap,
can be part of a community persona that reinforces inequalities. Thus, showing a need for a
critical pedagogy within PBE. Yet, according to McInerney et al., critical PBE is hindered,
ironically, by localism. Some PBE educators argue for students’ understanding of their own
communities through curriculum based solely in their place of inhabitation. By focusing on local
activism without considering how broader economic and political events shape local issues,
students are not afforded the opportunity to question the structures of society.
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Critical PBE
Seawright (2014) contends that the critical PBE cohort is centered on David
Gruenewald’s thinking, which addresses the criticisms of liberal PBE. Gruenewald and Smith
(2008) explain five core themes in place-based education that foster students’ development of the
skills and dispositions to revitalize and sustain local community life. Firstly, all places are
deserving of respect and care. Second, change and collective effort is both challenging and
rewarding. Third, individual health and security are codependent upon community members.
Fourth, diversity is not simply multiculturalism or culturally responsive teaching; it is situated in
ecological perspectives that seek to understand the uniqueness of places. Finally, the teaching of
ethics is essential to place-based education, since decision-making is determined by the benefits
and consequences of choices made for local communities.
The complexity of revitalizing the commons becomes critical when a social justice
perspective is incorporated into learning. According to Gruenewald (2003), our educational
institutions are embedded in deeper cultural patterns that are common to Western development.
Education is also linked to the globalization of economic markets. Thus, education is situated
within the relationships between economics, culture, and the environment. With this
understanding, Gruenewald (2003) envisions PBE as a critical pedagogy, in which students
critique the local through an examination of how colonization and the misuse of power affect the
inhabitants and natural resources tied to land. Gruenewald (2003) refers to a process of
decolonization and reinhabitation to describe his critical pedagogy. Firstly, through
decolonization, students learn to question and challenge the dominant perspectives that harm
their lives and the lives of others in their communities. Secondly, Gruenewald’s (2003)
reinhabitation refers to the steps taken by people to revitalize and restore the environmental and
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social practices that promote sustainability and development of the community in the present and
future. Where the liberal perspective ties PBE to improved school outcomes, the critical
perspective focuses on challenging assumptions about the purpose of schooling as rooted in local
community development, rather than closing global achievement gaps (Seawright, 2014).
Yet, critics, such as Bowers (2008) have questioned Gruenewald’s (2003) stance toward
PBE. To share the criticisms regarding PBE as a critical pedagogy, I first share Bowers (2008)
definition of cultural commons. Then, I explain the center of Bowers’ argument against critical
PBE. Bowers (2008) elaborates on the concept of cultural commons within a community as
sustained by intergenerational knowledge. Bowers contends that aspects of local cultural
commons have been carried on for generations and are part of patterns within Indigenous
societies that retain mutual support systems within communities. Further defining local cultural
commons, Bowers explains that intergenerational knowledge includes “the narratives,
approaches to the creative arts, ceremonies, civil liberties and systems of reintegration into the
community, and craft knowledge” (p. 331). Thus, PBE is tied to CBE, in that culture is
embedded in the notion of place.
The questioning of underlying assumptions that support hegemonic structures in society
is the crux of Bowers’s (2008) criticism of PBE as a critical pedagogy. Bowers contends that a
critical pedagogy of place is an oxymoron, when thick description of context is not part of the
pedagogies enacted by PBE. In particular reference to Indigenous peoples with cultural
traditions rooted in diverse languages, Bowers criticizes the abstract language describing PBE to
be a pedagogy of decolonization and reinhabitation. The assumption that every place adheres to
these terms that communicate sweeping generalizations regarding emancipation from capitalist,
Western domination is problematic for Bowers. Instead, he asserts that the paradigm of critical
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pedagogy does not communicate the complexity of educating students about place. Instead,
Bowers believes that thick description of cultural commons and an understanding of what
practices must be conserved versus what practices must be changed avoids approaching unique
places through Western paradigms of change that simply replace existing hegemonies.
Indigenous PBE
Although PBE has been envisioned as a separate pedagogy, Seawright (2014) views
Indigenous epistemologies and Indigenous education as the longest standing form of PBE.
Seawright supports this claim through the fact that Indigenous peoples operate under knowledge
systems other than offered by Western paradigms, which shape their perspectives of place and
learning. It is within this understanding that Seawright asserts his argument for a critical
pedagogy of place to include a deconstruction of the Western epistemic foundations that underlie
critical PBE. Seawright (2014) continues this conversation by citing Western conceptions of
place as the mechanism that subverts PBE as a critical pedagogy. Like Bowers (2008),
Seawright points to philosophical abstractions as the root of what is problematic about PBE’s
critical discourse. And like Bowers, Seawright contends that a deeper, structural, in fact,
epistemic lens must be applied to PBE to avoid hegemony.
Seawright claims that place-based educators falsely assume that Western epistemology,
rooted in capitalism, renders land as placeless. He contends that place framed by Western
knowledge systems socializes individuals into roles created by a discourse of domination. These
roles are founded upon settler traditions of place, what he defines as “normative habits and
practices that have been passed down for generations, encouraging particular relations to place”
(Seawright, 2014). Seawright argues that Western settler traditions normalize places through the
creation of an ideal social actor that determines the ideal ways of knowing and being, and thus,
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establish dominant and subordinate social interactions within a locality. Thus, Seawright
contends that in order for PBE to be a critical pedagogy, the deeper, foundational way in which
we are differentially socialized into epistemic structures must be part of the pedagogy enacted.
Of particular importance to this study was Seawright’s (2014) conception of land
ownership as a settler tradition of place, which is a product of Western epistemology defined by
anthropocentrism (regarding humans as the center of existence and dominant over God or
animals), white supremacy, and colonialism. Seawright explains that through settler traditions,
the ideal social actor brings a cultivated self to an uncultivated land by homemaking, which
entails exploiting natural resources and creating a dominant discourse situated in the racist and
sexist paradigm of white male privilege. Settler colonization then embeds false binaries of
thinking within the fabric of the new society framed by Western epistemology. According to
Seawright, these binaries can be identified as civilized/savage, mind/body, culture/nature, and
dominant/subordinate. Thus, Seawright claims that critical pedagogies of place focused on
social and epistemic justice must include critical epistemic introspection to truly counter
injustice.
Within this section, I have presented three different conceptions of PBE as another lens to
analyze teachers’ perceptions of technology integration. Technology integration intersects with
PBE in the understanding that when decontextualized, learning becomes irrelevant. While PBE
offers an ecological perspective to education, the literature contends that it does not displace the
importance of culture in learning. Rather, PBE is inclusive of culture as a key element to
learning that is situated within the ecology of places. The criticisms of PBE express how what
we leave out of the conversation can actually control the conversation without our knowledge. I
have presented how the authors, Bowers (2008) and Seawright (2014), view Western
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abstractions as problematic for enactments of PBE as a critical pedagogy. In particular, these
criticisms problematize change processes, such as technology integration, when enacted solely
within Western paradigms. The authors contend that laying a critical stance upon pedagogical
shifts does not automatically confirm those shifts as beneficial to all unique populations. In
terms of teachers’ perspectives of technology integration, PBE offered a lens to view technology
integration from the perspective of place, realizing that any pedagogical tool must be chosen for
specific populations that are situated within unique ecologies.
ICTs and Indigenous Education
The criticisms of PBE lead into the discussion of the intersection between ICTs and
Indigenous education. Within this section, I present the literature in which the lenses of hybrid
space, CBE, and PBE intersect with ICTs. To frame this section, I first discuss the intersection
of ICTs, literacy, globalization, and power. Next, I share literature situated in ICTs and
Indigenous populations that connects and overlaps with the lenses that I have already presented.
Then, I discuss how ICTs intersect with New Zealand Maori epistemology. Next, I explain how
authors have conceptualized the role of culture in technology integration: as a neutral tool to
provide equal opportunities for all, or as a cultural tool to be used carefully, sustainably and
critically. I end this section by focusing in on how teachers’ epistemology, cultural background,
and understanding of place influences their perceptions of ICTs. Since the literature was sparse
within this domain, I opened my review to include studies that were beyond the realm of
education as conventionally defined in school settings. For this section, the term education is
broad and encompassing all the facets of life in which we learn. This section provided a frame
for the ways in which teachers perceived how technology relates to students’ culture, as well as
the political and economic context of the Cook Islands.
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Literacy, Globalization, and Power
Heath (1991) explains that the sense of being literate has become increasingly important
as traditional societies interface with the modern world through information communication
technologies (ICTs). For Heath, the sense of being literate is the acknowledgement that literacy
depends upon more than separate discreet skills. Heath claims that those that have a sense of
being literate know that literacy depends on social interactions and cultural practices; thus,
literacy is dynamic, iterative, and steeped in identity. Today, Heath’s conception of literacy still
rings true in light of the consequences of globalization upon Indigenous communities. Writers of
diverse historical contexts, geographies, and professions promote political and philosophical
orientations by sharing information and recommendations toward action through these
technologies (Heath, 1991). Thus, the ability to exhibit literate behaviors, to be able to compare,
sequence, argue, interpret, and create, is essential to controlling and stabilizing one’s own world
(Heath, 1991). Although ICTs afford a wealth of opportunities for teaching and learning, authors
warn that Indigenous communities must consider the issues of power and control with adoption
and participation (Dyson, Hendriks, & Grant, 2007).
Yet, that power and control can be abdicated by Indigenous communities, if the rhetoric
around globalization, 21
st
century learning, and ICTs is simply accepted without a critical lens.
To explain this intersection between globalization and ICTs in the context of schooling, I revisit
Gruenewald and Smith’s (2008) discussion of critical PBE, as well as Bowers’s (2008) criticism.
Gruenewald and Smith (2008) contend that “the narrative of globalization remains largely
unquestioned in schooling” and is connected to the use of technology to develop 21
st
century
skills (p. xv). The rhetoric regarding the need for schools to change practices to incorporate ICT
use has led to costly technology initiatives within school systems around the world (Keengwe &
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Onchwari, 2011). Bowers (2008) warns against the citation of well-known Western thinkers to
promote the belief that change is an inherently progressive force. For Bowers, change or
transformation through critical pedagogies is not acultural, and if treated as such, the need for
conservation is overlooked. Thus, the issues surrounding critical PBE attest to the issues
surrounding technology integration in Indigenous communities. When tied to globalization and
21
st
century skills as a blanket need regardless of context, technology integration in schools can
be decontextualized from the community served.
To continue with this line of thought, I share an example provided by Bowers (2008).
Bowers argues that abstract Western epistemology favors rational thought over lived
experiences, and lived experiences define the knowledge systems of Indigenous communities.
Bowers states that in Canada, a Native Indian group relied on critical reflection to determine the
cultural issues involved in adopting computers in their approaches to education. They discussed
what needed to be changed and what needed to stay within their curriculum and instruction. In
places that have a tradition of Indigenous ways of knowing and doing, this kind of critical
dialogue is necessary to ensure preservation of cultural traditions.
Thus, Bowers’s (2008) call for thick description through narratives combats
generalizations, abstractions, and simplifications that can, in turn, carry forward misconceptions
about what communities need and ultimately the purpose of education. For Bowers, the
intergenerational knowledge of Indigenous communities sustains the cultural commons (skills,
systems of mutual support, narratives, ceremonies, and arts) of places. From an Indigenous
education perspective, Bowers communicates the importance of not placing a Western ideology
upon systems of knowledge that exist within unique places, since Western fads in ideology, such
as the need for technology use in schools, can cause sweeping shifts in education. Furthermore,
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Livingstone (2012), in her literature review of the benefits of ICT in education, explains that if
the society that produced ICTs shapes them, then critical reflection would interrogate the
assumption that the deployment of ICTs to Indigenous communities is empowering. Through
this conditional reasoning, Livingstone contends that ICTs also have the potential to reinforce or
extend dominant perspectives and thus, the devaluing of alternate knowledge systems.
As teachers increase their use of ICTs, the Cook Islands education community will
grapple with what this means for learning and teaching. The following studies that express
perspectives of the intersection between ICTs and Indigenous communities offer the descriptions
that can combat the notion of technology integration as placeless and all encompassing. The
studies grapple with the questions about how technology is situated within a wider cultural,
social, ethnic, economic, and political context. And, the studies offer perspectives of how
technology could be tuned to the needs of Indigenous communities, and thus, how teachers
viewed the uptake of technology in different ways, from stances that are acultural, ecological,
and/or critical.
New Zealand Maori Epistemology and Technology
Focusing on what is missing from the New Zealand curriculum frameworks’ (NZCF)
references to technology, Marshall (2000) critiques the New Zealand Ministry of Education
(NZMOE) for not considering “how Western technology might impinge upon Maori
metaphysics and epistemology” (p. 121). His philosophical perspective offered insight into how
teachers within the Cook Islands viewed technology integration as problematic to Indigenous
ways of knowing and doing.
Marshall’s (2000) epistemic argument is centered on Martin Heidegger’s questioning of
technology literacy as more than functional. Firstly, Marshall (2000) establishes that when the
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NZCF first referenced technology and learning, the references pitted technology as neutral, a
type of functional literacy that acts as a gatekeeper for students to function under the power of
society. He argues that technology in this sense is not perceived as a “real” literacy, in which
societal ways of knowing and doing, as well as underlying power structures and assumptions are
questioned through use. Marshall (2000) employs Heidegger’s argument that technology has a
way of being or essence that is realized through simultaneous relationships with humans. In
discussions of the meaning of literacy, I recognize this argument within Shor’s (1999) statement,
“Through words and other actions, we build ourselves in a world that is building us” (para. 1).
Thus, Marshall claims that the purpose of technology in schooling cannot be determined by
Western epistemologies that deem technology as a neutral, inanimate object to be utilized as a
means to an end. Instead, he views technology as an essence that reciprocally shapes us as we
shape its purpose and existence.
Marshall (2000) grounds his metaphysical view of technology in Maori epistemology. In
contrast to Western tradition, Maori believe in the interconnectedness of all things, and thus
believe that there is no separation between actions and consequences (Marshall, 2000). As a
recap from the Kaupapa Maori epistemology section of this review, whanaungatanga is “an
understanding of the ties that unite, the affinities, interdependencies and interrelationships
between living and non-living, between the past, present and future can be understood”
(Marshall, 2000, p. 129). If conceived of as part of the environment, technology is then no
different from humans, and thus possesses an essence. Therefore, from the stance of Maori
epistemology, since technology can shape us, its use must be carefully considered and defined by
those that use it. Marshall’s (2000) philosophical argument expresses concern regarding the use
of technology from a Western paradigm as a neutral tool devoid of meaning. Technology use in
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this decontextualized manner, in a sense, would be an imposition upon one’s values, one’s
essence. Marshall’s interpretation of technology offered an alternate perspective that framed my
understanding of how teachers approached integration within their instruction. We often refer to
technology as an instructional tool, but when technology was considered a cultural tool, it took
on new meaning.
Blending Paradigms and ICTs
Positioning technology as a cultural tool, authors have considered how to blend
Indigenous knowledges into the deployment and use of technology within communities.
Wotherspoon (2015) claims that new ICTs transform how we think about and relate to diverse
forms of learning and knowledge systems, since ICTs enable all members of populations to learn
beyond brick and mortar institutions; The blending of public and private life through ICTs push
the conventional understandings of formal education past boundaries and into informal spaces.
In this section, I discuss the intersection between ICTs and hybrid space, third space, and CBE.
Within this discussion, I explore the ways in which researchers have positioned ICTs as
culturally significant to communities through the construction of methodologies for integration.
Loewen, Kinshuk, and Suhonen (2014) offer an ICT framework for providing inclusive
learning objects for Indigenous learners. Situating their thinking within artificial intelligence,
Loewen et al. (2014) utilize heuristic rules, in this case If-Then clauses that are consistent with
fuzzy logic, to conceptualize learning resources for Indigenous students. Loewen et al. (2014)
offer the following thinking:
The key in the ability of IK [Indigenous knowledge] systems to deal with complexity
might be the use of ‘rules of thumb,’ simple prescriptions based on IK and understanding
backed by religious belief, ritual, taboos and social conventions. It is well known in the
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theory of complex adaptive systems that complexity can emerge from simple rules.
Fuzzy logic shows promise in providing the glue that is missing to assist in bridging two
very distinct epistemological ways of thinking. (p. 349)
Fuzzy logic utilizes a blending of qualitative and quantitative measures, which attests to the
blending of IK and Western knowledge systems. Loewen et al. liken IK systems with qualitative
paradigms and Western knowledge systems with quantitative measures. Within Loewen et al.’s
framework, “rule of thumb” inputs, in the form of linguistic expression, are included as
knowledge that is equal to the knowledge gleaned from empirical studies. Inclusion of IK is
conducive to fuzzy logic approaches, since local knowledge is based on uncertainty. Instead of
viewing this knowledge as incapable of being codified, fuzzy logic enables knowledge based in
uncertainty to become formalized. Information about the areas of interest and concern for
Indigenous peoples can then be gathered and incorporated into the design of learning objects,
which can act as the resources for contextualized learning experiences.
For example, in a reflective analysis of the e-Bario project located in the Highlands of the
Kelbit people of Malaysia, Bala (2011) shared the creation of authentic learning objects, such as
a land conservation map for the Indigenous community. Although Bala did not explicitly utilize
Loewen et al.’s (2014) framework, I assert that the description of objects created through ICT
use filtered by IK offers a contextualized example. With the introduction of a telecenter
(telephone, Internet, computer access point) prior to the development of a logging industry, the
Kelbit community was able to use digital mapping to document cultural and historical sites and
locate conservation areas. The technologies enabled the Indigenous community to discuss land
use sites and preserved the physical aspects of their oral histories through increased
communication via the learning object, the maps. As a resource, created through IK, the Bario
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community could then utilize the object to educate others about the reasoning or fuzzy logic that
defined their decision-making.
Focusing more within the realm of formal schooling, Latu and Young (2004) assert that
to see the benefits of using technology, Pacific Island background students (PIBS) in New
Zealand must be introduced to ICTs in a way that considers their cultural background and
expectations. Prior to the arrival of missionaries in the Pacific Islands, the traditional mode of
teaching and learning was that of an apprenticeship model (Latu & Young, 2004). Once
missionaries introduced formal schools, this changed to a command-and-do style of learning
(Latu & Young, 2004). This cultural history of learning and teaching, although generalized for
PIBS, communicates the differences in cultural norms of learning on the grounds of broader
ethnic identities. The authors contend that in order for ICTs to be considered culturally
appropriate, they must be utilized through pedagogical approaches that are adapted to support
students’ diverse background.
Acknowledging ICTs as cultural tools requires educators to consider blending paradigms
or ways of knowing and doing. Cook Islands teachers’ positions toward technology as a neutral
tool or technology as a cultural tool influenced the way in which they made meaning of
integration. Continuing this discussion requires a shift toward technology as a tool to sustain
culture.
Cultural Sustainability and ICTs
Within the CBE literature, culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) indicates a re-emphasis
of culturally relevant pedagogy to focus on the valuing and maintenance of diverse cultures.
Although the following discussion is not centered on schools, it sheds light on how ICTs can be
used within an Indigenous community to sustain cultural knowledge. Livingstone (2012)
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contends that ICTs in the form of the Internet can enable widespread sharing of valuable
resources, and can afford learners the opportunity to collaborate over time and place. The
intersection between cultural sustainability and the use of Internet-based information systems to
collect and share traditional knowledge is the focus of this subsection.
Nicolas-Rocca and Parrish (2013) offered a case study in which they discovered how the
Chamorro people of Guam employed the use of ICTs to preserve, capture, and disseminate
Indigenous knowledge. Since the Indigenous knowledge of this community was primarily
passed through oral traditions, much of the ancient cultural traditions had been lost (Nicolas-
Rocca & Parrish, 2013). Although Nicolas-Rocca and Parrish acknowledged that cultures were
constantly changing through the processes of invention, cultural transmission, diffusion, and
acculturation, the authors claimed that Indigenous worldviews, the underlying values that were
key to a culture, did not change. The maintenance of these cultural worldviews was important to
preserving the cultural commons of Indigenous communities.
Nicolas-Rocca and Parrish (2013) conducted a case study to understand how ICTs were
used to capture and convey Indigenous Chamorro knowledge. Utilizing results from interviews
of 15 Chamorro individuals, the authors created an online survey to discover the types of
Chamorro cultural knowledge that were valued, and what ICTs were used to capture and transmit
the knowledge. The authors found that since Chamorros mostly transferred knowledge orally,
ICT use was increasingly important to preserving culture. Chamorros used informational
websites, content communities, and social networking sites to share cultural knowledge.
Websites such as guampedia.com, content communities such as 671recipes.com, and social
networks such as facebook.com exposed how social media could support cultural preservation of
those elements of culture that Chamorros deemed most important: way of life, language, and
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food/recipes (Nicolas-Rocca & Parrish, 2013). Nicolas-Rocca and Parrish’s (2013) case study
shows the intersection between sustaining Indigenous cultural commons and ICTs. This study
helped me understand how teachers viewed technology as more than an instructional tool, but
rather as a tool to sustain cultural practices and work toward a critical pedagogy.
Yet, Loewen et al. (2014) warn that formalizing Indigenous knowledge (IK) into written
and digital forms can become problematic for various reasons. Since Indigenous knowledge
systems do not rely on hierarchies like Western knowledge systems, codifying IK can result in
inflexible ontological schemes. Once established, the categories in which knowledge has been
sorted become difficult to change. Furthermore, the politics regarding who is allowed to codify
and formalize IK becomes problematic. Since IK is often shared, contextualized knowledge, the
issues of wording and conceptualizing the knowledge can be endlessly contested. Loewen et al.
explain that instead of having experts codify IK, folksonomies enable users to generate
classification systems from the bottom-up through social networking. Yet, folksonomy,
positioned at the opposite end of the spectrum of approaches to sustaining IK, lacks precision,
focus, and scalability. In the study of Chamorro knowledge, the researchers analyzed a range of
sources created from the top down and bottom up approaches. Understanding that classification
is problematic, due to politics and epistemology, expresses the range in perspectives regarding
cultural sustainability through ICTs.
Van Der Meer, Smith, and Pang (2015) offer a blended top down and bottom up
approach to designing information systems for the purpose of sustaining Australian Aboriginal
culture. Not simply viewing cultural sustainability through the lens of digital content, Van Der
Meer et al. present the creation of systems within the frame of informatics, the humanistic
approach to creating, storing, finding, manipulating, and sharing of information. Van Der Meer
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et al. propose an approach to the design of digital information systems that teach cultural
knowledge through culturally appropriate manners that respectfully uphold social guidelines.
This bottom up approach to design would be paired with a top down approach to accessing the
resources, since cultural knowledge would be held and offered to those that the Indigenous
peoples desired to have access. Thus, ICT use to sustain cultural knowledge and access it is
centered on those that live the culture. Van Der Meer et al.’s proposal offers insight into the
careful considerations that feed into the development of information systems to sustain cultural
practices.
Yet, cultural sustainability initiatives within Indigenous communities can also extend to
the acts of capturing the cultural knowledge. Singleton et al. (2009) described the outputs and
outcomes of an initiative for Australian Aboriginal youth to use ICTs to re-engage in their
culture. By initially providing hardware (networked computers, digital cameras and video
cameras), and then increasing the diversity of ICTs available, the researchers enabled youth, age
7 to 25 years old, to explore and capture their culture with the guidance of the Walkatjurra
Cultural Centre (WCC) rangers and elders. By capturing the sharing of Aboriginal cultural
knowledge while out on field trips with rangers, youth communicated their understanding of
cultural information through review sessions in which elders took part. Singleton et al. claimed
that elders viewed the process as valuable, since youth could demonstrate that they had taken up
intergenerational knowledge and could communicate that knowledge on camera. While the
outputs consisted of videos that captured cultural knowledge, the outcome was community
empowerment. The community chose not to implement formal measurement of the outcomes
that mirror Western ways of knowing. As a result, the community members themselves
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measured the outcomes and regarded the term empowerment as reflective of the use of ICTs by
youth to sustain cultural knowledge.
The literature communicates that the use of ICTs to sustain culture are key to
understanding that assumptions can be multilayered. Authors claim that utilizing ICTs to sustain
culture and traditional knowledge should be approached from multiple viewpoints to avoid the
imposition of Western knowledge systems upon Indigenous peoples. Singleton et al. (2009)
share the concept of an envelopment stance versus a development stance when approaching the
use of ICTs to sustain traditional knowledge. The envelopment stance focuses on keeping
knowledge alive within Indigenous communities, compared to the development stance, which
takes the approach of creating databases to store knowledge as part of an external development
program. This envelopment stance shifts the perspective of technology as a development tool to
an empowerment tool. I now turn to literature that explicitly focuses on critical stances toward
ICT use in Indigenous communities.
Critical Perspectives of ICTs
Each section of this literature review intersects with critical spaces. Yet, through the lens
of PBE, the rhetoric around ICTs as a universal, neutral tool that positions students to be
“successful” in the 21
st
century is interrogated. Dyson (2004) explains that situating computer
technology from a socio-political perspective encompasses two main ideas:
• ICTs are the products of a culture and hence embody the ideologies of that
culture.
• ICTs, because of the values and ideologies they embody, in turn have the ability
to influence and effect change in society which produced them, the world and the
user. (p. 59)
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Dyson (2004) states that authors have viewed ICTs as having the capability to alter our interests
and influence human judgment. If this is true, Dyson claims that the uptake of technology by
Indigenous peoples has profound implications. In particular, she contends that if Indigenous
peoples do not filter technology uptake through a critical lens, technology can reinforce
hegemonies and strengthen dominant discourses within unique cultural commons.
Within Indigenous communities in Australia, Dyson (2004) claims that when provided
access, studies have shown that Indigenous peoples readily take-up computer technology. As a
result, Dyson explains that this uptake must occur from a critical stance. Dyson reports on ICT
design, implementation, and management that have been culturally grounded and centered on
Indigenous needs through Indigenous empowerment in decision-making. Through multimedia
archives, Indigenous peoples have been able to revise the representation of Indigenous
knowledge and culture through their own voices rather than outsider perspectives. Through
ICTs, Indigenous peoples of Australia have been afforded the opportunity to preserve and revive
languages that would otherwise be lost. Indigenous peoples have also been able to manage and
protect secret, or sacred knowledge through participation in the creation of information systems
to uphold traditional values and beliefs. Lastly, Indigenous e-commerce and web design have
enabled Indigenous peoples the opportunity to escape poverty, share their culture, and dwell on
their traditional lands by selling Indigenous products. Through these examples, Dyson asserts
that ICTs are in fact highly flexible tools, rather than tools that deliver Western values. If
carefully deployed and adapted to the goals of Indigenous peoples, Dyson claims that ICTs have
the potential to combat cultural imperialism.
Next, I highlight another author’s work that I believe speaks and adds to Dyson’s (2004)
arguments for the Indigenous use of ICTs. I revisit Bala’s (2011) discussion of the history and
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progression of the e-Bario project for the Indigenous Kelbit community of Malaysia to show how
critical stances within Indigenous individuals are developed simultaneously with ICT
deployment and use. Through failed prior technology initiatives within the Kelbit community,
Bala (2011) claimed that researchers and developers from the University of Malaysia Sarawak
knew that technology deployment needed to be housed within the local knowledge, social
arrangements, and cultures at the forefront of development. Employing participative methods to
promote agency in the Indigenous people and communities as the mediators of change, the
researchers took the following actions: they became participants in cultural activities, they
learned about life in Bario, they taught the community about ICTs, they critically reflected upon
their actions to achieve mutual outcomes from the project, and they utilized information systems
to align the project to community needs.
Yet, although participatory methods were utilized, asymmetrical power relations were
still established and maintained. As Bala (2011) explains, the imbalance of power relations
between developers and community members, community members involved and bystanders,
and users and nonusers, challenged the traditional practices of communal ownership. Bala
claimed that the development of the telecenter within this Indigenous, rural community created a
new socio-political space in which the Kelbit people had to negotiate power, status, reputation,
and resources amongst themselves.
From this tense dialogue created by the intersection of ICTs and Indigenous ways of
knowing and doing, Bala contended that the Kelbit people were able to negotiate what value to
attribute to the Internet, computers and telephones. They also had to determine how to apply
these technologies to their own political, social, and economic circumstances. Although the
introduction of ICTs into this unique place created tension and challenged traditional values
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within the community, the people were able to construct critical stances to development
initiatives within their communities and exercise their agency over change initiatives, rather than
be the passive recipients of failed development interventions (Bala, 2011). Bala’s reflections
upon the introduction of ICTs into a remote Indigenous community show how ICTs were
situated within sociopolitical and socioeconomic contexts. Through the uptake of computer
technology, there was inevitably some kind of loss as new spaces of interaction were created.
Yet, the e-Bario project shows that there was also something gained.
Within this section, I presented the use of ICTs by Indigenous communities through a
critical lens. In sum, the following viewpoint of Dyson (2004) communicates how ICTs can be
critically regarded and why ICTs should continue to be used by Indigenous peoples:
Rather than view ICTs as inherently loaded with Western values, it might be more
accurate to say that they are only capable of furthering the agenda of the dominant culture
if used to that end. Excluding Indigenous people from ICTs on this basis is itself a form
of cultural imperialism which seeks to maintain their existing disempowerment and
marginalization. In an age when everything runs on computer technology, Indigenous
people, as much as any other, have the need for full access to that technology and power
over it. (p. 69)
Dyson regards ICTs as a means to improve communication and collaboration among Indigenous
individuals to promote the knowledge and understanding of Indigenous culture and tradition.
Yet, regardless of how careful technology initiatives within Indigenous communities are
implemented, even through participative methods, there is a giving up as technology use partially
shapes individuals and as individuals shape technology. Furthermore, the loss can occur within
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new spaces of interaction emerging from the use of technology that shift ways of doing and
knowing within communities.
Teachers’ Cultural Perceptions of ICTs
Although I have presented various, multilayered perspectives of ICTs and Indigenous
education, I now turn to the focus of this study, which was teachers’ perceptions of the uptake of
ICTs. I discuss two studies to share firstly how teachers’ epistemic beliefs predicted their use of
ICTs, and secondly how teachers’ cultural and critical positioning influenced their perceptions of
ICTs. Although these studies are not situated within Indigenous education, both spoke to the
need to delve deeper into the study of how teachers make meaning of ICT uptake within unique
contexts.
First, I present Deng et al.’s (2014) study of the relationships between Chinese high
school teachers’ epistemic beliefs, pedagogical beliefs, and use of ICTs. The participants
included a total of 396 high school teachers from Guangdong province in China. Teachers
completed a Likert survey that included three scales: teachers’ epistemic beliefs, pedagogical
beliefs, and instructional use of ICTs. The researchers’ findings confirmed that teachers’ beliefs
about knowledge and teaching were related to their use of ICTs with the strongest correlation
between constructivist epistemology, constructivist pedagogical beliefs, and constructivist use of
ICTs. Deng et al.’s study showed that teachers’ underlying epistemologies influenced their
position toward teaching and ultimately their position toward the uptake of ICTs.
Second, through a cultural and critical lens, I share Albirini’s (2006) exploration of
teachers’ cultural perceptions of ICT integration in Syria. In a two stage mixed methods
descriptive study, Albirini utilized data from 314 high school English as a Foreign Language
teachers’ questionnaire responses followed by purposeful interviews. The purpose of the study
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 116

was to determine the overall perceptions of ICTs’ influence upon the teachers’ national and
school cultures. Albirini found that overall, teachers had positive perceptions about technology
as a tool to support socioeconomic mobility. Yet, they were apprehensive about the cultural and
moral appropriateness of ICTs, in particular Internet content. Furthermore, Albirini highlighted
the teachers’ lack of concern about the under-representation of the Arabic language on the
Internet or the non-neutral aspects of computers as reflective of Western values. Albirini
concluded that teachers’ cultural perceptions influence ICT adoption. Although teachers
generally accepted the global demands for technology use in the classroom, the understanding
that ICTs influence Syrian culture and values was apparent in their responses. Yet, not to the
point that teachers were critically aware of how technological innovations are not culturally
neutral.
Although the teachers sampled within both studies resided in very different contexts from
the Cook Islands, both studies provided insight into the kind of positioning that teachers
communicated through their perceptions of technology integration. Furthermore, both authors’
suggestions for future research aligned with my study. Deng et al. (2014) suggested that the
correlation between teachers’ epistemic beliefs, pedagogical beliefs, and use of ICTs be
confirmed for contextual variables rather than broader scales such as constructivist epistemology.
In addition, Albirini (2006) asserted that the findings raise the following questions for future
research:
How can technology be implemented with maximum educational value and minimal
negative effects on the indigenous cultures? What measures are needed for developing
countries to “indigenize” these tools? And how can teachers be culturally and
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 117

educationally prepared to put these tools to ends commensurate with their national and
school cultures? (para. 57)
These questions share the need to further raise awareness among Indigenous peoples that can be
marginalized by ICT use from a dominant perspective. Through this study, these critical
questions were raised within the dialogue that occurred after teachers had been given the “right
to narrate” their beliefs and understanding of technology integration (Bhaba, 1994).
Conclusion
In the literature review, I presented an overview of the following bodies of literature:
Cook Islands epistemology, Kaupapa Maori epistemology, hybrid or third space, culturally based
education, and place based education. I then showed the intersection between these bodies of
literature and ICTs, through the broader lens of Indigenous education. Throughout this review
broader themes emerged that span across the bodies of literature discussed, which helped me
make meaning of Cook Islands teachers’ positions toward ICTs. Firstly, I discussed Cook
Islands epistemology and Kaupapa Maori epistemology, which offered a contextualized lens to
understand how Indigenous ways of knowing and doing can be holistically approached through
schooling. This lens filtered into broader perspectives of education from third space in
classrooms, CBE in education communities, and PBE in the ecologies of places. From the lens of
third space, I was able to understand how teachers approached curriculum and instruction as an
interface of knowledge systems from household to school. Next, I took a step back from the
classroom into the lens of CBE, which expressed how teachers could view education as
grounded in culture to challenge dominant norms of schooling and sustain diversity. Then,
through the broader lens of PBE, I was able to understand how teachers situated culture within
place, a commons of intergenerational knowledge tied to socioeconomic and sociopolitical
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 118

threads. Through all of these lenses I realized that the purpose of schooling was interrogated and
this interrogation was embedded within my research question. Finally, the literature that
discussed intersections between Indigenous education, the lenses, and ICTs offered
epistemological and cultural perspectives of technology use that challenge the rhetoric regarding
ICTs as neutral equalizers. All of these bodies of literature offered multiple perspectives to
situate ICT uptake by teachers within the spheres of socioeconomic, sociopolitical,
epistemological, cultural and local influence. I now show how these intersecting bodies of
literature can be envisioned as one interconnected conceptual framework.
Conceptual Framework
Within this section, I present my conceptual framework to understand how teachers made
meaning of ICT integration in the Cook Islands. The simple understanding of dichotomy versus
continuum is an important concept that underlies my framework. A dichotomy positions two
things as opposites, showing a division or a contrast. A continuum shows a coherent whole that
falls between a collection, sequence, or progression of possibilities. Although the relevant
literature falls into separate conceptual themes, all of the themes interact and overlap. Thus, my
conceptual framework consists of a continuum within situated spheres of influence. The
framework holistically represents and ecologically situates the intersection of ICTs with the
bodies of literature reviewed to form a “system of concepts, assumptions, expectations, beliefs
and theories that supports and informs” my research (Maxwell, 2007 p. 33). Within this section,
I first flesh out the assumptions and expectations that I made about Cook Islands teachers’
perceptions of ICT integration and explain how my framework was revised after conducting the
study. Second, I explain the visual aspects of my framework. I define and describe how the
lenses of Indigenous epistemology, culturally based education (CBE), and place based education
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(PBE) filter into perceptions of teaching with ICTs. Lastly, I present a summary of this section
and discuss how my framework served as a guide for my research methods and data collection.
Assumptions and Expectations
My study sought to understand how teachers in the Cook Islands made meaning of ICT
integration. In particular, I expected to learn how teachers were positioned on a continuum
between perceiving the role of technology to sustain culture and language, and perceiving the
role of technology to engage further with the Western world. I assumed that the teachers’
background and worldview would influence their perceptions of technology. In particular, I
assumed that teachers with worldviews aligned to Indigenous ways of knowing and doing would
view technology as a cultural tool and possess contextualized views of its use within the Cook
Islands. In contrast, I believed that teachers with worldviews aligned to Western ways of
knowing and doing would view technology as a neutral tool to promote notions of success in the
global marketplace, assuming that education was essentially placeless. Thus, through this study,
I expected to understand teachers’ epistemology and grounding in culture and place. I also
expected to understand teachers’ perceptions of technology use in schools. Finally, I expected
that teachers’ epistemic positions would influence their perceptions of technology integration.
After conducting my study, I revised the conceptual framework to reflect how teachers’
epistemic stances mediate their views about the purpose of education, pedagogy, and ultimately
ICT integration. Prior to conducting the study, I nestled epistemology within the sociopolitical
and socioeconomic sphere. This revision shows that sociopolitical and socioeconomic stances
do not necessarily frame teachers’ epistemic stances.
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Epistemic ICT Integration Continuum
I named the conceptual framework for this study The Epistemic ICT Integration
Continuum. While studies have been conducted on beliefs, school culture, and barriers in
relation to technology integration, few studies have considered the notion of technology as a
cultural tool, a tool that carries an epistemological stance (Brantley-Dias & Ertmer, 2013; Ertmer
& Ottenbreut-Leftwich, 2010). To understand teachers’ epistemology, background, and
perceptions of ICT integration, I conducted interviews and analyzed their responses. From the
responses, I used the Continuum to situate and position teachers’ perceptions of ICTs between
Indigenous Cook Islands perspectives and Western perspectives. In the subsequent subsections, I
separate my explanation of the Epistemic ICT Integration Continuum (Figure 6) into two
distinct, but interconnected, visual aspects.

Figure 6. Epistemic ICT integration continuum – conceptual framework.

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Situation of Perceptions of ICT Integration
In this subsection, I present the first aspect to this framework, which is the grounding and
filtering of stances toward technology integration. Through this study, I examined how
perceptions of ICT integration were embedded within three circles of influence: sociopolitical
and socioeconomic stances, cultural and place based approaches to education (or lack thereof),
and the individual teacher’s approach to learning and teaching. The concentric circles represent
influences on teaching that filter into teachers’ perceptions of ICT integration. Epistemological
positioning mediates teachers’ beliefs, which ultimately filters into their perceptions of ICT.
This mediation is represented by the arrows pointing in and out from Western epistemology and
Indigenous epistemology. Teachers’ epistemic positioning interacts with the spheres of
influence through varying degrees of alignment and misalignment. To clarify I define the
meaning of the epistemic positions, as well as the meaning of each sphere of influence.
Epistemological positioning. A teachers’ philosophical position toward the nature of
knowledge or what counts as knowledge filters into their beliefs about the purpose of school,
pedagogy and ultimately ICT integration. The term Indigenous epistemology is inclusive of
Cook Islands Maori epistemology and Kaupapa Maori epistemology. Indigenous epistemologies
stem from “an assumption of the interconnectedness of all things and a refusal to separate actions
from their possible consequences” (Marshall, 2000). Harris and Wasilewski (2004) expand upon
Indigenous knowledge as situated within four values: relationship to all things, responsibility to
relatives, reciprocity or the cyclical nature of life, and redistribution or balance of relationships.
Yet, in using the term, Indigenous epistemology, I was aware of how it could be construed as
problematic. Quanchi (2004) argues that the term is potentially misleading. Quanchi claims that
the term can be used to generalize, romanticize, and theorize Indigenous knowledge as timeless,
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 122

pure, and archaic, when in reality, Indigenous knowledge is lived, human, and dynamic. In
response, I chose the term Indigenous epistemology to encompass the diversity and complexity
of perspectives embodied in Cook Islands cultures. In contrast, broadly speaking, Western
epistemology is embodied within the beliefs of philosophers such as Descartes, who separate the
self from the body (Marshall, 2000). Knowledge is then abstract and external from the self, and
not interconnected, lived, and free flowing across generations. Although Indigenous and
Western epistemology sit at opposite ends of the circle, they are still within the same plane, and
intermingle. This is to show how teachers could be positioned between these epistemologies
within hybrid communities such as the Cook Islands.
Sociopolitical and socioeconomic stances. Teaching is a political act (Labaree, 1997;
Brayboy & Maughan, 2009). A nation’s politics filter into collective and individual perceptions
of the purpose of education. Furthermore, the global, transnational initiatives driven by
socioeconomics feed into conceptions of the purpose of schooling. The broader, global and
national perspectives that frame teachers’ thinking about the purpose of education are embodied
in this outer circle.
Pedagogical approaches. The next sphere of influence includes the lenses of CBE and
PBE as pedagogical approaches. While many pedagogical approaches may exist within
teachers’ belief system, this study focused on these particular lenses. In teachers’ efforts to teach
other people’s children (Delpit, 1988), culturally based education focuses on bridging the home
to school environments through engaging students’ Lifeworld discourses to sustaining and
revitalizing students’ primary discourses within the classroom. While CBE focuses on culture as
the foundation for learning, place based education focuses on place as the foundation for
learning. PBE seeks to engage learners with curriculum grounded in their home environment
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and educate students about the interconnectedness of human interaction and the environment in
which that occurs (Woodhouse & Knapp, 2002). The conceptions of both CBE and PBE fall
upon a continuum of critical pedagogy, from engaging students in non-dominant discourse to
transforming the dominant structure and purpose of schooling.
Learning and teaching. The lenses of both CBE and PBE filter into teachers’
pedagogical practices around ICT. The learning and teaching sphere is the space of meaning
making for teachers, in which the discussion of how they use technology reflected their beliefs.
By teasing out their views of epistemology and the purpose of education, I used the lenses of
CBE and PBE to analyze their perceptions of ICTs. I assume that within this sphere, teachers
will fall upon the continuum presented in the next subsection.
Continuum of ICT Integration
The second and main aspect to this framework falls within the circle of teaching and
learning. From the CBE and PBE lenses, I can position teachers’ understanding of teaching and
learning with technology along the continuum around ICT integration. As discussed before, I
assume that teachers from dominant, Western perspectives view technology as a neutral tool to
support the rhetoric of global initiatives. The teachers that move from Western towards
Indigenous perspectives can be positioned along the arrow moving left, through hybrid space
toward critical space. Furthermore, I assume that teachers, from Indigenous perspectives view
technology as a cultural tool, used within a local context. The teachers that move from
Indigenous towards Western perspectives can be positioned along the arrow moving right,
through hybrid space. The continuum offers a way to visualize teachers’ positionality as being
grounded within the space of Western or Indigenous perspectives or hybrids of the two. To
clarify the elements of the continuum, I define each of the textual elements.
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Learning and teaching. I revisit the learning and teaching sphere a second time to
discuss a few overarching elements to this circle communicated by the framework. Firstly, ICT
integration is not central to learning and teaching, but it was central to this study. Thus, ICT
integration is situated within learning and teaching. The learning and teaching sphere represents
the complexity of teaching with technology, in terms of teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, values and
assumptions. Depending upon their worldview and background, teachers will fall along a
continuum within or between two views of technology as a tool.
Global, neutral tool. The Western worldview is a dominant worldview, which is either
acknowledged to be dominant, challenged, or sought to be transformed by the pedagogical
approaches of CBE and PBE. From the dominant worldview, ICTs are part of a global initiative
to eliminate poverty and provide equality in schooling. Thus, technology is deemed a neutral
tool to be integrated into learning and teaching within all places for the same reasons. If a
teacher views technology as a neutral tool, I assume that the teacher perceives education to be
placeless. I also assume that the teacher believes in the dominant discourse of schooling, which
embodies the purpose of education as ensuring students’ competitiveness in the global job
marketplace, and ultimately, economic gain. From the dominant, Western worldview, individual
independence is paramount. Thus, teachers’ view of ICT as a neutral tool can also be tied to
opportunities for students to pursue their own desires.
Local, cultural tool. The Indigenous worldview filters into CBE and PBE. CBE and
PBE perspectives can result in the integration of ICTs as cultural tools to be used carefully to
benefit local initiatives. In contrast to the Western paradigm, Indigenous ways of knowing and
doing are centered on the interconnectedness of all things within a locality. I assume that
teachers from an Indigenous worldview will see ICTs as non-neutral, cultural tools. Teachers’
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view of technology as a cultural tool can be determined by their understanding of ICTs
(hardware, software, Internet content) as steeped within the Western paradigm. Furthermore,
teachers may communicate the use of ICTs as reciprocally shaping the user and the
nature/purpose of the ICT. Both of these perspectives communicate the understanding of ICTs
as cultural tools. If a teacher views technology as a cultural tool, I assume that the teacher
perceives education to be grounded within a place. Thus, the purpose of education is shifted
from a global to local perspective, in which students are taught to connect with, value, and
sustain cultural commons and intergenerational knowledge.
Hybrid space. As highlighted throughout the literature review, hybrid space is a space
where discourses collide. I assumed that many Indigenous Cook Islands teachers would be
positioned within hybrid space, a space between the Indigenous and Western worldview, because
of the transnational nature of Cook Islanders across New Zealand and Australia. Within this
synergistic space, I assumed that I would find unique viewpoints of ICTs that blend paradigms. I
placed hybrid spaces between the arrows originating from both Indigenous and Western
epistemologies to show how hybrid stances have an origin. Teachers in hybrid stances may
move from Western to Indigenous views and vice versa. This discussion brings me to my final
definition, critical space.
Critical space. Although the learning and teaching sphere is a hybrid space, it is also a
critical space. I placed critical space at the end of the arrow originating from Western
perspectives and pointing toward Indigenous perspectives, because teachers that moved from
dominant to non-dominant perspectives would have had to engage in critical reflection to some
extent. I assumed that teachers who moved from Western to Indigenous perspectives would
have uncovered hegemonies in schooling and deconstructed their worldviews to some extent.
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Furthermore, only teachers that view ICT through a critical lens can understand ICT as a cultural
tool.
Continuum as circle. As a final explanation of the continuum within the learning and
teaching space, I identify the nature of the continuum as circular. This is to posit that throughout
their career, teachers may have moved through critical and hybrid spaces, only to end up where
they started. For example, teachers steeped in Western paradigms may move toward Indigenous
perspectives, but turn back to their Western origins to determine the purpose of using ICT in the
classroom. The cyclical nature of the continuum shows how some teachers manage multiple
perspectives, simultaneously interacting to make meaning of ICT integration. The Epistemic
ICT Integration Continuum enables the visualization of how teachers’ epistemic stance, beliefs
about the purpose of school (as framed by socioeconomic and sociopolitical views) and
pedagogy interact to shape teachers’ perceptions of ICT integration.
Summary
My conceptual framework aligns the literature of Cook Islands Maori epistemology,
Kaupapa Maori epistemology, hybrid space, CBE, PBE, and Indigenous education to technology
integration to explain how teachers made meaning of the transition to using ICTs in the
classroom. The literature of Cook Islands Maori epistemology was used to position teachers
within an epistemic stance. Through the literature of Kaupapa Maori epistemology, I was able to
then understand how the lenses of CBE and PBE can be contextualized and connected
holistically to an Indigenous epistemology. From the literature of hybrid space, I was able to
understand how paradigms can be blended in the classroom to value or devalue different
discourses. Filtering Indigenous epistemology through these lenses and into ICT integration, I
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discovered how technology can be considered a cultural tool used to support local initiatives
versus its dominant counterpart as a neutral tool to support global initiatives.
Within my conceptual framework, the sphere of teaching and learning is a hybrid space
in which interpretations of societal expectations can partly determine the fate of intergenerational
knowledge. The concentric circles represent how society at large frames our decision-making
about the purpose of school, but can be mediated by one’s epistemic stance. Within hybrid
spaces, where multiple discourses collide, individuals have the opportunity to be critical about
their decisions regarding the purpose of school by interrogating societal expectations in regards
to their local contexts. Ultimately, I assert that meaning is made through the filtering of
teachers’ epistemic stance into their perceptions of technology.
Since the purpose of this study was to understand how teachers made meaning of
technology integration, I collected data from individual interviews with teachers. Additionally,
when appropriate or necessary, I consulted documents or artifacts to triangulate teachers’
responses and further understand their perceptions. In the following chapter, I discuss the
methodological design and data collection process.
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CHAPTER THREE: METHODS
This study sought to understand how Cook Islands teachers made sense of their world in
relation to the implementation of a new technology initiative. More specifically, the purpose of
this study was to understand teachers’ perceptions of ICT integration in relation to their
epistemic stance. Within this chapter, I discuss the qualitative approach of my study, detailing
my research design. The following research questions framed the study:
How do teachers within the Cook Islands education community make meaning of
teaching, as they have known it, to teaching with technology?
• What role do teachers see technology integration playing in relation to sustaining,
sharing, and connecting with Indigenous Cook Islands culture and language?
• What role do teachers see technology integration playing in relation to engaging with
the Western world?
Research Design
I chose a qualitative approach for my study, since my key concern was to understand the
phenomenon of technology integration from Cook Islands teachers’ perspectives. Walker et al.
(2006) claimed that qualitative research is better positioned to access New Zealand Maori
discourses, which overlap with Cook Islands Maori discourses. A qualitative approach affords
inductive reasoning, enabling themes and theories to emerge from the thick descriptions of
fieldwork (Merriam, 2009). The design of my qualitative study was emergent, flexible, and
responsive to the possible shifts in my investigation (Merriam, 2009).
In particular, my study can be identified as a single case study. It is a description and
analysis of teachers’ perspectives of ICT integration across different school sites bounded by the
locality of the Cook Islands (Merriam, 2009). Since this study sought to “illuminate the reader’s
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understanding of the phenomenon under study” (Merriam, 2009, p. 44), it was heuristic in
nature. Although studies have been conducted to examine teachers’ perceptions of technology
integration, this case study offered another perspective through the unique context of the Cook
Islands and the lens of Indigenous education.
The goal of this study was to gain insight into how teachers made meaning of ICT
integration within the context of the Cook Islands. As expressed in my conceptual framework,
before conducting the study, I expected that teachers who were more grounded in Indigenous
epistemology would be positioned closer to understanding ICTs as cultural tools to connect with
and sustain language and culture within the Cook Islands. In contrast, I expected that teachers
more grounded in Western epistemology would be positioned closer to understanding ICTs as
neutral, placeless tools to engage further with the Western world. Therefore, my goal was to
discover a range of perceptions of ICT from Indigenous, hybrid, and Western worldviews.
Through a qualitative case study approach, I was able to glean a more concrete and contextual
description of teachers’ perceptions (Merriam, 2009).
Thus, a case study design best answered my research questions, and allowed me to gain a
rich understanding of the phenomenon of teachers’ meaning making of ICTs in the Cook Islands.
Sample Population
Settings
The purpose of this study was to understand how Cook Islands teachers made meaning of
ICT integration. Within the Cook Islands, research on Rarotonga and the outer islands must be
approved by the appropriate government officials on each island. Before conducting research, I
submitted a research proposal to the Office of the Prime Minister to be reviewed by the National
Research Committee as well as the Aitutaki Island Council. The councils on Rarotonga and
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Aitutaki reviewed my proposal, written within the requirements of the country’s criteria and
format. Upon approval, I received my Letter of Acceptance, and Research Permit (Appendix D
& F) and began my study within the country. Of the 15 Cook Islands, I chose the settings of
Rarotonga and Aitutaki, since they were most feasible to access within the time allotted to
conduct this study, and 18 of the 31 schools across the Cook Islands were situated on these
islands. Furthermore, many teachers had migrated from the outer islands to Rarotonga, which
afforded differing perspectives in terms of their background, upbringing, and Indigenous
knowledge. Sampling from Rarotonga offered a multitude of perspectives, since, on this island,
teachers of differing backgrounds interface in an environment that is more connected to the
Western world. In contrast, Aitutaki offered variation through a more isolated environment,
removed from the center of government and economic activities. Overall, I sampled from eight
of the 14 schools on Rarotonga and two of the four schools on Aitutaki. My focus in sampling
was to seek out teachers of different backgrounds, which is described in the following
subsection. Therefore, the number of schools included as settings was driven by the sampling of
participants.
Participants
I anticipated interviewing approximately 20 teachers. My data collection resulted in a
total of 21 teachers interviewed. Since the goal of my study was to discover as many different
perspectives as possible, I used a combination of purposeful and snowball sampling focused on
teachers’ background. Merriam (2009) states, “Purposeful sampling is based on the assumption
that the investigator wants to discover, understand, and gain insight and therefore must select
from a sample from which the most can be learned” (p. 77). While my initial selection of
participants was purposeful and rooted in my knowledge of teachers’ backgrounds, I also utilized
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snowball sampling to find participants who could offer further variation. Table 3 offers the
background of participants sampled per island and school. To protect participants’ identities,
different schools were indicated by letters, pseudonyms were used, and only generalized
background data was shared. I chose to indicate “Childhood to Year 12 in School,” since most
teachers that grew up on the outer islands had to then move to Rarotonga to complete Year 12
and 13 of their schooling. Furthermore, the “Years Teaching Abroad” category did not include
short term teaching that was possibly a part of teachers’ training. The Cook Islands Maori
teachers within this sample represented descent by birth from eight of the 15 Cook Islands, while
foreign teachers represented origin from four different countries.
Table 3.
Participant Sample by Island and School
School Participant Ethnic Origin Birthplace Childhood to
Year 12 in
School
Teacher
Training
Years
Teaching
Abroad
Years
Teaching
in Cook
Islands
RAROTONGA – Primary Schools

A
Nani Cook Islands
Maori
Cook Islands outer island Cook Islands 0 20
Hayley Part Cook
Islands Maori
foreign foreign foreign 3 1

B
Tiare Cook Islands
Maori
Cook Islands outer island Cook Islands 0 15
Tamara Part Cook
Islands Maori
foreign foreign foreign 12 3
C Rae Cook Islands
Maori
Cook Islands outer island Cook Islands 0 43
D Shane foreign foreign foreign foreign 12 >1
Michelle foreign foreign foreign foreign 9 2

E
Tia Part Cook
Islands Maori
Cook Islands Rarotonga, outer
island & foreign
Cook Islands 0 1
Ani Cook Islands
Maori
Cook Islands outer island Cook Islands 0 11
Mavis Cook Islands
Maori
Cook Islands outer island Cook Islands 0 15

F
Kate Cook Islands
Maori
foreign foreign & outer
island
Cook Islands 0 14
Nina Cook Islands
Maori
foreign foreign foreign 18 1
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G Ben foreign foreign foreign foreign 0 18
RAROTONGA – Secondary School
H Thomas foreign foreign foreign foreign 12 3
Grant foreign foreign foreign foreign 7 2
AITUTAKI – Primary Schools

I
Sarina Part Cook
Islands Maori
foreign foreign & outer
island
Cook Islands 0 14
Lili Cook Islands
Maori
Cook Islands outer island Cook Islands 0 29
Toni Cook Islands
Maori
Cook Islands outer island Cook Islands 0 15
Aiana Cook Islands
Maori
Cook Islands outer island Cook Islands 0 40
AITUTAKI – Secondary School

J
Kura Part Cook
Islands Maori
Cook Islands outer island Cook Islands 0 16
Martin foreign foreign foreign foreign 8 4

Overall, the following criteria guided the selection of participants:
Criterion 1. The first criterion for selection was that the individual was currently a
resident on Rarotonga or Aitutaki. I was granted approval to research solely on these islands.
Therefore, in order to adhere to the protocols set forth by the government of the Cook Islands,
this was one of the criteria for selection.
Criterion 2. My research questions explicitly indicated teachers’ perceptions, therefore,
my second criterion required the individuals residing on Rarotonga or Aitutaki to be current
teachers of students on these two islands.
Criterion 3. To be inclusive of as many teachers’ perspectives as possible on Rarotonga
and Aitutaki, I recruited teachers across the 18 school sites, which included primary and
secondary education, as well as variance in grade levels and subject areas taught. Being
inclusive of different types of teaching experiences could possibly afford further variation.
Criterion 4. The last criterion for selection was to include teachers of diverse
backgrounds within the sampling. I recruited teachers of different birthplaces who spent their
childhoods in different Cook Islands or countries abroad, and had completed their teacher
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training in different environments as well. Diversity in teacher background was the focus
criterion to discovering variation in teachers’ perceptions of ICT.
To guide my selection within Criterion 4, I created a Pre-Screening Protocol (Appendix
B). The protocol supported the deliberateness and focus of my selection. Situated in
sociocultural theory and social constructivism (Au, 1998; Smagorinsky, 2013), the Pre-Screening
Protocol focused on teachers’ country of birth, primary and secondary schooling, training as a
teacher, as well as duration of living in the Cook Islands or other countries. Without being
intrusive by asking direct personal questions about age or ethnicity, the focus on place afforded a
glimpse into the teachers’ social interactions, which would have had an influence on their values,
beliefs, and worldview. Thus, variation in background was expected to provide variation in
worldview.
I began my selection process by sharing my Consent Form (Appendix C) and Individual
Interview Protocol (Appendix A) with principals on Rarotonga through round-island face-to-face
meetings. After receiving consent from the principals to conduct my study at all school sites, I
began sampling on Rarotonga by purposefully selecting participants who had varying
backgrounds. Utilizing the Pre-Screening Protocol informally as a guide, I used my knowledge
of teachers’ backgrounds, which I had gleaned from working in schools, to recruit participants
that I believed would offer the most variation in their perceptions. After completing an
interview, I chose the next participant based on variations in their background from those I had
already interviewed. For example, my first participants were from two different foreign
countries. As a result, I then chose to interview a participant that was born, raised and worked in
the Cook Islands for a long period of time. I also utilized snowball sampling to gain further
variation in my sample. After interviewing some teachers, they directed me toward other
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teachers who they believed could offer alternate perspectives. I sampled participants from
teachers that I knew well, teachers that I had met once or twice, and teachers that I had never met
before. My sampling was not focused on my relationship with teachers, but rather on the
variation their backgrounds could possibly offer to the study.
After interviewing a bulk of participants on Rarotonga, I flew to Aitutaki to conduct
interviews. On an earlier trip to Aitutaki, I had discussed my intended research with principals at
three of the four school sites and secured their consent for teachers to participate. Since I was
unable to contact one of the principals, I was unable to interview at that particular site on
Aitutaki. Prior to my trip to collect data, I scheduled five interviews with teachers at the three
school sites. I pre-selected participants based on my knowledge of their differing backgrounds
as per the questions on the Pre-Screening Protocol. While conducting interviews at one school
site on Aitutaki, I was encouraged to interview two teachers by the other participants who I had
already interviewed. Utilizing my Prescreening Protocol, I determined that these two teachers’
differing backgrounds would possibly afford greater variation in perspectives. Since one teacher
was ill at one school site, I ended up interviewing a total of six teachers from two school sites on
Aitutaki.
When I returned to Rarotonga, I had already collected perspectives from two teachers,
who had taught for 40 years and over on Aitutaki and Rarotonga. Since I was interested in
gaining insight into the perspectives of teachers that had not taught in the Cook Islands for a long
period of time, I sought out participants who had been teaching on Rarotonga for less than a
year. Overall, of the 24 teachers I asked to participate, two teachers declined due to time
conflicts in their schedules and one teacher fell ill as discussed earlier. This did not affect my
sample, since I continued to be purposeful in sampling. When I believed that I had interviewed
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participants from the broadest range of differing backgrounds that the teacher population could
afford, I stopped conducting interviews.
Data Collection and Instruments/Protocols
For this study, I chose the qualitative case study approach in the belief that it was the
best design to capture the rich depth of teachers’ perspectives. After I received Internal Review
Board approval from the University of Southern California, permission from the Cook Islands
National Research Committee and the Aitutaki Island Council, as well as consent from the
principals of schools, I collected data in the form of interviews. I also reviewed documents and
artifacts that supported teachers’ narratives. My primary method of data collection was
interviews, since interviewing was necessary to understand how teachers interpreted the world
around them.
Interviews
As Patton (2002) suggests, “Qualitative interviewing begins with the assumption that the
perspective of others is meaningful, knowable, and able to be made explicit. We interview to
find out what is in and on someone else’s mind, to gather their stories” (p. 341). To gather
teachers’ perceptions of ICT integration, I utilized a semi-structured Individual Interview
Protocol (Appendix A). Through in-depth semi-structured interviews that lasted from
approximately 40-80 minutes, I was able to determine specific information from each teacher,
while being flexible and open to their narratives.
My conceptual framework based within the bodies of literature that I reviewed guided the
creation of questions for my Individual Interview Protocol. Within this study, I sought to
understand how Cook Islands teachers made meaning of technology integration. I was
particularly interested in how teachers’ epistemic positioning influenced their perceptions of
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technology as tools to connect with and sustain language and culture or tools to engage with the
Western world. Therefore, I asked questions regarding teachers’ background, epistemic stance,
beliefs about the purpose of school, pedagogical approaches, experience and behavior toward
ICT use in the classroom, as well as opinions, beliefs, and feelings toward ICT. Along with
demographic data, I elicited evidence that gave me an understanding of teachers’ background,
where they grew up and how they remembered their schooling as children. Understanding how
they experienced school and their beliefs about their experiences gave me insight into the
epistemic approach that they took toward teaching. Utilizing focused and broader questions, I
asked them questions about Cook Islands Maori epistemology, as well as questions focused on
how their worldview intersected with ICT. In addition, I asked them about their beliefs, values,
and teaching in general, before I asked how they saw the role of technology within their
teaching. Finally, I posed questions that enabled me to understand whether they viewed ICTs as
neutral or cultural tools.
Before the interview, I provided participants with a copy of the Consent Form (Appendix
C). After participants had read the form and wanted to continue, I asked for permission to record
their responses. Throughout the interview, I attempted to develop rapport with the participants
by being respectful and engaged by their responses, while maintaining a neutrality to the content
of their responses (Patton, 2002). I captured the data through recording, while I took descriptive,
reflective, and analytic field notes (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007). After each interview, I
systematically wrote reflective notes to avoid the loss of my perceptions during the interview
(Bogdan & Biklen, 2007). I also reflected on the narratives as I personally transcribed each of
the interviews. Furthermore, I conducted member checks after I completed interviews, when I
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was confused or uncertain of a teacher’s beliefs. Thus, I was open to interviewing participants a
second time in order to ensure that I understood their perspectives.
Collection of Documents and Artifacts
Initially, I intended to collect documents and artifacts to gain further insight into teachers’
perspectives. I intended to collect teachers’ personal documents and visual documents or
artifacts of student work to be copied (ensuring student names would be omitted) and analyzed.
I intended to collect the following documents: personal unit plans, lesson plans and resources,
school plans and resources, student work samples and images of student work. While artifacts,
such as student work, can provide a ready-made source of data (Merriam, 2009), the
development and unfolding of this study resulted in few documents actually being collected from
teachers. Although I did review a book that one teacher was using in her teaching of Maori, as
well as student work samples, I ultimately did not ask teachers for copies of the documents they
were referencing, because I already had reviewed the documents that they were discussing. In
particular, teachers discussed the Cook Islands curriculum documents, such as the Curriculum
Framework (Figure 3 in Chapter One) and the Maori and English language curriculum. Prior to
interviewing participants, I had analyzed these documents for other projects completed in my
role as a Learning and Teaching Advisor. Therefore, although documents and artifacts were
considered and analyzed within this study, few were actually collected from participants.
Data Analysis
Data analysis within this study proved to be a cyclical, iterative, and interactional
inductive and deductive process. The data analyzed for this study was mainly in the form of
interview transcripts, with consultation of documents and artifacts to better understand teachers’
perceptions. I approached my data analysis with the purpose of my study in mind (Merriam,
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2009), to discover how teachers made meaning of ICT integration. My data analysis began in
the field as I took reflective notes after each interview (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007). Yet, only after
I transcribed the interviews did I begin to employ the Constant Comparative Method of
systematically coding data through a progression of open, axial, and selective coding to
consolidate, reduce, and interpret the data (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Merriam, 2009). Although I
did not neatly follow this method, since qualitative analysis is inherently heuristic and based on
the topic studied, I focused on this method as a guide for data analysis.
First, after transcribing the interviews, I discovered open codes that were close to the data
in its original form. With guidance from my research questions and the utilization of my
conceptual framework as a lens, I read through each transcript, highlighting and coding excerpts
of text that seemed to contribute to teachers’ meaning making. While my initial inclination was
to focus on teachers’ answers to questions, I resisted this desire and focused on the perceptions
that teachers were communicating through their narratives. When I completed open coding for
each document, I recorded my initial perception of how the individual participant’s interview
answered my research questions through an analytic memo. Yet, I did not complete open coding
in a linear fashion.
Before completing open coding for every interview, I moved to axial coding, which
housed groups of open codes to consolidate the data. My Individual Interview Protocol was
organized into what could have been a priori or predetermined codes through the following
headings that grouped questions: background, purpose of education, Cook Islands Maori
epistemology, culturally based education, place based education, and ICTs and Cook Islands
context. Yet, with a focus on the credibility of my study and a desire to not limit the scope of my
analysis, I first took an inductive approach to data analysis that I felt was closest to the open
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codes. I began this process after completing open coding and analytic memos for three
participants’ interview data. I chose to break from open coding and focus on emerging axial
codes to get a sense of how teachers’ perceptions were aligning and diverging. For the first
participant interviewed, I consolidated the open codes into four main categories focusing on
answering the research questions: funds of knowledge, change, epistemic stance, and ICT. For
each category, I documented excerpts that described the participant’s views. As I consolidated
open codes for each participant’s interview data, I added categories that emerged within the open
codes. For example, the second participant’s data yielded the following additional categories:
resources and critical stance. I continued this process until each participant’s open codes had
been consolidated into categories with an analytic memo that described the way in which I
interpreted their interview data to answer the research questions. In addition, as I individually
analyzed participants’ interview data, I documented teachers’ perceptions that were possibly
threading together, as well as reoccurring statements between individual interview data as
analytic memos. Employing the analytic tool of questioning, I asked myself questions of the
data to explore possibilities (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). For example, through questioning the
data I discovered the reoccurrence among 14 teachers of “learning by doing” as a possible
Indigenous pedagogical practice, which is referenced within my findings and recommendations.
As I reached the end of my open and axial coding, I had moved from a primarily inductive to
deductive process (Merriam, 2009).
Once I completed analysis of individual participant’s data through open and initial axial
coding, I had to make sense of the rich and abundant data offered across all 21 participants’
narratives. I began to look collectively at the data and employed a second round of axial coding
in which I focused on the a priori categories from my literature review and conceptual
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framework, which included teachers’ beliefs about purpose of education, their epistemic stance,
views of pedagogy and perceptions of ICT. I was able to use the data sets that were already
consolidated into axial codes from open coding to determine categories for positioning teachers
within an epistemic stance. I was also able to determine how the data reflected their position
toward ICT as cultural or neutral tools. Yet, for teachers’ beliefs about the purpose of education
and pedagogy, I had to delve back into participants’ individual transcripts to determine emerging
categories across participants’ interview data. I added analytic memos of teachers’ purpose of
education, epistemic stance, pedagogy and views of ICT, which were consolidated into a second
round of axial codes.
To discover how teachers made meaning of ICT integration from a broader sense, I
reviewed the second set of axial codes and ordered participants from what I believed was the
strongest Indigenous epistemic stance to the strongest Western epistemic stance. I used
indicators that emerged from the second pass of axial coding and aligned with Jonassen’s (2003)
pillars of Cook Islands Maori personality and culture to locate teachers within an Indigenous
epistemic stance. Thus, teachers who lacked understanding of these indicators were located
toward Western stances. From Indigenous to Western stances, I created a chart of open codes
from each individual participant housed within the categories of purpose of education, Cook
Islands language and land, family and respect, pedagogy, and ICT. The chart enabled me to see
a clear division between teachers with Indigenous stances perceiving ICT as cultural tools,
teachers with Western stances perceiving ICT as neutral tools, and teachers with hybrid stances
split between the two perceptions. From this division, I focused on teachers’ perceptions of ICT
to settle upon four selective codes or main themes that connected the axial categories. Yet, when
I consulted my literature review and applied the continuum of conceptions of CBE and PBE, I
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was able to see another selective code. I thought about the wide variation between participants’
beliefs in one of the themes and was able to clarify the difference in perceptions between the
participants, resulting in five themes.
To complete data analysis, I actively sought negative or discrepant cases (Corbin &
Strauss, 2008). Through the exploration of variation in the data, I discovered the discrepant case
of two teachers that were located within a strong Indigenous stance, yet did not perceive ICT to
be a cultural tool. By re-investigating their interview data, I was able to understand their
perceptions as another selective code, resulting in another theme. In total six themes or findings
emerged from the analysis of data.
Throughout this process, I used my conceptual framework as a guide to determine open,
axial codes, and selective codes. While using my conceptual framework as an analytic lens, I
consulted my literature review to gain deeper insight into teachers’ perceptions of ICT. By
scrutinizing the various meanings of participants’ narratives, employing the Constant
Comparative Method, a continuum of themes or findings emerged, which demonstrated the
multiple dimensions from which teachers made meaning of ICT integration.
Limitations and Delimitations
This study was limited to the sensitivity and integrity of both the researcher and
participants. As the researcher, I was the primary instrument of data collection and analysis
(Merriam, 2009). Thus, I relied on my own instincts and abilities to carry out this study. I also
relied on the teachers who I interviewed to offer honest and truthful information during the
interview process. The time teachers were willing to offer during the interview to provide rich,
descriptive responses or their ability to even articulate their perspectives in depth, detail, and
clarity were out of my control. Furthermore, although I was deliberate and purposeful in
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selecting participants based on differing backgrounds, I could not control their experiences,
which tempered their responses. Lastly, as a novice researcher, I was limited by the fact that I
had not created an interview protocol, conducted interviews of this kind, or analyzed data to this
extent.
Delimitations of this study were found within my research focus, conceptual framework,
and sample population. This study focused on two of the 15 Cook Islands, Rarotonga and
Aitutaki. Yet, on these two islands, I conducted interviews of teachers across school sites with a
focus on sampling teachers who possessed different backgrounds. Since my data collection was
emergent and heuristic, based upon discoveries made from each interview, I chose to include six
voices from Aitutaki. Yet, my choice to include six voices from the limited school settings on
Aitutaki as compared to Rarotonga was focused on the variation of teachers’ background that
further sampling could afford. Teachers on Aitutaki offered backgrounds that could not be found
on Rarotonga, in particular different country of origin and country of university attendance.
Furthermore, I bound my study in rich data collected from robust interviews, rather than
observations, since I could not observe teachers’ perceptions. I relied on descriptions from the
interview process paired with the possibility of document analysis for triangulation to enable
deeper understanding. Many studies have been conducted on school culture, and barriers in
relation to technology integration (Brantley-Dias & Ertmer, 2013; Ertmer & Ottenbreut-
Leftwich, 2010), and although one of my criteria for selection was variation across school sites,
school culture and school site ICT infrastructure was not a focus of this study. Rather variation
across teachers’ perceptions of ICT was the focus of this study, and my decision-making in
sampling across the two islands was steeped within this goal.
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Credibility and Trustworthiness
The validity and reliability of a study depend on the credibility of the data and
trustworthiness of the researcher (Merriam, 2009). Qualitative researchers have to be aware of
particular events or processes that could lead them to invalid conclusions (Maxwell, 2013). I
ensured that the data and data analysis were valid and representative of participants’ perspectives
to the best of my ability.
First, within the design of my study, I chose interviews as a means to develop detailed
descriptions, integrate multiple perspectives, and allow for flexibility in process, since I was an
outsider conducting research in a cross-cultural study (Weiss, 1994). Also, my decision to
conduct a case study with the unit of analysis being teachers’ perceptions of ICT integration in
the Cook Islands of Rarotonga and Aitutaki, enabled variation across teachers’ perspectives.
Second, within the data collection and analysis phases of this study, I had to be aware of
participants’ reactivity, or how my roles influenced teachers’ responses (Maxwell, 2013). When
conducting interviews and analyzing data, I was aware of how my professional role of being a
Learning and Teaching Advisor affected these processes. As a Learning and Teaching Advisor,
working for the central office of education for all schools, I was aware that teachers might have
felt obligated to participate and respond to questions in a manner that did not reflect poorly on
the Ministry of Education. I had to be conscious and reflective of my role as a researcher, and
the purpose of my study, which was to understand a phenomenon. To truly understand this
phenomenon, I desired teachers’ honest perspectives. Therefore, I had to be aware of how my
multiple roles of advisor, researcher, and even parent of two children at one school site
influenced my perceptions. To allay fears that teachers might have internalized due to my
multiple roles, I ensured participants of my study as separate from my advisory position within
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the Ministry of Education. I explained my role as a researcher with the purpose of discovering
their true and honest beliefs about ICT integration. I also ensured the confidentiality of their
identities within the reporting of this study’s findings.
Third, throughout the duration of this study, I had to constantly question my choices and
actions to ensure that my decision making was grounded in the purpose of this study, which was
to understand teachers’ perceptions of ICT integration. The purpose of this study was not to
further an agenda to shape or shift practice to meet my expectations as an advisor or parent.
Thus, I constantly examined my values, expectations, and biases. To ensure the validity of my
interpretations of the data, I conducted member checks to solicit feedback from the teachers who
I interviewed to validate my emerging findings (Merriam, 2009). I chose two participants to
check my findings. Before I began the writing of Chapter 4, I discussed my preliminary findings
with a participant who was located within Finding 1, whose voice offered a deeply critical and
deliberate belief in grounding students within a Cook Islands Maori identity. Since the finding
described teachers’ perspectives as subverting the Western paradigm in the education system, I
wanted to ensure that this description was true to the participants’ perspectives. Her assurance
that the findings were clear and valid prompted me to continue writing. I also chose another
participant located in Finding 1 with a strong Indigenous epistemic stance to check both my
findings and implications when they were completed. She also indicated that the descriptions of
teachers’ views of ICT integration were valid, as well as the implications. I chose Cook Islands
Maori teachers that were located in a strong Indigenous stance, since they could best identify
whether my descriptions of Indigenous views were accurately portrayed.
In addition, I extended member checks to advisors and community members with
qualifications. In particular, I sought out Cook Islands Maori to share their perspectives of my
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findings and offer feedback regarding the sensitivity of being an outsider. I chose three advisors
from different Cook Islands within the Ministry of Education to share and discuss my study. All
three advisors asserted that the findings and implications were consistent with their experiences,
perspectives, and understandings. I also sought out two Cook Islands Maori with PhDs to vet my
study. Through peer review or examination, I discussed “the process of the study, the
congruency of emerging findings with the raw data, and tentative interpretations” with
colleagues to further promote the credibility of the study (Merriam, 2009, p.229). First, I
reviewed my preliminary findings with a Cook Islands Maori who earned his PhD in marine
science. His expertise and focus on utilizing Indigenous knowledge to support efforts to combat
climate change afforded an alternate perspective to my study. I was grateful to also check my
implications and recommendations through his perspective during a second meeting. In
particular, his experience blending Indigenous knowledge within studies of climate change
afforded conversations, which aligned with my initial interpretations. For example, his
explanation of a study that he conducted to record traditional fishing patterns enabled me to
understand the difference between living Indigenous knowledge and sustaining Indigenous
knowledge. Second, my methods of positioning teachers who were culturally different from me
within an Indigenous or Western stance was important to check with a Cook Islands Maori
expert. Fortunately, Jon Jonassen, PhD in political science and writer of the pillars of Maori
personality and culture that I used to positon teachers, agreed to check my literature review of his
work, my findings, and interpretations. Over the course of two meetings, he reviewed my
writing, and validated the indicators that I had gleaned from his framework to position teachers.
Dr. Jonassen’s support was invaluable in determining the credibility and trustworthiness of my
study. Last, during consistent meetings throughout the entire study, my dissertation chair, Julie
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Slayton, JD, PhD, discussed and vetted my decision making regarding design, process, and data
analysis. Her advisory role afforded me the scrutiny of an expert in qualitative research.
Fourth, as indicated earlier, I also delved deeper into the data analysis process and
actively sought negative or discrepant case analyses to determine the consistency of my findings
(Merriam, 2009). In particular, I interrogated my sixth finding which positioned one teacher in a
strong, traditional Western stance. To ensure the validity of my interpretation, I re-analyzed the
participant’s interview transcript with the sole purpose of negating my finding. This level of
scrutiny enabled me to validate my interpretations. As discussed in the data analysis section, I
also actively sought discrepant cases to my findings on a broader scale. Specifically, I was
aware that I was possibly deductively connecting teachers within an Indigenous stance to
perceptions of ICT as a cultural tool. Therefore, through scrutiny of this connection, I was able
to find a discrepant case of two teachers located in an Indigenous stance that viewed ICT as a
neutral tool. By scrutinizing my own interpretations through negative case analysis, I was able
to support the validity of my findings.
Finally, I utilized the strategy of reflexivity, being transparent about my biases,
dispositions, and assumptions while collecting and analyzing data (Merriam, 2009). In
conducting my literature review, I delved deeply into works steeped in critical paradigms. As a
result, I generated a bias to have this study be liberating, facilitating the cultivation of change
agents within the education workforce. Being open and aware of this bias enabled me to
constantly vet my collection and analysis of data. Thus, I enacted an interactional inductive and
deductive, iterative, and cyclical research process to determine credible and trustworthy findings.
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Ethics
As suggested by Glesne (2011), as an outsider, researching in a cross-cultural context, I
had to be sensitive to the standards of ethicality that evolved as I delved deeper into my study.
Similar to Kaupapa Maori research, the Cook Islands government required that a Cook Islands
researcher vet the research of outsiders. Two well-respected Cook Islands educators reviewed
my writing from an insider perspective and offered guidance as I conducted my research. As an
outsider, I had to be particularly reflective about my perspective and the manner in which I
portrayed others, since I was at risk of imposing my values and beliefs upon persons that were
culturally different from myself. Furthermore, I had to be careful of taking the role of an
exploiter or an intervener/reformer (Glesne, 2011). Although I did not explicitly define my
research problem with the potential participants within my study, I developed my study through
listening to and observing the ways in which educators have struggled with teaching in this
context. Throughout my collection and analysis of data, I continued to listen and engage
participants’ narratives in ways that honored the importance of their thoughts, beliefs, and
actions, as significant to the communities that they serve.
In the role of Learning and Teaching Advisor, I had no official power over teachers, and
my position should not have coerced teachers into participation. Yet, since I represented the
Ministry of Education, teachers might still have felt an obligation to participate in my study. In
addition, my role had enabled me to be friendly with many teachers, and it was important that I
was responsible and considerate of the intimate knowledge I was possibly provided predicated
on the trust established through friendship (Glesne, 2011). Thus, during the data collection
process, I was clear with participants about my role as a researcher, which should not have been
confused with my role as a Learning and Teaching Advisor.
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Both the validity and reliability of a study depend on the researcher’s ethical stance
(Merriam, 2009). Before interviewing participants, I was clear and honest about the purpose of
my study. As a researcher, it was my responsibility to make sure that participants were making
informed decisions and understood the potential risks of their involvement (Glesne, 2011). I
asked for participants’ consent to record the interviews and use any documents or artifacts for
analysis. While collecting data, I focused on objectivity in recording rich, thick descriptions of
phenomena, while keeping a detailed account of my methods to create an audit trail (Merriam,
2009). Yet, I also observed participants’ right to confidentiality as long as they did not choose
otherwise. Within all discussions of participants, I used pseudonyms to protect their identity. I
also carefully chose which information about participants’ background to share, since the Cook
Islands consist of small communities. Lastly, I was transparent about my research methods and
the limitations of this study, ensuring the ethical dissemination of my findings to the audience or
consumer (Merriam, 2009).
Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to understand how teachers made meaning of teaching with
technology in the Cook Islands. Teachers within the Cook Islands at multiple school sites served
as my unit of analysis. Data was collected from semi-structured interviews of teachers,
triangulated by the review of necessary and relevant documents and artifacts. Utilizing my
conceptual framework as a lens and my literature review, I analyzed the data to determine
broader themes that emerged as findings.

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CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS
The purpose of this dissertation was to understand the ways in which teachers made
meaning of teaching with information communication technology (ICT) in the Cook Islands.
Specifically, I sought to discover how teachers viewed technology as a means to sustain, share
and connect with Indigenous Cook Islands language and culture and/or as a means to engage
with the Western world.
Overall, analysis of the data revealed that teachers’ perceptions of ICTs were mediated by
their epistemic stances: what can be known, how to know it, and why it is of value (Horn &
Kane, 2015). I found that teachers’ location upon a continuum between an Indigenous Cook
Islands epistemic stance and Western epistemic stance filtered through their personal
experiences, beliefs about the purpose of school, knowledge of Cook Islands Maori language and
culture, and pedagogy. Through mediation of these context-dependent, and often conflicting
values and beliefs, teachers’ epistemic stance was the main indicator of what role teachers
believed ICT integration played or should play within the classroom. In general, teachers
positioned within Indigenous Cook Islands perspectives viewed technology as a cultural tool to
sustain, share, and connect with Indigenous language and culture. In contrast, teachers
positioned within Western perspectives viewed technology as a neutral tool to engage with the
Western world of individual opportunity and competitiveness in the global job marketplace.
Furthermore, teachers positioned between Indigenous and Western perspectives saw ICT as
fulfilling both roles. Thus, teachers made meaning of ICT integration by filtering their epistemic
stance through the complex web of experiences, values and beliefs that informed their practice.
More specifically, six findings emerged that explain the overall phenomenon of how
teachers made meaning of ICT integration. The findings articulate a continuum of perspectives
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toward ICT. On one end of the continuum, the first finding emerged from teachers who lived
elements of a strong Indigenous Cook Islands epistemic stance. This cohort of teachers
perceived ICT as a cultural tool to ground students in Cook Islands Maori ways of knowing and
doing. Their view of ICT was an extension of their desire to re-center and revitalize the
education system within Indigenous ways and to subvert Western ways. The second finding
included teachers who shared an Indigenous epistemic stance juxtaposed with Western views of
the purpose of education. Therefore, this second cohort of teachers viewed ICT as a cultural tool
to first sustain Cook Islands language and culture, and then engage with the Western world. The
third finding described teachers who were originally positioned as Western epistemologically,
but had moved toward Indigenous perspectives. As a result, these teachers possessed a hybrid
stance, one that filtered into viewing ICT as both a tool to sustain language and culture and
engage with Western ways. The fourth finding described the discrepant case of two teachers
who were positioned in an Indigenous epistemic stance, but viewed ICT as a neutral tool that
was parallel to language and culture. Since these teachers did not contest change, they believed
uptake of ICT was inevitable and were not critical of ICT’s influence upon language and culture.
The fifth finding indicated that teachers who were mostly Western within their perspective
viewed ICT as a neutral tool to provide students with more opportunities to learn and engage
with the Western world. Teachers who shared this view were more focused on inclusion and
were not critical of ICT as inciting loss of Indigenous language and culture. Lastly, finding six
marked the other end of the continuum with a view of ICT as a placeless tool, decontextualized
from the Cook Islands. From a strong Western epistemic stance, ICT was seen as yet another
discreet skill to be learned in preparation for the job marketplace. Overall, teachers located at
either end of the continuum communicated alignment between their epistemic stance and beliefs
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about the purpose of school, pedagogy, and ICT. In contrast, teachers located within the middle
range of the continuum did not communicate full alignment between their epistemic stance and
beliefs.
For each finding, I explain how participants within the cohort made meaning of the role
of ICT in Cook Islands learning and teaching. I explain how their epistemic stance aligned or
was in conflict with their beliefs about the purpose of education, their experiences, and their
pedagogy. I then offer how the mediation between their stance and beliefs played out in their
perceptions of ICT integration. In turn, I present the evidence and analysis in support of each of
these findings.
Finding 1: ICT as a Cultural Tool to Revitalize Indigenous Cook Islands Language and
Culture as an Extension of Subverting the Western Paradigm
The first finding showed that those grounded in a strong Indigenous epistemic stance
filtered their beliefs and values into their perceptions of ICT as a cultural tool to revitalize Cook
Islands language and culture. Five of 21 teachers or 23.8% of the participants shared this
common meaning making of ICT integration in the Cook Islands. One participant in this finding
was a teacher on Aitutaki, while the rest were teachers on Rarotonga. All five of these teachers
were raised in the Pa Enua (outer islands) until at least their teenage years and had been teaching
in the Cook Islands a minimum of 15 years to a maximum of 43 years. All Cook Islands Maori,
these teachers communicated the difference between living Indigenous knowledge and simply
possessing Indigenous knowledge. They discussed their expertise in Cook Islands Maori
language and culture, which shaped their views of the purpose of education, pedagogy, and
ultimately ICT integration. The continuity between their values, beliefs and experiences as
strong Cook Islanders honed their approach to education as grounding students in Cook Islands
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Maori ways of knowing and doing. As a result, this cohort expressed a need to re-center the
education system within Indigenous Cook Islands ways. They discussed the historical and
current imposition of Western ways of learning and teaching upon the Cook Islands education
system, as well as their desire to subvert the dominance of the Western paradigm. Thus, the
perception of ICT integration as a means to not only sustain, but revitalize language and culture
was an extension of this broader desire to rebuild education from a Cook Islands Maori identity.
To demonstrate this finding, I first explain how this cohort of five participants was
positioned within an Indigenous Cook Islands epistemic stance that was lived. I use three
indicators from Jonassen’s (2003) pillars of Cook Islands Maori personality and culture to show
how they lived Indigenous knowledge, which was important to understand as grounding for their
beliefs and values in terms of Cook Islands education. Secondly, I present this cohort’s belief in
the purpose of education as grounding students in Cook Islands ways to ultimately remake
society from an Indigenous perspective. I then analyze how teachers’ epistemic stance reflected
their beliefs about pedagogy. Lastly, I show how this cohort viewed ICT as a cultural tool to
revitalize Cook Islands Maori language and culture. Throughout the demonstration of this
finding, I highlight the ways in which teachers expressed their desire to subvert the dominance of
Western ways within the education system. Teachers in this cohort represented one end of the
continuum of perspectives that I found, since their beliefs about the purpose of school, pedagogy
and ICT integration were firmly rooted in an Indigenous stance.
Lived Indigenous Cook Islands Epistemic Stance
Central to this perception of ICT was teachers’ lived Indigenous Cook Islands
knowledge. According to Brayboy and Maughan (2009), in Indigenous communities, knowledge
is not abstract or gleaned from written texts; knowledge is active, situated within systems of
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interactions, between the animate and inanimate, across generations. To locate teachers in this
cohort as steeped in a strong Cook Islands Maori epistemic stance, I synthesized Jonassen’s
(2003) pillars of Maori personality and culture into three interrelated indicators of teachers’
positionality. These three indicators can be thought of as residing in woven baskets, which
illustrate how the definitions seep into one another and are not fully separated (J. Jonassen,
personal communication, July 26, 2017). The indicators include the importance of language as
part of identity, land as essential to way of life, and unity through reciprocity among family and
community members. To show how teachers within this cohort lived Indigenous Cook Islands
epistemology, I provide examples and analyses of how teachers’ responses exemplified these
three indicators. In addition, where relevant, I share how teachers communicated the Western
paradigm as dominant within the Cook Islands education system, and their subsequent desire to
re-envision education from an Indigenous Cook Islands perspective.
Language as identity. Jonassen (2003) ties language to identity as a Cook Islands Maori.
For the five teachers within this cohort, the belief in language as identity emerged from their
discussion of Cook Islands Maori language loss. All five teachers’ strong emphasis on language
within the education system stemmed from their belief in language as part of identity. Their
activism toward revitalizing language in schools was an extension of this belief and served as
evidence of their lived Indigenous stance. I share three teacher’s voices as exemplars of the
cohort’s positioning within an Indigenous epistemic stance through the belief in language as
identity.
Firstly, I share Rae’s voice to exemplify teachers’ strong desire to ground students in the
Maori language as part of their identity. By sharing a story about a Cook Islander who grew up
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in New Zealand not knowing the Maori language, she revealed the connection between her
beliefs about language and her teaching as an extension of these beliefs:
When I was in Fiji, we had our president of the Cook Islands Association, but he was
born and raised up in New Zealand. He came back with his grandfather and he doesn’t
know the language. Then, when he went to Fiji at this certain time, one of the students
say, “Ah where you from,” and he said, “Oh from the Cook Islands,” and his friend said,
“You don’t look like you’re from the Cook Islands, because you never speak your
language.” You know that thing really hit me and I think that’s the, the first time I
realized how important it is to know your language, your culture, and where you are
from. That’s when I wanted to change and direct, show my interest in the teaching of
Cook Islands Maori in this school.
Through her story, Rae expressed how she viewed Maori as part of one’s identity as a Cook
Islander. She shared one student’s belief that language was tied to how you look and where you
are from. This one student’s beliefs led her to realize the importance of language as connected to
culture and origin. She shared this realization as the moment when she decided to direct her
teaching toward grounding students in the Cook Islands Maori language. One of her later
statements, when she discussed her interactions with parents in regards to language learning,
further exemplified her belief in language as identity:
Well, for my students they learn from me, and I even talk to their parents. Ah, I even ask
them do you value who you are and where you come from? Cause I see your child not
even speaking the language. That means you don’t value who you are. And the child
will grow up to learn the same thing, too. They don’t know where they come from.
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Within the questions she posed to parents, Rae further established her belief in the connection
between language, origin, and identity. Her questioning of parents whose children did not speak
the language showed her belief that language was tied to valuing who one was and where one
came from. Her belief in language as identity aligned with Jonassen’s statement that language
competence equips a person to respond to the question: Who are you? Her activism of focusing
her teaching on Maori and challenging parents to critically reflect upon the importance of
language served as evidence of her lived Indigenous epistemic stance.
Another participant, Nani communicated her belief in language as identity through her
reflection upon a time when she felt she devalued her Maori language. Leaving the tourist
industry to become a teacher, she realized the importance of language:
Because I sometimes, looking back, at my other place of work, um, we were then trying
to lure the tourists into the Cook Islands, so we must speak English, so they can
understand us. But then, when I became a teacher, I realized how much damage that I,
I’m not talking about other people, I am talking about me, how I had jumped into using
the language to make the country, make profits for the country, and for my place of work,
and then, I didn’t know what I was doing to my language. Yes, there may be no purpose
of it at that time, but then how dare I make it more important than my own language.
By placing value on English to make profits, Nani explained how she inadvertently devalued her
own language. Throughout her interview, Nani discussed language as inextricably tied to
culture. She explained that language “will be living in things like our culture, and things like our
weaving, and that, the arts, the drawing.” She indicated that she shifted toward these beliefs,
when she became a teacher. At that time, she realized that Cook Islands Maori was important
and should be valued, not in regard to profit, but as part of her identity. Her statement, “There
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should be a very strong emphasis on [language] to be taught in the school,” paired with her
reflection was evidence of her Indigenous positioning.
Lastly, although all five teachers in this cohort shared their belief that Cook Islands
Maori should be a focus in schools, two teachers explicitly cited the Ministry of Education as not
meeting their expectations for supporting Maori language learning. I share one of the teacher’s
discussion of language loss to exemplify the cohort’s belief in language as identity. Mavis’s
responses to the following questions clearly articulated this view:
What do you believe should be the role of Cook Islands language in schools today?
It should be brought back, and it should be like highlighted in the first 3 years, and
the Ministry or government should make it as a, a priority.
Why do you believe that the language should be brought back?
It should be, because we see in the difference in the students’ attitudes and behaviors it’s
kind of like they are adopting a foreign act all together, and they believe that is all right.
Mavis conjoined students’ Maori language loss to their adoption of “a foreign act.” She
contended that if students did not speak their own language, their attitudes and behaviors
changed and were embodied in ways that were foreign or what she communicated as Western
throughout her interview. Her desire to impart the language and its importance to students
reflected her belief in language as shaping one’s character, one’s identity. Additionally, Mavis’s
stance on what was most important for students to learn summarized the teachers’ beliefs about
language:
At the moment, I think what is important for them to know is, because we are in the Cook
Islands, so it is important for them to know that our language is important and our
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culture. It’s what shapes us as an individual. It’s to really know your background, and to
always take pride in where you come from.
Mavis’s words spoke to the broader view of language communicated by all of the teachers in this
cohort: Language was important because it was tied to culture, origin, and individuality. Thus,
Mavis’s desire to make Maori a priority in the education system was an extension of her belief
that language was part of identity.
To locate teachers within an Indigenous epistemic stance, I showed how three teachers’
beliefs in language as identity emerged from their emphasis on teaching Maori to resist the
dominance of English and Western ways. These teachers’ narratives exemplified the cohort’s
belief that valuing the language meant valuing Cook Islands Maori culture, which shaped them
as individuals. Their desire to ground students in Maori was evidence of their Indigenous
positioning. Next, I use another indicator derived from Jonassen’s pillars to position teachers
within an Indigenous stance. From a Cook Islands Maori perspective, “where you come from”
or in particular one’s island and land is also essential to knowing who you are.
Land as life. Teachers’ expression of land as also tied to identity was a second marker of
teachers’ lived Indigenous epistemic stance. Jonassen (2003) discusses land as life, since land is
tied to culture, ancestry, and traditional ways of life. Jonassen claims that Cook Islanders have a
responsibility to protect and grow the traditions tied to their land and ancestry. As an example of
how the teachers within this cohort explained land as life, I share three participants’ voices.
First, Nani expressed how land is life through her responses to the following questions:
What do you believe someone is asking when he/she says, “Where are you from?”
Probably my culture, probably um, cause my culture would be linked to the island that I
come from.
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Do you believe that this question is important?
I think so, ah no, I know so. It’s an important question, because if I didn’t know the
culture, how can I call myself a Cook Islander, and if I didn’t know my culture, I need to
know it. And, I need to live and breathe it and live amongst my older people that um,
have the knowledge. They do have the knowledge.
Nani explained that culture was linked to where you came from, your point of origin, which for
Cook Islands Maori was one’s land and island. Since she tied land to culture and knowing
culture was tied to being able to call oneself a Cook Islander, within her statement, Nani
connected land to identity. Her belief in the need to live culture amongst elders (“my older
people”) further aligned to Jonassen’s claim that land is life through one’s ties to ancestors. Nani
also offered her belief in living the knowledge with her elders, or living a Cook Islands Maori
perspective.
The second voice that exemplified land as life was Mavis’s discussion of teaching local
knowledge to students. Before answering the following questions, she had identified local
knowledge as traditional knowledge. Her answers to the following questions linked land to
ancestry:
How do you incorporate local knowledge of the Cook Islands within your teaching?
Guest speakers, and have field trips, and visit all the maraes.
Why should we have kids going to the maraes?
So that they know the history, the history of their ancestors.
I don’t know if you can answer this, but why is that important to know the history of the
ancestors?
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Basically for me, it is to build their, to build that, that feeling of being proud, to be a
proud Cook Islander, and proud where, to be proud where they come from. To do that
they have to know their background, the history, and history of the Cook Islands, what’s
been happening, and all those stories about their ancestor’s travelling.
Mavis identified visiting the maraes as a way to teach traditional knowledge. For pre-Christian
Cook Islanders, a marae was “a sacred enclosure for religious ceremonies, usually rectangular
and bordered with rocks, and with stones of special significance within” (Crocombe &
Crocombe, 2003, p. 229). It was a place of worship for ancient Polynesian gods. As Mavis
stated, the maraes were sites of land from which the history of a Cook Islands Maori could be
traced. As a point of origin, the maraes tell of genealogy, history and Cook Islanders’
connection to Polynesian voyagers. By tying traditional knowledge and ancestry to sites of land,
Mavis showed her belief in land as life.
Lastly, Lili contextualized how land was tied to the traditional knowledge of ancestors.
When sharing her past as a child growing up among her grandparents on Aitutaki, she expressed
how land was way of life:
Even the phases of the moon, our grandparents during those days they say oh, tonight, it’s
time for this type of fish, and, or new moon would be soon up, and they say it’s good to
plant this type of food. You know in those days, they follow the phases of the moon to
plant kumara, you get the very big kumara, when you start to harvest, if you follow the
phases of the moon. The grandparents, even they talk it a lot, they say to never to forget
this knowledge, to continue it, say sustain and to keep it going from your children, to you,
to their children, to their children, to their children.
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In sharing her interactions with her grandparents as a child, Lili expressed how land and
traditional knowledge such as planting and fishing were merged as one. Traditional knowledge
was lived by reading how, for example, the phases of the moon interact with the land and
determined when to plant. Lili offered a view of land as tied to traditions, which was tied to the
knowledge of one’s ancestors. Knowledge or wisdom passed through generations was not
placeless. Rather Lili offered an account of observing and interacting with one’s environment as
living the knowledge of the past.
These three teachers’ voices spoke to the cohort’s belief in land as life through culture,
points of origin, and traditional knowledge. This belief acted as a second indicator of this
cohort’s Indigenous positioning. Next, I turn to the third indicator from Jonassen’s pillars that I
use to position teachers within an Indigenous Cook Islands perspective.
Unity and reciprocity. Jonassen (2003) discusses unity through fulfilling duties to
family, tribe and village. The concept of unity intersects with reciprocity through the giving of
needed resources and local knowledge. This focus from Jonassen’s pillars, like the other two
indicators, is inherently connected to the wisdom of ancestors, since unity between family and
community requires the reciprocation of passing local ways of knowing and doing to future
generations. Teachers exhibited this indicator through their discussions of the difficulties in
maintaining unity and reciprocity within their communities in light of Westernization. To
illustrate the cohort’s positioning, I offer four teachers’ voices.
As a first example of how unity and reciprocity emerged through the teachers’ responses,
I share Tiare’s description of the difficulties in passing traditional knowledge to younger
generations on Rarotonga in today’s society. When asked what local knowledge meant in the
Cook Islands, Tiare responded with the hardship in sustaining traditional practices:
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Uh, it’s quite hard now with local, it’s just the lifestyle that children are in now. Cause
some children with parents, both parents work, and children are thrown with aunties, with
uncles or grandparents, it’s really hard to, well maybe children with grandparents they
can really grab the local, where they live the grandparents are practicing. But, when, in
the modern family, it’s like going to the takeaways and all that, that’s not really the local.
Whereas with the grandparents, they still making their umu, special days, taking their
kids out fishing, and then, the modern family, they just take the children to the Ocean
Fresh. It’s hard now, because it’s I can fend for myself now. I can go on my own and do
my own things now, because I’ve got my own family, my own job. It’s no longer a
social community thing anymore.
Through her response, Tiare expressed a breakdown of unity with the community or extended
family. She positioned the modern or Western concept of family as nuclear, which did not
necessarily include constant interactions with grandparents or elders in the community. As a
result, Tiare explained the difficulty in sustaining traditional knowledge or the “local,” since
family structures were changing on Rarotonga. To illustrate this point, she focused on food.
Children were no longer exposed to traditional fishing or food preparation, such as the umu or
underground oven, because of parents working in businesses on island. She offered this shift
away from a subsistence lifestyle as one way Cook Islanders had been taken away from their
traditional connections to the land, to a life where food was purchased. As Tiare claimed, unless
elders, such as grandparents were an integral part of children’s upbringing, it was difficult to
continue local practices that tie communities together. When she stated, “It’s no longer a social
community thing anymore,” she revealed her belief in unity, which to her, had begun to erode.
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Next, I explain how Lili’s voice showed unity and reciprocity across generations of
family members. Lili expressed that listening and helping within the family was seen as mutual
respect:
In those days, you keep quiet, but nowadays it’s the other way, and the kids don’t have
the respect. Even in the homes, the kids never respect their parents, the kids never listen.
The parents say go pick the rubbish up, and the kids say you go. But not my kids, my
grandparents always taught me well. Kids ask my son, why you always working. He
says, it’s for my benefit, it’s for my future. I have to help my parents.
Lili indicated that respect was a value seen in one’s obedience to parents. As a child, she was
expected to help her grandparents by completing chores, and she explained that she expected the
same of her children now. By indicating, “my grandparents always taught me well,” she
suggested that the fulfilling of duties in the home cultivated values for children to reciprocate to
their children. From an Indigenous stance, Lili communicated unity as reciprocating values such
as respect across generations.
Third, I offer Mavis’s discussion of local medicine to show how teachers in this cohort
shared the importance of family and unity within the community. Mavis discussed the teaching
of traditional medicines:
Well, you may let the students know what is in the local medicine, but they can’t practice
them. It’s not a power, but in Maori that’s the mana. But when this family makes this
medicine, you may know the ingredients in the medicine, but you can’t make it, because
the effects of it may not be the same, because it’s the power.
When asked about teaching local knowledge, Mavis offered that traditional knowledge, such as
medicine making, could not be taught in class through a list of ingredients. She explained that
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only certain families within a community made medicines. Mana is “a concept of life force
associated with ritual power, high social status, outstanding achievement or prestige” (Crocombe
& Crocombe, 2003, p. 339). Family ancestry is tied to mana, and therefore, certain knowledge
only runs through specific families. Thus, from an Indigenous perspective, Mavis shared how
families had a duty to their community, which was not based on monetary gain, but rather
intergenerational knowledge.
I offer a last teacher’s voice to show a societal perspective of unity that transcended
village and expressed a duty to ancestors. Nani’s discussion of the erosion of traditional gift
giving and welcoming in the face of tourism showed her Indigenous positioning:
There is more of the culture is being used to entertain, so entertain in business places.
Whereas, when I was growing up, culture is like, when someone new is come on the
island, we just dance and do some performance. They eat, and that’s just it, there was no
cost. It didn’t involve any cost. A bit sad that it had come to people more eager to pay to
us people to pay to see our culture. Cause I didn’t think that, well that’s my perception, I
didn’t think my ancestors wanted to be sold, to be a money making thing. It was for us, I
know my culture is to welcome people.
Nani framed the use of culture in tourism as an ethical issue. She claimed that when people
arrived on the islands, it was tradition to welcome them from the sea. Yet, through the tourist
industry, people were now required to pay to see cultural practices. For Nani, gift giving, in this
case welcoming through song, dance, and food, was a tradition, not a commodity to be bought
and sold. Her beliefs echoed Tiare’s, since the breakdown of unity within the community was
tied to business, which was fueled by the need to make money. Nani’s belief in reciprocity
through gift giving emerged from her criticism of placing monetary value on cultural practices,
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rather than valuing the act of gift giving as practicing ancestral ways. Her criticism of the
commodification of culture showed her belief in unity with and reciprocity to ancestors.
The teachers within this cohort expressed the importance of unity among family and
community. Unity intersected with reciprocity, since unity depends on the reciprocation of
practicing and passing traditional knowledge across generations. The teachers’ criticism of
Western ways as fracturing this unity demonstrated their belief in this third indicator of
Indigenous positioning.
In conclusion, the teachers in this cohort shared a lived Indigenous Cook Islands
epistemic stance. I used three indicators derived from Jonassen’s pillars to position teachers as
steeped in an Indigenous perspective. In this section, I have shown how teachers viewed
language as identity, land as life, and unity through reciprocity across generations. Through all
of the teachers’ voices emerged this desire to revitalize Indigenous Cook Islands ways of
knowing and doing as a form of resistance to the imposition of Western views. Teachers’
Indigenous epistemic stance was central to their perceptions of ICT integration. By establishing
teachers’ Indigenous epistemic stance, I am able to show how Indigenous positioning filtered
into their beliefs about the purpose of school.
Students as the Hope to Remake Cook Islands Society
The teachers within this cohort believed that the purpose of education was to cultivate
future leaders for the Cook Islands. Their strong Indigenous stance shaped their perception of
the purpose of education, which aligned with their beliefs about ICT. In Labaree’s (1997)
analysis of the purposes of education in the American system, he offers the question: “Should
school present themselves as a model of our best hopes for our society and a mechanism for
remaking that society in the image of those hopes?” (p. 41). This question framed my
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understanding of the purpose of education as expressed by these teachers. By grounding
students in a strong Indigenous stance, the teachers believed that students’ foundation would
prepare them to face changes in the world without losing their identity. Furthermore, they
believed students with a strong Cook Islands Maori stance would choose to serve their country in
the future. Ultimately, the teachers within this cohort reflected a belief in students as the hope to
remake Cook Islands society within an Indigenous identity. To illustrate, I explain how teachers’
responses reflected this belief and how their hopes emerged from their Indigenous epistemic
stance.
Firstly, I offer Tiare’s analogy to illustrate how teachers viewed Cook Islands Maori
identity in the face of changes from Western influence. Although her narrative was about a
conversation she had with her own children about change, her analogy articulated the shared
desire of teachers in this cohort to strip away layers of outside influence and ground students in
Indigenous ways. Tiare described the analogy of Cook Islanders becoming like robots:
People have things to focus, there’s no waving anymore, it’s like I’m going there, my
meeting. Yeah, what’s happening, it’s because we have things, we are like robots. For
me it’s sad, because it’s not my values anymore. And I even talk to my children, what
can you see. They both say mum, things are changing. Yes, you are right, you are not
wrong there, but remember is a robot going to come turn around and do what you want?
They just looked at me. No, because robot is programmed by you. You have to make
that order, but if you order them to do this, this and that, it’s not automatic. Whereas with
human being, it’s automatic. Can you see the difference? And, both of them said that
we never thought about that. Because human beings, it’s different, we can adjust straight
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away. With machines, we have to go in and change the program, because you made the
program, but look at yourself, who made you?
Tiare offered this analogy to illustrate how foreign ways were running society. She explained
how people had become like robots focused on work and money rather than their interactions
with one another, which were not her values. Since society had changed, she saw the necessity
to engage in conversation with her children. She explained to her children that robots were
programmed by people. People had a choice in how they behaved, even though Western ways
were becoming more dominant. For Tiare, her children would be the ones to resist this
dominance, and “adjust straight away.” They would be able to retain their identity as Cook
Islands Maori. At the end of her story, she suggested a need to change the program or systems in
the Cook Islands by having her children critically question who they were. This belief in
grounding children in an Indigenous identity to mitigate change was tied to her understanding of
unity among family and community, which was an indicator of her Indigenous positioning.
All five teachers in this cohort expressed their desire for students to serve their country
after graduating from the education system. For example, Rae thought students should “come
back and appreciate where they come from, rather than graduate, stay away and not come back.”
Mavis shared this sentiment and added the need for students to become adaptive leaders:
We need future leaders, and we need to shape future leaders. It’s for their own good. In
every country there’s always change, and we need to educate our students to adapt to any
changes that we face in the world.
Mavis’s collective word choice, focusing on “we,” implied a sense of facing changes imposed
upon the country together as Cook Islands Maori. Furthermore, Tiare’s voice elaborated upon
this idea of shaping future leaders by clearly indicating that adapting to change meant retaining
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one’s Cook Islands Maori identity. Tiare did this by questioning the Ministry of Education’s
focus on building students as leaders:
Well, I, I think from an education point of view, they really have to look at what type of
leaders do we want for tomorrow? Because we need to build in those leaders now, not
tomorrow, now is the time to set the foundation right. What we sow now that is what
they are going to be like. If we sow good leaders, they will present good things, but if we
sit down and like, I’m looking at, okay, change is good, what else is there for me to look?
Is it all the changes are good, or is it am I weaving in my culture with the change? Are
they seeing for the new leaders to come?
Tiare’s language of setting the foundation and growing leaders evoked her desire to ground
students in Indigenous ways, a perspective shared by all five teachers. She suggested that the
education system should center students within the Cook Islands Maori identity to ensure that
change was vetted by culture, a marker of identity. She offered that students with a strong Maori
foundation would be able to weave or draw upon their culture through the changes occurring in
the world. She questioned whether the current education system was preparing students with the
“right” foundation to vet dominant, foreign views. Her epistemic stance emerged in her focus on
conserving Cook Islands culture in the face of societal change.
Lastly, two teachers’ voices articulated teachers’ hopes for students to remake a society
by discussing the current problems with foreigners leading decision making for the country. For
example, Tiare suggested that some leaders are not committed to the Cook Islands people:
Some leaders are only there for short term, period. I mean what I can see, is just what
they want. It’s not to build the nation. It’s to what I can get when I get in there. I mean,
it’s, you can see the pattern, it’s what’s happening now. It’s not forecasting for
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tomorrow, it’s just a short term. They are out come, and then the next one trying. It’s
still the same.
According to Tiare, without a strong Cook Islands Maori foundation, leaders strayed from their
duties to the country. They lacked the Indigenous belief in unity to make collective decisions,
ensuring what was right from the view of past to present generations of Cook Islanders, and
simply decided what was best from their own perspective. Tiare explained that this was the
“pattern,” which linked to a history of colonization that she implied continued to influence
systems in the Cook Islands. Furthermore, her view was supported by Tiare, who believed that
Cook Islands students should also return to lead:
Probably to come back here, and not go away. Come back here and develop their own
country, education-wise, you know, have a look at education. Cause personally, what I
see is education, we are not driving our education, not in a mean way, but we just sitting
at the back and letting someone else drive it.
Nani corroborated Tiare’s belief that the Cook Islands Maori lens was not leading decision
making in the country. In particular, Nani focused on the education system being led by outside
perspectives. In slight contrast to Tiare’s view, Nani explained that the lack of an Indigenous
Cook Islands stance driving education was not “in a mean way.” Her words implied that outside
influences were not intentionally marginalizing Maori views, but rather there was a passivity
toward changing the dominance of Western ways within the system. Tiare and Nani’s voices
reflected the teachers’ desire for students to remake society from an Indigenous lens.
Finally, I share Tiare’s analogy of growing taro to the growing of leaders in schools as a
summary of the teachers’ views presented. She stated:
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Because I mean, I look at with how we grow taro, because we brought in plastic and what
happened, the nutrients are gone. So, the adding of leaves are still good, because
nutrients have been put back in the soil, which helps the taro grow. So I’m looking at it
from that perspective.
Her analogy communicated how outside influences, represented by plastic, strip the soil of
richness, in this case, what could be deemed Indigenous. By putting the taro leaves back within
the soil, or growing Cook Islands leaders from an Indigenous perspective, the identity, the taro,
could grow again. This cyclical, systemic thinking was inherent in all five teachers’ views of the
purpose of education. The purpose of education was to ground students in who they were to
ensure that they led with a Cook Islands Maori perspective.
Therefore, for the teachers in this cohort, their hope for remaking Cook Islands society
from an Indigenous identity stemmed from their Indigenous epistemic stance. The teachers
believed that re-centering the education system in Indigenous ways of knowing and doing would
cultivate the Cook Islands leaders of the future. Leaders of the future, from their Cook Islands
Maori stance, would then shift dominant paradigms that were currently running the system. This
strong alignment between teachers’ Indigenous stance and beliefs about the purpose of school
was also found within their views about pedagogy.
Indigenous Pedagogy to Re-center
The teachers in this cohort viewed pedagogy as grounded within Indigenous Cook Islands
ways of knowing and doing. I utilized McCarty and Lee’s (2014) culturally sustaining and
revitalizing pedagogy (CSRP) as well as Seawright’s (2014) discussion of Indigenous place
based education as lenses to understand teachers’ views about pedagogy. These lenses enabled
me to analyze teachers’ perceptions of pedagogy as framed by a critical stance, which filtered
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into their views of ICT. Their perceptions of pedagogy aligned with this literature in three ways,
which shaped my analysis of teachers’ narratives. First, CSRP stems from the need to reclaim
Indigenous ways through revitalization of language and culture. I revisit teachers’ desire to
revitalize language in school as grounding students’ in a Cook Islands Maori identity. Second,
Seawright claims that Indigenous peoples operate within knowledge systems different from
Western paradigms, which shape their perspective of place and learning. Teachers in this cohort
expressed pedagogy as inherently entwined with Indigenous epistemology. While Westerners
seek to contextualize or integrate theoretical understandings of learning, these teachers viewed
learning in the Cook Islands as inherently contextualized within interactions between people and
place. Third, CSRP focuses on shifting power from dominant Western paradigms to Indigenous
communities to subvert systems grounded in colonialism. Throughout the narratives that I share,
teachers’ underlying desire to subvert the imposition of Western ways emerged in their
discussion of pedagogy. Within this section, I reveal how teachers’ perceptions of pedagogy
focused on language as identity and intergenerational interactions with place to re-center learning
within a Cook Islands Maori stance. Ultimately, these elements of teachers’ pedagogy aligned
with their perceptions of ICT.
First, the participants in this cohort shared a strong belief in teaching students in Cook
Islands Maori. They viewed their expertise in the language as a way to ground students in
language as identity. For example, Nani explained that she positioned Maori as the dominant
language in her class:
There’s more of the Maori. When I speak English, it is for English. If they don’t
understand, I translate it in Maori, because there are a lot of Maori kids in there. I
translate it in Maori and translate it back into English.
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Nani explained her focus on Maori and her conscious effort to speak English only during her
allotted time for teaching English. She expressed how she treated English as a subject to be
learned in school, rather than the dominant language of instruction. Her deliberate intention to
immerse students in Maori language learning showed her critical approach to pedagogy. Mavis
also shared how she translated between languages for the students by comparing herself to a
foreign teacher who could not:
When a foreign teacher comes in, but the way they teach, they think that everyone is on
the same wavelength and that all these students are exposed to that kind of learning
overseas. Sometimes, they go on too fast without really going slow. You know, but for
us, we can switch languages. So, you can say things in English, but you can tell, you can
always switch to your Maori language, you know, to give a better explanation. Yeah, use
your Maori language to connect it to the life that’s happening. They can have that two
perspectives, so the Maori language going on, and then the English one.
Nani and Mavis explained that as skilled speakers, they easily switched to Maori to connect their
students to what they were learning. In contrast to foreign teachers who could not speak the
language, skilled speakers of Maori were able to offer two perspectives though Maori and
English to teach the material. Mavis claimed that foreign teachers made assumptions about
Cook Islands students and learning, whereas Cook Islands Maori teachers could access students’
funds of knowledge through the language. Lastly, Rae offered a more structural view of how
language learning positioned students within a Cook Islands Maori perspective, which could
shift the dominance of English in societies. She explained what she believed the role of
language should be in schools from her experience visiting the Kaupapa Maori immersion
schools in New Zealand:
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The Ministry should enforce the teaching of Cook Islands Maori in all of the schools.
The schools are not given the choice, because this is a Cook Island country. I mean, you
look at Samoa, I can see it in New Zealand, when we went to visit the schools over there,
that they trying to put back their own language in the schools. So, the two schools that
we went to visit in New Zealand, children do not speak English at all from early
childhood to Form 2, except when they are playing formal education, English in class.
That’s when they communicate in English. Otherwise, kids converse with each other in
New Zealand Maori. And even in Samoa, the first time I went to Samoa, actually I am
lost, because people were speaking in their language.
Comparing the Cook Islands to New Zealand and Samoa, Rae claimed that the language should
be revitalized and the Ministry of Education should not give schools a choice regarding their
Maori language policy. She articulated how children in the New Zealand Maori immersion
schools only learn English as a subject in school, as part of their formal education, while Maori
was spoken in all other contexts of learning. She viewed the immersion schools as the pathway
to revitalizing a Maori speaking society in the Cook Islands, which she could envision from her
time in Samoa. Her belief in reclaiming language as grounding for student learning aligned with
her hopes to remake Cook Islands society within an Indigenous perspective. When I asked her if
the Kaupapa Maori schools had an effect on her, she stated:
I think yes, because those kids on the NCEA level, they were all doing really well. Yeah,
so I think the foundation of te reo is strong and that should have come back. When we
first went to school, we learn English, but unlike today, we learn Maori at school.
Her response aligned with CSRP and the culturalist responses to language learning from
Kaupapa Maori epistemology (Smith, 2003). Rae theorized that strength in one’s own language
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acted as a strong foundation for learning. Her observation of New Zealand Maori students
achieving within the dominant paradigm represented by NCEA (National Certificate of
Educational Achievement) levels, in which students gained qualifications in the New Zealand
system of education, convinced her that learning te reo, one’s own language, should be brought
back in the Cook Islands too. Her acknowledgement of first learning English when she attended
school in the Cook Islands, and then, firm statement, “today, we learn Maori,” implied her
resolve to regain the language that had been marginalized in the past. Her response suggested
her activism toward centering learning around the Cook Islands Maori language, rather than
English through a critical approach to pedagogy. This activism was expressed within teachers’
views of language as identity and filtered into their perceptions of ICT.
Second, in addition to this focus on language learning as a critical pedagogy, teachers in
this cohort cited epistemic issues with the pedagogies enacted in schools. From an Indigenous
stance, they first identified the education system as made within a Western paradigm, and then
expressed their desire to enact pedagogies that they deemed Indigenous. Their perceptions
aligned with Seawright’s (2014) conception of Indigenous epistemology as inherently place
based, which showed their understanding of pedagogy as an extension of their Cook Islands
Maori stance. To begin, Nani discussed pedagogy from a Cook Islands Maori perspective. She
shared how she engaged kids in learning by “doing things the Maori way.” Her conscious effort
to ground students in Maori ways could be viewed as an act of resistance to institutions
developed within the context of colonization. She clearly communicated how she believed the
education system was based in a foreign perspective:
For me, my own personal thought, the school, oh sorry, the country is learning someone
else’s way of learning. You know, their ideas, and we already have an educational
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system in our culture, which we do things this way. It’s more like, we have, similar to
the, I think the Hawaiians, where we come to, it’s a meeting place, it’s called a meeting
place, over here it’s called, are karioi, it’s a dancing house, where you go there to be
skilled to dance. In our context, prior to the arrival of the missionary, this is a new way,
probably around the 1800s. The education that’s been brought into here is like the maths.
We have math in our society, but we do it this way in our are karioi, where they come
together to make costumes and that, and dress themselves.
Nani shared her view of the structures of schooling as an imposition on Indigenous Cook Islands
ways. She discussed the historical context of schooling within the Cook Islands and implied her
belief that the system was hegemonic and remnant from a colonized past. As she stated, “prior
to the arrival of the missionary,” Cook Islands Maori had their own system of education rooted
in Indigenous culture and identity. This system was not recognized by Westerners as education,
yet as she stated, mathematics was a part of the Indigenous system, contextualized as costume
making. When asked to explain how math was part of Indigenous costume making, she
explained, “So, the maths would be the patterns and all that, you know designing.” Instead of
viewing math abstractly through manipulation of numbers, from Nani’s Indigenous perspective,
math was integrated into pattern making through the weaving of natural materials to make
costumes. Her narrative shared a perspective of learning as rooted in place and Indigenous
culture.
Furthermore, Lili offered her view of Indigenous learning through the use of natural
materials derived from place. Her narrative echoed Nani’s belief in Indigenous ways of teaching
math, yet also suggested an irony in the imposition of foreign pedagogies upon foreign
pedagogies in the Cook Islands over time. Remembering how she learned math as a student, Lili
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explained how her teachers used natural materials as manipulatives for students to participate in
active learning. Lili explained, “We have a lot of materials, we got the shells there, the puka
seeds here. We got lots of lots of natural materials that we used to count, add. I think that’s how
I motivated to learn, from doing.” Ironically, she revealed resources for math were now
imported, with the expectation that teachers use them for instruction:
Now kids, they got number flip boards, but yeah, we got the numbers, but I think more
likely, I think that the teaching is going back. We got all the materials here now, and it’s,
I don’t know, but to me, I think history is repeating itself, cause how my classroom, I got
all the blocks, we got the beans, and to me, I think they are learning more how to do it.
They’re learning from that.
Ironically, today, she suggested the resources purchased to teach math were similar to the natural
resources used in the past by Cook Islands Maori teachers. Blocks and beans replaced shells and
puka seeds as symbols of Western imposition upon the education system. Although she did not
explicitly indicate a desire to resist the use of imported manipulatives as symbols of foreign
dominance in her teaching, she did communicate the irony of “history repeating itself.” Lili
shared her belief that in the past Indigenous Cook Islanders were teaching through active use of
contextualized manipulatives, yet teachers were being told to shift pedagogy to practices that
they had already been enacting. Furthermore, at the end of her statement, Lili indicated that the
use of manipulatives was helping her students learn. In fact, she began to clearly describe her
perspective of “learning by doing” as a Cook Islands Indigenous pedagogy. Again, she shared
her experience as a student learning English:
We do a lot of oral English, and you do a lot of demonstrating. The teachers, they will
say to you, walk to the door, and then while you’re walking, you’re talking at the same
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time, “I am walking to the door.” That’s how we learn. We do things at the same time,
talking, saying it. Ah yeah, I think it was, it was really good, cause we learn by doing.
That’s how I found in those days, and there’s no technology, no technology.
Lili identified learning by doing as an Indigenous pedagogy that defined how she was taught in
school. When asked if learning by doing was a Cook Islands way, she stated the following:
Yes, it’s our identity, that’s how we learn in those days. I can remember in those days,
my grandmother, we used to plant, weave baskets in all that, and she shows me. You
holding a kikau branch with leaves, and then she shows me. You lift this there, and this
there. You know, you doing it, and at the same time, while you complete it, they just say
wow you made it. What do you call it, I think imitating? And even the papas in those
days how they do the canoe, the vaka, and they call the young boys, they say watch and
learn, you know, that’s what they say, and do.
As she continued, Lili shared her view that the Cook Islands way of learning by doing was not
relegated to schools, but derived from informal learning contexts tied to Indigenous ways of life.
She claimed that planting, weaving, and canoe making were all taught through this simultaneous
listening, watching, and doing method. Therefore, she connected this way of learning to a Cook
Islands Maori identity. She stated, “it’s our identity, that’s how we learn in those days.” Her
belief in pedagogy as identity reflected the beliefs of all five teachers in this cohort, since they
viewed teaching and learning from an Indigenous stance.
Thus, as evidence of their Indigenous epistemic stance, the teachers wrestled with making
sense of Western ways of teaching imposed upon their pedagogical practices. Ultimately,
aligned with CSRP, teachers in this cohort expressed a desire for the Western paradigm to be
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subverted by Indigenous Cook Islands ways. Nani’s voice spoke most clearly to this underlying
belief that shaped their understanding of pedagogy:
For me, I wanted learning to happen my way. I’m getting, I get thing, when people say,
we brought education in your country, and you didn’t have education in your days. But
there was education in our country then, and I suppose similar to you, as you value your
culture. So um, when they brought in, when this, this education was brought in to the
country, they did away with our informal education, correct yeah, and then made the
formal education. But when you look at it, the contexts are similar to our one, to our
informal education, like in the community.
Nani shared her frustration with the imposition of dominant paradigms in schooling upon the
Cook Islands as if nothing was there before. Her plea reflected Bowers’ (2008) call for
conservation in the face of change initiatives implemented in Indigenous contexts. Lili’s claim
that “history repeats itself” paired with Nani’s frustration told the story of old hegemonies giving
way to new hegemonies through the continual “development” of Indigenous teachers’
pedagogical practices from outside perspectives. Nani’s voice spoke for the teachers and their
desire to reclaim education as grounded in a Cook Islands Maori identity.
In conclusion, teachers asserted Maori language learning as a critical pedagogy along
with their belief in reclaiming pedagogy from an Indigenous lens. The desire to re-center
learning from a Cook Islands Maori perspective emerged from this cohort’s Indigenous
epistemic stance. Thus, pedagogy along with teachers’ beliefs in the purpose of school was
mediated by their Indigenous stance. I now share how teachers’ perceptions of ICT were also
grounded within their Cook Islands Maori stance and desire to subvert the system.
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ICT as a Cultural Tool to Revitalize Language and Culture
Within this cohort, teachers perceived ICT as a cultural tool that must be used to
revitalize Indigenous language and culture. Teachers in this cohort’s view of ICT was an
extension of their desire to ground the education system within a Cook Islands Maori identity.
To illustrate this finding, I first describe how teachers saw ICT as a cultural tool dominated by
Western language and values. Then, I express how teachers evoked the concept of third space
through blending ICT into their Indigenous knowledge. Teachers saw ICT as a way to support
their agenda of revitalizing language and culture. This was the reason for their uptake of ICT.
Last, I explain how teachers re-envisioned ICT within an Indigenous perspective in three ways:
Teachers believed that ICT should express the Maori language and culture, connect people to
share and discuss traditional knowledge, and be used to create cultural learning objects.
Throughout my analyses, I explain how teachers’ Indigenous epistemic stance filtered into their
perceptions of ICT.
Cultural tool. Marshall (2000) claims that Western epistemologies deem technology a
neutral, inanimate object, but from a New Zealand Maori perspective all things are
interconnected and there is no separation between actions and consequences. Thus, from a New
Zealand Maori lens, technology has an essence that reciprocally shapes the user as the user
shapes its purpose. From this perspective, all teachers within this cohort discussed ICT as a
cultural tool, shaped by Western perspectives through language and values. Nani shared this
view from her analysis of the Internet being mostly based in English. She stated, “I think that’s
just my concern, about um, you know, when they go onto the Internet, iPad and that, there’s
more of the English side of things, than the Cook Island language.” Also, Rae claimed, “If
there’s no Cook Islands information on the technology apps, it will not be of value, because then
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we are back to square one where we teach in English, because all of the information is in
English.” These teachers’ observations represented the other teachers’ views within this cohort.
Recognizing that most ICT is based in English as the language of communication showed that
the teachers viewed ICT as a cultural tool. English acted as a marker of the Western paradigm,
which the teachers viewed as a possible threat to sustaining Indigenous language and culture.
From their Indigenous perspective, language embodied identity, which supported their view of
ICT as Western if it was dominated by English. Furthermore, these teachers questioned the
utility of ICT as an instructional tool based on their desire to revitalize the Cook Islands Maori
language.
In addition to questioning the language of ICT, values were also a concern. Rae
expressed how media accessed through ICT could change values in the Cook Islands. When
asked what losses may be incurred with students’ use of ICT, she stated:
Yes, there will be a lot, see like ah the values, they look at the movies, and whatever on
the thing, and they think dump the Cook Island one, this one I like. So, the values will
disappear. The respect for their elder. The communication styles will be different just
like on the text, short form, so they won’t really be reading the word.
Rae asserted that ICT could affect Cook Islands students’ values and bring them toward
dominant perspectives expressed by movies or media. She feared that media steeped in foreign
values could cause students to abandon Indigenous beliefs such as the respect for elders.
Overtime, she feared that Cook Islands values could disappear through interactions with ICT.
Furthermore, interactions between students overall could become meaningless in a breakdown of
communication stemming from short form texting. “Not reading the word,” students could lack
understanding of one another’s messages. From an Indigenous perspective, unity among people
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through relationships is an essential element of society; therefore, failed interactions could
destroy relationships among community members. Her views mirrored Dyson’s (2004) assertion
that ICTs embody the values and ideologies of the culture that produced them, and thus have the
ability to influence change in the user.
Epistemological change. Although the teachers in this cohort could articulate the
seriousness of possible losses with the use of ICT, they also communicated the need to teach
students proper use. Teachers believed that proper use entailed filtering technology through their
Indigenous perspective to ensure that Cook Islands Maori ways were dominant in their use.
Tiare explained that teaching students about the negatives and the positives of ICT is the only
way to prevent loss of a Cook Islands perspective. She expressed her viewpoint as follows:
I think the losses will be how their perspective, what they have learned into. There is a
lot of negative out there, heaps, that the kids fall into. I mean the games they play and the
friends they chat with. I mean that’s the, I mean that’s my fear, but I just have to teach
them, right, it’s the only way, we have to teach. These are the pros, and these are the
positive things of ICT, and these are also the negative things of ICT. If we just teach, just
the positive, kids will say, how come they don’t give this, so you just have to teach both.
For Tiare, teaching both the positives and negatives of ICT was a way to mitigate loss. Like
Rae, Tiare saw technology as a cultural tool with the ability to influence students away from
their identity as Cook Islanders. Opening discussions regarding how technology and tradition
could be woven together was a strategy that Tiare believed would help students retain Cook
Island Maori ways. She offered her approach to using technology in her classroom:
I sort of draw them in the wider picture. It’s not just for now, for them to look at the big
picture, take them out of tomorrow, and what they can still hang on from today, and then
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weave it in their learning. It’s not just one way, technology isn’t the only way, but I sort
of pull them into both has to go together. Your traditional knowledge, you just have
to weave in with the changes, what’s happening now.
Utilizing the analogy of learning as weaving, Tiare filtered her Indigenous stance into her
understanding of learning with ICT. From a Cook Islands Maori perspective, knowledge is
interconnected from all ages (Jonassen, 2003). Tiare’s perspective emerged in the way she
described learning as weaving traditional knowledge with the present and the future, represented
by technology. Her description spoke to the purpose of education as grounding students in
Indigenous ways, so that they could hold on to their traditional knowledge in the face of change.
Her views reflected Dyson’s (2004) contention that the uptake of technology in Indigenous
contexts must be filtered through a critical lens to mitigate the strengthening of dominant
discourses. When asked how computers and weaving represent Western and Cook Islands ways,
she stated, “Well, Western is the computer, but my knowledge weaving to the Western, and
there, both of them showing me, okay, I can’t go on my own.” Her words expressed the need to
weave technology, a Western tool from her perspective, into Cook Islands Maori pedagogy and
knowledge. She shared her belief that as a teacher, she “can’t go on her own,” avoiding the use
of technology, but rather had to find ways to use it to teach her language and culture. In her
description of integrating Western technology with her Indigenous perspective, Tiare’s narrative
aligned with the concept of third space as an innovative space of epistemological change, in
which marginalized knowledge is blended with dominant discourses (Bhaba, 1994; Moje et al.,
2004). Viewing ICT as a Western tool, all of the teachers’ responses reflected this interpretation
of third space, since they communicated ways in which Indigenous Cook Islands knowledge
could be revitalized through ICT.
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Revitalization. The teachers within this cohort expressed the need to re-envision ICT
from a Western to a Cook Islands Maori perspective in three ways: to express the Maori
language and culture, connect people to traditional knowledge, and create cultural learning
objects. Firstly, teachers explained that the Cook Islands Maori language and culture should
become more prevalent in software and the Internet to engage students in language learning.
Mavis explained her belief that ICT could influence language and culture in positive ways if this
were to occur. She offered how ICT could support the revitalization efforts by asserting the
following:
It will be a good help, you know, especially when they put Maori things on them or
develop programs that will be in the language. It will be a great resource for learning, if
all of those apps on the iPads, that will teach, or help your teaching or the students
learning.
Within her interview, Mavis expressed her view that ICT engages students in learning. She
believed that ICT would be a “great resource for learning” to grow students’ interest in language.
Rae also shared this sentiment. She explained how one of the teachers at her school site was
downloading e-books that had been published in Cook Islands Maori by the Ministry of
Education. She stated:
I think that is a real good thing to do, so the technology is used to encourage the reading
in Cook Islands Maori and maybe later on, other apps, that provide Cook Islands value be
included or downloaded. I think that it would be very helpful to Cook Islands Maori.
Thus, the teachers viewed technology as a positive influence on learning as long as it was
grounded in the teaching of Maori language, culture, and values.
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Also, teachers within this cohort saw revitalization of Cook Islands Maori ways in the
ability of ICT to connect people around the world to share and vet Indigenous knowledge. Nani
explained how she would use social media to consider different perspectives of Cook Islands
artifacts. She stated:
I think with ICT, the use of them for social media, and other people’s views. Like um, I
would, I could probably call upon Samoa, if we were having a discussion, is this really
Cook Islands, you know talking about artifacts and that.
By using ICT to share knowledge about artifacts, Nani communicated how Indigenous
knowledge could be furthered. She believed that ICT could connect “Cook Island people all
over the world that might have input into improving in culture and language.” Also, Mavis
shared this view of connecting with Cook Islanders across the world to share knowledge:
I think that with ICT, you can have, ah maybe, because there is not employment here, but
then there are some who are Cook Islands Maoris who are knowledgeable in some things
about the Cook Islands, using IT, you can have some kind of video conferencing. They
can’t come back, but you can, they are there and you are here, but you can always have
that communication link.
Through video conferencing, she saw the opportunity to connect with knowledgeable Cook
Islanders to share information. In addition, she thought of connecting with outer islands teachers
and elders as purveyors of traditional knowledge:
But maybe an idea over here, you believe that an outer island teacher, or outer island um
elder can provide you with that information. With technology today, it will help us,
because we can put them on a video conference, and then we can see them. They can see
us, the kids see your class, and just ask them questions on those things.
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Through video conferencing, Mavis believed experts in Indigenous knowledge could connect
with students on Rarotonga to revitalize what was no longer practiced. For Mavis, people on the
outer islands offered an Indigenous perspective that supported the grounding of students in
Maori ways of knowing and doing.
Lastly, teachers in this cohort viewed ICT as a way to make learning objects that captured
Indigenous knowledge. Teachers viewed digital objects as sustaining language and culture, but
they also envisioned these objects as resources for teaching. In her class, Nani revealed that
students used a book creator app to think about healthy living in the Cook Islands. She
explained, “We have been looking at our health, our fruits and stuff, so local food, locally grown
food, like guavas.” Thinking about producing books to promote healthy lifestyles from a local
perspective was one project she had worked on in which students were creating digital learning
objects. Furthermore, Tiare focused on video as a means to revitalize local knowledge. She
stated, “We can bring like carver. We can take a video of him and we can use it instead of
getting him again. We can just replay it, make books, and then learn from it.” By perceiving
technology as a means to sustain and continue to engage with Indigenous knowledge in the
future, Tiare positioned ICT as a tool to revitalize Cook Islands language and culture.
All teachers within this cohort shared their view of ICT as a cultural tool to revitalize
Indigenous Cook Islands language and culture. Identifying ICT as Western showed their
understanding of ICT as products of a culture (Dyson, 2004). With this in mind, teachers were
able to re-envision ICT to serve Indigenous revitalization by blending paradigms. Teachers
viewed ICT as a tool to promote language learning, share knowledge through consultation with
experts, and create learning objects. Their perceptions of use centered on their desire to
revitalize Cook Islands Maori language, culture, and tradition in teaching and learning. Their
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perceptions of ICT were aligned to their beliefs about the purpose of education and pedagogy,
which were all grounded within their Indigenous epistemic stance.
Conclusion
In conclusion, within this finding, five teachers shared common meaning making of ICT
as a cultural tool to revitalize Indigenous language and culture. These teachers filtered their
lived Cook Islands Maori epistemic stance into their beliefs about the purpose of school,
pedagogy, and ultimately ICT. Throughout their narratives, teachers’ desire to subvert the
Western paradigm in the education system also emerged. Teachers shared critical reflections
about the imposition of foreign perspectives upon their beliefs about teaching and learning.
Their collective purpose to ground future leaders in Cook Islands Maori ways to subvert systems
rooted in hegemony framed their perception of ICT. Woven with their epistemic stance, their
perceptions of ICT emerged as a cultural tool to be subverted and used to revitalize Indigenous
language and culture. Within this finding, teachers’ Indigenous stance saw alignment with their
beliefs about the purpose of school, pedagogy, and ICT. Next, I offer the second finding, in
which teachers’ beliefs did not fully align with their stance.
Finding 2: ICT as a Cultural Tool to Sustain and Reposition Indigenous Cook Islands
Language and Culture as of Importance Within the Western Paradigm
The second finding showed that those teachers positioned in an Indigenous Cook Islands
perspective perceived ICT as a cultural tool to sustain and reposition language and culture as of
importance within the education system. This finding emerged from a cohort of participants that
shared an Indigenous epistemic stance. Six of 21 or 28.5% of teachers interviewed fell into this
cohort of participants. Three of the participants were teachers on Aitutaki, while the rest were
teachers on Rarotonga. All six of these teachers shared Cook Islands descent, but they also
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shared overseas experiences. Three teachers spent part of their childhood in New Zealand and
two teachers attended university abroad. Only one teacher had been abroad for shorter periods of
time for various reasons. Furthermore, teachers possessed one to 16 years of experience teaching
in the Cook Islands. Although possessing differing experiences and views about the purpose of
education and pedagogy, these participants all maintained the belief that Indigenous language
and culture were of critical importance to schooling in the Cook Islands. All speakers of the
Maori language (though not all highly skilled), teachers in this cohort believed that the education
system had an obligation to sustain language and culture, while enabling students to engage with
the Western world as preparation for the future. This perspective, materialized within their
perceptions of ICT integration. Although they were grounded in Indigenous epistemology, these
teachers’ other beliefs and values mediated their perceptions of ICT. In contrast to the first
cohort, teachers whose perceptions constructed this finding did not communicate a view of the
education system as inherently Western. Therefore, they did not share a belief in subverting the
Western paradigm within the system. Instead, throughout their narratives, they expressed
concern with the current Westernization of Cook Islands society and its impact on education.
In demonstration of this finding, I first explain how these six participants were positioned
within an Indigenous Cook Islands epistemic stance. Again, I use the three indicators from
Jonassen’s (2003) pillars of Cook Islands Maori personality and culture to show how these
teachers reflected a Cook Islands Maori stance. Secondly, I present the cohort’s differing beliefs
about the purpose of education. I then analyze how teachers’ epistemic stance and view of the
purpose of school filtered into their beliefs about pedagogy. Lastly, I show how this cohort
viewed ICT as a cultural tool to sustain and reposition Cook Islands Maori language and culture
as a focal point in education, while enabling students to engage in the Western world.
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Throughout my demonstration, I highlight the ways in which teachers questioned the education
system as Western. This cohort represented the first group of teachers that expressed hybrid
views of ICT.
Indigenous Cook Islands Epistemic Stance
To locate teachers in this cohort as based within a Cook Islands Maori epistemic stance, I
use the same indicators from Jonassen’s (2003) pillars of Maori personality and culture as in
Finding 1. Again, these indicators include the importance of language as part of identity, land as
essential to way of life, and unity through reciprocity among family and community members.
To show how teachers within this cohort possessed an Indigenous Cook Islands epistemic stance,
I provide examples and analyses of how teachers’ responses exemplified these three indicators.
In addition, where relevant, I share how teachers questioned Westernization by reflecting on
changes within Cook Islands society.
Language as identity. As within Finding 1, participants within this cohort shared the
view that the Cook Islands Maori language was tied to identity. Teachers in this cohort
communicated their Indigenous stance by linking language to history, tradition, and culture, as
well as articulating the need to value the Maori language. I share three teachers’ voices as an
example of the cohort’s beliefs.
Firstly, Toni shared how language was linked to identity, when he described his views of
the role of language in the Cook Islands:
Well, I think the role is to hand over stories, to hand over songs, to hand over our
traditions. Hand in hand. Like I said, it’s a complete package with language. You can’t,
I don’t think it’s possible to move on traditions and cultures, using someone else’s
language.
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Through his statement, Toni described language to be the “complete package” in which oral
histories were told and retold to future generations. Within the package of language, tradition
and culture was handed over. Thus, for Toni, Maori was not just a form of communication.
Maori connected a Cook Islander to their origins and enabled them to “move” or pass on
tradition and culture. Toni’s voice showed how teachers in this cohort aligned with Jonassen’s
(2003) belief that language acts as a basis for understanding the power of oral histories.
Kate’s voice built upon Toni’s statement through further description of the reason why
other languages, in particular, English, could not access a Cook Islander’s points of origin. Kate
explained her views of Cook Islands Maori:
Well, Maori makes us, knowing the Maori language makes us unique, and if you don’t
know your own language, how can you say where you come from? Knowing English,
you know English is a universal language. It’s a way of communication for the outside
world, but without knowing your Maori you don’t know where you actually come from,
your beliefs and your traditions are actually lost along the way.
Kate suggested that the Maori language was tied to a unique place-based identity. She claimed
that people could not say that they were from the Cook Islands if they did not know their
language, since Maori was the link to Indigenous beliefs and traditions. On the other hand, she
claimed that English was a universal language of communication with the outside world. In a
sense, she connected English to being placeless, not of any unique origin when spoken in the
world today. Through juxtaposition of the two languages, she revealed her belief that Maori was
special to Cook Islanders as a means to understand their origins.
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Also, I share Tia’s views, which offered a way to connect the cohort’s beliefs about
valuing Maori in light of Western influence. When asked if “where are you from” was an
important question, she stated:
Yes, it is, because I am a strong Cook Island person, proud to be Cook Island, and I think
that’s something that we as Cook Islanders nowadays, like especially the generation of
today, they’re not as proud to say where they’re from, like we should be. Our language is
reflecting that, because our language is slowly dying. And even the parents of today,
they perceive that as unimportant, because English is the global language, English is
more recognized, but also our language is who we are.
Tia tied speaking the language to being a proud Cook Islander. For Tia, those who did not take
pride in being from the Cook Islands did not value the language, and instead valued English,
since it was dominant around the world. She claimed, “language is who we are” and Tia
implied, if the language was lost to English, then what it meant to be a Cook Islands Maori
would be lost.
Lastly, Sarina asserted a view of language that interrogated the dominance of English
overseas and positioned the island dialects as essential to identity. She explained this view by
sharing her pride in her own children’s ability to speak the Aitutakian dialect:
My children, they can’t speak English very well, not my class, my own children, and I’m
proud of that. Like my family in New Zealand mock them because of their broken
English, but I’m proud. I can say my kids know it. I think it’s something that should be
very strong in the schools, especially with their own dialects as part of their identity.
Sarina revealed her belief in the importance of learning not only Cook Islands Maori (the
Rarotongan dialect), but also students’ island specific dialect “as part of their identity.” Within
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her statement, she communicated her pride in her own children’s ability to speak their island
dialect over standard English. Even though relatives overseas may view her children’s “broken
English” from a deficit perspective, she, on the other hand, was proud of her children’s
accomplishment in speaking Aitutakian.
This cohort of teachers expressed their understanding of language as identity, which was
one indicator of their Indigenous epistemic stance. Next, I show how teachers viewed land as
life as a second indicator of their stance.
Land as life. Derived from Jonassen’s pillars, land as life acted as the next indicator of
teachers’ positioning within an Indigenous Cook Islands epistemology. The teachers in this
cohort expressed land as life, since it is tied to identity through culture, family, and ancestry.
Land was described as a point of origin, what Jonassen likens to life.
The first voice that echoed this sentiment was Toni’s. An Aitutakian, Toni explained
what he would say when people asked where he was from:
When people ask where I’m from, I don’t say I’m from the Cook Islands. I say I’m from
Aitutaki. So, maybe the intention is what’s your cultural background. Do you identify
with it? Are you happy with it? Are you proud of it? Just to say that I’m Aitutakian
says it all, because I am proud to be Aitutakian, and I want to be identified as Atiutakian.
Those are values close to me and I think it’s important.
For Toni, stating that he was from Aitutaki communicated pride in his island, his cultural
background, and his values. To say one was from Aituaki, for him, “says it all.” Toni’s claims
implied that place, island, or land in the Cook Islands meant more than geography; it expressed
markers of identity. Furthermore, when asked why where you are from was important, he stated:
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Well, if you don’t know where you are from, then you’re not going anywhere, because
there’s always a starting point. There should be a starting point to one’s journey. If you
can’t identify where you’re from, then you can’t say you’re going somewhere, because
you don’t have a starting point, if that makes sense.
Toni explained that where you were from, or the land that you identified as your home, was your
starting point, your point of origin. His claim resonated with the other teachers in this cohort.
For example, Kate explained, “You need to know where you came from in order for you to know
where you are going.” Her words echoed Toni’s, sharing the belief that the land that you come
from defines who you are and the person you would become.
The teachers in this cohort also expressed land as tied to one’s family and ancestry.
When asked what local knowledge meant, Sarina replied by sharing this viewpoint:
Knowing your history, that’s a big one. They say here, if you don’t know the story of Ru
then, you are not an Aitutakian, you know. Your genealogy, that’s big local knowledge.
That’s how you get your land, your blood rights. That’s how you know who you are,
what chief you are connected to, what your position is in the village community.
Sarina connected history and genealogy to blood rights, which materialized in land. She
explained that Ru was the original Polynesian voyager that landed on Aitutaki. This ancestor
connected all Aitutakians to their land through blood rights, and as Sarina stated, “That’s how
you know who you are.” Her discussion of land as tied to one’s chief and position within the
community further exemplified how land was viewed as way of life from an Indigenous
perspective.
All of the teachers in this cohort shared Jonassen’s stance that land was life. They
connected land to values, culture, and ancestry. Land as life was the second indicator of their
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Indigenous positioning. Lastly, I show teachers’ positionality through their beliefs in unity and
reciprocity.
Unity and reciprocity. According to Jonassen (2003), unity involves honoring duties to
family, village and country. Reciprocity is expressed in the form of gift giving and resourcing by
passing relevant knowledge across generations. As with language and land, family duties are
tied to ancestry and one’s identity. Teachers’ beliefs in unity and reciprocity emerged through
their discussion of changes in family structure and values from the past to the present in the face
of Westernization. Their beliefs acted as the third indicator of their Indigenous epistemic stance.
Two teachers shared their belief in unity and reciprocity through their discussion of
valuing the intergenerational knowledge of elders. First, Kate showed her knowledge of unity
when she explained that elders guide younger generations of Cook Islanders in decision making.
She stated, “Elders remind them of the past, but then correcting about the wrong that they do or
where they’re going right now.” She explained her belief that elders determined the right
pathways in life, guiding future generations to reciprocate the values and knowledge of their
ancestors. Also, Kura communicated her understanding of unity, when she shared that her
grandmothers, as people, embodied Cook Islands values, rather than a description of what they
had done. She explained:
I think I’ll think back to my grandmother, and she is ah, both of my grandmothers.
They’re great women, and they taught me many things that I can’t, there’s too many
values, important things they’ve taught me. When it comes to culture, I think my
grandparents are the most valuable things. To me it’s not the dancing and the music,
they’re my grandparents.
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Kura shared that her grandmothers taught her Cook Islands values, so many that it was difficult
for her to articulate what those things were. She explained that culture was not the dancing and
the music, culture was embodied in her grandparents, who they were as people. By valuing her
elders and the knowledge that they imparted to her, Kura shared her belief in unity among family
members.
Teachers’ beliefs in unity and reciprocity also emerged from their comparisons of the
past to the present. First, Ani’s criticism of changes in behavior marked her understanding of the
unity among traditional communities. She explained changes in behavior on Rarotonga:
Well, behavior more like no respect for older people, even on the road, you drive past,
especially adults, they don’t care who the person is, it’s becoming, um, I don’t care, we
are all the same things like.
Ani shared her belief that people were no longer respectful to one another. They did not respect
elders, and they did not care about the people among whom they lived. Her discussion implied
that people did not know one another, because they did not share membership in a community.
In support of this assertion, I offer her reflection on these changes:
It’s not a good change, I think it’s too fast. It’s changing too fast. Especially, when you
are in Raro, I don’t think you would see those changes as much as here. In Raro, it’s
more like a Westernized country, whereas on the outer island, the people are lovely.
Ani’s reflection showed her belief that there should be unity among community members, which
would shape values and interactions. She attributed the changes in Rarotonga to Westernization,
where on the outer islands, which remained relatively traditional, she claimed that “people are
lovely.” Her criticism of changes in behavior acted as evidence for her Indigenous positioning.
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Second, Toni also communicated unity and gift giving as Indigenous Cook Islands values
through his comparison of the past and present in Aitutaki. He asserted that the concept of
extended family within communities and reciprocity was eroding because of Western influence.
He stated:
So the friendliness, the family, it’s always been about family to the Cook Islands. Now
it’s just mum and dad, brother and sister. So we’ve moved away from it quite a bit. It’s
weird where foreigners come here, and they think we are lovely people. So, imagine the
other places in the world, where they’re, they don’t smile to each other anymore. No
waving. They’re just focusing on, when you’re spoken to, you are in big trouble. That’s
so weird. Just as a Cook Islander, we are slowly moving to, not slowly, I think we have
sort of moved to the Western way of doing things.
Overtime, Toni felt that Cook Islanders had moved toward Western ways that focused on
providing for the nuclear family, “mum and dad, brother and sister.” In contrast to Indigenous
Cook Islands ways that extended familial relationships to the community through reciprocal
resourcing. Toni connected a loss of friendliness to a break down in the Maori extended family.
Overall, Toni’s voice acted as an example of how participants questioned Westernization, while
revealing their Indigenous stance through beliefs in unity and reciprocity.
As the third indicator of teachers’ Indigenous positioning, unity and reciprocity were
shared beliefs among the participants in this cohort. Through valuing elders, knowledge of the
past, and traditional conceptions of family, teachers in this cohort revealed their Cook Islands
Maori stance.
In conclusion, I showed how the teachers in this cohort were positioned within an
Indigenous Cook Islands epistemic stance. Firstly, I revealed teachers’ beliefs in language as
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tied to markers of identity, such as history, tradition, and culture. Then, I described how teachers
viewed land as life by indicating one’s point of origin. Lastly, I explained how the concepts of
unity and reciprocity emerged from teachers’ beliefs about elders, community and extended
family. Through analysis of their responses in regards to these indicators from Jonassen’s
pillars, I positioned teachers’ values and beliefs about knowledge within Cook Islands Maori
epistemology. Throughout their narratives, teachers questioned Westernization, but did not
express the desire to subvert Western paradigms. Next, I show how teachers’ perceptions of the
purpose of school were in conflict with their Indigenous positioning.
Positioning Students in Today’s Society
Although the teachers within this cohort shared an Indigenous epistemic stance, their
beliefs about the purpose of school was not in full alignment with their stance. Two purposes of
education in the Cook Islands emerged from the teachers’ narratives. First, teachers believed
that students should be skilled to succeed in career pathways. Second, teachers believed students
should broaden their horizons at school. Labaree (1997) offers questions to consider the purpose
of schools: Should schools be a mechanism for remaking society within our hopes, or should
schools focus on adapting students to society as it currently exists? I used these questions to
frame my understanding of the purpose of education expressed by these teachers. Through these
purposes, teachers expressed the desire to adapt students to the current, increasingly Westernized
Cook Islands society. They desired to support students acquiring the careers of their choice,
which on a surface level was rooted in Western ideals. Yet, the teachers’ Indigenous epistemic
stance could be viewed as surfacing with their desire to strengthen Cook Islands students to
navigate the global world. They desired to reposition Cook Islands students as successful within
the dominant paradigm. To illustrate, I explain how teachers’ responses reflected these beliefs.
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First, three teachers in this cohort expressed that the purpose of school was for students to
learn skills that would support their success in the current society of the Cook Islands as well as
the world beyond. Tia expressed this belief by sharing the following:
So, the purpose of education is to equip the students with the right skills that they need
through the education, because you know we brought up in a society now where, you
know, like our careers or the jobs that we go into, they expect to see some kind of
achievement or education or paper that we’ve done. And that’s through education, and as
teachers, as facilitators, you know, it’s our job to help our children get through that.
Tia shared her belief that the purpose of education was to equip students with skills that would
support their academic growth, and ultimately, a career. She saw this as her obligation as a
teacher. Ani also believed that students attend school to be skilled, yet she placed the
responsibility upon the student. She stated that the following was most important for students to
learn:
Most important for them to learn is to, I think what’s more important for them is to know
and understand what they can take with them as they grow up in this world. That’s
what’s more important. So, we can teach them now, but it’s up to them to get what they
need to learn as they grow up, and use those learning skills.
Ani suggested that the students are responsible for understanding the skills that they need to
develop and succeed in the world. Her focus was more individualized, since students choose
different careers as they grow older. Lastly, Kura also shared this belief in upskilling students,
but further explained her reasoning why children go to school in the Cook Islands:
I think for Cook Islanders it’s an opportunity to learn new skills and also to prepare them
for if they go to a foreign place. They would use those skills they’ve gained from here to
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show over there or to develop more skills. It’s important also for our kids to learn what is
out there for them, you know, to set their goals for what they want to do.
Kura expressed school as preparing students for the outside world, while offering them the
opportunity to see what is “out there for them” to set their goals. She continued:
So, if they can just develop what they have learned from school that would be my joy. At
least they have continued with education and did not stop with it, cause I feel some of my
students just, they graduate from here, they here, and when you see them, don’t stay here,
go, go, go see what’s happening in the world. Cause they appreciate their island more,
and then, most of them leave and they appreciate what they’ve learned here.
For Kura, school had the purpose of developing students’ skills, so that they could engage in the
outside world and further their learning. She shared her desire for students to “see what’s
happening in the world” so that they could “appreciate their island more.” She implied that
when students go abroad, they learn to value their home, as she valued Indigenous Cook Islands
ways. She believed students should engage in the wider world and live outside of the Cook
Islands. Unlike the teachers in the first cohort who hoped for students to return to the Cook
Islands and serve their country, these three teachers believed the purpose of education was to
upskill students to navigate the dominant Western paradigm in the Cook Islands and abroad.
Second, three teachers in this cohort believed that the purpose of education was to
broaden students’ horizons to continue to learn. Kate articulated this purpose when she stated
what she wanted for graduates of the system. She explained, “Uh, I think it would be to don’t
stop at Tereora. It’s to continue to learn, because there are new things coming up every day.”
She believed that students should not stop at the high school level, but should continue their
learning in some way. Prior to this response, she had articulated, “I think that the purpose should
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actually be that we adapt our way of teaching to suit [students’] needs so that they want to learn.”
For Kate, the purpose of education was to build students’ desire to learn, so that they would
continue their education. Sarina also communicated this desire for students to continue to grow
and learn from their experiences as school. She stated that she wanted the following for students
that graduate from the education system:
Um that they want to learn, that they learn how to learn and continue to want to grow and
be good citizens. Yeah, does that make? You want them to be good people, because they
will always be from your school. It’s a school pride kind of thing, you know, you want
them to continue to want to learn, or even if they are going to work, be competent enough
to communicate and grow, lot of growth, continue growing not just stop.
Sarina shared her belief that school should position students as lifelong learners, whether they
work or continue on to higher education. She tied growth to being a good person and being able
to communicate with others. She also expressed a sense of responsibility for her students’
learning in the future, when she stated, “It’s a school pride kind of thing, you know, you want
them to continue to want to learn.” This ownership of students’ attitudes toward learning
mirrored Kate’s view of building students’ desire to learn. Toni also expressed this belief of
students’ continuing learning, but in more of a targeted way. He explained:
I think that education is just to push the boundaries of a person’s mind, instead of, I don’t
know, I believe that some kids are the way they are, because they are not really pushed
beyond, or their upbringing is just from people, that actually haven’t gone further than
their parents. So, I reckon that’s what education is, it’s just to push someone’s mind to be
anything they want to be.
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Toni claimed that education was to push students to realize that they can be “anything they want
to be.” He implied that education was about providing opportunities for growth that might not
be offered otherwise in someone’s life. Toni suggested this through his aside about parents who
did not expect more of their children. For Toni, school was not just about continuing learning, it
was about pushing students to reach higher goals, which included connecting with the outside
world. Furthermore, he believed that graduates who left the islands should remain away for
some time to gain experience. He explained:
I don’t think [students] should come back to the Cook Islands straight away, they’ve had
this little group, this scholarship group, they’ve asked us what do we think, because we’re
so small. We talk about engineers, what do they come back to? Nothing. We’ve only
got roads to be tar sealed. To actually benefit the Cook Islands is to actually work
abroad. There’s heaps of experiences they go through, eventually they make their way
back. I don’t think we have the population or the industries to actually make things work
to allow all the graduates come back.
While teachers in the first cohort believed that students should come back and serve their
country, Toni believed that the country could not necessarily provide jobs for graduates. Since
the Cook Islands is a small place, he believed that students skilled abroad, should also work
abroad to gain experiences that they could bring back to the Cook Islands. His beliefs about the
purpose of education drew on his Indigenous stance, but were focused more on the individual,
since students should pursue careers beyond what was provided within the Cook Islands.
In conclusion, teachers in this cohort expressed two purposes of education that reflected a
focus on students’ individual pursuit of careers. First, teachers saw education as a means to
upskill students for careers offered in today’s society. Second, teachers wanted students to
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extend their studies to be lifelong learners or gain experiences overseas. Both of these purposes
reflected the desire to reposition students as successful in current Cook Islands society and
beyond. While teachers in the first cohort seamlessly filtered their Indigenous epistemic stance
into their beliefs about the purpose of school, the teachers in this cohort saw the purpose as
mediated by society as it currently exists. Thus, the teachers’ perceptions in this cohort were
bound by the current education system framed by Western standards of success. Next, I share
teachers’ perceptions of pedagogy, which emerged as a blend of their Indigenous stance and
beliefs about the purpose of school.
Pedagogy to Position and Navigate
Teachers’ Indigenous stance and beliefs about the purpose of school mediated their
perceptions of pedagogy. From an Indigenous stance, teachers viewed learning as inherently
place based and grounded in language as part of one’s identity as a Cook Islands Maori. From
their perspectives about the purpose of school, teachers also viewed pedagogy as a means for
students to access and succeed in dominant discourses. Furthermore, teachers’ discussion of
Cook Islands versus Western ways of learning was evidence of how they wrestled between their
Indigenous stance and their beliefs about the purpose of school. According to Paris (2012),
culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) embodies democratic ideals through the belief in
“sustaining and extending the richness of our pluralistic society. Such richness includes all of
the languages, literacies, and cultural ways of being that our students and communities embody–
both those marginalized and dominant” (Paris, 2012, p. 96). Teachers’ perspectives of pedagogy
aligned with CSP, as well as Moje et al.’s (2004) discussion of blending students’ funds of
knowledge and dominant discourses to enable navigation between discourse communities. Since
the teachers in this cohort valued Indigenous knowledge systems, they were able to articulate and
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interrogate the differences between Western and Cook Islands Maori ways of learning. Yet,
teachers in this cohort did not articulate the dominance of Western pedagogies as a systemic
issue. Instead, they focused on the effectiveness of pedagogies to enable students’ success in
career pathways within the Cook Islands and the outside world.
The teachers in this cohort believed that Cook Islands Maori was essential to teaching
and learning. Their belief in the importance of teaching Maori in schools was an extension of
their Indigenous views of language as identity. For teachers in this cohort, language learning
was part of their focus on CSP to sustain the richness and diversity that the Maori language had
to offer the world (Paris, 2012). Some teachers also shared their belief in teaching Maori in
Indigenous ways, showing their interrogation of the education system as grounded in a Western
paradigm. For example, Toni offered traditional ways of teaching Maori through his discussion
of Cook Islands ways of learning language. He identified Maori as a spoken language. He
reflected, “The way we were taught, the traditional way, was through oratory. Everything was
taught through singing and chants. It’s all oral, nothing written.” Toni identified oral singing
and chanting as Cook Islands ways of learning, rather than writing. His understanding of
Indigenous pedagogical practices was evidence of his Indigenous epistemic stance emerging in
his beliefs about pedagogy. Tia’s voice was a strong advocate for language as grounding
learning in schools. She explained:
Cook Island Maori language should be part of the foundation of subjects. Not only that,
it should also be carried out right through. And, if it were up to me, I would make it
compulsory, because that is something that is dying out, and it is a need to for us Cook
Islanders to know our language. Because the reality is this generation, this day and age,
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our language is actually dying out, and it’s really sad to see, as a passionate Cook
Islander, strong Cook Islander myself.
When Tia claimed that “language should be a part of the foundation of subjects,” she suggested a
belief in grounding learning in a Cook Islands Maori stance. Through these words, she implied
that Maori should not be a subject taught in school, but should be infused within all subjects.
Pedagogically, Tia saw language as of upmost importance to teaching and learning, since she
was a “strong Cook Islander,” tying language to identity. Tia communicated her Indigenous
stance toward language learning through her desire to position Maori as foundational to learning.
Thus, she shared her pedagogical approach to teaching Maori as sustaining language. All
teachers within this cohort expressed their belief that students’ learning Maori was important for
Cook Islands students.
Within this cohort, teachers’ differing views of Cook Islands and Western ways of
learning was evidence of the mediation between their Indigenous stance and beliefs about the
purpose of education. Teachers seemed to waver between positioning Indigenous and Western
stances as important for student success. First, Kate exhibited a belief in Indigenous ways as
more adaptive to students’ learning:
I think, maybe, the Western is more structured, in a sense of, with my lot is, the Cook
Island is more like I’m going with the flow in how the students are working along the
lines, rather than forcing, we have to do this the next day at this time.
Kate identified Cook Islands ways of learning as “going with the flow,” which positioned
Indigenous ways as more heuristic and dependent upon interactions with students. In contrast,
she viewed the Western way as rigid and structured. Her Indigenous stance aligned with her
belief in the purpose of school as adapting to students’ needs to instill a desire for students to
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learn. For Tia, the conflict between her Indigenous stance and the necessity of learning English
to be skilled for jobs abroad emerged in her discussion of pedagogical differences. When asked
the difference between a Cook Islands and Western way of learning, she asserted:
Western it’s very structured, and it’s more advanced, because some of the English words,
we don’t have any Cook Island Maori words for it. So it’s more advanced, in a way and
its global, because it’s worldwide, so there’s the advantage that it has over the Cook
Islands Maori language.
While Tia believed strongly in grounding students in the Cook Islands Maori language, she also
communicated the necessity of learning English to engage with the Western world. Tia
explained that English had the advantage of being a global language. She added how English
was structured and more advanced with words that were not found in the Maori language. Her
perceptions showed how, although grounded in language as identity, she still saw the value of
learning English as part of dominant discourse. Her beliefs aligned with CSP as students were
exposed to language and literacies of the non-dominant and dominant culture (Paris, 2012). Ani
also implied this belief in Western ways as dominant globally. When asked the difference
between Cook Islands ways and Western ways of learning, she stated the following:
I think that the Western learning do play a big influence into our learning today. I
remember when I was at college, you know, I’m not a bright student when I was in
primary school, but my grades start to pick up when I was at secondary, because I have a
Western teacher. Maybe it’s the experience, or the expose that they have, I think uh,
because they come from a bigger perspective of resources and learning, whereas a Cook
Islands teacher, it’s, I reckon it’s limited to the islands.
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From Ani’s perspective, her Western teacher supported her to succeed in school. Ani attributed
this to her Western teacher’s broader perspective. Rather than viewing the system as inherently
Western, which would support Western ways of teaching, Ani positioned the teacher as the
differing factor. Although grounded in an Indigenous stance, Ani shared her belief that Western
ways of learning influence Cook Islands ways and offer students more beyond the islands.
Lastly, Sarina asserted her understanding of the differences between Cook Islands and
Western ways of learning, which demonstrated her Indigenous stance paired with Western
beliefs. First, she provided an illustration of Cook Islands learning from her Indigenous
positioning:
We were making thatches, it was a fundraising event for school, but part of our enterprise
project, so there wasn’t much written. It was a lot of imitation and practice with the
students, teachers, mamas, all got out there, a group went and cut all the kikau, the
coconut palm fronds, and there were groups sitting there, you know a teacher or a mama
with a whole group of kids. They were doing it, and you had to imitate, and I thought
that that was real Cook Islands learning. A lot of watching and imitating, rather than
writing. This is how, you need this and you have to get this. It was just practical, get out
there and do this.
As other participants, she explained learning by doing as a Cook Islands way. Her image of
teachers, parents, and students making together was connected to Indigenous ways of learning in
the community. In contrast, she shared her view of Western ways of learning:
The Westernized way, you inquire, you ask questions, you want to know more, and dig
deeper, and make understanding. I think that’s a big thing, is the understanding, you
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have to understand something. Whereas with the local way of learning, it just is, you just
learn to do it.
Sarina identified creating understanding as a Western way of learning. Creating understanding
was tied to writing and abstracting knowledge, rather than practice or doing. As with Tia and
Ani, Sarina expressed a sense of Cook Islands ways as simplified or limited compared to
Western ways. Although all teachers were located within an Indigenous stance, they offered
beliefs that positioned Western pedagogies as more worldly and advanced. While teachers
within the first cohort articulated the complexity and deep understanding associated with
Indigenous Cook Islands knowledge systems, the teachers within the second finding discussed
pedagogy in ways that simplified Indigenous knowledge.
Instead of subverting the Western paradigm in schools, teachers in this cohort believed in
using students’ funds of knowledge to value their students as Cook Islanders, but also provide
opportunities for students to navigate dominant discourses in schooling. I utilized one of Moje et
al.’s (2004) definitions of third space as a navigational space, the means by which individuals
traverse discourse communities, to frame my understanding of teachers’ narratives. First, I share
Sarina’s belief in grounding learning in local knowledge before moving outward. Understanding
foreign influence upon the education system, she described what education should be in the
Cook Islands:
A combination of both, making that formal education into a way that the kids can
understand it, so it’s more meaningful to them. I mean like for here, we are not going to
read many stories about snow and stuff. You know, like, just to learn about reading, the
concepts are so abstract they’re hard to grasp for the kids, but reading books about local
island kids or Pacific stories, not stories about the big old oak tree, more like coconut
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trees and stuff sort of thing. I think it’s combining the both, and then moving on to an
outer world, understand, getting them to understand here first and where they are before
moving on.
Sarina explained the importance of making education meaningful to students by building skills
with and upon their local knowledge. Sarina contended that resources, such as stories, grounded
in foreign places did not support students’ development of reading, since concepts were too
abstract and decontextualized from students’ lives. She asserted the need for education to
combine formal knowledge, such as learning to read in English, with students’ local knowledges
to make learning relevant and meaningful. Her views aligned with the creation of third space,
where students are able to navigate dominant discourses (literacy in English) by building upon
their Cook Islands Maori funds of knowledge. Sarina clearly explained that students should
understand “here first,” their home in the Cook Islands, before moving to the outside world. Her
views showed her Indigenous stance, and belief in students’ need to learn Western ways. Kura
also discussed opening formal education to her students’ funds of knowledge:
For experiences that the students have learned, it’s amazing, when we are doing
presentations. I will just give you an example. Years back, we did a tourism presentation
on culture, and this young man, he came up and he did fishing. And, there are things that
I’ve learned from him that I’ve never known, and he’s learned it from his dad. And after
the presentation, we asked him to, cause some of our students never knew, so I asked him
to come in and tell us a little bit more about fishing. So, I sent his moderation, you know,
to Raro, it was an assessment, but I let him use the experience to teach the class. And
there are a couple of times, when students come with recipes that they’ve learned from
their parents. I let them share it. And we, okay, let’s cook it, so they get very excited.
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And sometimes, it’s not part of the lesson, and they will tell you what happened, what
experiences they’ve had, and I try to connect it to the lesson, and make it meaningful.
Kura’s discussion of including students’ traditional or home knowledge in formal schooling
aligns with Moje et al.’s (2004) definition of third space as a navigational space. Students were
able to bring their funds of knowledge to school and utilize their knowledge to demonstrate their
presentation skills. As an “assessment” for the New Zealand system of qualifications, which was
sent for moderation to Rarotonga, one student’s presentation on traditional fishing showed
blending of his home discourse and school discourse. Yet, Kura extended her teaching beyond
including students’ funds of knowledge in the classroom. She showed her students how much
she valued their traditional knowledge by inviting the father to speak or having students cook
their recipes in class. Kura’s belief in making school meaningful through valuing and blending
students’ funds of knowledge into learning experiences expressed this cohort’s approach to
learning in the classroom.
In conclusion, the teachers in this cohort expressed how their Indigenous stance and
beliefs about the purpose of education mediated their understandings about pedagogy. From the
importance of language, differences in Cook Islands and Western pedagogies, as well as
engagement of students’ funds of knowledge, teachers showed that they valued and blended
different discourses within their teaching. Unlike the teachers in the first cohort, these teachers
did not express the need to subvert Western ways that had been imposed on their teaching.
Rather, they accepted the system as it was, yet desired Cook Islands Maori language and culture
to be positioned as a focal point. I now share how teachers’ perceptions of ICT were framed by
this blending of pedagogies between the Cook Islands and Western worlds.
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ICT as a Cultural Tool to Sustain Language and Culture
Within this cohort, teachers perceived ICT as a cultural tool to sustain Indigenous
language and culture, while opening students to the wider world. Teachers’ Indigenous stance
and beliefs about the purpose of school mediated their perceptions of ICT, similar to how this
played out in their perceptions of pedagogy. To illustrate this finding, I first describe how
teachers saw ICT as a cultural tool dominated by English and Westernized values and beliefs.
Then, I express how teachers believed that ICT as a Western tool should be repositioned to
strengthen Cook Islands Maori language, culture, and ways of learning. Lastly, I explain
teachers’ perceptions of ICT as connecting people to and sustaining language and culture
Throughout my analyses, I explain how teachers’ Indigenous epistemic stance, beliefs about the
purpose of school and pedagogy filtered into their perceptions of ICT.
Cultural tool. All six teachers in this cohort identified ICT as a cultural tool made in the
image of the dominant paradigm. Teachers expressed their understanding that ICT mainly
reflected the English language and is dominated by Western or European attitudes and beliefs.
Kura showed her understanding of ICT being a cultural tool by attributing changes in young
people’s values to the media that they viewed through ICT:
When I was growing up, the culture was stronger back then, and now with all these
technologies coming in, it actually changes what we value the most, but it’s good.
Technology is good. I’m not saying it’s bad, but it’s changed a lot of our way of thinking
of our young people. It’s changed also, the attitude. They’re more open now, and when I
was growing up, we were more secure, and shy in doing things. Whereas our young
people, in school, they’re so open to a lot of things. They know what’s happening in the
world. I think nowadays, the Cook Islanders are more open to what is happening in the
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world compared to when I was growing up. The limited resources. When I was growing
up there was no TV, there was just the radio, but now, our students are open to so many
things, so our culture has become more Europeanized.
Kura explained her belief that technology has changed students’ attitudes and ways of thinking.
She contended that since students were open to more information, the Cook Islands Maori
culture had diminished. She expressed this belief through the comment, “when I was growing
up, the culture was stronger back then.” At the end of her statement, she clearly attributed
students’ access to information through technology to the loss of culture, when she stated, “our
students are open to so many things, so our culture has become more Europeanized.” When
Kura linked students’ viewing information on media to the Cook Islands culture becoming more
Europeanized, she identified ICT as a cultural tool. Ani also shared this belief when she stated,
“already on the Internet and the computer, it’s mostly based on Westernized kind of information,
you hardly find anything that links to our culture.” Her perceptions of ICT mirrored Kura’s
views. In their identification of ICT as based within Western or European values and beliefs,
Kura and Ani provided clear examples of how teachers in this cohort perceived ICT as a cultural
tool.
In addition, teachers were concerned over ICT contributing to the loss of the Maori
language, also showed their perception of ICT as a cultural tool. Teachers expressed the belief
that the dominant language of ICT was English, and therefore, students that used ICT would be
immersed in English rather than Maori. Sarina’s voice offered a clear example of this
phenomenon, when she discussed the negative side of ICT for Cook Islands students:
On a negative side, eh, you’d lose [Maori] big time, because kids have tablets and iPads
that are talking to them all the time in English. So, there is some children coming to
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preschool in year 1 that have started counting in English and know the English alphabet,
and that could have a negative impact on our language, because they are coming from a
first language English. Even the cartoons that they watch, you know there’s lots of, the
songs they are singing, and they’re repeating words. You know they’ve watched
cartoons a hundred times, and they just repeating what they hear on there, and I think
that’s taking a lot away from our language.
On outer islands, such as Aitutaki, students spoke Maori in their homes. Yet, Sarina expressed
concern with ICT replacing interactions with family members and children in Maori for
interactions with media in English. Instead of students having a foundation in Maori, students
were coming to school knowing numbers and the alphabet in English. Sarina attributed
repeatedly watching cartoons in English to students’ speaking English in the home. All six
teachers in this cohort expressed this concern, which also revealed their belief in ICT as a
cultural tool.
Repositioning Maori. From an Indigenous stance, teachers in this cohort disclosed their
desire to reposition the Cook Islands Maori language, culture, and pedagogy within ICT. This
desire stemmed from their understanding of ICT as a cultural tool in which English was
dominant. Their discussion showed their understanding of weaving technology into Indigenous
Cook Islands ways, rather than technology marginalizing Maori ways.
Ani, Sarina and Tia expressed examples of how Maori could be repositioned within Cook
Islands teachers’ use of ICT. Ani explained that resources could be made using ICT. She stated,
“Maybe power points, I think, because we hardly have Cook Islands language on the computer.
We gotta install it ourselves. We gotta make, you know, create those resources online.” For Ani,
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teachers making resources in Maori would gear use toward language learning. Karen discussed
creating Maori books with students as a way to use ICT to create resources:
So we were taking photos, and then um, that was when I had year 1 and 2 a few years
back. So, we put the photos on and getting kids to put text, text to the photos, and
laminating them up, binding them together to get readers. Simple, easy readers, and they
loved it, you know. So, there was that way that they were using it for the language, and
now that you got all those storybook apps and stuff or tablets, they can make their own
and publish their own Cook Islands language stories.
She reflected on having students use technology to make resources in the language, and how that
practice could be furthered with the development of storybook apps. Sarina offered that students
could create resources in the language, not just teachers. Also, Tia expressed this view when she
referenced her experience using an online quizzing interface to test students on their knowledge
of Cook Islands Maori:
It’s also about teaching the kids, just trying to integrate English and Maori, Western and
Maori, and it is kind of hard, but like I saw with ICT last year, there was that program
Kahoot, and I got the kids to do like a Maori program on there around festivals. They’ll
have a question in English like what is the English name for kiritimiti, and they go to
Christmas, and I think that that’s something that should be done more, just to find that
balance.
Tia’s discussion of integrating technology into language learning established her belief in
repositioning Maori within the dominant paradigm of ICT. Communicating her understanding of
ICT as Western, she imparted her belief that teachers should use the Maori language to balance
the pervasive use of English in ICT. She saw the blending of paradigms as a way to engage
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students in learning the language, while repositioning the language as of importance for students
to learn.
Toni’s voice offered an example of how technology could support Indigenous pedagogy
and enable students to navigate dominant discourses. Prior to this discussion, Toni explained
that oratory was an Indigenous way of learning Cook Islands Maori and demonstrating learning.
He also asserted that oratory was part of one’s identity as a Cook Islands Maori, since from his
Indigenous stance he tied language to ancestry and identity. In his narrative, he shared how
technology could be used to assess students in ways that draw on their funds of knowledge as
Cook Islands Maori, rather than assessing students solely in Western ways:
Sometimes, I’m thinking that we are driven by prescription. Well, I suppose to be
recognized, or the accreditation that we have with the New Zealand schools have to be
done in the Western way, but the good thing was, we also have to engage with
technology. Those were some of the things that eventually came out. Oh, actually we
can allow to be videoed, taped, so the technology part actually helped us. Allowing our
way of teaching oratory part, because you can actually videotape it. At the start there
were hiccups, eh, some people, these were from New Zealand, they didn’t like the idea.
It was hard to merge the two and call it an assessment or a project, but eventually it’s
gone that far where technology is used, videos, even now on camera. I mean on the
phone, any form of recording is acceptable, so I suppose it’s the merging of the two. The
Western and the traditional way of learning. I’m not saying that was just ours, because
the New Zealand Maori that was theirs too. So I suppose they sort of helped put the
whole thing together, and made it the way it is now. But that was their way too.
Everything by word of mouth.
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The New Zealand accreditation system consisted of leveled assessments of students’
achievements to gain credits for university admittance. Toni deemed this system Western, yet
argued that technology enabled New Zealand Maori and Cook Islands students the ability to be
assessed in ways that aligned with their cultural backgrounds. As Toni stated, oratory was part
of a Cook Islands identity, which he explained was shared with New Zealand Maori. He claimed
that the use of technology to video students’ demonstration of knowledge and understanding was
a way to merge traditional and Western ways of learning. Ultimately, Toni explained how
technology could be used to reposition an Indigenous way of learning within dominant
paradigms. He believed this repositioning would enable pedagogy to be aligned with students’
cultural background, rather than students having to change themselves to succeed in dominant
discourses. Toni’s discussion exemplified teachers’ understanding of ICT as a cultural tool to
engage in Indigenous ways of learning. Overall, teachers in this cohort desired to reposition
Cook Islands Maori ways as of importance within the dominant paradigm. Teachers beliefs
about pedagogy filtered into their understanding of repositioning Cook Islands language, culture,
and ways of learning in the use of ICT.
Connecting and sustaining. Lastly, teachers in this cohort perceived ICT as connecting
people to and sustaining language and culture. Viewing ICT as a cultural tool, teachers
communicated that technology enabled students access to the wider world. This perception of
technology aligned with their beliefs about the purpose of school as skilling students to navigate
career pathways in the Cook Islands and abroad. Yet, more importantly, teachers expressed that
ICT should be used to connect with and sustain Cook Islands Maori ways of knowing and doing,
which aligned with their Indigenous stance.
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First, teachers explained how ICT could be used to connect students to different islands
within the Cook Islands. Kura discussed this possibility with ICT when she stated:
I think it will make their learning more interesting for them. Also if they are on IT,
instead of just listening to the teacher, they can hook up to another school and at the same
time, like if we had the same topic, and if we share from there, and we are back on the
lesson.
Kura considered how teachers could connect and build knowledge together with other classes in
the Cook Islands to make learning more interesting for students. Sarina shared this belief when
she stated the following:
I think it’s easy to connect with other people with Skype and things like that. I think
children could see what’s happening in the North. If teachers made the connections with
other teachers, you know, we got that online schooling thing that the teachers, that the
secondary schools have, where you got those tutors in Raro, at the Ministry, and those are
really helpful in those situations as a class.
Sarina offered that teachers could use Skype to connect students across islands. In particular, she
mentioned the North, which was very remote from the Southern group of islands, which included
Rarotonga. In addition, she acknowledged the current Ministry of Education program serving
students in the Pa Enua (outer islands), in which a teacher on Rarotonga used a Skype-like
interface to provide instruction for students on the other islands. Sarina and Kura’s voice
exemplified teachers’ beliefs in ICT connecting Cook Islands students to learning experiences
within their own country.
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Sarina also described how ICT could be used to share knowledge about the Cook Islands
with people overseas. In her discussion of the positives and negatives of ICT integration, she
believed sharing knowledge through ICT would be beneficial to Cook Islanders:
On the other side though, like with our people overseas, it’s a way to share, share a lot of
our language. It’s also good for our kids here when they create apps overseas for their
children to learn that there are people out there in the world that have made apps and
have that knowledge. Like there’s a, um a bio, Cook Islands biodiversity website, you
know, and having the, the local names of plants as well as the English names, the Maori
dictionary and Maori bible is now easily accessible online.
Sarina not only saw ICT as a way to connect Cook Islanders across islands, she also viewed ICT
as a way for Cook Islanders to share their knowledge with the world. Through apps and
websites, Sarina believed that the Maori language and local knowledge could be shared overseas.
Tia also offered this viewpoint about creating apps to share, which she believed would further
support sustaining Indigenous knowledge. Her view was that apps about Cook Islands Maori
language and culture could support retention of knowledge:
So for me I looked at these apps and I’ve heard about them, and that’s ICT as well, and
what Samoans and some New Zealand Maori people have done, is they’ve created these
apps and things that are in their language. And, like for us, the Cook Islands, I think fund
is an issue, but if we were able to create something like that, ICT, and it is ICT, like an
app with our language, like how do you learn Cook Island Maori and games are in Cook
Island Maori things. Learning how to make a boat or a vaka, just like retaining, even our
history, like um, and dancing, how do you dance, you know have an app that has a girl
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swaying her hips and stuff, like these are ICT, and even movies, more Cook Island Maori
movies.
Teachers also believed that video could sustain Cook Islands language and culture. All six
teachers viewed video as a means to record and share Indigenous knowledge. For example,
Sarina explained, “We could document [traditional knowledge], use those information and
document them on IT, so we can use it as resources in school.” Toni also shared this belief when
he stated, “All these cultural things, we can use technology for that, through websites, creating
websites, putting that stuff on there through videos, because there’s not too much movement
when it comes to those skills.” Toni described sharing videos of cultural knowledge through
websites for people to access freely. As a final example, Sarina identified that important
information such as genealogy could be recorded to sustain intergenerational knowledge. She
claimed:
Well with the genealogy, you know, type it all up and keep your own record. Something
you would have for later on in life, but they’ve got to go and ask families about it. So,
recording and presenting it. Also, you know making little videos, that’s like a new little
trend, making videos about how to make medicines, and how we do this, sort of
combining, taking that local knowledge and putting it in a modern way.
Sarina explained that recorded traditional knowledge could be kept for review later in life. Her
voice shared how teachers in this cohort focused on capturing and sustaining traditional
information through technology. In contrast, teachers within the first cohort focused on
capturing knowledge within learning objects and described ways students could interact with the
knowledge. Teachers in this cohort saw knowledge as sustained by being recorded and re-visited
to be remembered.
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Overall, teachers in this cohort perceived ICT as a cultural tool to sustain and share Cook
Islands Maori language and culture, which showed their Indigenous stance. Teachers also
accepted the use of ICT to open students to the wider world, which aligned with their beliefs
about the purpose of school. Teachers perceptions of technology mirrored their beliefs about
pedagogy. I outlined this finding by first proving how teachers viewed ICT as a cultural tool
reflecting the dominant paradigm. Next, I explained how teachers believed ICT should be
repositioned to support Maori ways of knowing and doing. Then, I expressed how teachers
emphasized ICT as a tool to sustain and connect with Indigenous language and culture. Overall,
teachers’ Indigenous epistemic stance filtered most strongly into their beliefs about ICT
integration.
Conclusion
In conclusion, within this finding, six teachers shared common meaning making of ICT
as a cultural tool to sustain Indigenous language and culture. Unlike the first cohort of teachers,
these teachers’ Indigenous epistemic stance did not fully align with their beliefs about the
purpose of school and pedagogy. As a result, they questioned the system as Western, but did not
seek to subvert it as inherently Western. While they possessed a strong Indigenous stance, they
also believed that the purpose of school was to upskill students for career pathways and broaden
students’ horizons past their islands’ shores. These beliefs emerged as a desire to position
students as successful within dominant paradigms. As a result, teachers’ views of pedagogy
reflected this dual desire for students to be versed in Cook Islands Maori ways, as well as be able
to navigate dominate discourses. Ultimately, teachers in this second cohort focused on using
ICT to sustain language and culture. They viewed ICT as a Western tool to be integrated into
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Cook Islands ways, enabling students to access both worlds. Next, I offer the third finding,
which acted as the middle range of the continuum that I found.
Finding 3: ICT as a Cultural Tool to Balance Indigenous Cook Islands Language and
Culture with Western Perspectives
The third finding showed that a cohort of teachers perceived ICT as a cultural tool to
balance Western perspectives with Indigenous Cook Islands perspectives. Three teachers or
14.2% of the participants fell into this cohort. All three of these participants were teachers on
Rarotonga. Also, all three of these teachers were born and raised overseas with one of the
teachers being of Cook Islands Maori descent. The teachers had a range of 3 to 12 years of
experience teaching abroad, while they possessed a range of fewer than 1 to 3 years teaching in
the Cook Islands. Although initially Western in their perspective, these teachers had been
socialized into values and beliefs that reflected Indigenous Cook Islands ways of knowing and
doing. At some point in their responses, all three teachers indicated that New Zealand Maori
perspectives had influenced their views. Yet, their Western stance emerged most prevalently in
their beliefs about the purpose of school, which also mediated their views of pedagogy and ICT.
While articulating their move toward Indigenous ways of knowing and doing, teachers retained
their Western stance that emerged within the beliefs that they shared, which did not provide
evidence of a deeper understanding of Cook Islands Maori language and culture.
In demonstration of this finding, I first explain how this cohort of three participants were
positioned within a hybrid epistemic stance. I determined teachers’ location toward the three
indicators from Jonassen’s (2003) pillars of Cook Islands Maori personality and culture.
Teachers were able to share a surface understanding of the indicators, which supported their
location in a hybrid stance. Secondly, I present the cohort’s beliefs about the purpose of
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education, which were rooted within their Western views. I then analyze how teachers’ hybrid
stance filtered into their beliefs about pedagogy. Lastly, I show teachers’ perception of ICT as a
cultural tool, which can be used to engage students in the Western world as well as connect and
sustain language and culture. This cohort represented the second group of teachers that
expressed hybrid views of ICT.
Hybrid Stance
Teachers within this cohort were positioned in a hybrid stance according to the three
indicators from Jonassen’s (2003) pillars of Maori personality and culture. Again, these
indicators include the importance of language as part of identity, land as essential to way of life,
and unity through reciprocity among family and community members. To show how teachers
within this cohort possessed a hybrid epistemic stance, I provide examples and analyses of how
teachers’ responses exemplified their move toward understanding these three indicators. Yet,
teachers were not located within an Indigenous stance, since they did not present evidence of
their deeper understanding of Cook Islands Maori ways of knowing and being.
Language as identity. The three teachers in this cohort expressed the importance of
language as tied to culture and history. Yet, they did not connect language to deeper
understandings about what it means to be Cook Islands Maori. Through their desire to sustain
language, teachers showed their hybrid stance. While they did not fully communicate language
as identity, they did value the Maori language as important to Cook Islanders.
First, Shane expressed his belief in the importance of language in a broad sense. Since he
had only a few months of experience teaching and living in the Cook Islands, he could not speak
to the specifics of the context. When asked what the role of language should be in Cook Islands
schools, he stated:
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I think it should have a prominent place. A language is important to a culture and its
people. Within the New Zealand culture, we’ve lost a good chunk of the language, lost a
lot of speakers of the language. There’s now just been a bit of a resurgence, back into
schools, back into communities, now just trying to revive this lost language, and it’s sad
that it has just been pushed, or it was kind of frowned upon to speak in, in previous times,
and that was the introduction of the Brits and the colonization of the country.
From his understanding of the New Zealand Maori struggle to revitalize language, Shane offered
his view that language was “important to a culture and its people.” He supported his belief by
citing the resurgence of the Maori language as important for communities in New Zealand.
Finally, he recognized the history of colonization that induced language loss among New
Zealand Maori. Transferring his context to the Cook Islands, Shane saw the overlap in contexts,
yet as an outsider, he could not articulate a Cook Islands Maori stance.
In addition, Michelle offered a broad understanding of the importance of oral histories,
yet similar to Shane, her view was not specific to the Cook Islands. She explained:
History comes through orally, rather than by written text, and I think to keep that going,
the language, the culture, the stories, it’s important that children as they grow are
continuing to learn the historical stuff.
Michelle clearly connected language to culture and history. She believed in the importance of
passing oral history to children to sustain language and culture. Yet, as a foreigner, she could not
explain the “historical stuff,” and therefore was not able to fully communicate an Indigenous
epistemic stance.
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Lastly, Hayley shared her beliefs that language was important and should be valued over
individuals. Although of Cook Islands descent, Hayley revealed that she could not speak the
Maori language, yet she still expressed its importance. She shared her views:
So we have schools that are bilingual, we have schools that are just English, we don’t, it
doesn’t have a set role, and yet, we know how important our language is. Yet, we aren’t
pushing for it. And it’s hard, like one thing that I see, it’s hard now to get it going to
keep our language alive. But, yet when we have opportunities for it to stay alive, we
don’t take them. Like for an example, for me, I speak English, and I don’t really
understand Maori, because like within the church, they want me to be in all these roles,
but I can’t understand what the meeting was about. So, rather than finding somebody
that can understand, they were going to choose me, and then have everyone speak in
English. And, it’s like how much more value do I have over our own language?
Hayley expressed her belief that language should be valued as important and kept alive. She
shared her story to communicate her concerns with people not choosing to speak Maori, when
conflicts arose with English speakers’ lack of understanding. Hayley’s belief in placing the
language over her own importance as a leader showed her position toward Indigenous ways.
Yet, since she did not clearly articulate her belief in language as identity, her views did not fully
locate her as Indigenous.
Teachers communicated language as important, since it was tied to history and culture.
Yet, since they did not clearly tie language to identity, teachers in this cohort had moved toward
an Indigenous perspective, but were not fully immersed in Cook Islands Maori ways. I further
show their location in a hybrid stance through their understandings about land.
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Land as life. All three teachers in this cohort revealed their understanding of land as
important to a people. While they did not express the depth of knowledge that teachers
positioned within an Indigenous stance were able to articulate, two of the three teachers directly
tied land to identity. Teachers in this cohort were positioned within a hybrid stance, since they
did not have the Indigenous grounding to contextualize their beliefs.
First, I offer Michelle’s response that revealed her lack of grounding in land as life. She
viewed land or place as tied to one’s village from a Cook Islands perspective, but could not
articulate the deeper meanings associated with place. When asked the following question, her
response expressed her views:
What do you believe someone is asking when he/she says, “Where are you from?”
Trying to put a link from the, to put a link from what your possible experiences have
been. So if somebody is saying where are you from, you obviously may not look, for me
I don’t look like I’m from a village here, for me it’s what have I, where have I come
from, what land have I.
Michelle communicated a surface understanding of place compared to a Cook Islands Maori
perspective. She connected land to village, but then offered appearance as a marker of place of
origin. Her focus shifted to an outsider viewpoint being asked where she was from as a foreigner
in the Cook Islands. Michelle’s inability to fully articulate the meaning of land from an
Indigenous perspective placed her within a hybrid stance.
Both Hayley and Shane offered land as tied to identity. Their beliefs placed them closer
to an Indigenous stance, yet not fully immersed in one. Shane shared his viewpoint by
explaining why he thought “where are you from” was an important question:
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I think it is, because in my culture and my beliefs, where you’re from, your family and
your land, your place, makes you who you are. I do think that is important as a starting
point.
Although a foreigner in the Cook Islands, Shane already understood New Zealand Maori ways of
knowing and doing. As a result, his beliefs about land aligned with Cook Islands Maori from a
broader view. He connected land to culture, beliefs, family, and ultimately “who you are.” He
had a broader Indigenous positioning in regards to his beliefs about land, yet he was not able to
contextualize his views to the Cook Islands. On the other hand, Hayley, being of Cook Islands
descent was able to tie identity to island, yet positioned herself within a hybrid stance. When
asked what is someone asking through the question, “where are you from,” Hayley responded:
I think it’s what was has made you who you are? How did you come to be the person that
you are now? I think that’s what they are asking. Because for me, my mum’s from
Aitutaki, but she moved over to New Zealand to give her kids a better life, and in doing
that I have her culture and heritage, but I also have the knowledge and the thinking skills
of New Zealand, and I think that’s what, what helps me over here. I am able to bridge the
two.
Hayley saw land as tied to “who you are” as a point of origin, similar to Shane. With her mother
being from Aitutaki, she claimed to possess the Aitutakian culture and heritage. Her mentioning
of her island showed her deeper understanding of how Cook Islands Maori position themselves
by the island that they come from. Yet, she declared her positioning between two worlds, that of
the Cook Islands and New Zealand. By associating the Cook Islands with “culture and heritage”
and New Zealand with “knowledge and thinking skills,” Hayley expressed her positioning to be
originally Western, due to the false dichotomy she presented. According to Seawright’s (2014)
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conception of white settler epistemology, land or place is redefined by the ideal social actor that
through the process of homemaking creates dichotomies within the fabric of Indigenous
societies. Hayley’s expression of this dichotomy between the Cook Islands and New Zealand
showed her uptake of dichotomous thinking in which she had failed to communicate her
understanding of Indigenous Cook Islands ways as tied to complex thinking skills and
knowledge, rather than solely culture and heritage. Although a Cook Islander by descent, she
had been socialized into Western ways, possibly while living abroad.
Overall, the three teachers within this cohort expressed their hybrid stance through their
views about land. Teachers varied in their beliefs about land based upon their knowledge of the
Cook Islands. Michelle believed land was tied to village, while Shane was able to offer land as
tied to identity. Hayley communicated more of a Cook Islands Maori view regarding island as
identity, yet, she positioned herself within a hybrid stance. Next, I offer teachers’ stance in
regards to the third indicator, unity and reciprocity.
Unity and reciprocity. Unity in regards to fulfilling duties to family, village, and country
emerged through the teachers’ discussion of sharing, gift giving, and welcoming. While teachers
positioned in a strong Indigenous stance expressed this indicator through the passing of
traditional knowledge tied to land, these teachers provided a surface level understanding of unity.
First, Hayley discussed the idea of sharing as unity, which positioned her in a hybrid
stance. While she could recognize this practice as enactment of Cook Islands values, she did not
articulate how this exemplified the deeper elements of Jonassen’s (2003) concept of unity. She
stated:
I think a big one is, I can’t think of an example, but it always happens, just giving, over
here. The people are very giving. You see the kids at school, they just give their lunch,
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everyone just shares, you kinda, that whole we all move forward together, and I quite like
that. That’s a Cook Island value, that no one left behind sort of a thing.
Hayley described Cook Islanders as very giving, which she tied to the belief in “no one left
behind.” Although her example related to fulfilling duties to one another as an extended family,
she did not articulate this connection. Thus, she offered a surface understanding of unity, which
positioned her within a hybrid stance.
Michelle also offered the act of giving as a Cook Islands value. Like Hayley, she
identified an example of Cook Islands values from her experiences at school:
The delivery of fruit by a child into the classroom. Children that bring eis [necklaces
made of flowers] for the teacher as well as the others that are needed for within the
school too. You know it’s gifts that cost nothing but time, and the availability of what is
on people’s land of course.
Michelle connected giving to resources on one’s land. She also communicated that gift giving
was not tied to expense, but rather the giving of one’s time. She demonstrated understanding of
Indigenous views of gift giving, yet did not articulate the connection between the giving of
resources, land, and extended family. Her limited knowledge of the community outside of her
school prevented her from fully explaining the deeper significance of gift giving.
Lastly, Shane offered a very general understanding of Cook Islands values, which
identified his surface knowledge of unity. Although he could recognize welcoming as a Cook
Islands value, he was also unable to articulate a deeper understanding of this phenomenon. He
explained the following:
One thing I’ve found in my short time here, is that you’re interested or you show an
interest in anything, there’s a very embrace, a welcome that is unspoken, but definitely a
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clear part of the culture. And, it’s always warm and with a smile and without judgement
or without expectation. Come and be a part of this, be part of us, be part of what we do.
And, they are happy to accept people that are open to try new things.
New to the Cook Islands, Shane could only offer a generalized view of welcoming as part of the
culture. The concept of sharing and gift giving through welcoming was tied to reciprocity
between community members. Yet, Shane did not offer this deeper knowledge and
understanding of how welcoming was tied to unity. As a result, he showed his hybrid stance.
All three teachers in this cohort demonstrated their hybrid stance through the ability to
identify elements of unity and reciprocity, without providing deeper connections. While they
were able to articulate sharing, gift giving, and welcoming as Cook Islands values, they were
unable to offer the connections of these elements to Indigenous ways of knowing and doing.
In conclusion, teachers in this cohort were positioned within a hybrid stance. While they
exhibited a surface understanding of Indigenous Cook Islands ways of knowing and doing, they
were unable to articulate deeper meanings within their discussions. Since they provided
examples of the importance of language, land as identity, and unity in sharing, originally
Western in stance, they had moved toward Indigenous views. Yet, their views were not
complete in that they did not share the meanings of their examples. Without fully articulating
the meanings, these teachers were not able to demonstrate their full understanding of the
indicators from Jonassen’s pillars. Next, I show their beliefs about the purpose of education as
rooted in their Western stance.
Adapting Students to a Global Society
Teachers in this cohort discussed the purpose of education in terms of generalized
narratives about globalization. This showed their Western positioning, which was rooted in the
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need for students to compete in the global marketplace. From a dominant lens, global initiatives
have filtered into education sectors around the world to prepare students for our new
technological society built upon the exchange of information (Zhao, 2012). The teachers within
this cohort expressed the purpose of education in terms of the rhetoric around globalization.
First, I offer Shane’s discussion of 21
st
century skills as an indicator of his Western
positioning. He described what he wanted for students that graduate from the Cook Islands
education system by stating, “I would like to see a well-rounded, open-minded student that has
the ability to function in the 21
st
century, has the skills and grit to push past any barriers that are
perceived.” Shane’s reference of 21
st
century skills was indicative of the rhetoric around
globalization. Twenty first century skills refer to skills that students need within a global
economy (Partnership for 21
st
Century Skills, 2015). In particular, his use of the term “grit”
expressed his knowledge of current trends in dominant views about education grounded in a
Western lens.
In addition to 21
st
century skills, Hayley and Michelle both shared their belief that the
purpose of education was tied to the demands of the global society. Hayley explained her view:
Yeah, my interpretation of why kids should go to school is they become functional
members of society, that’s my ultimate definition, but I don’t know if we have that here,
and I think it’s because we have parents from different backgrounds.
Hayley expressed her point of view that the purpose of education was to prepare students to
function in society. Yet, she believed that in the Cook Islands, this was not necessarily true,
since parents came from different backgrounds. Thus, Hayley did not recognize these different
backgrounds as part of the makeup of society. Hayley’s view of society was based in a global,
dominant perspective that did not include alternate pathways. Furthermore, she shared her belief
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that students should engage with the global world, rather than remain on the islands. Expressing
her dominant views, she stated what she wanted for students that graduate from the school
system:
To have the courage to take risks, I think. That if they have the dare to dream of doing
something in New Zealand, they go and do it. Then, if they wanted to move to Australia
and work in the mines, doing something that isn’t necessarily hard thinking, but it’s hard
labor and they’re going to earn a whole lot, that’s all good, as long as they are happy. To
take risks. I think people that don’t take risks, and they stay on this island, and they go
and plant, because that’s what their parents did and their parents before that did, and
they don’t have the courage to do anything else, that’s sad.
Hayley further solidified her dominant views regarding the purpose of education when she
devalued planting and associated “courage” and “risk-taking” with living abroad. She positioned
working in New Zealand or Australia as more desirable pathways for students than continuing in
the profession of their parents in the Cook Islands. Within her narrative, she diverged from her
Indigenous views towards her Western views, indicating her hybrid stance.
Michelle also expressed that the purpose of education was tied to globalization. She
believed that education was to prepare students for jobs of the future. She believed that school
gave students experiences to learn “how to question, how to learn, how to fit into society, but
you are learning to be able to work, which is ultimately what we do in life at the end of the day.”
She further clarified her global view, when she explained that school should “open their minds to
possibilities, jobs that aren’t, jobs that aren’t actually around at the moment, but could possibly
be in the future, that they have got the chance to go and find something for themselves.”
Michelle offered a perspective that aligned with the rhetoric around globalization, in which
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students would have to prepare to compete in a global marketplace for jobs that did not yet exist.
Thus, while Michelle had moved toward Indigenous views, she still retained a purpose of
education situated within her Western views.
In conclusion, the teachers’ Indigenous understandings paired with their dominant,
Western views of the purpose of education demonstrated their hybrid epistemic stance.
Teachers’ views aligned with the rhetoric around globalization and a purpose of education that
valued dominant pathways in life. Next, I share their beliefs about pedagogy, which further
showed their hybrid stance.
Balanced Views of Pedagogy
Teachers in this cohort demonstrated their hybrid stance through their discussions about
pedagogy. As an extension of their positioning toward Indigenous ways, teachers believed that
language should have a strong role in schools. Yet, when asked to articulate differences between
Western and Cook Islands ways of teaching, they offered assumptions based on their Western
stance. Furthermore, teachers discussed utilizing students’ funds of knowledge to include Cook
Islands tradition and culture within learning experiences, rather than grounding students in Cook
Islands ways. Within this section, I share the teachers’ views about pedagogy, which aligned
with their hybrid stance.
Although not speakers of Maori, teachers within this cohort believed that language
should have a strong role in Cook Islands education. Both Shane and Hayley discussed the
importance of language learning. Yet, when asked how they teach the language, they explained
that their class attended a Maori session with another teacher. In addition to her class attending a
Maori session with a fluent speaker, Michelle explained how she incorporated elements of the
language within her teaching:
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I am trying very hard to move from preschool level with the three pures, the three
prayers, our greetings, numbers, colors and shapes. It is very basic and I try ever so hard,
and I also try and understand what people may write.
Along with her beliefs, Michelle also offered ways in which she incorporated Maori into her
teaching. As a teacher in the Cook Islands, she saw it as her duty to learn the language. She
explained her point of view:
I think teachers have to, they have opted to live here, and they choose to live here, and
they choose to live here that they immerse themselves in the culture and find out about it
and blend it into their classroom to the best of their ability, and they continue learning it,
whatever pace it is. Could be slow like me.
As a foreign teacher choosing to live within another country, Michelle believed that she had an
obligation to learn the language and culture and “blend” it into her classroom. Furthermore, she
explained that she also was obligated to continue to learn the language, as other foreign teachers
should be obligated as well. Teachers within this cohort exhibited varying commitments to
Maori language learning within their teaching. They did not indicate a critical stance toward
pedagogy in their discussions of language learning. Yet, they all shared the belief that language
should have a strong role in education, showing their move toward an Indigenous stance.
Teachers within this cohort explained differences between the Cook Islands and Western
ways of learning from varying standpoints, which further showed their hybrid stance. First,
Shane admitted his difficulty in defining Western ways of learning in contrast to Cook Islands
ways. He explained:
The term is a little ambiguous for me, I’m not sure what exactly a Western way really is.
If I think of traditional teaching and learning from what I understand from my childhood,
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which is what I perceived as Western, there won’t be much of that happening in my class.
You won’t see me standing and speaking to the class and teaching a whole class lesson.
We use lots of cooperative learning strategies, um, that there fit within the molds of lots
of societies, not just a Western view.
For Shane, the term “Western” was ambiguous, yet he was able to quickly connect Western ways
with traditional, teacher-centered pedagogies. He separated his teaching from industrial models
of education, explaining, “you won’t see me standing and speaking to the class,” and identified
cooperative learning strategies as prevalent in his classroom. Yet, he did not view cooperative
learning strategies as tied to any particular culture and place, viewing this method of teaching as
tied to many societies. Only teaching within the Cook Islands for a few months, he did not
indicate that he had reflected upon cultural differences within pedagogy.
While Hayley was able to articulate differences between Cook Islands and Western ways
of learning, her views showed her Western perspective. After explaining Cook Islands ways of
learning as focused on rote memorization, she claimed the following:
Making meaning, that’s a real Western way of learning. You’ve got to understand
something, in order to be able to, if you don’t understand something then you don’t know
it. But that’s not necessarily, I don’t believe in that. I don’t know how my digestive
system works, but that doesn’t mean I don’t eat. But you know. Hahaha. Yeah, like
basic facts like maths, in New Zealand they’re pushing us to understand what it means
with 4 times 5, where as you know here, you have kids here where they will go, “four
times five is twenty, four times five is twenty.”
Hayley’s expression of Cook Islands and Western ways as dichotomous demonstrated her
Western stance. Hayley did not connect the historical context of schooling within the Cook
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Islands or Indigenous ways with pedagogy. Instead, she viewed the differences in pedagogy
based solely on her personal experiences as a teacher in the Cook Islands as contrasted to her
knowledge of teaching in New Zealand. Therefore, her beliefs about the differences in pedagogy
emerged as two opposing practices with Western being meaning making and Cook Islands being
memorization. Without connecting her knowledge of Indigenous ways to her view of pedagogy,
she was unable to see more depth in learning within the Cook Islands.
Last, Michelle offered a view of pedagogy that was tied to Indigenous epistemology.
Yet, in her articulation of the differences in pedagogy, she did not ground the pedagogy in
Indigenous ways of knowing and doing. She explained the difference between Western and
Cook Islands ways of learning:
Cook Islands to me seems probably more hands on and oral, this, our Western way is
very much, um, whether or not it’s sit down and learn, we still stem from the old style of
textbooks, you know. Sometimes, it’s, we’re reliant on tools, pens, pencils, paper, things.
Michelle identified a Cook Islands way as connected to “hands on and oral” activities. Her view
aligned with teachers located in an Indigenous stance, yet she did not connect oral tradition and
Indigenous ways of learning in the community to her understanding of Cook Islands ways. She
viewed Western ways through an industrial or “old style” model of education tied to textbooks.
While her perceptions were closer to those teachers grounded in Cook Islands Maori ways, she
still did not demonstrate a depth of knowledge regarding how pedagogy intersected with
Indigenous epistemology.
Finally, teachers demonstrated their hybrid stance by including students’ funds of
knowledge in learning experiences. Teachers discussed providing authentic learning experiences
for students such as taking students out on the traditional vaka, or participating in cultural
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festivals. Hayley also explained how she allowed students to teach, when she lacked the
traditional knowledge. She stated, “Even the kids themselves, sometimes they will know more
than me and I will get them to teach it.” Thus, although teachers included students’ backgrounds
within classroom activities, students’ cultural background did not ground learning. Teachers’
limited knowledge of language and culture inhibited their ability to infuse a Cook Islands Maori
perspective into students’ learning.
Within this cohort, teachers expressed pedagogical views that were inclusive of the
context and students’ backgrounds, but not immersed in the language and culture. Teachers’
lack of traditional knowledge and inability to speak the language limited their ability to engage
students in culturally based learning. Through their views about pedagogy, teachers’ original
location in Western epistemology emerged. Paired with their beliefs about the indicators taken
from Jonassen’s pillars, teachers further demonstrated their hybrid stance. Their hybrid stance
was also aligned to their perceptions of ICT integration.
ICT as a Cultural Tool to Balance Perspectives
Teachers’ hybrid epistemic stance filtered into their perceptions of ICT as balanced
between engaging in the Western world and sustaining language and culture. Teachers in this
cohort shared their view of ICT as a cultural tool grounded in English and perspectives outside
the Cook Islands. Their Western perspective emerged from their discussion of ICT preparing
students for the job market, broadening students’ horizons, and individualizing learning. Their
Indigenous views emerged through their desire to use technology to share Indigenous knowledge
worldwide and support learning Indigenous knowledge in schools. Teachers in this cohort
shared views of ICT that balanced both perspectives.
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Cultural tool. First, teachers’ narratives identified ICT as a cultural tool representing
views outside of the Cook Islands, which could influence language and culture loss. Michelle
shared the view of ICT as steeped in the English language. She explained:
Because if you are looking at things like ipads and things with apps, you’ve got it in
English, not necessarily, I don’t know of any, well, maybe there is some Cook Island
apps, I don’t know maybe that’s something I will have to look at, but I know there aren’t
a tremendous number of New Zealand Maori apps. So again, you are having to learn to
listen and play in English, following English instruction, so that pulls you away again
from te reo.
Michelle believed that apps in English could pull students away from “te reo” their language.
She assumed that most apps were in English, knowing that there were only a few New Zealand
Maori apps, and most likely fewer, Cook Islands Maori apps. She asserted that students listening
and playing in English would strengthen their English, drawing them away from Cook Islands
Maori.
In addition to language, Shane expressed how culture can be influenced by ICT. He
explained how technology offered access to knowledge around the world, which could shape
students’ views:
I think knowledge changes opinion. The more we know, the more we understand, the
more we shape our view of the world. If technology became such that every child
coming through the education system here was able to access a world of knowledge and
other cultures, and what they believe, and how they see the world, that may shape over
time, the culture, and as a culture is comprised of your beliefs and understanding and
opinion, and all the food, dance, the great stuff.
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Shane explained how culture could be changed over time through students’ interactions with
information. Since ICT offered access to a wide range of information, he believed that ICT use
could change students’ beliefs and ultimately their worldview. All three teachers believed in this
possibility.
Last, teachers demonstrated their belief in ICT as a cultural tool through their discussions
of balancing students’ use of ICT to engage in inside and outside views from the Cook Islands.
Hayley explained her desire for students to find authentic information, relevant to their lives in
the Cook Islands:
We should be teaching kids how to look for information. There’s a whole lot of
information online, but we want kids to find specific information that they need that’s
authentic. So empowering people to do what I think would be good for our culture.
She viewed her role as empowering her students to use ICT in ways that would benefit Cook
Islands culture. Both Shane and Michelle also expressed this view of interacting with
information about students’ islands, and not simply engaging in the outside world while using
ICT. Michelle explained that ICT enabled students to explore the outside world, yet she
cautioned that ICT, as representative of outside views could lead to students’ digression from
their roots. She stated, “It’s the exploration and then not wanting to return to the island.” Shane
also offered the same perspective of ICT through his discussion of losses that students may incur
with use:
If it was used to ill effect, there would be huge amounts of loss, if it was used to focus
solely on outside of the Cook Islands, and not to understand who they are and what
makes them special and what makes the country work. And, if they missed all that
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because there was this fixation to explore outside of this island, then there would be some
losses.
He contended that if students fixated on ICT as a means to interact with outside perspectives,
rather than used ICT to engage in their own culture, losses would result. Shane’s belief that loss
would occur if students use of ICT resulted in their sole engagement in outside worldviews
showed his understanding of ICT as a cultural tool.
Western views of ICT. Within this cohort, teachers’ purposes of education, which
aligned with Western views filtered into their perceptions of ICT. Teachers offered purposes of
ICT that focused on preparing students to engage with the Western world. First, Michelle
believed that the purpose of ICT was to prepare students for the job market. She claimed:
For the majority, for a number of children, they are going to be going through school and
you know, it progressively gets more and more what they need. So, if they start
developing the knowledge of the type board, because some of them are going to need it
when they get to the work force, but also building Google docs with my level as well.
Michelle shared her belief that as students progressed through the education system, they needed
to be increasingly exposed to computing, indicated by her reference of the “type board” and
“Google docs.” Thus, she aligned ICT to the job market, which was rooted in global views of
education.
Also, all three teachers shared their desire for students to use ICT to broaden horizons
and engage with the wider world. While Michelle stated, “I would love to see more children
being able to access it for work purposes to see what’s out there in the wider world,” Mark
explained his purpose of using ICT in the Cook Islands:
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I see the value of education in the Cook Islands as a broadening of their horizons and an
opening of their world and gives them especially with the use of technology, the ability to
connect, communicate and collaborate outside of this small country.
While both teachers had already established their move toward Indigenous ways, they also saw
the limitations of the islands and saw ICT as a means to open students to the outside world.
Overall, teachers shared Western views of ICT, yet they also contributed views from their
Indigenous perspective.
Indigenous views of ICT. All three teachers shared ways to connect, sustain, and share
Indigenous Cook Islands knowledge. Their views balanced their Western perspective and
showed their hybrid stance. First, the teachers explained how technology could be used to share
a Cook Islands perspective with the rest of the world. Shane shared his belief that ICT could be
used to share Cook Islands culture and celebrate their identity with a wider audience. He
expressed this view:
I think there is, which I said at the start, one of the key goals is to be able to share who we
are and the difference that we have. From what I gather about the Cook Islands is they
celebrate who they are, and they celebrate their culture very strongly, so that in
conjunction with the use of ICT, is able to expand their ability to share that and celebrate
with a wider audience.
Shane’s narrative expressed the cohort’s general belief that ICT could share Cook Islands ways
of knowing and doing with others.
Both Michelle and Hayley offered contextualized views of how and why using ICT to
share Cook Islands knowledge was important. Michelle contributed her story of trying to find
examples of Cook Islands content and culture online:
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I was actually asked by a friend in New Zealand, what do I teach te reo wise, um could I
share a song that I would teach my class. Now I don’t teach a song other than the
national anthem, so I use YouTube, however the YouTube clip that I have found for the
singing of the national anthem is done by a New Zealand Maori. I think I’d like to see
more Cook Island apps, and the other one was teaching dance, again was YouTube,
because the request on how to do something, they could share in New Zealand. All I
could come up with was YouTube.
Michelle explained that she would “like to see more Cook Islands apps” to share information
with the outside world, represented by New Zealand in her story. When searching the Internet
for examples to share, she was unable to find a YouTube clip that demonstrated the national
anthem sung in the Cook Islands or examples of Cook Islands dancing. Her story illustrated the
desire and potential for Cook Islands content and culture to be shared using ICT.
Furthermore, Hayley explained how social media could engage Cook Islanders living
overseas with their home islands. In particular, Hayley explained Facebook as means to connect
with the wider world:
I want a Facebook page for my school, and I would love to go Facebook live during
assemblies, and parents of kids that are here, that are overseas, could still watch their kids
get awards and things like that, and I think that would be a real cool way, those that are
away. And even like with our Sydney group that donated all this stuff, they could see
what we are doing with all the stuff. And we’d be connected to the world.
Hayley thought Facebook could help connect families overseas to their family living in the Cook
Islands. Even Cook Islanders that had donated to the school, such as the “Sydney group” could
view how their donations were supporting the school.
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Thus, the teachers within this cohort not only believed that ICT enabled students to
engage in the wider world. They also believed that ICT enabled the wider world to engage with
the Cook Islands. Teachers demonstrated a balanced perspective in their beliefs about using ICT
to look outside and inside the Cook Islands.
Lastly, teachers believed that ICT could sustain and support students’ learning of
Indigenous knowledge. Teachers recognized video as a means to sustain knowledge and then
use in the classroom to support and deepen learning. Shane explained this viewpoint:
Ways in which we have used technology to kind of deepen or explore further, some of
those concepts have been through a few tasks through historical videos, National
Geographic and History channel, stories of the traditional vakas, and where they have
come from, how they’ve navigated to here, navigation techniques.
Centering the content of his teaching on traditional voyaging, Shane explained how he had used
technology to deepen students’ learning around the vaka or canoe. While Shane looked for
videos already posted online, Hayley discussed creating her own videos. She offered her desire
to bridge the use of technology with sustaining traditional knowledge. When asked how, if at all,
do the use of ICTs represent values and beliefs, she responded:
I don’t think it does, and I think that’s the problem. Nobody knows how to do that, and
nobody thinks that you can bridge, what we know, what we already know with what we
can do with technology. Like um, just like simple things, like recording songs, like I will
record a song and I will listen to it over and over again, and that’s how I learn the song,
and then I go back to practices, and I know the song.
Hayley expressed her opinion that people do not normally see technology as a way to sustain and
share traditional knowledge. Not being able to speak Cook Islands Maori, she explained how
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she used technology to record, practice, and learn traditional songs. Her belief in bridging ICT
with traditional ways spoke to the broader views that this cohort’s perceptions represented.
In conclusion, teachers in this cohort perceived ICT as a cultural tool to both engage with
the wider world and sustain, connect and share Indigenous language and culture. Their Western
and Indigenous positioning emerged within their perceptions. While their Western views were
mostly tied to their perceptions of the purpose of using ICT, their use was focused on sharing and
sustaining Cook Islands content and culture. Overall, their hybrid stance mediated their views of
ICT as balanced.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the three teachers within this finding made meaning of ICT through their
hybrid epistemic stance. Teachers perceived ICT as a cultural tool to balance students’
engagement and understanding of Indigenous ways with Western ways. From their original
Western stance, teachers within this cohort had moved toward beliefs that represented an
Indigenous stance. Thus, teachers exhibited a hybrid stance, since they aligned with the three
indicators from Jonassen’s pillars of Maori personality and culture, yet could not provide a
deeper understanding of the indicators. Teachers’ Western stance emerged within the beliefs
they shared about the purpose of education being tied to globalization. They offered dominant,
decontextualized views of the reason why students attend school in the Cook Islands. In terms of
pedagogy, teachers’ discussion of pedagogy as being inclusive of language and culture further
demonstrated their hybrid stance. Ultimately, their perceptions of ICT emerged as a balance
between their Indigenous views and Western stance. Language continued to emerge as
important to sustain through their views of ICT, while the purpose of utilizing ICT aligned with
their Western beliefs. While these three teachers demonstrated a hybrid view of ICT, the next
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finding offered a discrepant case of two teachers who viewed ICT from an alternate
understanding.
Finding 4: ICT as a Neutral Tool Representing Change to be Adapted to as Parallel to
Cook Islands Language and Culture
The fourth finding showed a discrepant case in which two teachers grounded in an
Indigenous epistemic stance saw ICT as a neutral tool that should be embraced along with
changes in society. These teachers viewed ICT as parallel to language and culture, believing that
it could only enhance teaching strategies and upskill students for the future. Two of 21 or 9.5%
of participants shared this meaning making of ICT. One of the participants was a teacher on
Aitutaki, while the other participant was a teacher on Rarotonga. The first teacher, Aiana, had
lived on the outer islands during her entire life, except when she attended training college on
Rarotonga for three years. The other teacher, Ben, had grown up on another Pacific island until
he came to Rarotonga to teach. Aiana had 40 years of experience teaching in the Cook Islands,
while Ben had completed 18 years of service. While the two teachers were located in an
Indigenous epistemic stance, their beliefs played out in a different manner from the other
participants with the same positioning. Although Ben and Aiana’s Indigenous stance filtered
into their beliefs about the purpose of school, their beliefs were also mediated by changes that
they perceived in society. Thus, they offered parallel views of the purpose of school as students
serving their country, while engaging with the Western world. While the views of pedagogy
differed between the two participants, their beliefs about ICT aligned with the parallel nature of
their beliefs about the purpose of education. Ultimately, both teachers viewed ICT as a neutral
tool that could be engaged in as parallel to language and culture.
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To demonstrate this finding, I first explain how this cohort of two participants were
positioned within an Indigenous epistemic stance through their alignment with the three
indicators from Jonassen’s (2003) pillars of Cook Islands Maori personality and culture. Second,
I present the cohort’s beliefs about the purpose of education, which were influenced by changes
within society. I then analyze how teachers’ Indigenous stance filtered into their beliefs about
pedagogy. Lastly, I show teachers’ perception of ICT as a neutral tool, that could be wielded in
any particular way, without a clear focus on grounding students in Indigenous Cook Islands
language and culture. The two teachers in this cohort were not critical of ICT as possibly
influencing students away from Cook Islands Maori ways of knowing and doing. This finding
represented a discrepant case of two teachers that expressed ICT as a tool parallel to language
and culture.
Indigenous Epistemic Stance
To locate Aiana and Ben within an Indigenous epistemic stance, I sought their alignment
with the three indicators from Jonassen’s (2003) pillars of Maori personality and culture. Both
teachers believed in language as identity, land as life, and unity through reciprocity. As with the
first and second cohort, the two teachers showed evidence of these indicators within their
narratives.
Both Aiana and Ben connected language to identity. As a skilled speaker of Maori,
Aiana explained the nuances of teaching both the Rarotongan and Aitutakian dialects to students.
Her perspective offered a view of language as tied to an island specific culture and identity,
while shared country-wide as Cook Islands Maori. She stated, “Aitutaki is different from
Mangaia with the language, their culture, or even other islands. We are all different with that,
otherwise, we are all Cook Islanders.” She communicated that language offered an individual
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and shared identity. When asked why it was important for students to learn their Aitutakian
dialect, she stated, “That’s my identity, my language, I don’t want to lose it,” showing her
Indigenous positioning. Ben also offered his belief that language was tied to island and family.
He explained that when he was growing up on his home island, he spoke his own language,
because of his parents. Changing his perspective to the Cook Islands, he claimed, “The parents
that speak Maori, the children are the ones that speak.” For Ben, language was tied to where you
were from and who your parents were, in essence your roots. I elaborate upon his views further
in discussion of the second indicator from Jonassen’s pillars, land as life.
Land as life emerged through the teachers’ discussions of culture as tied to land. Aiana
explained that when someone asked where you are from, “they are asking you for your identity,
to know where you live, where you are born.” She believed that culture, a marker of identity,
was part of place. She clearly communicated this idea through her knowledge of traditional
differences across islands. For example, she explained the differences between weddings on
Aitutaki and Aitu (another outer island). From another Pacific island country, Ben offered a
broader view of Polynesian culture that built upon Aiana’s voice. When asked if the question,
“where are you from” was important, he stated:
In a cultural sense, yes, because as Pacific Islanders, we believe, and in any other culture,
you need to know who you are, as an individual, your identity. I think it is cultural. You
have to know who you are, and I am sure Hawaii, and Samoa, Tonga, we are very, we are
into our roots, whereas here, when you ask a person about their cultural idea, or anything
to do with, that’s why I struggle with social science here, it’s hard to talk about, well, I
know they have got their values, but if you talk about culturally where’s your clan,
children don’t know these things.
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Ben linked land to people in a community sharing a cultural idea. For Ben, this cultural idea was
one’s identity, and he expressed his concern with his students, in general, not seeming to
articulate their membership in a clan. His assumptions about the Cook Islands in comparison to
other Pacific islands showed his belief that roots and genealogy should be known by younger
generations. Ben explained that social science or the history of the Cook Islands was “hard to
talk about,” because he suggested that children do not have a strong cultural foundation in which
they would be able to articulate how their family was tied to the land. Although generalizations,
his discussion of land locating Pacific Islanders within a family tied to land reflected his
Indigenous epistemic stance.
Lastly, I explain both teachers’ alignment with the third indicator, unity through
reciprocity. Aiana expressed her Indigenous stance by revealing her understanding of village
structure, which she explained as follows:
Well, they have the structure of the village, and we have to know if there is a chief in the
community. We have to know how he become a chief and his family, who will be the
next one, about the churches, even the villages, the island councils, how to meet them, the
chairman of the villages, we get a lot from them, meet these people to get more
knowledge.
Aiana’s explanation of the village structure showed her understanding of the interconnections
between families and community. Also, when she stated “meet these people to get more
knowledge,” she communicated Jonassen’s (2003) sense of reciprocity through the sharing of
relevant knowledge. Ben exhibited his positioning through his acknowledgement of being
welcomed as part of an extended family. When asked to describe something that showed Cook
Islands values, he responded in the following manner:
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I would say, one unique thing they have is, when there is a foreigner, well, like for me, I
can say that I have families here, not related by blood, but these are my families here.
And, whenever they have functions, I’m always touched by that, whenever they have
family functions, I don’t have to be invited. Sometimes, I get a telling off for not
coming. So that, that’s special to me, because even though I am not related by blood, or
blood relative, they treat me as one.
For Ben, something that clearly communicated Cook Islands values was the extension of family
to include foreigners like himself. Although his family by birth resided on another Pacific
island, he could say that he had family in the Cook Islands through being openly welcomed.
Identifying this welcoming or gift giving as embodying Cook Islands values showed his
understanding of Indigenous ways. Aiana and Ben revealed their alignment with Jonassen’s
unity and reciprocity.
Both teachers in this cohort were located in an Indigenous epistemic stance, since they
shared Jonassen’s (2003) beliefs in language as identity, land as life, and unity through
reciprocity.
Engaging and Preparing Students in Society Today
Both teachers’ Indigenous stance filtered into their beliefs about the purpose of school.
Yet, their beliefs were also mediated by changes that they perceived in society. As a result,
teachers within this cohort viewed the purpose of school in two parallel ways. First, they saw
reciprocity in school being a place where students developed to later serve their country.
Second, teachers also saw school as a place that prepared students for current job markets in
society and broadened their horizons to engage in the wider world.
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Aiana shared the belief in education as growing students academically to serve their
country, while providing alternative pathways for students to make a living. When asked what
she wanted for students that graduate from the education system, she stated:
Well, I think it’s a good idea for them, when they are graduated, they come back to the
Cook Islands and work in the Cook Islands to bring the standard of the children up,
because they are the lucky ones. So, they have to come back and help our people.
She believed that students who graduate should serve their country, which was aligned with her
Indigenous stance toward unity and reciprocity. Yet, her focus on education as a means to “get
good jobs” and “work in the Cook Islands” was not necessarily from an Indigenous stance.
Aiana also communicated a purpose of education focused on upskilling students to work in
industries within the Cook Islands, such as tourism and agriculture. She explained:
Not only people who works in the office can get the money. We after money. But also,
those people who are not academically, then if you are good at cooking, you can cook
and sell. Then, you can get your money. Good with weaving that’s another one, planting,
fishing, so, it’s that’s my feel of encouraging the kids.
Rather than grounding future leaders in a Cook Island Maori stance, Aiana saw a more pragmatic
purpose, that of preparing students for society as it currently was. She implied that school should
support the socialization of students into the current job market on Aitutaki mostly based in
tourism.
In comparison, Ben also wanted graduates of the Cook Islands education system to serve
their country. He stated:
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Well, initially, it would be nice if they could serve in their own country. I know they
have potential. I have taught very bright students, but I don’t know where they are now.
They are not coming back.
Similar to Aiana, Ben shared a desire for Cook Islanders to return and serve their country, which
could be tied to his Indigenous stance. Yet, he also claimed that students needed education, “so
that they can sort of expand or broaden their horizons.” In his narrative, he did not connect these
two separate purposes of education. As a result, he possessed parallel purposes of education that
were based in Indigenous and Western perspectives.
Unlike the teachers in the first cohort, Aiana and Ben did not offer reflections upon the
root causes of students not returning to serve their country. Therefore, their Indigenous stance
did not filter into an understanding of the purpose of education as grounding students within
Cook Islands Maori ways of knowing and doing. Furthermore, they had taken on beliefs about
the purpose of education that ran parallel to their Indigenous stance. Aiana believed that school
was tied to preparation for the current job market, while Ben expressed a desire for students to
gain a global perspective. The parallel nature of their views about the purpose of school was also
reflected in their beliefs about pedagogy.
Parallel Views of Pedagogy
In terms of pedagogy, Aiana and Ben’s Indigenous stance emerged differently in their
beliefs. Aiana communicated school as parallel to culture and tradition, seeming to even align
Maori language learning to dominant structures in formal schooling. In essence, her narrative
expressed school as a separate place from the home and community. In contrast, Ben was
critical of Western pedagogies replacing Indigenous ways of learning the Maori language. Yet,
although he could identify structural differences between Indigenous and Western ways of
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learning, he did not communicate these structural issues as problematic. In essence, his critical
beliefs about pedagogy ran parallel to the structures of schooling. In turn, I describe how each of
their perceptions of pedagogy exhibited this parallel nature.
Aiana could not articulate the differences between Western and Indigenous pedagogy.
She did not discuss culture as necessarily part of formal schooling, but she did offer discussions
of teaching culture within the community. As an elder in the community, Aiana was heavily
involved in teaching traditional knowledge to women. She discussed her role as a teacher of
traditional quilting with her women’s community organization:
If we have workshops to hold, so we hold in each village, like cutting the tivaevae,
embroidery a bed spread, closuring and all of that. So, we teach it there, and we do one
day, one day. So, we teach them how to cut and spread on the sheet underneath, and then
how to hem these things.
And then, why is that why do you feel that this group is important going to each of the
villages and teaching these skills?
So that nobody is miss out. If we bring them to the center, there are mamas that are busy
with their little ones, they can’t manage to come. So, holding in their own village, they
can bring their little ones in the hall, and the kids will be running around where they are.
Aiana’s workshops were held “so that nobody is miss out.” She desired to provide the
opportunity for women in the community to learn traditional quilting. The content and practice
of learning together in the community evoked Indigenous ways of learning. While Aiana could
share her breadth of knowledge regarding traditional practices and social structures, she did not
articulate the role of culture within schools, other than Maori language learning. Furthermore,
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her discussion of language learning did not include Cook Islands Maori ways of knowing and
doing. Rather, she discussed Maori language learning in a similar fashion to learning English:
In the morning, we have a little songs and rhymes in Maori, to revise their vowels and
alphabets, and also their phonics. And sometimes, I try to point yes, they can a e i o u,
but pointing to recognize the letters some of them can’t recognize the letters, they
memorize everything.
Vowels, alphabets, and phonics represented dominant ways that English had been taught. Her
description of teaching Maori mirrored the teaching of English and did not offer evidence of her
Indigenous positioning. The manner in which Aiana described pedagogy did not include culture
and tradition.
In contrast, Ben had reflected upon the differences between Western and Cook Islands
Maori pedagogical practices. First, Ben demonstrated his understanding of Indigenous pedagogy
through his criticism of the current ways of teaching Maori in Cook Islands schools:
In Maori you don’t have phonics, but they’ve coined these words, and they, the poor
children are, like vowels, they say volvera, phonics, poniki. I asked the older teachers,
and I said, were you taught like this when you were small, and they said no. We knew
we just had, the, well, we knew it was the vowels, but you know that was it, a, e, i, o, u,
and I said exactly. So, why are you people teaching, because then, when I was teaching
phonics in Grade 1, I was getting mixed up with the phonics, because they were in Maori.
So, when it came to that, they kind of really, you know, whatever we did in reading, in
English, everything, they tried to do the same thing in Maori.
Overall, Ben expressed his concerns with teaching Maori as if it were English. As a written
language, English was taught by isolating letters from words to then pair letters with sounds.
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Students learned phonics to decode words to understand their meaning. Ben contended that
learning Maori was different from learning English and should follow a different pedagogy. He
was not taught phonics on his Pacific island, and he claimed that the older generation of Cook
Islands teachers were not taught phonics to learn Maori. Yet, Maori was being taught in the
same way as English. Ben questioned this practice and explained that “the children were just
getting confused with the English and Maori.” When he learned language on his island, he
explained a very different way of learning an oral language:
We, what we did was we would make, they’ll say, make a word from this. We’ll make
word and then we’ll put it into sentence, and then the sentence structure comes in, and the
teacher just tells us, okay like in English you have a capital and you have the full stop and
the comma. That was it.
Through this short description of how he learned his oral language, he communicated a much
more contextualized view of learning. Letters and words were not learned in isolation, as in
learning phonics. In contrast, words were learned and then were placed within a context, a
sentence. Finally, English elements of writing such as the capital and full stop (period) were
added last, since they were layered upon the language. Ultimately, Ben’s discussion implied the
difference between Indigenous ways of teaching language as opposed to Western ways of
teaching language. In addition, he also shared an understanding of general pedagogical
differences between Pacific Islanders’ ways of learning and Western ways. He explained the
following:
It’s more of hands on, not only for Cook Islands, but it’s right throughout the Pacific. It’s
more practical, rather than sitting like this. Making eis, that’s how I would interpret a
Cook Islands way of learning is by doing, not by seeing, but by doing it.
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As with other teachers in the first cohort, Ben believed that a Cook Islands pedagogical practice
was learning by doing. “Making eis” or traditional, flowered crowns and necklaces embodied
what he believed to be Indigenous pedagogy. Furthermore, he shared that this pedagogical
practice was shared throughout the Pacific. On the other hand, he claimed that a Western way of
learning was in a classroom. He explained that it was “like using a blackboard, cause otherwise,
we would be learning outside and doing things with everybody in the community.” Ben
articulated the differences between Western and Indigenous ways, yet he did not assert that the
underlying structure of schooling in the Cook Islands was problematic.
Within this cohort, each teacher’s Indigenous stance filtered differently into their
perceptions of teaching and learning in Cook Islands schools. Aiana did not articulate an
understanding of school intersecting with culture and tradition. She communicated perceptions
of pedagogy being parallel to her Indigenous positioning. In contrast, Ben articulated an
intersection between pedagogy and his Indigenous stance. Yet, his critical perspective did not
run deeper into the structures of schooling. Next, I explain how their positioning and beliefs
played out in their views of ICT integration.
ICT as a Neutral Tool Representing Change
Both teachers in this cohort expressed ICT as a neutral tool representing change. As a
neutral tool, they saw ICT as not necessarily affecting Indigenous language and culture, and only
having the capability of enhancing teaching and learning, when utilized. In essence, ICT
represented a change that would inevitably have to be adapted to like any other change in
society. To illustrate the two teachers’ perceptions, I first share their stance toward change and
how this might have intersected with their Indigenous positioning. Then, I explain how their
views of ICT intersected with their beliefs about the purpose of school. Last, I share how both
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teachers were uncritical of ICT, and therefore, saw it as a neutral tool that ran parallel to
Indigenous language and culture.
First, both Aiana and Ben possessed an Indigenous epistemic stance, which filtered into
their beliefs in adapting to change. As a result, both teachers saw ICT as an extension of changes
in society for uptake. From an Indigenous perspective, change is embedded in seasonal cycles
(Brayboy & Maughan, 2009), as well as unexpected in events such as a cyclone. To live from an
Indigenous perspective is to constantly be adaptive to change. Aiana exhibited this stance when
she stated, “Well, some of the changes, we can’t help, because time has changed. We go with
the flow of time. We can’t go back to our old days, because time has changed now. We go with
the flow.” Aiana described change as uncontested. From her view, change was inevitable, and,
in a sense, unchangeable. Ben offered the same views about change. When asked about what
Cook Islands children would gain from using ICT, he claimed, “First of all, the world is
changing and they will be needing all of these gadgets, anyway, whether they like it or not, they
need to learn, that’s the future now, it’s going that way.” Ben saw change from a broader
perspective and included ICT or “these gadgets” as part of the changes around the world that
would inevitably require adaptation.
In addition, the teachers’ stance toward change intersected with their beliefs about the
purpose of education, which tempered their perceptions of ICT. Ben aligned his view of ICT
with his belief that school should broaden students’ horizons in learning. He exhibited this belief
through the following contribution:
I keep saying we have to move with the time, these children, they have all these, you
know, like I was sharing, I mean this is old school [points to blackboard]. I have really
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some bright students, but they have no time, but last year, when we had iPads, oh they
were on it, it’s a change in time, and it’s about time we change too.
Ben believed that ICT represented changes in time that the students had already adapted to, while
teachers had not. He viewed technology integration as a way to engage the “bright students,”
which was connected to his belief that school should broaden students’ horizons. Aiana also tied
ICT integration to her belief that the purpose of education was to upskill students. She claimed,
“I want my kids to use that in the classroom. I want them to use and know, so when they have
jobs, they know how to use this, these ah technology things.” Aiana wanted to integrate ICT into
her teaching so students would have the skills they needed to compete in the current job market.
Both Aiana and Ben connected their purposes of education to their perceptions of ICT.
Lastly for Aiana and Ben, Western influence and ICT was simply another form of change
that required adaptation on the part of Cook Islanders. While Aiana offered rich ways to
contextualize the use of ICT on Aitutaki, such as capturing the different stiches of tivaevae
(traditional quilting) or showing Indigenous signs of cyclones by taking pictures of banana trees
with twisted leaves, her overall perception of ICT was not filtered through a critical lens. She
did not discuss ICT as a cultural tool that could influence students away from their language and
culture. Rather, she simply stated, “ICT is there, the language is there, so it is a matter of
teaching them.” She continued to give an example of the parallel nature of ICT and language in
the classroom, by explaining how she could use ICT to teach Cook Islands Maori:
Well, you can choose a picture on there, and then ask the kids what you can see. Tell
about what you can see. And the kids will tell, I can see a woman, she has a flower in her
ear, and all that. Her dress is red. Her hair is long. So, I don’t think there is any
influence in that. Just show and then speaking Maori.
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In her perception, ICT was not a cultural tool made within the language and values of dominant
Western views. She believed that pictures taken from ICT would have no influence on
children’s Cook Islands values and beliefs, when paired with the language. She understood ICT
to be a tool for teaching anything, including Cook Islands language and culture.
Ben described ICT in a similar manner. While he offered ideas of texting in Maori or
videoing traditional knowledge such as the making of a traditional canoe to support student
engagement with language and culture, he also did not express a critical view of ICT. When
asked how, if at all, ICT represented values and beliefs, he stated:
I think it shouldn’t change, as much as we love ICT it’s just to enhance, our learning and
everything, but I think our values should remain, meaning if it’s a good one, you know it
should remain as.
Ben did not communicate an understanding of ICT as a cultural tool dominated by Western
discourses. He believed that the user could interact with ICT without changing their values and
beliefs. Ben saw ICT as a neutral tool that “helped” teachers with instruction, rather than a
cultural tool that could bring students away from their Indigenous language and culture. In terms
of existing curriculum and instruction, which included Indigenous content and practices, Ben
believed ICT use could run parallel.
Overall, the two teachers in this cohort were uncritical of ICT affecting Indigenous
language and culture, since they believed it was a neutral tool. Viewing ICT as a neutral tool,
the teachers connected their purposes of education to their perceptions of ICT. ICT was then
envisioned as a tool to support broadening students’ horizons and upskilling students to engage
in the current job market. Although they possessed an Indigenous stance, their perceptions of
ICT did not include grounding students in Cook Islands Maori ways of knowing and being.
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Rather, Aiana and Ben saw ICT as a tool to be used to enhance teaching in general without a
focus on language and culture.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this finding emerged from two teachers’ meaning making of ICT
integration. These teachers believed that ICT was a neutral tool to be adapted in a parallel
fashion to the existing curriculum and instruction. Although they were positioned within an
Indigenous epistemic stance, both teachers’ beliefs were also filtered by a foundational belief in
accepting change. Pedagogically, Aiana did not communicate a belief in grounding students in
Indigenous ways. Although Ben did question the way Maori was being taught as if it were
English, he did not extend his critical views to the structures of schooling. Overall, both teachers
did not contest change; they did not possess a critical lens toward ICT or changes within Cook
Islands society. Therefore, their beliefs about the purpose of school and ICT were aligned, while
their Indigenous perspective was marginalized to discussions of content. Broader, global beliefs
of ICT as needed for future skills or engagement in broader learning experiences took the place
of conversations situated in sustaining Indigenous language and culture. Thus, these teachers
relegated Cook Islands Maori language and culture to content inserted into dominant views of
utilizing ICT.
Finding 5: ICT as a Neutral Tool That Engages Students in the Western World by
Providing Opportunities While Supporting Language and Culture Learning
The fifth finding showed that those located in a hybrid stance dominated by Western
beliefs saw ICT as a neutral tool that offered individualized learning opportunities for students to
engage in the Western world, while supporting language and cultural learning. Four of 21 or
19% of participants shared this meaning making of ICT. One of the participants in this cohort
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was a teacher on Aitutaki, while the rest were teachers on Rarotonga. All four teachers were
born and raised overseas with one teacher being of Cook Islands descent. They had a range of
experience teaching abroad from 7 to 12 years. In contrast, this cohort had been teaching in the
Cook Islands from only 2 to 4 years. Teachers within this cohort demonstrated a hybrid stance
that was dominated by Western beliefs with elements of Indigenous Cook Islands views. These
Indigenous elements did not filter into their beliefs about the purpose of school, which were
focused on providing opportunities for students to reach their individual ambitions. While
offering cultural considerations within their views of pedagogy, teachers mostly drew upon their
Western stance to describe teaching and learning. Ultimately, these four teachers saw ICT from
a hybrid stance, based mostly in their Western views. Not critical of ICT as possibly inciting
loss of a Cook Islands Maori perspective among students, these teachers believed ICT was a
neutral tool to support language and culture, but mostly to engage in the Western world of
individual opportunity.
To illustrate how teachers made meaning of ICT integration, I first discuss their hybrid
stance. Utilizing the indicators from Jonassen’s (2003) pillars, I determined teachers’ location
toward or away from an Indigenous stance. Then, I discuss their beliefs about the purpose of
school and pedagogy, which were mostly grounded in their Western stance. Lastly, I explain
how they viewed ICT as a neutral tool, and divulge how their hybrid perspective filtered into
their perceptions of ICT integration.
Western Stance Influenced by Indigenous Epistemology
Teachers within this cohort were positioned within a hybrid stance. Utilizing the three
indicators from Jonassen’s (2003) pillars of Cook Islands Maori personality and culture, I show
the depth of teachers’ understanding of language as identity, land as life, and unity through
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reciprocity. Except for the first indicator, language as identity, teachers articulated a surface
understanding of Indigenous epistemology, which showed that they had moved toward
Indigenous ways but were mostly positioned within a Western stance. In turn, I demonstrate
their hybrid stance by reviewing to what extent teachers aligned with the indicators.
Language as identity. Three teachers clearly articulated that language was tied to
identity, while one teacher, Martin shared his belief that language was important for students to
learn. While Martin only expressed the importance of language in schools, Tamara, Thomas and
Grant articulated that language was tied to identity. First, Tamara explained her views:
I think the language and culture, they kind of go together, and I think that it should never
be allowed to just fade away, because it’s who people are. I think it’s the people. It
shows who they are as Cook Islanders.
Tamara connected language to culture and shared her belief that “it’s who people are.” In
particular she tied language to being a Cook Islander, which showed her understanding of
language as identity. Thomas expressed the same view of language when he stated, “Language
is important for cultural reasons, and a disconnect from language is a disconnect from culture so
I think that the Cook Islands Maori language is very important.” Thomas also connected
language to culture to describe his belief that language was important. He continued this line of
thought, regarding Maori language learning in school:
I think it’s important for the identity of the students, that is the predominant culture and it
is important that they can express it and be proud of doing it. To be able to come into
school and not leave culture at the door.
Thomas clearly indicated his belief that language was tied to culture and thus, to identity. He
believed students should be able to express their culture through language while at school. In
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addition, Grant tied language to culture and a national identity. Regarding language, he stated,
“It’s part of the culture, so it’s something that should be a strong part of the schools too.” When
asked why language should be a part of learning, he stated, “To hold on to the national identity
of the Cook Islands.” Thus, three teachers within this cohort explicitly connected language with
identity.
Three teachers in this cohort articulated language as identity, while one teacher expressed
language as important. From this indicator of Indigenous positioning, three teachers
communicated their Indigenous views toward language, while one had implied his move towards
Indigenous ways.
Land as life. All four teachers in this cohort did not articulate their belief in land as life.
From Jonassen’s (2003) view, land ties a Cook Islands Maori to culture, family and ancestry.
When asked what the question “where are you from” means, the teachers did not express place
as having any particular significance. Tamara explained that the color of her skin prompted
people to ask her where she was from, which she tied to “ethnic background.” Thomas believed
that people were searching for connections, when they asked “where are you from,” while Martin
tied the question to his accent. Teachers’ responses to what this question meant showed that they
thought back to a time when someone asked them the question, rather than connecting the
question to Indigenous Cook Islands views of the importance of land. When teachers were asked
if the question was important, they all responded that it depended on the context. As Martin
stated, “It depends who is asking.” Teachers in this cohort showed that they did not view land
from an Indigenous Cook Islands perspective, implying their Western views.
Unity and reciprocity. Teachers in this cohort aligned with the third indicator from
Jonassen’s pillars in two ways. Two teachers expressed unity and reciprocity by valuing the
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passing of knowledge from one generation to the next. In addition, the two other teachers
expressed unity and reciprocity through gift giving. While teachers could identify the
importance of these practices to Cook Islands culture, in their description of these practices, three
did not articulate the deeper meaning of unity and reciprocity according to Jonassen’s views.
Only one teacher clearly indicated his Indigenous views when discussing the concepts.
Tamara and Thomas showed their move toward Indigenous ways by expressing the
importance of passing knowledge from one generation to the next. First, Tamara shared the
following:
The knowledge that the old people have, and there’s a lot of knowledge, and I was saying
to the children the other day, every time my father tells me a story, I write them down,
because I said, you know, once the old people die, and that knowledge is not written or
recorded, it’s gone forever.
Tamara revealed her belief in sustaining and sharing intergenerational knowledge as important to
the Cook Islands. In particular, since her father was a Cook Islander, she had listened to his
stories and understood the need to record his knowledge for future generations. Thomas also
expressed his belief in passing traditional knowledge. He stated, “it gets passed down,
generation to generation, or through family or through mentors.” Although Tamara and Thomas
shared their understanding of the importance of intergenerational knowledge, they both did not
articulate a deeper meaning behind this practice.
Grant and Martin shared the practice of gift giving, which was rooted in unity through
duties to family, village, and country. Grant explained the concept of gift giving through
students’ fundraising for the rugby team to go to Hawaii to represent the Cook Islands. He
explained that many students that were not going sold plates of food to raise the money:
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They will work all through the night, and they will still go to school the next day. And,
all of this to help some of their fellow classmates to represent the Cook Islands. And
that’s a good sense of being on that same vaka, that they are all one, regardless if these
guys are not going, they are still part of that community, it’s still their fellow classmates,
and I think that’s probably the Cook Islands way, as far as the community and helping
out others.
Grant expressed the concept of unity through students’ willingness to provide the resources for
their classmates to represent their school and country in Hawaii. Tying this practice of resources
to all “being on that same vaka” or canoe demonstrated Grant’s knowledge of Indigenous ways
of knowing and being. While Grant articulated the deeper meaning tied to unity and reciprocity,
Martin shared a surface view of gift giving. He explained a practice that embodied Cook Islands
values: “I think the sharing, the sharing of food. We often come home and especially here, since
we’ve been in Aitutaki, there’s been a bucket of fruits, or people knock on the door and bring us
fish.” Although identifying gift giving as a Cook Islands way, he was unable to further explain
how this was tied to deeper values connected to familial duties across generations.
While teachers in this cohort shared their knowledge of practices tied to the concepts of
unity and reciprocity, they did not articulate the deeper meaning behind the practices. Overall,
teachers showed how they had moved toward Indigenous ways, rather than how they were
grounded in Indigenous Cook Islands epistemology. Only one teacher clearly communicated
how unity and reciprocity played out through an Indigenous lens.
In conclusion, teachers in this cohort demonstrated their hybrid stance. Teachers aligned
with Jonassen’s (2003) indicators to varying degrees, which showed how they had moved toward
Indigenous ways. While teachers could fully articulate the meaning of some of the indicators,
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they could not express the same depth of knowledge in terms of other indicators. Furthermore,
all four teachers did not emphasize the importance of land from a Cook Islands Maori
perspective. This indicator in particular positioned them within a Western stance, where land
was deemed separate from self. Thus, teachers’ varying views between Western and Indigenous
perspectives positioned them within a hybrid stance. Next, I share teachers’ views of the
purpose of education.
Serving Students’ Individual Hopes and Ambitions
Teachers within this cohort believed in two main purposes of education tied to their
Western stance. Teachers believed that education was to provide students with the opportunity
to pursue their own interests and career pathways. In addition, teachers believed that education
should expose students to opportunities outside of the Cook Islands to further their studies.
These purposes of education were not aligned with Indigenous views of duties to family, village,
and country. Teachers’ perceptions of the purpose of school aligned with dominant, Western
perspectives.
Teachers in this cohort established education as the provision of skills and opportunities
for students to choose and pursue their own pathways in life. Thomas shared his belief in
individualizing learning through his description of what learning should look like:
I guess it would be, if I can strip away times tables and assessment requirements, it would
be individualized to the student. Community and family would be well involved,
students will have access to learning anytime and devices to do that. It wouldn’t be
restricted by bells or timetables. There would be career advisal pathways for students to
make wise decisions about what they want to do and what they need to do to get where
they want to be.
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Thomas’s ideal school would support students to choose and pursue the careers that they desired.
He implied that communities would be involved to support students’ learning pathways, but
ultimately suggested that school was about the individual student, rather than based in a
collective cultural identity. Martin, seconded Thomas’s views when he explained that students
should learn the following:
What they want to learn, what they are interested in learning, but they need to know how
to read obviously, and basic maths and general, maybe some general knowledge, but I
think it depends on the students.
Martin also believed that aside from basic skills, students should be able to learn whatever they
desired. He wanted to see students “chasing their dreams,” and did not connect the purpose of
education to Indigenous Cook Islands ways of knowing and being.
In addition, teachers believed that the purpose of education was to support students in
extending their learning beyond the Cook Islands. While Grant desired students to have a
“growth mindset” and always view the academic pathway as something that they could pursue
outside of the Cook Islands, Tamara offered the strongest belief in students engaging in the
global world. She stated the following:
I’d like to see them go on. I know it’s quite difficult for them here, to continue with
further education, but I’d like children to develop that knowledge, to want to know what
is out there, maybe because it’s something I want myself, but I think it’s good. You can’t
just live in a little bubble. The world is such a small place.
Tamara believed that students should go abroad and further their education. She disclosed that
living overseas was something that she valued and hoped for students to value as well.
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Suggesting “the world is such a small place” implied her desire for students to see the world and
possess a global perspective.
Teachers within this cohort shared purposes of education that were situated in dominant,
Western views. Focusing on the individual in pursuit of their own dreams and desires, the
teachers believed school should be tailored to what students wanted to learn. They also believed
students should engage with the wider world outside of the Cook Islands. Teachers’ views of the
purpose of education were located in a Western stance, which also emerged within their beliefs
about pedagogy.
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy
Teachers within this cohort did not seek to ground pedagogy in Indigenous Cook Islands
ways of knowing and doing. Rather, they made cultural considerations within their views about
pedagogy, but ultimately drew on their Western stance to define learning and teaching. Their
views were inclusive of students’ backgrounds as Cook Islanders, in the same manner that they
would teach students of diverse backgrounds in any locality. Overall, their Western stance
emerged as dominant in their views about pedagogy.
First, teachers discussed Maori language learning as not based in Indigenous pedagogies,
but rather grounded in an English perspective. Their acceptance of the dominance of pedagogies
tied to English learning, showed their Western stance. Since Tamara, like all of the other
teachers in this cohort, could not speak Maori, she offered her views of teaching Maori from her
dominant perspective:
I observed another teacher teaching. I think they are trying to use, what the children learn
in English, and structure it into Maori, because most of the children are first language
English speakers as opposed to Maori. I like the idea that she’s trying to make Maori
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more engaging to the students and offering them activities that they can rotate through at
their own level, and the fact that the Maori curriculum is loosely based on the English
model, so we’re doing recounts at the moment and [she] is doing recounts in Maori.
Recognizing that students’ first language was English as opposed to Maori changed pedagogy.
Yet, Tamara’s full acceptance of teaching Maori as if it were English showed her Western
stance. While teachers located in a strong Indigenous epistemic stance were critical of the
curriculum as not grounded in a Cook Islands Maori stance, Tamara did not question “the fact
that the Maori curriculum is loosely based on the English model.” Her dominant perspective did
not allow her to see the situation from a different lens. From a liberal stance, she championed
the teaching of Maori, but was not critical of the pedagogy enacted to ground students in a
language tied to their identity.
Martin also expressed the liberal belief that Cook Islands students should be strong in
their own language. Yet, he demonstrated his Western stance, when he claimed that since the
curriculum was mostly in English, students should mainly be taught English. In regards to Maori
language learning, he stated:
Well, it needs to be taught and they need to be strong in their own language. I think yeah,
well, because we teach, everything is in English, all the curriculum is in English, so I hate
to say it should be secondary, but it should be as well. But mainly English should be
taught. But that’s a huge problem that I have and most of the students.
Although Martin shared his belief that students should learn the Maori language, he explained
that the curriculum documents were mostly written in English. Therefore, he believed that
students should learn and strengthen their English to succeed in the school system that currently
existed. Again, Martin did not question the fact that the curriculum documents for the country
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catered to English rather than Maori. Thus, he did not communicate a critical approach to
pedagogy.
While Tamara and Martin aligned their pedagogical thinking toward dominant
perspectives, Thomas and Grant discussed including Maori within their teaching. Even though
they could not speak the language, they believed in using Maori words in the classroom, while
interacting with students. For example, Grant explained, “I can learn more and embrace more,
so as far as basil is called miri, just little simple things like that so when I hear them talking
about it, I go oh okay, yeah, so being able to relate to them.” Grant learned Maori words to build
relationships with students. His purpose of using the language was aligned to asset pedagogies
of valuing students’ background. Thomas stated, “I put the date in Maori on the board. I have
what we are doing today in Maori. I greet them in Maori, ‘ka kite’ at the end of the day. Actual
teaching and learning very little.” Although Thomas made a clear effort to incorporate Maori
into his teaching, he admitted that pedagogically, his practices were at a surface level. Thus,
teachers within this cohort believed language learning was important to Cook Islands students,
yet their knowledge and enactment of pedagogy were limited by their dominant ways of knowing
and doing.
Second, while teachers in this cohort were able to discuss differences between Cook
Islands and Western ways of learning, they did not express a deeper understanding of how
pedagogy was tied to the historical context of the Cook Islands or Indigenous epistemology.
Their lack of deeper expression demonstrated their original Western stance. When asked what a
Western way of learning was, Tamara offered her understanding from a New Zealand Maori
perspective paired with her observations. She shared:
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I guess, sometimes if I think, I know it came up when I was at school, the New Zealand
Maori were saying they weren’t being given a fair deal, that they learned in a different
way than the Europeans, and they were saying, aw, you know this Western education
system is only geared for people from a Western background. I think it is a different way
of learning. I think it is more analytical and very structured and authoritarian and rigid.
That’s what it seems to me, rigid whereas the way of leaning here is more flowing and
laid back perhaps.
Thinking back to her schooling, Tamara had developed her own notions of a Western way of
learning, which she articulated as rigid and structured. She juxtaposed this definition with an
opposing definition for Cook Islands ways, being “flowing.” Yet, she also described Cook
Islands ways as “learning by doing.” Grant provided a similar description of Cook Islands
versus Western ways. While teachers positioned in an Indigenous stance could articulate the
origin of learning by doing as tied to ways of learning within the community, Tamara and Grant
did not.
In addition, Thomas and Martin offered similar descriptions of Western ways being more
rigid in comparison to Cook Islands ways as built upon relationships. First, he described the
following:
If you ask me what is a Western way of teaching, I would think that it is that very English
way from the 1800s where the teacher sat in front of 100 students and opened their heads
up and poured knowledge in. And, that was teaching, not necessarily for understanding
but teaching for recall.
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Thomas believed that a Western way of learning was rooted in an English historical context and
focused on recall. He described a positivist stance toward knowledge being transmitted. On the
other hand, he explained that Cook Islands ways of learning were based in relationships:
I think students in the Cook Islands like to talk to each other and make it clear in their
own minds that they have the right idea. And so that time for discussion is quite
important. So, I do make use of it, you know that think pair share strategy is quite useful.
Thomas believed that students in the Cook Islands were more focused on relationships. In his
observations, students learned through conversation and interaction. Allowing time for
discussion and using strategies such as “think pair share,” Thomas tried to address what he
believed were cultural ways of learning. Martin also offered Cook Islands ways as “a
collaborative thing” while Western was individualized. Yet, paired with both of their
assumptions of what Cook Islands ways of learning were, they did not offer further reasoning or
historical evidence to support their beliefs. Teachers within this cohort provided differences
between Cook Islands and Western ways of learning, yet the lack of depth in their explanations
of these pedagogies in regards to Indigenous epistemology showed their Western grounding.
Third, although teachers could recognize differences in Cook Islands and Western
pedagogies, they continued to articulate how they enacted pedagogies rooted in Western theories.
Their discussion of Western learning theories to address students’ needs showed their Western
stance. For example, Thomas discussed his use of Gardner’s multiple intelligences to help
students learn how to learn:
One of the things I do with students earlier on is Gardner’s multiple intelligences, that
little questionnaire, it gives them a feel for what their strengths may be. It’s not a “this is
your type test” and from that we talk about, what is a kinesthetic learning, what is a rote
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learner, and then I get them to think about how you have learned in the past and based on
what you just learned, how do you think you might learn better.
Thomas discussed how he used Gardner’s multiple intelligences to support students’
metacognitive processes. Grounding his teaching in a Western theorist that sought to oppose
industrial models of education to teach students in the Cook Islands showed that he approached
learning from a Western stance. Similarly, Grant believed in teaching “to bring in different
aspects as far as to cater to different learning styles.” This was his response to “the industrialized
system of learning.” Although teachers in this cohort had moved toward Indigenous
epistemology, the pedagogy that they claimed to enact was rooted in their belief in subverting
traditional, Western models of education. Thus, their pedagogy was grounded in Western beliefs
about educational change, rather than Cook Islands Maori beliefs.
In conclusion, teachers within this cohort discussed pedagogy in terms of their Western
stance. While they offered liberal, cultural considerations toward their pedagogical practices,
they did not discuss knowledge of Indigenous practices to ground students’ learning in language
and culture. Without deeper knowledge of language and culture, teachers were not able to
intersect Indigenous epistemology with pedagogy. Finally, I discuss teachers’ perceptions of
ICT as an extension of their mostly Western stance.
ICT as a Neutral Tool to Individualize Learning
Teachers in this cohort shared beliefs about ICT as a neutral tool from their mostly
Western stance. Although teachers divulged how ICT could support language and cultural
learning, ultimately, their views of ICT were mostly situated in Western paradigms.
Neutral tool. Teachers referenced ICT as a neutral tool that did not represent language
and culture. When asked what they thought students may lose from using ICT, three teachers
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responded with no losses and one teacher explained losses that were not specific to the Cook
Islands context. As an example of all three of their beliefs (Martin, Grant and Tamara), Tamara
responded in the following manner to the question regarding loss and ICT:
I don’t really think that they would lose anything by it, in the time that they are here, they
are learning, so I don’t think that they are not going to be learning if you know what I
mean…I don’t think we’re really going to lose anything.
Tamara believed that ICT could only support learning. When asked how ICT could influence
language and culture, she explained that “it can influence it in a good way, because you got
the Cook Islands dictionary, online dictionary, so you can use that.” She had not thought
critically about ICT as representing the dominant paradigm.
As another example, Thomas expressed ICT as a neutral tool by explaining how it was
simply a tool to engage students in learning. He stated:
ICT is a tool to help learning, and if I can explain something or allow students to learn
something using IT, it’s another tool in my tool kit. I also think it’s an engager, it may
help engage them in the activity.
Thomas explained that ICT was “another tool” in his “tool kit.” He did not view ICT as
possessing any particular significance or harboring any difference from other tools that he used
within his teaching. His viewpoint was shared with Grant, who referred to ICT as a piece of
equipment and a tool multiple times within his interview. In addition, when asked how, if at all,
do the use of ICTs represent values and beliefs, he responded within a generalized answer that
could apply to any context:
ICT breaks down social barriers. And so, people feel more inclined to express their
opinion than otherwise. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. I don’t think students
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understand the bigger picture of how that funny comment or silly photo might haunt
them.
While Thomas had reflected upon losses incurred with students using ICT, his beliefs were
generalized to all students, not just Cook Islanders. Thomas believed that the dangers of social
media breaking down social barriers, or as he later added, limiting face-to-face interactions were
possible losses for students. Yet, these losses applied to many contexts, rather than to specific
issues situated within the Cook Islands, a country with an Indigenous language and culture.
Teachers within this cohort believed that ICT was a neutral tool devoid of a cultural
essence (Marshall, 2000). Therefore, in contrast to teachers located within an Indigenous stance,
they did not articulate the same concerns about the dominance of English or Western values
represented through ICT. Teachers were not critical of ICT as steeped within a dominant
paradigm.
Supporting language and culture. As an extension of their beliefs about pedagogy,
which were rooted in dominant perspectives, the teachers communicated perceptions of ICT,
which were not grounded in Indigenous knowledge systems. First, Tamara explained the use of
iPads for students to practice their Maori. She explained what she had done:
Use the iPads to get children to record themselves, and I think they are recording
themselves when they do poems. I think so that they hear the sound of their voice, so
they can hear whether they are pronouncing words correctly or not. And then, last year
there were small groups of students doing small dramas in Maori. They were doing short
clips recording themselves and then critiquing what they have done.
When discussing how teaching Maori intersected with ICT use, she offered ways that the iPad
supported students’ building of skills, such as pronunciation. In contrast, teachers grounded in
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an Indigenous stance were able to discuss the significance of recording and listening to Maori,
since it was a spoken language. From their Indigenous epistemic stance, they recognized ICT as
a cultural tool to sustain Indigenous ways of learning. Thus, Tamara’s discussion demonstrated
that she was positioned within a stance closer to Western ways.
Second, Thomas and Grant offered ways that language and culture could be shared
through ICT. Yet, their discussion communicated these ways as another tool to support learning,
rather than using ICT to ground learning. Thomas explained how DVDs of Indigenous
knowledge could be shared and explored by students. As a specific program to add to learning,
he explained a set of traditional navigation videos he had used in his teaching:
Canoe is the People, talks about navigation and all those stories is one way to help keep
that knowledge alive and share it and explore. We used it in Pukapuka, and people from
other Pacific islands came and talked about how it’s being used in different countries.
And we used it to teach genetics in New Zealand.
Within his subject area, Thomas valued and found ways to utilize Indigenous knowledge
captured by ICT within his teaching. He believed that teaching with videos of this Indigenous
knowledge could help keep it “alive and share it” with others. While his teaching was culturally
relevant, he still maintained use of Indigenous knowledge as brought into his teaching, rather
than the crux of his teaching with ICT.
In addition, Grant viewed Cook Islands Maori apps as a way to sustain and share
language. He stated:
It could be a tool to reach out to more people. It would give more people access to the
knowledge. I mean, gosh, it could give so many more people access to the language. It
could also tie into what I teach as far as the hospitality industry, it would be something
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that could tie into the tourists as far as being able to understand what some people are
talking about, what some of the words are.
Grant viewed ICT as a tool to provide people with access to the Cook Islands Maori language.
Yet, his view was focused more on tourists, rather than grounding students in the language tied
to their identity. Martin offered a similar belief when he responded to the question, how do you
or would you use ICTs to teach Cook Islands language and culture? He responded, “People like
someone at the Ministry could use Skype, so people could make resources. I know that there are
not many books in Aitutakian, so maybe you could have some kind of interactive language
games.” While Martin shared his thinking about the possibilities in the moment, he did not
explain the reasoning or thought behind the importance of these ways of using ICT in specific
consideration of Cook Islands language, culture, and identity.
Overall, while teachers discussed ways to sustain and share Indigenous language and
culture through ICT, they again did not articulate how this connected to broader issues within the
Cook Islands context. Their focus was on using ICT as a tool to support language and cultural
learning. Yet, they had not considered and articulated the systemic processes needed to achieve
more complex goals for sustaining and revitalizing language and culture.
Westernized views. Lastly, teachers shared Westernized views of ICT rooted in their
individual beliefs about the purpose of school. These views clearly demonstrated their Western
stance. First, Tamara and Grant shared their belief that the purpose of integrating ICT into their
classrooms was to prepare students for the job market. Tamara explained her beliefs:
I think that the world that all of these students are growing into, I think it’s going to be a
really important part of their lives, particularly when they go to work or any kind of
career. I think the work force is kind of changing you know, you read about it all of the
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time, how things are just so much more… you know, it’s kind of different than when I
went to school, and, you know, that technology is there.
Tamara tied ICT to her purpose of education, which was to prepare students for the outside
world. The purpose of ICT integration was an extension of her beliefs about why children go to
school. Grant shared this belief in ICT as tied to the job market when he stated:
They would gain, as far as, the ability to compete with their peers worldwide. They
would be able to, as far as, their worldview would be expanded somewhat to access what
information is out there, as far as, the world.
Grant explained that students would gain the ability to compete with other students around the
world, accessing information that could expand their worldview. Suggesting the importance of
ICT as an integral part of students’ lives, especially to function in work situations, Tamara and
Grant’s views aligned with their broader purposes of education and dominant perspectives of
ICT integration.
In addition, Thomas and Martin’s beliefs about the purpose of integrating ICT into their
teaching aligned with their broader purpose of education. Both teachers believed that the
purpose of school was to support students’ in determining their own pathways in life. This
purpose filtered into their perceptions of ICT, since they both shared that ICT was a tool to
enable students to study whatever they would like to study. Thomas claimed that students could
“use [technology] in their lives to learn about whatever it is they want to learn about.”
Furthermore, Martin offered a similar view. He envisioned ICT use in the following manner:
All students on laptops, studying what they want to study. Having a facilitator, kids
doing different things. …You’ve got all this worldly knowledge, all these experts, all
these resources you can use. It’s just something different for the students. They can go
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on and look at things themselves, or have someone else go and look at a concept. It
really gives them the chance to research.
Martin revealed that laptops and the Internet enabled students to pursue their own studies and
seek out “experts” through research online. Thus, for Thomas and Martin, ICT afforded teachers
the ability to individualize learning for students to pursue their own educational pathways. This
Western view of ICT was not focused on the specific context of the Cook Islands or Cook
Islands language and culture. Rather it was rooted in dominant perspectives toward ICT.
In conclusion, teachers within this cohort perceived ICT to be a neutral tool to support
students’ learning. Teachers shared views that demonstrated their Western stance toward
education. First, I shared how teachers believed that ICT was a neutral tool. Second, I explained
that although teachers were able to articulate ways in which ICT could be used to support the
development of language and culture, their beliefs were not grounded in an Indigenous stance.
As a result, teachers did not establish systemic ways to sustain culture and language, since it was
not their focus. Last, I explained how teachers’ purpose of education rooted in dominant
perspectives filtered into their beliefs about the purpose of ICT integration. Overall, teachers’
Western stance dominated their views of ICT, while their move toward Indigenous ways of
knowing and doing was marginalized within their views.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the four teachers whose perceptions constructed this finding made
meaning of ICT through their Western epistemic stance tempered by elements of Indigenous
views. Teachers perceived ICT as a neutral tool to support the learning of language and culture,
while mostly engaging within the Western world of individualized opportunities. Teachers
exhibited a hybrid stance, since they did not articulate or fully align with the three indicators
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from Jonassen’s (2003) pillars of Maori personality and culture. Furthermore, they did not
provide a depth of understanding of Indigenous Cook Islands Maori ways of knowing and doing
in comparison to the participants positioned within an Indigenous stance. From a Western
stance, teachers offered dominant views of the purpose of education as providing students with
opportunities to further their studies abroad and pursue their own individual interests, without the
consideration of students needing to serve their country. Since they lacked deeper knowledge of
language and culture, teachers described learning and teaching from a Western stance. Overall,
teachers viewed ICT as a neutral tool from a dominant perspective with consideration of ICT
supporting language and cultural learning. While these four teachers demonstrated a mostly
Western view of ICT, the next finding offered the other end of the continuum in which one
teacher shared views completely aligned with Western epistemology.
Finding 6: ICT as a Neutral Tool That Engages Students in the Western World Through
Preparation for the Workforce
The sixth finding showed the other end of the continuum toward Western views. One
teacher or 4.7% of the 21 participants perceived ICT as a neutral tool to prepare students for the
workforce in the Cook Islands or abroad. Although this teacher, Nina, had 18 years of teaching
experience overseas, she only had one year of experience teaching on Rarotonga. A Cook
Islander by ancestry, Nina was born and raised overseas. She was positioned within a Western
stance, which aligned with her perceptions of the purpose of school, pedagogy, and ICT. For this
finding, I first show how she was located within a Western perspective. Next, I explain how her
Western stance filtered into her beliefs about the purpose of school. I then offer her beliefs about
culture and pedagogy. Finally, I discuss her perceptions of ICTs as neutral tools to promote job
readiness.
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Western Epistemic Stance
Nina was located within a Western epistemic stance. I utilized the three indicators from
Jonassen’s (2003) pillars of Maori personality and culture to position her within this stance.
Since she was not able to communicate knowledge or understanding of language as identity, land
as life, or unity through reciprocity, I determined that she did not view the world from an
Indigenous stance. Marshall (2000) describes Western epistemology as embodied within the
beliefs of philosophers such as Descartes, who separate the self from the body. I used this
understanding of knowledge as abstract and external from the self to position Nina within
Western ways of knowing and doing. For Nina, knowledge was not interconnected, lived, and
free flowing across generations.
First, rather than viewing the Maori language as tied to identity, she placed Maori
language learning along the same lines as learning English. For Nina, learning Maori was not
about knowing oneself as a Cook Islander. Instead, she described the Cook Islands language in
terms of correct pronunciation and usage:
I think the Cook Islands language is very broken. I don’t understand the Cook Islands
language myself. But what I have noticed is they are not fully immersed in English and
they’re not fully immersed in their own language, and so somewhere in between, you are
getting this mix of languages, of the language, so when the kids speak to me in English,
it’s like really? Miss shall I off the light? There’s an example. And a lot of that is
learned from the kids around them and from home as well, so the English isn’t great, and
the teachers at school say that the Maori isn’t great, and so you are getting this broken
language. Well actually, I shouldn’t say broken, the language is evolving isn’t it.
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Theoretically though, shouldn’t it be that if you are strong is one language, you should be
able to pick up a new one, isn’t it?
Nina expressed a view of language that did not include culture and identity. When asked to
describe Cook Islands language, she offered how it was a broken language based upon students’
lack of skills in English and Maori. Sharing her inability to speak the Maori language, Nina
shifted to discussing students’ difficulty with using standard English to illustrate how students
were caught between two languages. Her contention that strength in one language would enable
acquisition of another identified her stance toward language as an academic subject to be learned
in school. Nina did not communicate that language was connected to identity. Thus, she
demonstrated her Western stance by communicating that knowledge of language was separate
from the self.
Second, Nina did not view land or island as a lifeline that connected a Cook Islander to
ancestry and origin. When asked if the question “where are you from” was important, she stated,
“Well, it depends why the question is being asked I think. I do think it just depends, I don’t
think that it is an important question, but it might be for the person asking it, just being friendly.”
In her answer, Nina did not associate one’s place of origin as tied to culture and identity. While
teachers positioned in an Indigenous stance automatically expressed the importance of place,
Nina clearly stated that where you are from was not of particular importance. From this second
indicator, Nina showed that she was not located within an Indigenous stance. Instead, she
viewed land as separate from people and not interconnected.
Finally, Nina did not perceive the importance of unity through reciprocity. In terms of
unifying generations through the passing of values and knowledge, Nina did not believe in the
significance of this practice. She communicated this view when she stated the following:
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I think a lot of them still live in the past, I do, which I think is quite sad. A lot of them
still live in the past. They are still preaching or teaching what their fathers and
grandfathers, and great grandfathers taught them, and I think that’s lovely that it’s passed
down from one generation to the next, but it’s not just the knowledge, it’s all the values
here, those same old values get passed down too, and I don’t think there’s anything
wrong with that, but some of them take it to the extreme.
Nina did not view knowledge as intergenerational, woven from the past into the present.
Although she believed that passing knowledge was “lovely,” she was not in particular favor of
old values being passed, especially ones that were “extreme.” She did not perceive the unity
across generations as important to preserving a Cook Islands Maori identity. Additionally, she
did not view knowledge as inherently intergenerational, which demonstrated her Western stance.
In conclusion, Nina was positioned within a Western epistemic stance. Her views did not
align with language as identity, land as life, and unity through reciprocity. She internalized
knowledge as abstract and separate from the self. Her Western stance mediated her beliefs and
ultimately her perceptions of ICT. Next, I present how her epistemic stance filtered into her
view of the purpose of school.
Preparing Students for the Workforce
Nina’s Western epistemic stance mediated her belief about the purpose of school. From
her perspective, the purpose of school was to prepare students for the job marketplace. Since
Nina was positioned within a Western stance, she did not believe that school should be
interconnected with grounding students in an Indigenous identity. Therefore, she communicated
the purpose of school from a broad, global view, rather than tied to communities within the Cook
Islands.
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First, she expressed her belief that global perspectives, such as those shared by Australia
and New Zealand, afforded students more opportunities in life. When asked to share her beliefs
about why students attended school in the Cook Islands, she explained the following:
I’m not really sure. I can speak for some of the parents here. I know that some of the
parents here want a good education for their kids. Um, a lot of the kids that I taught last
year, ah what are you going to do when you leave college? Uh, I am going to go work in
the taro patch miss. So, I think that for a lot of kids here, because they haven’t been
outside of the islands, for them, this is their life, they don’t see anything for them that’s
greater than being outside of the islands. Most people see themselves working in
hospitality or on the plantations. Some students whose parents were educated outside of
the Cook Islands, that went to university in Australia or New Zealand, see a different
pathway for their kids.
From a Western perspective, Nina expressed life in the Cook Islands as limited compared to
countries overseas. She implied that the purpose of education was different for students
depending on whether their parents had been educated overseas. For students whose aspirations
were based within the islands, she was unclear about the purpose of education, while students
whose parents desired their children to attend universities abroad were more aligned to her
beliefs. Believing that the purpose of education was not tied to place demonstrated her Western
stance. Furthermore, her Western stance also emerged in her desire for graduates of the
education system to be happy in whatever profession they chose. She offered her beliefs:
I just want them to do something that they are proud of and that they feel successful in.
Whether they go to university, whether they take on an apprenticeship, whether they
work in a taro patch, or hospitality, you know it’s a job and if they’re happy with that,
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you know somebody has to drive a bus and somebody has to work in a shop. And I think
there are always going to be people around for that and if they’re not academically up
there, that’s okay, they don’t have to be, but if they’re happy down here doing that job,
that’s fine I think.
Nina expressed her view that school culminated in becoming part of the workforce. She
disclosed that she did not care what students did as a career, but rather that they were happy and
proud of their job. Her belief that students followed their own individual pathways without a
collective responsibility to the Cook Islands people aligned with her Western stance. From a
Western perspective, people are not strongly bound to land, community, and family. Thus, from
Nina’s view, graduates were not bound to anyone or any form of service. This perception
aligned with her Western stance, which focused on the individual’s pursuit of happiness.
Nina’s Western epistemic stance filtered into her perceptions of the purpose of school.
She expressed how school was not tied to unity of family, village, and country. Rather, she
viewed the purpose of school from a global perspective that focused on the individual. Next, I
share her perspective of pedagogy, which was also mediated by her Western epistemic stance.
All Students Learn the Same
Nina believed that “all kids learn the same.” Her Western epistemic stance filtered into
her beliefs about pedagogy. From a Western perspective, knowledge is abstract, separate from
the self and placeless (Marshall, 2000). Nina expressed this viewpoint by sharing her belief in
pedagogy as delivering discreet skills and knowledge to students without a focus on language
and culture.
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Nina’s Western stance emerged in her focus on basic facts in her teaching. When asked
what she remembered about primary school that had flowed into her teaching, she responded
with the following:
Probably something that has definitely flowed through all of my teaching career is basic
facts. Teaching basic facts. I rote learned it when I was in school, and I know when we
went to training college, we were told that we shouldn’t be teaching rote learning, but it’s
worked for me and it’s worked for all the kids that I taught.
Rote learning and memorization of basic facts was situated within traditional Western paradigms
of learning. Students learned discreet bits of knowledge to piece together at a later time. In
contrast, Indigenous knowledge was inherently tied to context. Nina viewed knowledge as
separated for students to learn. She believed that teaching basic facts “worked for all the kids”
that she taught. This factory model of education demonstrated her traditional Western stance.
Furthermore, Nina also viewed culture as a separate activity within school rather than
integrated into student learning. First, Nina shared how she viewed the existence of culture in
school as separate activities students completed such as welcoming foreign students from abroad.
She explained her school as “strong” culturally, because of these activities. Yet, she also
described these cultural activities as interruptions to the daily schedule of learning. When asked
if there was ever a time when culture was infused in the learning, she responded in the following
manner:
It interrupts the daily schedule, so I would be interested to see if it might be different this
year, because the principal has changed things a bit this year, so we got a cultural festival,
all the schools have in the last week of the term, so all the schools take part in it at the
auditorium and it happens at nighttime. Now in the past the practices in the schools have
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taken part during the day. This year our principal has changed it and said that she is not
going to interrupt our program. … I think it’s quite good to have it like that actually,
we’ve also got the Highland Paradise one as well that happens every year and usually
there’s a lot of interruptions with that one as well.
Nina implied that culture was a separate subject embodied in preparation for performances and
competitions. When asked if culture was infused in the learning at her school site, she responded
with a discussion about how cultural activities “interrupt the daily schedule.” She did not discuss
culture in terms of language, history, tradition or values. Rather, her discussion of culture
reflected activities such as singing, dancing, drumming, and welcoming students from abroad.
Nina did not view culture as something discussed and taught during instructional time. This
separation of culture from the curriculum further reflected her Western stance.
In terms of pedagogy, Nina did not possess a place based or culture based lens for
teaching and learning. According to her views, “all students learn the same.” Thus, her
pedagogy focused on delivering information to students and teaching discreet skills. Students’
individual background was not a focal point in her teaching. Her traditional Western stance
aligned with her understanding of how students learn.
ICT as a Neutral Tool for Job Readiness
Nina communicated ICT as a neutral tool for job readiness. Her Western epistemic
stance filtered into her perceptions of the purpose of school, pedagogy, and ultimately ICT. To
illustrate her perceptions, I first explain how she saw ICT as a neutral tool, which was grounded
in her belief that language was not tied to identity. Next, I show how her focus on teaching
English drew her away from considering how values and beliefs could be connected to ICT.
Then, I demonstrate her belief in the purpose of ICT as building more discreet skills to prepare
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students for the outside world. Finally, I establish how she valued a global view over local
perspectives, which was tied to how she valued ICT. Throughout the demonstration of her
perceptions of ICT, I reference how her Western epistemic stance was tied to her beliefs.
First, Nina demonstrated her belief that ICT was a neutral tool, placeless and not tied to
any particular language or culture. When asked how, if at all, ICTs represented values and
beliefs, she responded:
I haven’t really thought about that to be quite honest. To me it’s just about teaching them
the basics, so they know what to, how to use the, what is the word, to get themselves
around the information.
As an extension of her views about pedagogy, which were rooted in a traditional Western stance,
Nina believed ICT was yet another discreet skill to be taught. In contrast to teachers that were
positioned in an Indigenous stance, she disclosed that she did not view ICT as connected to
values and beliefs. She believed students needed to learn the basic skills to use ICT, rather than
examine how ICT affected who they were. She did not recognize that the language of ICT was
dominated by English. She also did not recognize that the content of ICT was dominated by
Western attitudes and beliefs. Steeped in a Western stance, Nina was unable to see ICT as more
than a neutral tool for teaching.
Nina was uncertain that ICT could influence Cook Islands language and culture. She was
not focused on Maori, and therefore, she had not considered ways that ICT could be used to
sustain Cook Islands language and culture. She expressed this view in her response to the
following question:
Do you think that ICTs can influence Cook Islands language and culture?
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I’d like to think it can, if there are programs out there. But as I said, they’re not strong
among language and even English is not strong among most of the kids. Even though
English is their first language, it’s not a strong language for them. The worst thing is, I
mean, I think that I’ve probably gotten a bit soft too, because if I’m marking something
and I hear the sentences. I think, that’s not grammatically correct, but I know what they
are saying, so I give it to them.
Since she believed students were not strong in Maori, she was uncertain how ICTs could
influence students’ language use. She expressed hope that they could, yet, in her narrative, Nina
immediately turned her attention to discussing English. Her shift toward discussing students’
incorrect grammar, instead of reflecting on ways in which ICT could influence Cook Islands
language and culture was evidence of her Western stance. Teachers positioned in an Indigenous
stance delved deeper into discussing ways that ICT had a negative impact on language or could
be used to mitigate language loss. On the other hand, Nina did not communicate a desire to
wrestle with meaning making of this intersection between ICT and Cook Islands language and
culture.
Lastly, since Nina did not share a strong belief in sustaining Cook Islands Maori ways of
knowing and being, she could only see gains with students using ICT. By teaching ICT skills,
such as how to find information on the Internet and use Word, Nina believed that ICT could open
the world to students. She shared her belief that students’ engaging with the world outside of the
Cook Islands could only be a positive influence. To frame her perspective, I share her purpose
of integrating ICT into her classroom in the Cook Islands:
For me, I like to use it as research skills, teaching research skills, knowing what to look
for on the Internet, um, knowing how to get that information, knowing how to pull that
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information off the Internet, knowing how to use it in assignments, knowing how to
publish.
Nina described the purpose of integrating ICT as teaching discreet skills. She continued to
discuss how she had taught students the basics of Word documents during the previous year:
I had kids last year who had never used a laptop, cause they’d only used their phone. So,
it was taking them, taking them on, a Word document, showing them what each icon
stood for, and showing them that they don’t have to highlight and change the font. So, it
was teaching them what was on the Word document, and saying, showing them that when
they are copying or pasting anything, they don’t have to change any font, or if they are
publishing, they can change it all later on.
From a traditional Western stance, school was a place where students were skilled to become
part of the workforce (Mehta, 2013). Nina’s discussion of integration as teaching very specific
ICT skills isolated from content aligned with her beliefs about the purpose of education and
pedagogy, which were grounded in her Western stance.
Since ICT was a neutral tool to Nina, she did not believe that students would incur any
losses with use. Nina saw ICT as another tool for upskilling students to open career pathways
beyond the Cook Islands. I share her response to the following question as evidence of her
beliefs:
What, if any, losses would Cook Islands children experience from using ICT in the
classroom?
I don’t know that I would call it a loss. I think it would just be, it wouldn’t be a loss for
the kids, because they wouldn’t know any better. Most of the kids here don’t get to go
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off the island, and the ones who don’t, get it and those who have parents that are driven
will take their kids off anyway.
Nina did not consider the consequences of integrating ICT for Cook Islands children. She
believed that ICT could only provide opportunities to mitigate the limitations of living on small
islands. She explained that students limited to the islands would be provided with more skills,
ICT skills, while students that had “driven” parents would use ICT, when they went abroad.
Nina was not critical of how students interfacing with ICT could affect their identity as Cook
Islands Maori. Therefore, students could only gain from using ICT. She stated:
Uh, I think it would open up the world for them. Definitely. I’ve had kids who have
never ever been off the island before. Last year, I tried this thing with my kids, it was a
complete failure. I’ve always done it with my class, and it’s about if you won all this
money what would you do with it? Most of them said I’d go to Australia. I’d go to New
Zealand. I’d go to Mauke. I’d go to Aitutaki. They didn’t think outside of anywhere but
those three places. Yeah, so I think the Internet would open a whole new world.
Nina was positive that students would only gain from using ICT. She believed that ICT would
enable them to engage with the global world, to open their perspectives past the places where
most Cook Islanders live. Her identification of the activity as a “failure” when students did not
desire to travel to places beyond New Zealand, Australia, and their own islands showed she
valued a global view. She understood ICT as a tool to share a global view with her students,
since they could engage with the world through the Internet.
Nina believed that ICT was a neutral tool to engage with the Western world. Her
Western epistemic stance filtered into her beliefs about ICT. She saw ICT integration as another
set of discreet skills to teach students in preparation for the job market. She also emphasized that
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ICT could open students to the wider world. Her views were in direct opposition to teachers
within the first cohort that viewed ICT from an Indigenous stance.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Nina represented the Western end of the continuum. Since she was
positioned within a strong, traditional, Western epistemic stance, Nina’s views of the purpose of
education, pedagogy, and ICT aligned seamlessly. Positioned within a Western epistemic stance,
she viewed knowledge as separate from the self, rather than interconnected. Her views did not
align with the indicators of language and land as identity or unity through the reciprocation of
intergenerational knowledge. From this view of knowledge, she determined the purpose of
education as preparation for the workforce. Her beliefs about pedagogy supported this view
through the teaching of discreet knowledge and skills to be applied later in life. Ultimately, these
beliefs filtered into her meaning making of ICT integration. She believed that ICT was another
skill set to teach students in preparation for the workforce, and in hopes that they would be
opened to life abroad. Nina’s perception of ICT represented Western epistemology and was in
opposition to Indigenous Cook Islands ways of knowing and being.
Summary

The purpose of this dissertation was to understand the ways in which teachers made
meaning of ICT integration in the Cook Islands. Overall, analysis of the data revealed that
teachers’ perceptions of ICT were mediated by their epistemic stances. Six findings defined the
range of perceptions of ICT that emerged from the data. These findings represented a continuum
of perspectives between a strong Indigenous epistemic stance and a Western stance. For each
finding, I explained how participants within the cohort made meaning of the role of ICT in Cook
Islands learning and teaching. I first determined teachers’ epistemic stance through their
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understanding of the three indicators gleaned from Jonassen’s (2003) pillars of Maori personality
and culture. Then, I discussed how their epistemic stance aligned or was in conflict with their
beliefs about the purpose of education and pedagogy. Finally, I demonstrated how the mediation
between their stance and beliefs played out in their perceptions of ICT integration.
By filtering their epistemic stance through their context-dependent, and often conflicting
values and beliefs about the purpose of school and pedagogy, teachers’ epistemic stance was the
main indicator of what role they believed ICT integration played or should play within the
classroom. I summarize the findings below:
• Finding 1: On one end of the continuum, five teachers’ strong Indigenous stance fully
aligned with their beliefs about the purpose of school, pedagogy and ICT integration.
Teachers’ perception of ICT as a cultural tool to ground students in Cook Islands Maori
ways of knowing and doing was an extension of their desire to subvert the Western
dominance within the education system.
• Finding 2: The second finding included six teachers who shared an Indigenous epistemic
stance, paired with Western views of the purpose of education. As a result, these teachers
viewed ICT as a cultural tool to first sustain Cook Islands language and culture, and then
engage with the Western world.
• Finding 3: The third finding described three teachers who were originally within a
Western epistemic stance, but had moved toward Indigenous perspectives. As a result,
these teachers possessed a hybrid stance, one that filtered into viewing ICT as both a tool
to sustain language and culture and engage with Western ways.
• Finding 4: The fourth finding described the discrepant case of two teachers that were
positioned in an Indigenous epistemic stance, but viewed ICT as a neutral tool that was
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parallel to language and culture. Since these teachers did not contest change, they
believed uptake of ICT was inevitable and were not critical of ICT’s influence upon
language and culture. Therefore, they believed that the uptake of ICT in the classroom
was parallel to language and culture.
• Finding 5: The fifth finding indicated that four teachers who were mostly Western within
their perspective viewed ICT as a neutral tool to provide students with more opportunities
to learn and engage with the Western world. Teachers who shared this liberal view were
more focused on inclusion of Cook Islands students within the global, dominant
discourse around ICT and were not critical of the loss of Indigenous language and culture
possibly incited by use.
• Finding 6: Lastly, finding six marked the other end of the continuum with one teacher’s
view of ICT as a placeless tool, decontextualized from the Cook Islands. This teacher’s
epistemic stance aligned with her beliefs about the purpose of school, pedagogy, and ICT.
From a strong Western perspective, this teacher saw ICT as yet another set of discreet
skills to be learned in preparation for the job marketplace.
Overall, teachers positioned at the opposite ends of the continuum communicated clear
alignment between their epistemic stance and their beliefs about the purpose of education,
pedagogy and ICT integration. Teachers positioned within the second and fifth finding
communicated alignment between their epistemic stance and most of their beliefs about the
purpose of education, while teachers within the middle findings, both three and four,
experienced the most misalignment between their views. Other than the discrepant case
illustrated in finding four, teachers located within or toward an Indigenous stance were
critical of ICT as a cultural tool representing the dominant paradigm. In contrast, those
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teachers positioned within or closer to a Western stance perceived ICT as a neutral tool, not
dominated by any culture or language. Teachers perceptions of ICT were also connected to
their beliefs about the purpose of education. Thus, teachers made meaning of ICT integration
by filtering their epistemic stance through the complex web of experiences, values and
beliefs that inform practice.
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CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION
ICTs are a characteristic of change initiatives that stem from the rhetoric around
globalization, 21
st
century learning, and sustainable development (Clothey, 2015). Although the
integration of ICTs in learning and teaching have great potential, the uptake of these tools can
have negative and positive consequences, especially for places with Indigenous languages and
cultures at risk of disappearing (Clothey, 2015; Dyson, 2004). Bowers (2008) argues for
progressive reform movements, such as ICT integration, to include conservation as a means to
mitigate “change” as another form of hegemony. From Bowers’ perspective, conservation
involves possessing an awareness of the ecological importance of intergenerational knowledge,
skills, and patterns of interactions that embody traditions.
Uptake of ICTs within the classroom is situated within the conversation around teachers’
epistemic stances: what can be known, how to know it, and why it is of value (Horn & Kane,
2015). Teaching with ICTs can be enacted from different epistemic stances, and those stances
have negative and positive consequences for students and their communities. The use of ICTs in
education systems that serve Indigenous populations requires careful thought and consideration,
since “change” through the use of ICTs can become an external imposition upon classroom
practice grounded within Indigenous knowledge. As an external imposition, rather than an
initiative generated from contextualized problems of practice, ICT integration can result in a loss
of the values and interactions that shape Indigenous cultures.
The purpose of this study was to discover how teachers, in the environment of the Cook
Islands shaped by the blending of Indigenous and Western knowledge systems, made meaning of
ICT integration. In particular, I focused on how teachers’ epistemic stances influenced their
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perceptions about ICTs as cultural or neutral tools. The research question and two sub-questions
guiding this study were:
How do teachers within the Cook Islands education community make meaning of the
transition from teaching, as they have known it, to teaching with technology?
• What role do teachers see technology integration playing in relation to sustaining,
sharing, and connecting with Indigenous Cook Islands language and culture?
• What role do teachers see technology integration playing in relation to engaging with
the Western world?
In order to understand how Cook Islands teachers made meaning of ICT integration, I examined
21 teachers’ beliefs regarding epistemology, the purpose of education, and pedagogy. I then
determined how these beliefs filtered into their perceptions of ICT integration. I approached this
study through the lenses of Cook Islands Maori epistemology, New Zealand Maori
epistemology, third space and funds of knowledge, culture based education, place based
education, and the intersection between ICT and Indigenous education.
Analysis of the data from interviews revealed that teachers’ epistemic stance was the
main indicator of teachers’ perceptions of ICT. In addition, teachers’ beliefs about the purpose
of school also emerged within their perceptions of ICT. Data analysis from the interviews
resulted in findings that represented a continuum of perspectives. I offer the following table
paired with a summary of each finding to illustrate the continuum:
Table 4.
Summary of Teacher Background Information Per Finding
Finding Number
of
Rarotonga
Teachers
Number
of
Aitutaki
Teachers
Ethnic
Origin
Childhood Years
Teaching
Overseas
Years
Teaching in
Cook
Islands
Epistemic
Stance
Perception
of ICT
One 4 1 Cook Islands
Maori
Cook
Islands
0 15-43 Indigenous Cultural
Tool
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Two 3 3 Cook Islands
Maori & Part
Cook Islands
Maori
Cook
Islands &
Foreign
0 1-16 Indigenous Cultural
Tool
Three 3 0 Part Cook
Islands
Maori &
Foreign
Foreign 3-12 1-3 Hybrid Cultural
Tool
Four 1 1 Cook Islands
Maori &
Foreign
Cook
Islands &
Foreign
0 18-40 Indigenous Neutral Tool
Five 3 1 Part Cook
Islands
Maori &
Foreign
Foreign 7-12 2-4 Hybrid Neutral Tool
Six 1 0 Cook Islands
Maori
Foreign 18 1 Western Neutral Tool

• Finding 1: Five teachers (23.8%) believed ICT was a cultural tool to revitalize
Indigenous Cook Islands language and culture as an extension of subverting the
Western paradigm. On one end of the continuum, teachers located within a strong
Indigenous stance demonstrated alignment between their views about the purpose of
school, pedagogy, and ICT integration. They believed strongly in school as a place
where students were grounded in a Cook Islands Maori stance to become future
leaders of their country. They contended that the current education system was based
in dominant, foreign perspectives, and sought to subvert the imposition of Western
ways upon Cook Islands Maori. Thus, their perceptions of ICT as a cultural tool to
revitalize Cook Islands language and culture was an extension of their critical views
rooted in their strong Indigenous epistemic stance.
• Finding 2: Six teachers (28.5%) believed ICT was a cultural tool to sustain and
reposition Indigenous Cook Islands language and culture as of importance
within the Western paradigm. While these teachers possessed a strong Indigenous
stance, they also believed that the purpose of school was to skill students for career
pathways and broaden students’ horizons beyond the Cook Islands. These beliefs
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emerged as a desire to position Cook Islands students as successful within dominant
paradigms. As a result, teachers’ views of pedagogy reflected a desire for students to
be versed in Cook Islands Maori ways, as well as be able to navigate dominate
discourses. Teachers in this cohort viewed ICT as a cultural tool to first sustain and
share Indigenous ways of knowing and being, and then enable students to navigate
the Western world.
• Finding 3: Three teachers (14.2%) believed ICT was a cultural tool to balance
Indigenous Cook Islands language and culture with Western perspectives. From
an original Western stance, teachers within this cohort had moved toward beliefs that
represented an Indigenous view, and therefore were located in a hybrid stance.
Teachers demonstrated a Western stance by communicating the purpose of education
being tied to the dominant rhetoric around globalization. Pedagogically, teachers
were inclusive of language and culture, which demonstrated their hybrid stance.
Through their perceptions of ICT, teachers continued to share their belief that
language was important to sustain, while they shared Western ideals regarding the
purpose of integrating ICT.
• Finding 4: Two teachers (9.5%) believed that ICT was a neutral tool
representing change to be adapted to as parallel to Cook Islands language and
culture. Representing a discrepant case, two teachers were located within an
Indigenous epistemic stance, which could be connected to a foundational belief in
accepting change. Without contesting change, teachers did not possess a critical lens
toward ICT or changes within the Cook Islands. Broader, global beliefs of ICT as
needed for future skills or engagement in learning took the place of conversations
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situated in sustaining Indigenous language and culture. These teachers believed that
ICT was a neutral tool to be adapted to in a parallel fashion to the existing curriculum
and instruction.
• Finding 5: Four teachers (19%) believed that ICT was a neutral tool that
engages students in the Western world by providing opportunities while
supporting language and culture. Mostly grounded in Western views, these
teachers demonstrated a hybrid stance, since they exhibited elements of Indigenous
positioning. From a Western stance, teachers offered dominant views of the purpose
of education as providing students with opportunities to further their studies abroad
and pursue their own individual interests, without the consideration of students
needing to serve their country. Lacking deeper knowledge of language and culture,
teachers described pedagogy from a Western stance. Overall, teachers viewed ICT as
a neutral tool from a dominant perspective with consideration of ICT supporting
language and cultural learning.
• Finding 6: One teacher (4.7%) believed that ICT was a neutral tool that engages
students in the Western world through preparation for the workforce. On the
other end of the continuum, one teacher was positioned within a strong, traditional,
Western epistemic stance. Her views of the purpose of education, pedagogy, and ICT
fully aligned. From a Western epistemic stance, she viewed knowledge as separate
from the self, rather than interconnected. From this view of knowledge, she
determined the purpose of education as preparation for the workforce. Her beliefs
about pedagogy supported this view through the teaching of discreet knowledge and
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skills to be applied later in life. She believed that ICT was another skill set to teach
students in preparation for the workforce and life abroad.
From this continuum of findings, I explain the implications and recommendations of this study.
Implications emerge from the continuum presented by teachers’ narratives, which give rise to
interconnected recommendations for research, policy, and practice.
Implications and Recommendations
This study provides insight into the way in which teachers’ epistemic stance mediated
their perceptions of ICT integration. By offering an alternate narrative to the story of technology
integration that intersects with Indigenous views of education, this study has implications for
Cook Islanders as ICT infrastructure continues to be built. As Internet access increases and more
devices are purchased within schools, the Cook Islands education community must carefully
consider the ways in which ICT will continue to be integrated in schools. This study shows that
decision making around ICT requires thinking about teachers’ foundational beliefs as well as the
education system as a whole.
The variance among teachers’ perceptions of ICT as tied to teachers’ epistemic stance
and beliefs about the purpose of education and pedagogy, reveals the central tension within the
Cook Islands education system. This tension emerges from the complexity of centering the
learner within a Cook Islands Maori identity in a school system that is Western or European. In
January of 2008, Minister of Education, Hon. Jim Marurai and Secretary of Education John J.
Herrmann published the Cook Islands Education Master Plan (EMP), which set the direction in
education for the next fifteen years. The central focus area of the EMP has been Taku Ipukarea
Kia Rangatira (Figure 7), which “involves strength in Maori language, culture, perspectives,
aspirations” and was intended to provide students with “a firm foundation for engagement with
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the wider world” (CIMOE, 2008, p. 4). Nine years into the EMP, the variance among
perceptions of ICT within this sampling of teachers implies that the teachers’ focus on grounding
students within Cook Islands Maori ways of knowing and being is fractured.

Figure 7. EMP focus areas. From “Learning for Life Cook Islands Education
Master Plan 2008-2023” by Cook Islands Ministry of Education, 2008, p. 3.

From this study’s findings, the fracturing of Taku Ipukarea Kia Rangatira emerges from
the variance in teachers’ epistemic stance, and additionally from the variance in teachers’ beliefs
about the purpose of education. A sample of 21 teachers yielded a range of stances and beliefs
that frame classroom practice, and ultimately how teachers envisioned the use of ICT. By
surfacing these beliefs through teachers’ narratives, this study affords the Cook Islands education
community a glimpse into the tensions that Indigenous Cook Islands teachers navigate, while
attempting to ground students in a Maori identity within a Western system. These tensions are
evident for teachers that comprehend Taku Ipukarea Kia Rangatira from an Indigenous stance,
while they are progressively irrelevant and unrecognizable for teachers that are increasingly
Western in their stance. The tensions include the following:
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• Power: Teachers located within a strong Indigenous epistemic stance articulated their
desire to subvert the dominance of the Western paradigm within the education
system. They shared their beliefs as situated within a historical context of
colonization, attesting to their belief in continued asymmetrical power relations
(Battiste & Youngblood, 2009). Across the continuum from Indigenous to Western
perspectives, teachers shifted from explicitly articulating this belief to questioning the
system as Western to offering no discussion of power relations. The differences in
perspectives demonstrates the tension teachers from Indigenous perspectives believed
they had to overcome when grounding students in a Cook Islands Maori stance within
an education system that they deemed Western.
• Knowledge Systems: Teachers located within a Cook Islands Maori epistemic stance
articulated knowledge as interconnected through interactions across generations
between the animate and inanimate (Brayboy & Maughan, 2009). Teachers ranged in
their ability to articulate the indicators of language as identity, land as life, and unity
through reciprocity (Jonassen, 2003). Located in or closer to a Western stance,
teachers did not articulate a deeper understanding of Cook Islands Maori ways of
knowing and being. Through Western epistemology, teachers articulated knowledge
as abstract and separate from oneself (Bowers, 2008). With fewer years living and
teaching in the Cook Islands, teachers toward the Western end of the continuum
possibly had not been exposed to Indigenous ways of understanding knowledge. This
range shows the challenge of grounding students in an Indigenous stance, when
teachers’ knowledge and understanding of Cook Islands Maori epistemology differs
so greatly.
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• Equity: The irony of providing equity for Cook Islands students from global
perspectives emerges within this study’s findings. Teachers expressed their belief in
those that live on the outer islands as experts in Cook Islands Maori language and
culture. Teachers located within Indigenous stances wanted students on Rarotonga to
engage with experts on the outer islands to learn more about their language, culture
and identity. In contrast, those closer to Western stances saw equity as providing
students with more opportunities beyond their islands. As Delpit (1988) claims,
liberal intentions may be good intentions, such as ICT integration, but can often exist
to perpetuate or exasperate societal inequities. Teachers’ voices reveal tension across
liberal, Western perspectives and Indigenous perspectives of improving students’
education. Ironically, liberal, Western views of equity have the potential to limit
students’ engagement with Cook Islands language and culture, if not envisioned as
part of strengthening students’ Maori identity. This is evident from the range of
perceptions of ICT.
• Sociopolitical and Socioeconomic Stances: Teachers expressed differing views
about the purpose of education, since education is a political act tied to economic and
social factors (Brayboy & Maughan, 2009). Labaree (1997) argues that problems in
education are fundamentally political, since issues arise from choice-making rather
than technical issues. The Cook Islands education system struggles with
contradictory social and political contexts, between a range of Indigenous and
Western perspectives, that give rise to contradictory purposes of education. Although
Taku Ipukarea Kia Rangatira emerged as the purpose of education for teachers
located within a strong Indigenous stance, other teachers offered views of education
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focused on local socio-economic factors such as tourism, broader factors such as the
global job market, or social mobility in general. Teachers located in a strong
Indigenous stance believed schools were the hope to remake society within a Cook
Islands Maori identity, while other teachers wrestled with notions of schools as
preparing students for society as it currently is, or providing students with
opportunities to pursue their own hopes and ambitions (Labaree, 1997). The range of
teachers’ beliefs about the purpose of education offered different societal goals,
which reveals the lack of coherence around grounding students in a Maori identity.
• Culture and Pedagogy: If socio-political and socioeconomic forces frame education,
teaching is an extension of those factors and grounded in an individual’s cultural
ways of knowing and doing (Brayboy & Maughan, 2009). Teachers’ range of beliefs
about pedagogy and ultimately ICT attests to the exasperated complexity of teaching
within the Cook Islands, a place in which Indigenous language and culture is blended
with Western ideals. In particular, teachers from a strong Indigenous stance shared
their frustrations and acts of resistance to the dominance of foreign perspectives in
learning and teaching. From Indigenous to Western perspectives respectively,
teachers shared beliefs about pedagogy as reclaiming and revitalizing what had been
disrupted by colonization (McCarty & Lee, 2014), sustaining the richness of Cook
Islands language and culture (Paris & Alim, 2014), as well as enabling Cook Islands
students to navigate dominant discourses (Ladson-Billings, 1995). In addition, one
teacher communicated culture as separate from schooling. Thus, the range of
teachers’ views about pedagogy shows a lack of coherence and understanding of how
culture and place intersect with learning and teaching in the Cook Islands.
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These tensions surfaced as I discovered and came to understand how teachers made meaning of
ICT integration. These tensions of power, knowledge systems, equity, sociopolitical and
socioeconomics stances, as well as the intersection of culture and pedagogy emerged across the
range of teachers’ perceptions. The continuum of findings reveals the complexity of grounding
students in a Cook Islands Maori identity, and more importantly, the fracturing of this central
tenet of the EMP.
The range of findings also indicates that critical perspectives toward ICT as cultural tools
stem from Indigenous perspectives. Teachers located within or closer to Indigenous perspectives
could perceive ICT as a cultural tool that without deliberate use may solely strengthen students’
engagement with the English language and Western values. Yet, a deep understanding of
Indigenous epistemology does not necessarily enable teachers to view ICT as cultural tools. The
discrepant case of two teachers within Finding 4 demonstrated that an Indigenous epistemic
stance must be paired with a critical stance for teachers to make meaning of ICT as cultural tools.
In a sense, for teachers to understand ICT as representing dominant views throughout the world,
teachers had to be critical of changes within the Cook Islands. As detailed in Finding 1, teachers
that were grounded in a strong Indigenous stance and had also developed a critical stance toward
change were the sole cohort of participants that articulated deliberate use of ICT that fully
aligned with Taku Ipukarea Kia Rangatira.
From a global perspective, the “digital divide” narrative points to meaningful technology
integration as the great equalizer (Gruenewald & Smith, 2008); yet, implementing change
initiatives within unique contexts such as the Cook Islands require careful thought, consideration,
and understanding of the tensions that emerge within Indigenous education. While change is an
inherent part of life in the Cook Islands, the EMP’s central tenet of grounding students within a
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Cook Islands Maori identity is meant to endure. Taku Ipukarea Kia Rangatira “is grounded in
the language, culture, thinking, visions and aspirations of the people and has a sense of belonging
and pride. It is for a future that is vibrant and fulfilling” (CIMOE, 2008, p. 3). Organizing
communities’ and building Cook Islands Maori teachers’ capacity to articulate, share, sustain,
and ultimately revitalize an Indigenous perspective within the education sector will support the
enactment of Taku Ipukarea Kia Rangatira. Furthermore, it will support the grounding of
external change initiatives, such as ICT integration, in Maori ways of knowing and doing. The
following recommendations for practice, policy, and research focus on finding coherence in the
teacher workforce with Taku Ipukarea Kia Rangatira as the center. Akin to Indigenous
knowledge, the recommendations are interactive, interconnected, and simultaneously considerate
of the multiple tensions that exist around learning and teaching with technology in the Cook
Islands.
Practice
The tensions that emerged from teachers’ meaning making of ICT show a lack of
coherence around Taku Ipukarea Kia Rangatira. An awareness of these tensions can inform the
approach of the Cook Islands education community to implementing change initiatives, such as
ICT integration. Teachers offered varying understandings of Indigenous Cook Islands
epistemology, which filtered into their understanding of pedagogy and ICT. Furthermore, as
illustrated in the discrepant case presented in Finding 4, teachers blended their knowledge of
Indigenous epistemology with a critical perspective to understand ICTs as cultural tools.
According to Seawright (2014), pedagogies must be understood through epistemic introspection.
The following recommendations focus on providing teachers with the opportunity to share and
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further develop their understanding of how their teaching practice intersects with grounding
students in a Cook Islands Maori identity.
First, professional learning events can be focused on connecting foreign teachers to the
perspectives of Cook Islands Maori teachers through structured dialogue. Providing
opportunities for teachers to reflect on how Cook Islands language and culture intersects with
their pedagogy can support the growth of perspectives toward Indigenous ways of knowing and
doing. Furthermore, teachers that narrated beliefs in culturally sustaining and revitalizing
pedagogy can interface with teachers that articulated surface understandings of how pedagogy
intersects with Indigenous culture and language. Critical conversations can support the shifting
of practices towards centering learning and teaching within a Cook Islands Maori identity.
While reflective conversations can offer small gains toward a collective vision of how
Taku Ipukarea Kia Rangatira plays out in practice, a systemic approach will have a more
sustainable impact (Mehta, 2013). Although teachers vary in their content knowledge of Cook
Islands Maori language and culture, common understandings of pedagogy can be shared and
enacted. To ground pedagogy within Indigenous Cook Islands perspectives, a study can be
conducted to understand teachers’ beliefs about Indigenous Cook Islands as opposed to Western
ways of learning. Fourteen of the 21 participants within this study discussed learning by doing
as a Cook Islands pedagogy. Although most teachers did not identify this pedagogy as
Indigenous through their narratives, the coherence of teachers’ responses within this small
sample suggests there could be a collective understanding of Indigenous pedagogical practices
that support students’ learning in the Cook Islands. By first interviewing teachers across islands
about what they believe are Indigenous Cook Islands pedagogical practices, advisors can then
determine which practices are shared. Furthermore, teachers would engage in reflection about
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their practice as they make sense of their beliefs about pedagogy to answer the interview
questions. Once practices are collated and named through shared terms, advisors can then return
to schools to interview and observe teachers to define what those practices look like in the
classroom and across different subject areas. Finally, when these Indigenous pedagogical
practices are defined and presented, teachers can then take the role of researchers to validate the
practices’ effectiveness for students within the Cook Islands.
From a spiraling upward approach, the codification of a knowledge base of Indigenous
pedagogical practices could inform the “complex, interactive, context-dependent, and value-
conflicted enterprise” of learning and teaching (Mehta, 2013, p. 481). By defining and building
practice from the voices of teachers, tensions that exist around grounding students in a Cook
Islands Maori identity within a Western system can be alleviated. Change initiatives such as ICT
integration can be aligned to Indigenous pedagogical practice to best support students’ cultural
identity as learners, while engaging in new ways of learning. As systemic, long term,
disciplined, and focused professional learning for teachers, defining and researching Indigenous
pedagogical practices has the potential to improve teachers’ practice, and offer coherence with
Taku Ipukarea Kia Rangatira as the center of learning and teaching.
Policy
For Taku Ipukarea Kia Rangatira to be realized, initiatives and systems should be tied to
this central tenet of the EMP. The current Cook Islands Ministry of Education (CIMOE) focus
on ICT integration has not been clearly aligned with the strengthening of students’ Cook Islands
Maori identity. Views of ICT integration from the CIMOE (2015) align with globally rooted
initiatives of transforming classroom practice through the use of technology. Envisioned
predominately from a Western lens, ICT integration may be enacted by teachers in ways that
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 305

stray from the Indigenous identity, values, and beliefs of Cook Islands Maori. From the range of
teachers’ perceptions, the groundwork of building foundational understandings of ICT with
teachers has not taken place or not taken root. As a change initiative from the Ministry of
Education, ICT should be rooted in culture and context prior to implementation. From this
study, the continuum of teachers’ perceptions ends in acultural and decontextualized views of
ICT integration. Systemic policies to carefully vet implementation of initiatives can bring
coherence around Taku Ipukarea Kia Rangtira.
First, the formation of a Cook Islands Maori Education Council can support the
grounding of educational initiatives to align with Cook Islands language and culture. The
council can consist of current and former educators, as well as community members from
different fields that share an Indigenous Cook Islands epistemic stance. Furthermore, council
members should be well respected and experienced with qualifications to offer sound advice.
Before initiatives are implemented within schools, MOE directors or advisors can present the
purpose, process, and sustainability of the project to the council members. The council can then
provide feedback for the project to move forward in ways that align to Taku Ipukarea Kia
Rangatira. With the formalization of a Cook Islands Education Council, MOE directors and
advisors would systematize and prioritize their work to be presented. Initiatives like ICT
integration can be discussed in depth to understand the potential positive and negative
consequences of implementation. Also, ways to mitigate issues can emerge through dialogue
that includes different perspectives to consider all possibilities (Mehta, 2013). Finally,
relationships with organizations that council members represent would be strengthened, and
expert Cook Islands Maori teachers’ voices would be sustained and valued through their
contributions to conversations.
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Second, within this study, some teachers located in an Indigenous stance cited the
curriculum documents as an imposition upon their practice. While curriculum documents exist
for many different subject areas, including Maori, one participant shared her opinion that there
should be a culture curriculum. Within “Public Perceptions of Language,” Crocombe and
Crocombe (2003) share an analysis of the interviews throughout the nation by the Education
Sector Review in 2000. Crocombe and Crocombe claim that Maori culture had been taught
mostly as the creative arts: dance, song, carving and weaving. They assert that “a short
curriculum to give an understanding of the basic principles of Maori philosophy, values, beliefs
and ethos, as well as economic, social and political organization” would deepen students’
understanding of Cook Islands culture as they interface with others (Crocombe & Crocombe,
2003, p. 108). Fourteen years later, no written document has been collectively created to align
teachers’ vision of Cook Islands Maori culture. As teachers grounded in foreign perspectives
continue to fill positions within the Cook Islands, a document sharing basic principles of Maori
culture could support the shift in thinking to understanding how culture can be integrated into
teaching with technology.
Third, teachers’ fluency in Cook Islands Maori is foundational to deeper understandings
of the intersection between language, culture, tradition, and identity. Teachers who speak Cook
Islands Maori are able to access these deeper understandings that can then be shared with their
students. As Jonassen (2003) claims, language competence enables a person to fully appreciate
the power of oral histories, names and places, which are fundamental to being a true Maori of the
land. Equal focus on the development of English and Maori within the school system can
actually lead to inequities. As Cook Islands Maori continues to be marginalized by the increase
in tourism, students have fewer opportunities to learn their own language. By providing more
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 307

funding and an increased focus on developing more resources or programs to support Cook
Islands Maori teaching and learning, students will be provided equitable opportunities.
Furthermore, foreign teachers should be required to learn basic Cook Islands Maori before
undertaking their role as teachers of Cook Islands students. Teachers with fluency and
knowledge of the language can offer deeper understandings of the Cook Islands Maori culture to
share and sustain, and ultimately realize the potential of ICT for these purposes. Thus, policies
should reflect the valuing and utilization of teachers with expertise in speaking the language and
teaching the culture.
Fourth, while the creation of a Cook Islands Maori Council, culture document, and focus
of resources on Maori language can support alleviating tensions regarding knowledge and shared
decision-making, systems thinking is necessary to sustain development towards revitalizing a
Cook Islands Maori perspective (Hargreaves & Shirley, 2009). The Cook Islands education
system currently hires foreign teachers and advisors to fill positions within schools and the
MOE. As long as this practice persists, to some extent, the workforce will continually possess
fractured views of Cook Islands language and culture. The socialization of foreign teachers and
advisors within school structures and teacher work groups can prove a difficult and cyclical task
for local teachers in addition to their already complex set of responsibilities teaching children.
Even if change initiatives such as ICT integration were carefully implemented in schools, foreign
workers have the potential to fracture the cohesion of the initiative as proven in the range of
perspectives shown in this study. The education system will depend upon foreign workers until a
robust, well-resourced preservice program is offered to train and ground local candidates within
the visions, aspirations, and values of the communities within the Cook Islands. Looking back
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 308

and reflecting upon past practices can inform whether or not changes in the system have
benefited the country and the Cook Islands Maori people.
Hargreaves and Shirley (2009) state that “contemporary educational change efforts are
embedded in a sea of social, economic, and cultural conditions that persistently pull people back
to, and endlessly immerse them in, short-term orientations” (p. 2529). Although shifting
perspectives to long term orientations proves a complex task, entrenched in navigation and
consensus building of thick differences, through leadership, persistence, and focus on Taku
Ipukarea Kia Rangatira, change can lead to a better future.
Research
Currently, research that investigates the complexity of the intersection between
Indigenous education and ICT is sparse. Furthering this study to include the voices of teachers
across the outer islands will offer deeper understanding of how an Indigenous Cook Islands
perspective mediates perceptions of ICT. The perceptions of outer islands teachers will provide
further insight into understanding how teachers make meaning of ICT integration in the Cook
Islands. Also, while sampling focused on teachers, extending and adapting this study to include
administrators, students, parents, and community members could offer an understanding of the
broader education community’s perspective. In particular, surfacing the education community’s
beliefs about epistemology and the purpose of education can support the MOE in determining
what Cook Islanders desire in their education system. In turn, educational change initiatives can
better reflect the desires parents and communities have for their children.
Clothey (2015) claims that further research is needed to make ICTs a viable solution for
promoting Indigenous knowledge. To move forward with this direction for research in the Cook
Islands, teachers’ perceptions of ICT should be matched with a study of teachers’ current
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 309

practice integrating ICT. Through observations and further study into how teachers are currently
using technology in the classroom, the landscape of use can be better understood. From this
understanding, research could then focus on aligning ICT use toward the Indigenous pedagogical
practices of Cook Islands teachers. While content can be supplanted with technology use, how
to align teachers’ use of technology to Indigenous ways of knowing and doing will be more
important to understand. Furthermore, after alignment has been established, research should
focus on determining the value of these Indigenous ways of using technology for student
learning in the Cook Islands.
Overall, this study offers another step towards understanding how Indigenous
epistemology filters into ICT. To build the knowledge base around Indigenous education and
ICTs, researchers must still discover how technology can be implemented with maximum
educational value and minimal negative effects on Indigenous cultures (Albirini, 2006). Also,
documenting how teachers can “indigenize” ICT to benefit students is important for sustaining
and revitalizing Indigenous language, culture, and knowledge systems.
Conclusions
Taku Ipukarea Kia Rangatira is the intention of grounding students within a Cook Islands
Maori perspective to know who they are and where they come from. The rhetoric around
globalization and ICTs from a Western perspective does not consider unique local contexts
where Indigenous language and culture is disappearing. Tied to externally constructed change
initiatives in education, ICT integration has the potential to marginalize Indigenous ways of
knowing and doing, further fracturing efforts to ground students in a Cook Islands Maori
perspective. If envisioned from an Indigenous perspective, ICT integration has the potential to
support efforts to sustain and revitalize Cook Islands Maori language and culture.
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 310

The tensions that emerged through the findings of this study illustrate the challenges that
teachers from an Indigenous stance perceive. Teachers within a strong Indigenous stance
believed that asymmetrical power relations tied to the valuing of Western knowledge systems in
education resulted in external pedagogies imposed upon their practice. While on the other end of
the continuum, teachers from a dominant, Western stance did not realize these tensions. The
tensions were gleaned from the uneven landscape of perceptions of ICT that are internally
constructed within individuals’ complex web of beliefs. All too often, educational change
initiatives sweep through school systems and are immediately implemented without
understanding the schools, teachers, and students that are being “changed” (Hargreaves &
Shirley, 2009).
“Kia orana is the unity of the heart, the mind and the soul within each of those who make
the expression and those who receive it. It is an act of humility that positively reaches out to
others” (Jonassen, 2003, p. 139). Over the course of this study, I have found that humility is
necessary to take the time to understand the people and places that we, educators presume to
change. Through humility, we realize that our perspective is not the only perspective. Through
humility, we realize that we lack knowledge and seek out those that can offer understanding.
Through humility, we better understand how to approach improvement efforts. To move
forward, to progress, we have to understand what came before. This study offered an awareness
and understanding of the complex issues and possibilities of ICT initiatives within the unique
context of the Cook Islands.
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 311

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EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 328

Appendix A
Individual Interview Protocol

Name of Interviewee: ________________________________________ Date: ______________

School Site: _______________________________ Island: ______________________________

Position: ______________________________________________________________________

Time Started: _______________ Time Completed: ______________ Total Time: ____________

Researcher: ____________________________________________________________________

My purpose for interviewing you is to understand your perspective of learning and teaching with
information communication technologies in the Cook Islands. I am interested in understanding
the beliefs, values, and experiences that shape your ideas about ICT use in your classroom.

A. Background
1. Where were you born? Where did you grow up?
2. What is your current position? How long have you been in this position?
3. How long have you worked in the field of education?
a. What positions have you held?
b. In what different settings have you worked?
4. If I were in your classroom what would I see? What would I hear? Thinking about a
recent “typical day,” describe it for me.
5. Now that you’ve given me a picture of your teaching, I’m interested in learning more
about how your background shaped your practice.
a. What memories come to mind when you think about primary school?
b. What memories come to mind when you think about secondary school?
c. What do you remember about how you were taught?
6. What made you want to teach?
7. What training have you completed to teach?

B. Purpose of Education
8. Why do children go to school in the Cook Islands?
9. Imagine that you are answering from the Ministry of Education’s perspective. Does this
differ from your perspective as a parent or community member? Please explain.
10. What would a school that is enacting your purpose be like?
11. What do you find most challenging about teaching?
12. What is most important for students to learn?
13. What do you want for the children who graduate from the education system in the Cook
Islands?

C. Cook Islands Epistemology
14. What do you believe someone is asking when he/she says, “Where are you from”?
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 329

a. Do you believe that this question is important? Why?
15. Think back to a time when someone did something that showed Cook Islands values.
Describe what they did. This example can be inside or outside of the classroom.
16. How would you describe Cook Islands language?
17. What do you believe should be the role of Cook Islands language in schools today?
a. Why do you believe this?
18. What do you believe should be the role of Cook Islands culture in schools today?
a. Why do you believe this?
19. Think back to a specific example of a lesson that you or a colleague taught that showed
Cook Islands ways of learning. Describe it to me.
20. Now, think back to a specific example of a lesson that you or a colleague taught that
showed Western ways of learning. Describe it to me.
21. From your examples, describe how Western and Cook Islands ways of learning compare.
Describe how they contrast.

D. Culturally Based Education
22. How do you use Cook Islands Maori in your classroom teaching? Walk me through or
describe a lesson that you taught recently.
23. How do you learn about your students’ lives? In what ways, if any, do you incorporate
their non-school lives into your lessons? Tell me about that.

E. Place Based Education
24. In terms of the Cook Islands, what does local knowledge mean to you?
a. How does one acquire local knowledge? If you are an outsider? If you are a Cook
Islander?
b. What contribution, if any, does the community make to local knowledge?
c. What contribution, if any, do teachers make?
d. What contribution, if any, do elders make?
25. What changes have you noticed in the Cook Islands since you have lived here? Imagine
you are driving down the road, what do you notice that is different?
26. What are your thoughts about these changes?
27. How do you incorporate local knowledge of the Cook Islands within your teaching?
Describe a recent lesson that you taught.
28. Walk me though why you made those decisions.

F. ICTs and Cook Islands Context
29. How would you define the term ICT or information, communication, technology?

Purpose
30. What do you believe is the purpose of integrating ICTs into your teaching in the Cook
Islands?

Epistemology
31. How, if at all, do the use of ICTs represent values and beliefs?
32. Do you think that ICTs can influence Cook Islands language and culture?
a. How?
EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 330

b. Why?
c. Describe an example of how your thoughts can be seen in the classroom?

CBE
33. How do you or would you use ICTs to teach Cook Islands language and culture? Please
provide a specific example. If you have taught a lesson using ICT to teach Cook Islands
language and culture, tell me about that lesson. Walk me through your decision-making.

PBE
34. How would you use ICTs to teach local knowledge? Please provide a specific example.
If you have taught a lesson using ICT to teach local knowledge, tell me about that lesson.
Walk me through your decision-making.
35. How could you use ICTs to address some of the changes you see in the Cook Islands?

ICTs
36. What are your thoughts about using ICTs in the classroom?
37. What experiences in your background influence your thoughts?
38. Have your thoughts about ICTs changed over time? What would be an example of how
your thoughts have changed over time?
39. Overall, how would you like to see ICT used in Cook Islands classrooms?
40. What do you think Cook Islands children would gain from using ICT in this manner?
41. What, if any, losses would Cook Islands children experience from using ICT in the
classroom?

G. Closing
42. What should I have asked you that I didn’t think to ask?
43. That covers everything I wanted to ask. Is there anything you care to add?

Probes
Detail Probes
Who, What, When, Where, How?

Elaboration Probes
I’d appreciate a bit more detail.

Clarification Probes
You said “---”. What do you mean by “---”.

Contrast Probes
Give participant something to push off against. How does x compare to y?

EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 331

Appendix B
Pre-Screening Protocol

My name is Cristina Stephany, Doctoral Candidate, under the supervision of the Faculty
Advisor, Julie Slayton, JD, PhD., at the University of Southern California. I am conducting a
study to understand how teachers in the Cook Islands make meaning of the transition to teaching
with information communication technologies (ICTs).

I would like to ask you some questions that would help me determine if you qualify to be a
participant in this research study. This will take about five minutes. These questions involve
giving information about the places where you have lived, worked, and gone to school.
Answering these questions is voluntary. You are under no obligation to answer them, and not
answering them will have no effect on your position as a teacher. If at any time during this
prescreening you would like to stop and not participate or if you have any questions, do not
hesitate to let me know.

Here is some information about the confidentiality of the information I collect today. If you do
not qualify for the study or decide not to participate, your information will be discarded. If you
do qualify for the study and decide to participate, I will ask you to sign a consent form, and the
personal information that you give me today will become a part of your research record as a
participant.

Would you like to continue with the prescreening questions?

Prescreening Questions:
1. Where were you born?
2. In what country and city did you attend primary school?
3. In what country and city did you attend secondary school?
4. In what country and city did you train to be a teacher?
5. How long have you lived in the Cook Islands?
6. Have you lived in other countries? Which ones?

EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 332

Appendix C
Consent Form

University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education
3470 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles, CA 90089-4033

INFORMATION SHEET FOR NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH

A CASE STUDY OF TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF INFORMATION
COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION IN THE COOK ISLANDS

You are invited to participate in a research study conducted by Cristina Stephany, Doctoral
Candidate, under the supervision of the Faculty Advisor, Julie Slayton, JD, PhD, at the
University of Southern California, because of your position as a teacher on the island of
Rarotonga or Aitutaki. Your participation is voluntary. You should read the information below,
and ask questions about anything you do not understand, before deciding whether to participate.
Please take as much time as you need to read the consent form. You may also decide to discuss
participation with your family or friends. You can keep this form for your records.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of the study is to understand how teachers in the Cook Islands make meaning of the
transition to teaching with information communication technologies (ICTs).

PARTICIPANT INVOLVEMENT
If you volunteer to participate in this study, you will be asked to participate in one to two formal,
semi-structured, open-ended interviews, anticipated to last approximately 1-1.5 hours. You may
also be asked to clarify your responses in a second interview or follow up interview expected to
last approximately 20 minutes to 1 hour. The questions focus on your background, teaching
experience, practice using ICTs, and beliefs and values regarding Cook Islands education. The
interviews will be audio-recorded with your permission. If you do not want to be audio-recorded,
handwritten notes will be taken.

As part of the interview procedures, you may be asked to share documents with the researcher,
such as lesson plans, unit plans, or assignment descriptions.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS TO PARTICIPANTS AND/OR TO SOCIETY
You may not directly benefit from your participation in this study. Yet, this study may benefit
the Cook Islands education community in negotiating the loss and gain associated with the
uptake of ICTs.

CONFIDENTIALITY
Any identifiable information obtained in connection with this study will remain confidential.
Recordings of the interviews will be transcribed by the researcher.

EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 333

Your name will be included on the interview data, which is called “raw data”. The data,
including identifiers, audio recordings and transcriptions will be stored on a password protected
computer and will be placed into a Dropbox folder. A Dropbox folder is a program that allows
people to securely share information on computers. The researcher and the faculty advisor will
have access to the raw data in the Dropbox folder, and if you would like to see your raw data,
you will be given access to it. All data, including tapes, identifiers, etc., will be retained for three
years after the study has been completed and then destroyed.

The members of the research team and the University of Southern California’s Human Subjects
Protection Program (HSPP) may access the data. The HSPP reviews and monitors research
studies to protect the rights and welfare of research subjects.

When the results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no identifiable
information will be used.

PARTICIPATION AND WITHDRAWAL
Your participation is voluntary. Your decision whether or not to participate will involve no
penalty or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled. You may withdraw your consent
at any time and discontinue participation without penalty. You are not waiving any legal claims,
rights or remedies because of your participation in this research study.

ALTERNATIVES TO PARTICIPATION
Your alternative is to not participate in this study; your relationship with USC and/or your
employer will not be affected, whether or not you participate in this study.

INVESTIGATOR’S CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact the Principal
Investigator, Cristina Stephany, via phone at (682) 70736 or email at ctstepha@usc.edu.

RIGHTS OF RESEARCH PARTICIPANT – IRB CONTACT INFORMATION
If you have questions, concerns, or complaints about your rights as a research participant or the
research in general and are unable to contact the research team, or if you want to talk to someone
independent of the research team, please contact the University Park Institutional Review Board
(UPIRB), 3720 South Flower Street #301, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0702, (213) 821-5272 or
upirb@usc.edu

EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 334

Appendix D
Letter of Acceptance

EPISTEMIC INTERFACE 335

Appendix E
Research Permit

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Externally constructed change initiatives within Indigenous contexts, such as information communication technology (ICT) integration, require careful consideration before implementation. This study analyzed the intersection between Indigenous epistemology, culture based education, place based education and ICT integration. The purpose of this study was to examine how teachers within the Cook Islands made meaning of teaching with technology. In particular, this study investigated teachers’ perceptions of the role of technology to sustain, share, and connect with Indigenous Cook Islands language and culture and/or engage with the Western world. Within this qualitative study, analysis of interview data from 21 teachers on the islands of Rarotonga and Aitutaki yielded findings that represented a continuum. Findings showed that teachers’ Indigenous, hybrid, or Western epistemic stance mediated their perceptions of ICT. In addition, teachers’ beliefs about the purpose of education emerged in their perceptions. The range of findings indicated that teachers located within an Indigenous stance articulated tensions in power, knowledge systems, equity, sociopolitical and socioeconomic stance, as well as the intersection of culture and pedagogy within their perceptions of ICT. In contrast, as teachers were positioned closer to a Western epistemic stance, they progressively did not perceive these tensions. From an Indigenous perspective, teachers expressed the complexity of grounding students in a Cook Islands Maori identity in a system that supported change initiatives envisioned from foreign perspectives. This study offers an awareness and understanding of the complex issues and possibilities of ICT initiatives within the unique context of the Cook Islands.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Stephany, Cristina Tomie (author)

Core Title Teachers' perceptions of the epistemic interface between indigeneity and technology in the Cook Islands

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education (Leadership)

Publication Date 09/22/2017

Defense Date 08/30/2017

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Cook Islands,culture based education,indigenous epistemology,OAI-PMH Harvest,place based education,technology integration

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Slayton, Julie (committee chair), Maddox, Anthony (committee member), Samkian, Artineh (committee member)

Creator Email cristinatomiestephany@gmail.com,ctstepha@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c40-432936

Unique identifier UC11265276

Identifier etd-StephanyCr-5750.pdf (filename),usctheses-c40-432936 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-StephanyCr-5750.pdf

Dmrecord 432936

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Stephany, Cristina Tomie

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA