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A case study of one poʻokumu kaiapuni

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A case study of one poʻokumu kaiapuni

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Content A Case Study of One Po’okumu Kaiapuni
by
Puanani Kama
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
May 2021
Copyright 2021 Puanani Kama
ii
Dedication
This Dissertation is dedicated to my family. To my Kupuna, thank you for being a part of
my parents’ growth to be the most loving and giving parents. To the foundation of my growth, e
nā mākua, Duke and Claudette Reis-Moniz, thank you for the spirit of God you instilled in me
and for always believing in me and my dreams. To my husband, Kekoa Kama who encourages
and inspires me to have confidence in all my endeavors. To my keiki who are all a part of me
and my educational journey. To my hiapo, Naneaikaholokai, thank you for continuing to demand
excellence from me. Niauahekekia my son, you signify the courage that it took for me to jump
head on into my Educational Doctorate journey as a mom of two new kids at the time, a new job
and a new house, starting this journey was one of the hardest steps to take. I dedicate my findings
section to my late daughter, Lucy Kāhilikūikeola(ewa) who was with me at every meeting,
observation and interview. We miss you tremendously and can’t wait till we meet again.
Nāhuluokahaliʻa my muli, you will one day look back and know that you signified the end of a
journey and the beginning of many more. You are my living memorial of all the things and
people who came before you. Thank you for bringing light into the darkness. To my advisor
Julie, you have been through a lot of monumental experiences with me and have helped to guide
me back toward finishing several times throughout this journey. Finally, ke Akua, Mahalo!
Mahalo nui loa me ke aloha a me ka haʻahaʻa no ka paepae a kākoʻo mai iaʻu. Mahalo iā ʻoukou
pākahi a pau.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge: my chair, Dr. Julie Slayton and my committee: Dr. Ardis
Eschenberg and Dr. Artineh Samkian, who have all patiently worked with me to see the
completion of this dissertation. To all the people who have been a support at some time
throughout this process. To the many kumu kaiapuni for all the hard work you do in the
classroom to continue the legacy of our kupuna. To the principals who are learning to navigate
today for our yesterdays. To my ʻohana who have been with me every step of the way to support
me through this journey. Lastly to all those who believed in me and inspired me to hoʻomau.
Me ka ʻoiaʻiʻo nō a me ke aloha, ʻaʻole au e poina!
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Table of Contents
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iii
vi
vii
Dedication
Acknowledgement s
List of Figures
Abstract
Chapter One: Overview of the Study
1
Background of Problem 1
Statement of Problem 4
Purpose of the Study 4
Significance of the Study 5
Organization of the Study 5
Chapter Two: Literature Review 7
Leadership 8
Indigenous Leadership 8
Native Hawaiian Leadership 10
Western Leadership 13
Culturally Relevant School Leadership 16
Native Hawaiian Epistemology 18
Culture based Education 24
Conceptual Framework 31
Indigenous and Native Hawaiian 32
Western Leadership & Culturally Relevant School Leadership 34
Native Hawaiian Epistemology 36
Culture based Education 37
Summary 38
Chapter Three: Methodology 39
Sample 39
Settings 40
Participants 41
Data Collection 42
Interviews 42
Observations 43
Data Analysis 45
Credibility and Trustworthiness 48
Ethics 50
Limitations and Delimitations 51

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Chapter Four: Findings 54
Background of Keahiakahoe 55
Principal 55
Faculty and Staff 56
Finding : Native Hawaiian and Western
Leadership Approach to School Climate. 57
Theme 1: Native Hawaiian Epistemological Principal Approach 57
Theme 2: Western Epistemologial Principal Approach 68
Finding 2: Native Hawaiian Epistemological Leadership Approach in
Curriculum and Western Oriented Leadership 74
Theme 1: Principal Haukea’s Native Hawaiian Strategies 75
Theme 2: Principal Haukea’s use of Western Strategies 76
Finding 3: Teachers Responses to Principal Expectations 81
Theme 1: Teachers who were not aligned with Principal 82
Theme 2: Teachers who were aligned with Principal 86
Revised Conceptual Framework 91
Native Hawaiian Leadership and Epistemology 93
Western Leadership and Epistemology 94
Conclusion 96
Chapter Five: Discussion 97
Implications and Recommendations 100
Implications for Practice 100
Implications for Policy 101
Implications for Research 102
References 104
Appendix A: Protocol Interviews 108
Appendix B: Protocol Observations 112
Appendix C: Common Core Writing Standards 116

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List of Figures
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework
Figure 2: Open Coding Book
Figure 3: Revised Conceptual Framework

vii
Abstract
Principal leadership plays an essential role in whether and how Native Hawaiian
language and culture are integrated into school climate and curriculum at Kaiapuni (Hawaiian
Language Immersion Program) Schools. This case study builds on previous studies to explore
the importance of principals’ orientations towards Western and Native Hawaiian leadership
approaches in the way they lead. I used criterion-based sampling to identify a Kaiapuni school
that met criteria of my study, having both an English and Hawaiian language teaching
department with a principal, and teachers engaged in collaborative curriculum development. The
case study focused on the way the principal’s approach to leading reflected Western and Native
Hawaiian leadership characteristics and how her approach fostered conditions for teacher
collaboration. Interviews and observations were conducted to gather rich and descriptive data to
explain the principal’s leadership at this school. Findings a principal whose grounding on both
Native Hawaiian and Western ideologies and epistemology was revealed in the type of
collaboration she encouraged and supported with respect to curriculum and school culture.
Recommendations of professional development for principals and teachers to understand their
own ideologies, epistemology and how it is realized in their work. Support of professional
development opportunities for principals, continuing the current professional development
focused on Hawaiian language and culture, as well as completing other case studies on the
different types of principal leaders and their role in the collaboration of curriculum and school
culture in a kaiapuni school are the recommendations for policy and future studies.
1

CHAPTER ONE: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY
The purpose of chapter one is to provide context for this study that examined the role
principal leadership played in the development of a culture-based curriculum. First, I provide a
brief overview of the history of education in Hawaii, focused on the role of educational
leadership pre- and post-missionary contact, the Hawaiian Renaissance, and its influence on
educational leadership, and Ke Ao Nei, or the current leadership of Native Hawaiian education in
kula kaiapuni, Hawaiian Language Immersion Program (HLIP) schools. Second, I present the
problem I was most directly interested in understanding, the role a principal played in the
enactment of culture-based curriculum development and collaboration in a Kaiapuni, HLIP
school. Finally, I offer the purpose of this study, followed by the significance of the study. I end
with an overview of the structure of the remainder of the dissertation.
Background of the Problem
In this section I offer a brief history of educational leadership in Hawai’i. Prior to the
arrival of the missionaries in 1820, the education system in Hawai’i was very informal by
Western education standards (Puku’i, 1983). Leaders of a community, the elders (kupuna), and
makua (parents) taught the children as a community (Puku’i, 1972). There were no traditional
classrooms. Cachola (1995) described a classroom as simple grass houses with a mat on the
floor, no chairs or tables, and buildings that were built from coral blocks, lava rocks or adobe
bricks. Prior to the procurement of these houses and the beginning of the educational movement
it was the responsibility of all community members and the individual ʻohana (families) to teach
children. Everyone understood and adhered to these basic proverbs, Nānā ka maka, Hoʻolohe ka
pepeiao, Paʻa ka waha or watch, listen, and close your mouth and Ma ka hana ka ‘ike, or learn
through experience (Meyer, 2008). Hawaiian education could be likened to the vocational

2
schools of today where students were evaluated by their elders to determine their strengths and
each child would learn to cultivate their skills with their trade mentor.
Educational leadership pre-missionary was of a hereditary nature. As Kai (2017)
described, Aliʻi chiefs (Native Hawaiian leaders) were born into their leadership roles and
groomed to exhibit the traits of a leader. When the missionaries arrived in 1820, they had an
enormous impact on the way Native Hawaiians were educated. The missionaries immediately
became major stakeholders in Native Hawaiian education (Kamakau, 1992). The curriculum
became heavily influenced by Christianity and a Western educational system. Now these Aliʻi
chiefs were taught to be versed in a Christian school curriculum, writing, mathematics, history,
and science. They learned the way of the new world, while they also learned the traditions and
old ways of their peoples.
Western education was for the privileged and did not become a means of public
education until 1840. One of the benefits that emerged for Native Hawaiians as a result of the
arrival of the missionaries was the Native Hawaiian written language (Walk, 2014). As a result
of this written language, both Aliʻi (Native Hawaiian leaders) and commoners became literate. In
fact, within only 14 years, 95% of Native Hawaiians were literate. The public newspaper was an
instrumental medium of learning for many Native Hawaiians. The Ali’i Kauikeaoli was a
supporter of the Hawaiian newspaper and written language medium. He stated in his public
proclamation, “He aupuni palapala koʻu, or mine is a literate people”, which expressed his pride
In Kauikeaoli’s journal he noted, “We here on my islands once lived in ignorance and
idolatry. We were given to war and we were very poor, Now my people are enlightened; we live
in peace and have some acquired property.” His statement further shared his support and love of
his people and their education. He became a major stakeholder in the early education system in

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Hawai’i. Chief Kauikeaoli further inspired his people to become educated through the
establishment of the public school system. Kauikeaouli established a school on every island in
1830. With the growing number of Hawaiians interested in becoming students, Lahainaluna
School opened shortly after in 1831 to train men to teach. Chief’s Children’s School opened in
Honolulu in 1839. The school’s name was later changed to the Royal School (Cachola, 1995).
By the end of Kauikeaouli’s reign there were over 423 schools in Hawai’i with an enrollment of
over 12,000 students. His era was known as the era of literacy.
Education throughout Hawai’i was again impacted in 1898 as identified by Cachola
(1995) as the year of the illegal overthrow of Queen Lili’uokalani and the annexation of
Hawai’i . During the time the illegal overthrow laws were passed to ban Hawaiian language in
schools. This time signified the systematic colonization of the Hawaiian people and their school
system (Cachola, 1995). Western oriented schools became the only schools available to Native
Hawaiian students and this system is still dominant and Western content, language, and culture
are intricately woven throughout the Hawaiian public educational system today as are Western-
based standards, benchmarks and testing protocols (Lipe, 2014).
In the 1970s, almost 80 years later, there was a resurgence of Hawaiian language and
culture education, led by musicians, a grass roots movement during what is now referred to as
the Hawaiian Renaissance (Kimura, 2016). A prevalent message that emerged during this time
was the need to revitalize the Hawaiian language and culture. Out of this movement came
lawsuits that overturned the 1898 law that entirely banned Hawaiian language from schools and
government. A result of this court ruling mandated all public schools to educate all students,
even those not of Hawaiian decent of Hawaiian culture and language in schools (Kimura, 2016).
Since then, there have been many strides forward for the Hawaiian language and culture

4
community and movements, including the establishment of Hawaiian Language Immersion
Programs. The fight to bring Hawaiian language and culture in the classroom is over. Now the
focus is on implementation and development of curricula as well the Department of Education’s
(DOE) support for programs similar to HLIP throughout the Hawaiian public education system
as well as entities within the DOE like the Office of Hawaiian Education (OHE), that currently
support HLIP schools to incorporate Hawaiian language and culture into curriculum for all
students even students who are not of Hawaiian decent or Native Hawaiian students who are in
the English speaking schools. According to I Kawakami (1999), students are of Native Hawaiian
decent make up the majority in the public school system. The movement of educating both
Native Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians is important because it shows that the government sees
value in Native Hawaiian language and culture. It is also important because by making this an
important part of our students’ education, students will find value in their history, culture, and
language, helping them to identify with their people and the place they live in.
Statement of the Problem
The background of the problem was rooted in a colonial infiltrated public school system.
The problem that was addressed in this study was the way schools intentionally focused on
integrating Hawaiian language and culture into their curriculum go about doing that.
Furthermore, what role principal leadership played in supporting and leading that work in an
education system dominated by Western based standards, benchmarks and testing protocols
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study was to examine the role principal leadership played in
promoting collaboration amongst teachers to create and implement a culture-based curriculum in
a Hawaiian Immersion school setting. I focused on the way the principal supported teachers’

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efforts to develop or continuously improve the curriculum. Thus, the following research question
was the guide in the study: What role did a principal play in fostering teacher collaboration to
develop a culture-based curriculum in a Kaiapuni school?
Significance of the Study

The significance of the study is that it addresses a puka (hole) in research related to
Native Hawaiian educational leadership in culture-based curriculum and collaboration. The study
will benefit the Hawaiian language community as a whole because of its relevance in Kaiapuni
schools. Principal leaders, teachers, students and the system as a whole could use the information
gathered and use it to better understand how leaders can influence positive change in their kula
kaiapuni. It is also significant to note that as a leader and former kumu kaiapuni this study will
help to inform my leadership of others to better understand my own influences and how to
cultivate a space where my team of teachers can reflect too on their own influences.
Organization of the Study
In the first chapter I explained the background of the problem, the statement of the
problem, and the purpose and significance of the study. In chapter two, the literature review, I
present the literature that provided insight that informed my approach to answering the research
question. The literature is divided into three areas that speak to principal leadership in the context
of collaboration in the development of culture-based curriculum. The first section offers
literature that focused on Native Hawaiian or Indigenous leadership practices. The second
section describes Western leadership practices that influence culture-based curriculum. The last
section, cultural-based education (CBE) describes and defined the meaning of Native Hawaiian
Epistemology and culture-based education. The third chapter presents the methods used to
answer the research question. Here I describe my sample, the participants and settings where the

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data collection took place, the data collection process, the kinds of data collected and why, the
approach to data analysis, the limitations and delimitations to the study, the credibility and
trustworthiness of such a study and last, the ethics of conducting this study to better understand
the principal leadership practices to enact CBE. Chapter four presents the findings that describe a
leader’s role in enacting teacher collaboration to produce a Native Hawaiian language and
culture-based curriculum. The final chapter, Chapter five, concludes the study. Chapter five
summarizes the study as a whole and describes implications of the study and recommendations
moving forward.

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CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
To answer the research question, What role does the principal play in fostering teacher
collaboration in the development of culture-based curriculum in Kaiapuni?, I explored three
bodies of literature: Leadership, Native Hawaiian Epistemology, and Culture-Based Education.
Within the context of the literature on leadership, I reviewed three areas: Indigenous Leadership,
Western Leadership, and Culturally Relevant School Leadership.
The review of literature pertaining to leadership focused on the characteristics, qualities,
and skills of a leader in both Western and Native Hawaiian contexts. Comparing and contrasting
these contexts enabled me to examine the leadership framework a principal might enact when
supervising curriculum development and improvement in a Native Hawaiian educational context
at a HLIP school. According to Khalifa et al. (2016), culturally responsive school
leadership (CRSL) was a crucial component to any reform of education, secondary only to the
very act of teaching. I included Khalifa et al. (2016) as it served as a bridge between Indigenous
and Western Leadership frameworks. This body of literature was critical to my study as I was
primarily interested in understanding how the principal’s leadership promoted conditions for
teachers to collaborate in the creation and improvement of a culture-based curriculum.
Meyer (2003) described Native Hawaiian epistemology as the philosophical science of
the nature of knowledge and truth and answers the questions: What is knowledge? and How do
we know what we know? Here I explored what counts as knowledge according to Native
Hawaiian epistemology (NHE). This body of literature describes and defines the idea of NHE.
Native Hawaiian epistemology was another important part of the literature review as it allowed
me to examine the relationship between ways of knowing and the enactment of leadership. This

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section also provided insight into the principal’s lens and ensured the relationship between
education and culture was authentic.
In the final section of the review, Culture-Based Education (CBE), defined what CBE
means theoretically and what it looked like in practice. Culture-based education was another
integral part of the study as it offered a way to explore the curriculum components the principal
supported, encouraged, and/or endorsed at her school site. I conclude the chapter with the
conceptual framework that guided my research design, sampling, data collection, and analysis.
Leadership
For the purposes of my study, I examined leadership from three perspectives. I examined
theoretical and empirical literature that I believed described and characterized essential attributes
of leadership. I present literature that speaks to three types of leadership. These are the three 1)
Indigenous leadership, with an emphasis on Native Hawaiian leadership, 2) Western leadership,
and 3) Culturally relevant school leadership. The first section focuses indigenous leaders. I
describe characteristics leaders have to be relevant in their Indigenous culture setting. I include
literature that focuses on indigenous leadership broadly because Native Hawaiians are
considered a subset of this population and research on Native Hawaiian leadership practices and
characteristics is limited. The Western leadership section provides a range of leadership
perspectives. The final leadership section concludes with one piece, Khalifa et al. (2016), which I
believe provides a marriage of both Indigenous and Western leadership practices.
Indigenous Leadership
To identify Indigenous culture and leadership characteristics, Hohepa (2013) used a best
evidence synthesis iteration (BES) to answer questions addressing what Māori educational
leadership might need to look like to positively impact Māori achievement in English and Māori-

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medium schooling. Hohepa (2013) argued that Indigenous leadership was something that could
be expressed by someone whose characteristics, race, and nationality were of an Indigenous
group, the concept of being an indigenous leader from “within.” She continued to argue that
Indigenous leadership was a leader from “within,” “uses the Indigenous world as the source of
theoretical concepts and methods, which emerge out of experiences of people from said
Indigenous culture” (p. 622). Hohepa (2013) further suggested that one could be an Indigenous
leader from “without.” An Indigenous leader from “without” “located culture as the target of
theoretical concepts and methods by modifying an existing area of academic study, and its
theories, concepts, and approaches, to create or maximize its degree of alignment or fit with a
culture” (p. 622). Hohepa (2013) defined and supported the difference between Indigenous
leaders versus Indigenous leadership.
Kenny and Fraser (2012) described aboriginal and liberating leadership theory. This
theory focused on female leaders. They described Indigenous women leaders who acted on
behalf of others in the community. Such a leader attributed her accomplishments to the group.
They explained strong leaders had intelligence, tenacity, compassion, courage, character,
inspiration and imagination. Their definition of a strong Indigenous leader was grounded in the
leader’s ability and skill to care for the land and the needs of the people and their traditions.
Kenny and Fraser (2012) further asserted the importance of integrity and commitment to
community as necessary skills that a Native leader had to possess to gauge the connections and
interconnectedness of all things where position and power had no meaning.
Kenny and Fraser (2012) also described the leadership skills needed to walk between
worlds, the ancestral knowledge needed to remain current in the historical tides of changing
leadership and the foundation of culture and identity, as well as the different non-Native

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leadership skills and theories and their ability to navigate between both worlds. Kenny and
Fraser (2012) believed characteristics such as collaborative, community-based, and having
diverse knowledge, ancestral knowledge, a sense of place, an intimate relationship with land and
spirituality were imperative for one to be an Indigenous leader. Kenny and Fraser (2012)
attributed many of the qualities and skills associated with being a feminist leader to the struggles
they navigated and encountered in the clash of their worlds as female leaders in their Native
culture and the world of feminist leadership of Western origins.
Native Hawaiian Leadership
Lipe (2014) studied a subset of individuals who were responsible for (or played an
important role in) the transformation of the University of Hawaii into a Hawaiian place of
learning. For the purposes of my dissertation, I focused exclusively on her sampling strategy.
She used maximum variation sampling to identify those individuals who were central to the
university’s transformation. In deciding to use maximum variation criteria Lipe (2014) choose to
focus on stories by Native Hawaiian people who were foundational in keeping the knowledge of
this place. Furthermore, Lipe (2014) explained the second criterion was to select the kaikuaʻana
(older sibling) and kaikaina (younger sibling) of the same sex. So, the second criterion was that
participants had to have had an older sibling and younger sibling like relationship with her, in
other words her mentors. Lipe (2014) explained two more criteria for the leaders or kumu she
chose. She focused on Moʻokūʻauhau (genealogy). She only chose women within her own
lineage as it would be mahaʻoi (rude) of her to inquire about stories of other relationships not her
own. Last Lipe (2014) chose women who were all Native Hawaiian educational leaders at the
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She believed they would be able to share experiences and
stories as part of their leadership background.

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Lee (2005) asked questions about what kinds of characteristics Native Hawaiian leaders
exuded, why one was considered a Native Hawaiian leader, and how one became a leader. Lee
(2005) found respondents described leadership in terms of behaviors and value centered traits.
Behaviors included being willing to give 110%. Value centered traits included being trustworthy,
honest, respected, and holding values at the core of being Native Hawaiian (humility and using
the naʻau or one’s gut). She went on to indicate that the respondents identified someone as a
Native Hawaiian leader because they practiced haʻahaʻa or humility through selflessness and a
service to the community. Lee (2005) explained her respondents’ descriptions of triggering
events that led to their leadership transformation, which included events that ranged from school
involvement to Native Hawaiian civic organizations and political campaigns. Her participants
shared qualities that defined a Native Hawaiian leader, which included, Native Hawaiian
ancestry and key values in Native Hawaiian culture that included aloha (love) for their people,
driven by naʻau (humble servant) leadership quality. Walking with their kupuna (ancestors) was
an acknowledgement of their traditions and a key quality in Lee (2005) quest to capture the
essence of Native Hawaiian leadership.
Lee (2005) indicated the values, beliefs and attitudes, and opinions that Native Hawaiian
leaders would manifest as: naʻau pono (a deep sense of justice), ʻimi ʻike (seeking of
knowledge), kuleana (responsibility), which included all familial relations, community relations,
as well as ʻāina (land) and kai (ocean stewardship). Pono (honesty) was again a recurring value
and trait strengthened by their aloha for their people and their laulima (cooperation) and lokahi
(unity and harmony).
Feinga (2016) also examined Native Hawaiian leadership. Her empirical study explored
what members of the Native Hawaiian Education Council (NHEC) perceived to be their role in

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perpetuating excellence in Native Hawaiian education as council members and as individual
community members to support or develop educational initiatives that benefitted Native
Hawaiians as well as how they saw themselves enacting their roles in relation to this agenda as
individuals and members of the Council. Specifically, she explained that her respondents shared
the same understanding of their roles as members of the NHEC that aligned with the values of
Indigenous leadership and saw the benefit of the greater community as a priority. Her findings on
Native Hawaiian and Indigenous leadership helped me to understand: 1) the definition of Native
Hawaiian and Indigenous leadership and 2) the importance of Native Hawaiian leadership
research due to the limited research on Native Hawaiian leadership, Native Hawaiian education
and Native Hawaiian leadership in education. Feinga (2016) found general agreements and
variations among council members on the definition of community, some respondents explaining
their community as geographical, ethnic, or global nomination. In Feinga (2016) findings, she
described leadership traits that put the community at the forefront and included culture-based
educational programs and social capital concepts that run parallel to my bodies of literature, all
of which were important to my study.
This section on Native Hawaiian leadership spoke specifically to the research question
and the role Native Hawaiian leadership played in the enactment of CBE and NHE curriculum
and a culturally relevant school environment. Similarly, Indigenous leadership spoke to the
leadership similarities across the board of different Indigenous cultures and informed my study
on Native Hawaiian Leadership. Similar traits, characteristics and qualities of leaders across the
board helped to define specific similarities of great leadership.

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Western Leadership
The Western Leadership literature pieces that were reviewed in this section cover both
theoretical and empirical studies. Hitt and Tucker’s (2016) theoretical piece explains Western
leadership as it pertains to framework practices. Leithwood and Sun (2007) explain their
empirical study on transformational leadership. Heck and Hallinger (2010) also describe their
quantitative study on transformational leadership and Spillane (2010) closes out this section on
the distributed framework theory. I have focused on these authors as they included an emphasis
on collaboration in their explanation of leadership. This was consistent with the collaborative
nature of most Native Hawaiian leaders. This section also helped me to understand and define
Western leadership practices as they relate to the research question to enact Native Hawaiian
culture-based education.
Hitt and Tucker (2016) described school leaders and their role in effectiveness as well as
specific framework practices. They conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed literature
relevant to leadership frameworks. Hitt and Tucker (2016) discussed each framework and
synthesized each peer-reviewed research article as to how the leadership practices and
framework influenced student achievement.
Hitt and Tucker (2016) first reviewed the Ontario Leadership Framework (OLS). They
suggested that, according to this framework, leaders who affected student achievement were
leaders who engaged in the following behaviors: (a) setting directions, (b) building relationships
and developing people, (c) developing the organization to support desired practices, (d)
improving their instructional program and (d) securing accountability. Hitt and Tucker (2012)
suggested that Leithwood and Sun (2007) similarly conceptualized leadership as distributed in
schools and focused specifically on the performance of leadership functions aligned across

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different sources of leadership. Hitt and Tucker (2012) defined transformational leadership by
breaking leadership into four study operations. First, alignment denoted situations in which those
responsible for leadership in a school would have worked out in advance, who would take
responsibility for particular leadership tasks and functions. Second, spontaneous alignment, was
not based on planning but rather on tacit agreements from spontaneous interactions among staff.
Third, spontaneous misalignment, similar to spontaneous alignment, resulted in situations where
leadership and school were misaligned because of lack of planning. Fourth, anarchic
misalignment referred to situations in which some individuals took responsibility for leadership
and would actively reject the legitimacy of other sources of leadership for particular tasks or
functions, resulting in conflict.
Hitt and Tucker (2016) next explained Sebring and Murphy’s framework Learning
Centered Leadership Framework (LCLF). Sebring et al. (2006) concentrated on a leader’s vision
for learning, instructional program, curricular program, assessment program, communities of
learning and the resource acquisition and use and organizational culture. Murphy et al. (2006)
focused on leadership for change, ambitious instruction, student-centered learning environments,
professional capacity, and parent/community ties. Both had similarities and differences in their
leadership framework. Hitt and Tucker (2016) categorized the characteristics from these
frameworks into five essential broad domains: (a) establishing and conveying the vision, (b)
facilitating a high-quality learning experience for students, (c) building professional capacity, (d)
creating a supportive organization for learning, and (e) connecting with external partners.
In meta-analytic review, Leithwood and Sun (2012) focused on transformational
leadership (TSL) and its impact in a school organization. A major finding included the moderate
positive effects of transformational leadership on the teachers and students and their behavior.

15
Leithwood and Sun (2012) defined transformational leadership as the approach that caused
change in people and systems. Leithwood and Sun (2012) further explained that this systemwide
approach allowed for autonomy of learning. Specifically, Leithwood and Sun (2012) concluded
that: 1) Most studies of TSL effects on student achievement had been based on narrow
conceptions of transformational leadership, conceptions that did not acknowledge leaders’
organizational contexts, 2) Some TSL practices made much larger contributions to student
achievement than did others, 3) Even narrowly conceived models of TSL, using direct effects
designs, had demonstrated small but positive and practically meaningful effects on student
achievement; and last 4) Studies using indirect designs reported mixed results.
Spillane and Healey (2010) defined distributed leadership in two parts. First leader-plus
which recognizes the formal position of leaders such as the principal or other individuals who
help to manage a school like assistant principals, mentors, teachers and curriculum coaches.
Second the informal organization of leadership, labeled as leadership practice, defined as the
practice of leading and managing without title or formal designations. Spillane and Healey
(2010) explained that previous empirical research was shortsighted suggesting that research
focused too narrowly on the role of the principal and further expressed leadership functions that
were typically distributed among three to seven formally designated leadership positions per
elementary school. Spillane and Healey’s (2010) analysis suggested that both formal and
informal organizations were not closely aligned and surprisingly formally designated subject
area leaders did not prominently make a change in their organization in comparison to informal
leadership designation positions.
Heck and Hallinger (2010) used a quantitative study to explain the nature and effects of
transformational school leadership. They focused on understanding the contribution that

16
specifically collaborative leadership and school capacity for improvement made towards student
learning and growth in elementary school mathematics. Heck and Hallinger (2010) reported that
collaborative leadership allowed for a larger pool of people the insight into the nature of a
system. In turn such leadership led to a transformation of the school and people in the system,
thus, transformational leadership in this specific case helped with student learning growth in
elementary school mathematics. In relation to such leadership a principal could use all the parties
in the school to support full system or team improvement, the improvements become more
expansive and widespread throughout the school system. Specifically, Heck and Hallinger
(2010) presented three discussion points and implications. First the study-conceptualized
leadership as a collaborative process aimed at building the school’s capacity for improvement.
Second the research responded to calls for studies that utilized longitudinal data to explore
leadership effects on organizational processes and performance. Third the study’s empirical
efforts to evaluate usefulness of understanding distributed leadership models in school
improvement.
The Western Leadership section focused on the studies that spoke to leadership styles
such as transformational leadership and distributed leadership to better understand how Western
leadership frameworks might compliment Indigenous leadership, therefore impacting Native
Hawaiian leadership. It was important to understand how a leader enacting a Western leadership
approach might promote teacher collaboration in relation to developing and implementing a CBE
curriculum.
Culturally Relevant School Leadership
Culturally relevant school leadership proved to be a nice marriage of both Indigenous
leadership culture and Western leadership culture. Although this literature consisted of

17
theoretical and empirical work that examined the attributes of leaders who were able to respond
to culturally unique schools and provide leadership that worked to build on these practices and
values to strengthen the school environment, I present only one piece on this topic. I offer a
literature review by Khalifa et al. (2016). This review is comprehensive and summarized
empirical work from several separate studies. As Khalifa et al. (2016) coined the term “culturally
responsive school leader,” any additional literature would only be repeating what they have
provided in their review.
Khalifa et al. (2016) set out to answer the questions, “What are the unique characteristics
of a culturally responsive school leader?” and “How can leaders respond to minoritized or
culturally unique school contexts...” (p. 1273). More specifically, they identified and analyzed
literature that they believed revealed the behaviors of culturally responsive school leaders
(CRSL). First, they identified empirical articles that made connections between leadership and
“uniqueness or difference,” including culture, language, sexual orientation, national origin,
gender, race, identity, or social class. They also focused on sources that highlighted “some type
of unique or specific leadership behaviors used with students in any area of difference or with
minoritized populations” (p. 1276). Khalifa et al. (2016) explained that culturally responsive
leaders were responsible for the promotion of an inclusive setting, were present and develop
relationships with the community members they served. Leadership behaviors were
characteristics that a culturally responsive leader would incorporate to infuse culture in the
everyday practices and curriculum. According to Khalifa et al. (2016), one of the behaviors that a
CRSL would express were effectiveness. They said, “Effective leaders must be capable of
promoting and sustaining an environment stable enough to attract, maintain, and support the
further development of good teachers...” (p. 1273). Khalifa et al. (2016) explained that CRSLs

18
often implement culture-specific programs. They explained a guiding leadership framework that
focused on ways principals served as instructional and transformational leaders promoting
environments with strong relationships of trust, vision, goals, and a sense of community. Khalifa
et al. (2016) explained the need for CRSL and highlighted the significant role culture played in
shaping thinking behaviors and practices of students, teachers, administrators, parents and other
school stakeholders. Khalifa et al. (2016) articulated the importance of a principal’s role in
challenging the status quo and supporting and protecting the critical consciousness of changing
culture in the school to affirm and protect the Indigenous student identities in the school.
Khalifa et al. (2016) synthesized the literature around four primary strands of CRSL,
critically self-reflected on leadership behavior, development of culturally responsive teachers,
promotion of culturally responsive/inclusive school environments, and engagement of students,
parents, and Indigenous contexts. These four strands helped focus different bodies of literature
that Khalifa et al. (2016) highlighted the interconnectedness of the strands and the importance for
other researchers to further refine their body of literature.
Native Hawaiian Epistemology
I present Native Hawaiian Epistemology (NHE) in this section of the literature review as
it informed the definition of knowledge, I presumed the principal leader might have and how it
would impact their organization to create a culture-based curriculum. ʻIke Kupuna (the
knowledge of those who came before us) was the recurring idea that could be found in the study
of Native Hawaiian Epistemology. In defining Native Hawaiian Epistemology, Meyer (2008)
and Pukuʻi (1995) expressed the importance of protocol, family, and relationships in order to
infuse ancestral knowledge in education. Benham (2014), Kanahele (2011), and Maaka (1992)
defined the idea of community and perspectives as the movement towards a common wealth of

19
knowledge, while Kawakami (1999) helped to bridge Native Hawaiian and Indigenous
epistemology practices to the schools’ curriculum. Similarly, Krug (2016) focused on the
application of NHE through experiences and knowledge as expressed in the collaboration and
creation of relevant curricula, in kaiapuni (Hawaiian Language Immersion schools) which shows
the connection between NHE and the education of our Native Hawaiian students.
Benham (2014) presented key principles and a model of engaged leadership in
Indigenous communities. She explained the importance of Hā (place relations and collective
action). Benham (2014) explained the concept of hā in relation to the Hawaiian, as the breath of
life. This principle linked all persons, past, present, and future and was a complex concept that
meant many things including a way of communication. Benham (2014) described the concept of
place as land, sky, and sea, which were all fundamentally pedagogical and reciprocal in nature,
in fact, she argued that people impacted place and in turn a place would shape and define who
people were. This though therefore described Native Hawaiians as a people that were shaped by
their place and when that place was taken from them so was their identity. Benham (2014) went
on to explain the idea that valuable learning occurred in multiple ecosystems. Benham (2014)
explained the core of the individual was related to their interactions with people and the social
group, physical environment, and the spiritual world. This connection maintained the bond to
traditions. This bond was mana (power) and therefore potential power the individual was
dependent on the group and their place. Benham (2014) depicted the importance of a sense of
community in Native Hawaiian epistemology. Native Hawaiians relationships with their place,
the world around them, each other, and their spirits and kupuna helped to guide their learning.
Kanahele (2011) asserted the focus of a Native Hawaiian Epistemology through chants,
words and the translation and meaning that an individual had from the creation, study and the

20
decomposition of words. She believed that this process, the Papakū Makawalu process,
which broke down the understanding of words and the meaning of each part of a word as the
foundation of multiple perspectives, in that each word could have many different meanings and
therefore the value of perspective in order to ground the word that one was discerning brought
forth true learning of what Native Hawaiian learning was. Her approach was very philosophical
and intangible when describing in detail how one came to understanding through such a hands-
on approach. Kanahele (2011) helped to define NHE through her work, similar to Puku’i’s
(1995), “Ma ka hana ka ‘ike.” Her connection to her past, culture, kupuna, and present were a
representation of what it was to be completely consumed and surrounded by NHE.
In order to understand how one could achieve NHE in their perspectives, ways of
knowing, and eventually educational leadership practices, an understanding of their history of
said knowledge had to be understood in order to know how to move forward. Maaka (1992)
asserted that a common history of dispossession, disconnection, and dislocation of Indigenous
people, due to colonialism, had been the central reminder that as a collective, Indigenous peoples
of the world should be able to self-determine in all matters. Only through these informed choices
and education of Indigenous people by Indigenous people would the oppressed nations of Pacific
Islanders be freed from the generations of dispossessed peoples. She argued that through such
self-determination would rise cultural and spiritual knowledge that would help Indigenous
people to identify who they were and what they were doing and the importance of such
curriculum in the education systems of Western cultures. The ideas proposed by Maaka (1992)
helped to determine what a Native epistemology stemmed from, how a native person such
as a Native Hawaiian would self-determine their identity through culture-based education and the

21
liberation from their oppression, leading to a validation of their core values and relationships in
the community as enough and equally important.
Wasilewski (2004) further defined the idea of self-determination and explained the
importance of worldviews and communal relationships in one word, indigeneity. This word
and system of core values in turn informed Indigenous people in the articulation of their
worldviews and practices. He further described the synergistic relationship between Indigenous
people and their communities as the maintenance to indigenous perspectives and being grounded
in who and what we were as Indigenous peoples. Wasilewski’s (2004) research helped
to further define the epistemology of Native Hawaiians in that, similar to Maaka (1992), Meyer
(2008), and Puku’i (1995), she was able to put into a word, indigeneity, the idea that culture-
based views and values were the meaning for any Native or Indigenous epistemology. It was
interesting to find that throughout all the pieces in the Native Hawaiian Epistemology section
that defining into words such an expansive knowledge set and worldview was difficult
and Wasilewski (2004) was able to do this in one word. She was able to give life and worth to all
facets of Indigenous practices and Native Hawaiian epistemology in a word that helped to
describe the complex relationship of worldviews, core values and the relationship between
community and these values.
Meyer (2008) explored the reasons why teachers taught and students learned, based on
the nature of their childhood and the culture in which they surround themselves. She defined
Native Hawaiian Epistemology as a theory derived from studies of Hawaiian culture. She further
asserted the meaning of Native Hawaiian Epistemology to be the study of the knowledge and
culture of Native Hawaiians and where these ideas stemmed from a source. Specifically, Meyer
(2008) explained the mana (power) of knowledge, to whom knowledge belonged so belonged the

22
mana. She was able to specifically define Native Hawaiian Epistemology based on the culture
and perspectives of those who came before her. Their mana’o (thoughts) were firmly rooted in
culture and language.
Puku’i (1995) did not define epistemology or mention it overtly, but the idea of
knowledge and learning based on the relationships and experiences from a primary source,
helped define Native Hawaiian Epistemology as the knowledge that has been passed down
through generations. The focus on the oral tradition and the passing of knowledge allowed for
Native Hawaiians to truly understand the source from which they learned all they knew. From
birth to death there were protocols and procedures that continued the tradition of a primary
knowledge source. Even through political change and the cultural revitalization struggles these
traditions held strong and were the foundation for Native Hawaiian epistemology. Puku‘i’s
(1995) studies and recollections helped to build the picture of what Native Hawaiian
epistemology looked like. Based on Puku’i’s (1995) studies and recollection, Meyer (2008)
began to unravel the layers of NHE in relation to learning and teaching.
Knowing the history of one’s kupuna (ancestors) helped shape all education outcomes,
through leadership, learning, teaching and more. According to Meyer (2008) there were 10
standards that truly encompassed NHE. The first was to get rid of the belief that Hawaiians were
inferior. To free people from the chains which bind, they must release themselves from
oppression, such was the advice of Freire (1993). Meyer (2008) continued to assert 10 ideas that
bound learners to connect their lives to their educational experiences, like, why Native
Hawaiians loved the ocean but rarely swam and fished from it, remembering one’s favorite
teacher, learning from the land not simply about it, understanding that words had mana (power),
questioning one’s belief of what education could do, questioning one’s role in education,

23
wondering about the role of aloha in one’s children’s education, expecting more rigor and
understanding the idea of epistemology. All of these standards of thinking helped to inform the
idea of NHE, what NHE looked like to educators, leaders and students and how this phenomenon
led to collaboration amongst teachers in relation to curriculum development and
implementation.
Kawakami (1999) spoke to the sense of place, community, and identity. She explored the
variables that impacted the Native Hawaiians, their history, their home life and bridging the gap
between home and school for Hawaiian Students. She was able to find correlations between
physical and social environments on students and their school success as well as other factors
such as experience-based and hands-on activities in relation to hte education of Native
Hawaiians. Kawakami (1999) further explained the importance of understanding sense of place,
community, and identity.
Krug (2016) argued that mo’olelo (the stories of our people) are our ha’awina (lessons).
In other words, the experiences and stories informed our educational practices and these
practices therefore became our curriculum. He continued to assert the importance of ‘ike kupuna
(ancestral knowledge) in an education system that devalued ancestral knowledge that sustained a
thriving people for centuries. He specifically targeted the learning and teachings in kaiapuni
(HLIP) schools. Krug (2016) explained, in a program lacking curriculum and resources, a solid
foundation in NHE was critical in the development of epistemological relevant curricula.
Similarly, as NHE was understood and respected, McFarlane’s (2008) study on how an
Indigenous epistemology could reframe the curriculum of native peoples was literature that
spoke to the importance of an Indigenous epistemology, likened to the Native Hawaiian
Epistemology focused on in this study. These authors focused on the parallels between Western

24
and European sociocultural theory on human development and the preferred practices in a native
Māori cultural worldview that mirrored Native Hawaiians. McFarlane (2008) asserted the
establishment of these preferred practices as a means to maintain and prove students were
successful in their achievements. Here they were able to create a curriculum that was recognized
in the European system and stayed true to the meaning of Native Māori Epistemology or
ideologies.
It was most important to understand the meaning of Native Hawaiian epistemology to
understand how Native Hawaiian epistemology would be expressed by the leadership choices
made by the principal in relation to promoting teacher collaboration for curriculum development
and implementation. Epistemology is indigeneity, culture-based, self-determination, worldviews,
perspectives, and relationships between communities and encompasses all these ideas. The
literature had clearly defined Native Hawaiian Epistemology as all these things and helped to
inform this study and allowed for understanding how a leader might use NHE to navigate and
facilitate teachers collaboration to produce and implement a culture-based curriculum. All these
authors spoke to the importance of experiences, mo’olelo, relationships, and ‘Ike Kupuna, as
what grounds Native Hawaiian Epistemology. The limitations of such knowledge were imparted
due to a Western perspective and system that devalued this primary source of knowledge known
to Hawaiians as ‘Ike Kupuna. The qualitative nature of primary source knowledge was therefore
what limited the credibility of Native Hawaiian Epistemology.
Cultural-Based Education
In the last section of the literature review presents materials that focused specifically on
cultural-based education (CBE). These articles defined CBE and concentrated on how a cultural-
based education curriculum looked in various organizations. This CBE section particularly

25
extracted what culture-based education models looked like in a Native Hawaiian and Indigenous
setting to visualize representations of CBE curriculum. It was important to keep these pieces
grounded in the research question, which demanded the definition and explanation of CBE
in curriculum particularly during development and collaboration to understand how the principal
might enact opportunities to use and create credible culture-based educational materials.
Lino (2010) examined the relationship between a culturally relevant and responsive
learning environment and its effect on achievement and motivation for Native Hawaiian students
(grades 6-12). Using quantitative methods, a survey consisting of 129 questions was issued to
3,200 secondary students in Hawaii. Purposeful sampling was utilized to ensure that Native
Hawaiian youth exposed to culturally rich learning environments grounded in Native Hawaiian
values and practices were selected. Students from public Hawaiian language immersion schools,
charter Hawaiian language immersion schools, charter Hawaiian-focused schools and one private
school were included. Lino (2010) specifically investigated the correlation between the
independent variables of cultural connectedness (cultural attachment, Hawaiian language,
connection to ‘aina (land), connection to ‘ohana (family), cultural practices, and cultural
issues) and the dependent variable of achievement motivation. The study found that there was a
connection between the home culture of Native Hawaiian students and the school culture. Native
Hawaiian students who were motivated to do better positively correlated with success despite the
socioeconomic factors they faced. Lino (2010) further found that the integration of students led
to the increase of the institution’s discourse. Lino (2010) fleshed out variables in curriculum that
impacted a student’s success.
Feinga (2016) explained culture-based education in relation to Native Hawaiian
leadership and social capital. She studied the Native Hawaiian Education Association and their

26
council members to determine similar and different ideals of council members in the
perpetuation of Native Hawaiian education aligned with cultural-based education. Feinga (2016)
explained how her respondents described their roles as leaders and how their roles enacted
culture-based education in their setting. Here Feinga (2016) highlighted her first finding, 100%
of the council members understood their roles as leaders and the relation of their roles in the
perpetuation of Native Hawaiian excellence through Native Hawaiian education. Sixty percent of
Feinga’s (2016) respondents further defined their roles as making a positive impact on the
community in support of culture-based education and Native Hawaiian education. Feinga (2016)
found that the council members differed in their definitions of community. As the respondents
defined their roles, they explained their definitions of Native Hawaiian education and culture-
based education.
For example, Kau’i, a respondent, asserted the definition of culture-based education as
Hawaiian culture and knowledge, practicing language, values, practices and wisdom to sustain
abundant communities. Kau’i explained,
culture-based education is educating about the culture but it really is about educating
through culture...educating through culture using the knowledge from the culture, using
metaphors, using lessons from culture that already exists and aligning them to Western
standards of knowledge.” (p. 105)
Another respondent explained her role as a responsibility to positively impact the Native
Hawaiian community at large through her work and defined culture-based education and Native
Hawaiian education as a benefit from her work (Feinga, 2016). Kanoe, another respondent,
talked about a project he worked on that utilized student interest, skill set and values to engage
students in career planning. Yet another respondent defined CBE as an integration of everyday

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community needs and interests and learning through these vehicles of knowledge and likened it
to learning through the different parts of culture, language, traditions, etc., how they educated
and married the culture of the community and the Western based standards that they were held
accountable to. Twenty percent of respondents in Feinga’s (2016) study described their
community from a global perspective and defined their community as the constituents who lived
in the place, not just the ethnic Hawaiians. The two respondents out of 10 explained culture-
based education programs as global learning and dependent on the community of learners
demographically and not ethically, similar to Cultural Relevant School Learning initiatives
(Khalifa et al., 2016).
Feinga’s (2016) findings helped reveal two sets of thoughts in the description and
definition of CBE, a Native Hawaiian mindset and a global mindset. Both definitions took into
consideration the communities in which the leader’s role would impact.
Kanu (2007) study explored the increasing school success due to the impact of a
culturally responsive curriculum. The study on curriculum, teaching, and learning showed
evidence of the positive impact through culture-based curriculum and the impacts said
curriculum had on aboriginal students. Her study had some similarities between Pacific Islanders
and Native Hawaiians in that their Indigenous population had been displaced and taught in a
Western/European system. Kanu (2007) further described her findings, which suggested change
toward a culturally responsive curriculum and pedagogy to increase academic achievement.
However, Kanu (2007) also explained that alone, the curriculum and pedagogy itself could not
provide a functional and effective agenda in reversing achievement trends among Aboriginal
students; it must be partnered with other economic, social, and political variables within the
community as a whole. She suggested a holistic and comprehensive approach, to make a true

28
difference. Kanu’s (2007) study was important to consider because she included curriculum,
pedagogy, and a comprehensive approach in making a difference.
Tibbetts et al. (2007) adopted a strengths-based perspective to explore how a culturally
grounded approach to education, education with aloha, a curriculum that supported and nurtured
positive development among Native Hawaiian charter school students. Despite the high level of
risk factors among Nā Lei Naʻauao (Native Hawaiian Charter School Alliance students), the
overall prevalence of assets among students compared favorably with those found in the national
benchmark group. Differences in patterns of assets between Nā Lei Naʻauao and the national
benchmark group were generally consistent with the tenets of Education with Aloha and were
hypothesized to be either a result of this educational approach or based on cultural differences.
Data was descriptive and further research using a more culturally specific instrument designed
for longitudinal studies was needed to test this hypothesis. If a link between Education with
Aloha and the strengthening of student assets could be established, this provided another reason
to support Hawaiian cultural-based education. Tibbitts et al. (2007) believed the tendency for
Hawaiian students to rate themselves favorably would often result in low scores due to the
Hawaiian value of ha’aha’a (humility) (p.166). Thus, the need to design a more culturally
specific instrument to test their hypothesis and interpret the results through Hawaiian cultural
lens, using values such as ha’aha’a was needed. Education of Aloha resulted in CBE and was
also important to discover what the CBE looked like in their study to help inform my study.
Tibbits et al. (2007) continued to describe their CBE as quality education rooted in
traditional Hawaiian culture, values, and pedagogy. Education was at once ancient and modern
and aligned with traditional practices as well as the new three Rs in education: relations,
relevance, and rigor. Tibbits et al. (2007) further explained their CBE approach as,

29
This approach focuses first and foremost on creating and maintaining positive relations
among all stakeholders through the establishment of a dynamic learning ‘ohana (extended
family). Like a traditional Hawaiian family, this learning ‘ohana practices aloha, aligning
with the Hawaiian proverb: Aloha kekahi i kekahi, pēlā ihola ka nohona ʻohana (Love
one another, such is family life). (p.149)
Knowing the results of such a robust CBE curriculum rooted in Native Hawaiian values was
important as it supported the idea that CBE was important to the success of Native Hawaiian
students and that leaders should adopt practices that include CBE curriculum development and
resources in order to have similar positive results.
McCarty and Lee (2014) presented culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy as a
necessary concept to understand and guide educational practices for Native American learners.
These authors created curriculum, extended lessons from Indigenous cultural-based, culturally
relevant and responsive schooling. Using two ethnographic cases, these authors explored what
culturally sustaining/revitalizing pedagogy looked like and considered possibilities, tensions, and
constraints. McCarty and Lee (2014) asserted the importance of culturally sustaining pedagogy
and the fundamental role sovereignty in schooling played in the possibilities, tensions and
constraints of cultural knowledge and education in politics. McCarty and Lee (2014) further
proposed critical culturally sustaining /revitalizing pedagogy (CSRP) as an approach designed to
address the sociohistorical and contemporary contexts of Native American schooling. They
continued to define this approach as having three components, first an expression of Indigenous
education sovereignty to directly attend to power and the goal of transforming legacies of
colonization, second the struggle to recognize the need to reclaim, and third to revitalize what
had been disrupted and displaced by colonization and the importance to focus on language

30
education and policy and practice. McCarty and Lee (2014) pointed to the importance of
pedagogy and curriculum that took into consideration the role sovereignty played in school and
how to use the communities struggles to benefit their learning and reclamation of their CSRP.
A qualitative study, Reyes (2013) explored the role of 12 Native Hawaiian educators
from Hawaiian culture-based charter schools, Hawaiian immersion schools, the University
of Hawai’i at Mānoa and Kamehameha Schools in their discourse on Hawaiian Education. This
study spoke to the relevance of culture-based education and the definitions of what CBE looked
like for different schools and educators. One of her respondents explained; “Hawaiian education
is a reflection of the values of Hawaiians, according to the generation at that particular time.
Thus, Hawaiian education and Hawaiian identity are fluid” (p.70). Another respondent asserted,
“Hawaiian education as retaining our identity, culture, and heritage as Hawaiians. Hawaiian
education and Hawaiian identity are inseparable” (p. 75). Reyes’s (2013) findings pointed
towards the importance of values, identity, culture, and heritage as an integral part of Native
Hawaiian education, interpreted as being important to CBE.
Okumura (2015) focused on cultural-based education and accountability. Her study
explored the definition of CBE and the accountability CBE educators and administrators had
towards culture-based learning and epistemology in the community as well as the navigation of
school, state, and federal mandates. Okumura (2015) presented the accountability piece of CBE
for both educators and administrators through state standards and testing results. This
piece provided me with a way to better understand the role that the administrator played in
enacting CBE. It is important to remember the focus in her study was specific to accountability
and not on curriculum development, thus I limited my review to only those aspects that were
useful to my study. Okumura (2015) defined CBE as a set of goals, pedagogy, and curriculum

31
that helped Indigenous students respond better to their learning and expresses the importance of
the land and community as an essential part of CBE. What was also important about this study
was her description of what CBE looked like and how and it was viewed in relation to
curriculum. Okumura’s (2015) findings suggested Native Hawaiian cultural identity and
language proficiency were foundational pieces of CBE. She shared the importance of leveraging
that identity and language as a bridge to US/Western knowledge and skills.
Cultural-based education research in both Indigenous cultures and Native Hawaiian
culture helped leaders to better understand their role in education and the importance of cultural-
based curricula. Okumura’s (2015) research suggested recognition and an understanding of CBE
in the system, with an accountable spin. Reyes (2013) focused on the perspectives of educators
and principals regarding culture-based education. McCarty and Lee (2014), Lee (2005), Tibbetts
et al. (2007), Kanu (2007) and Lino (2010) all helped further define what CBE was and how it
looked in the curriculum. All researchers showed CBE as an integral piece of Native Hawaiian
Epistemology and Indigenous Epistemology and so it was important to inform our study with
previous definitions and usage of CBE when discussing the principal’s role in enactment of CBE
and how the principal led and supported collaboration with their team of educators to create
curricula that was culture-based.
Conceptual Framework
In this section I present the conceptual framework that I developed to guide this study.
Maxwell (2013, p. 39) asserted, the “Conceptual framework is the key to research design and is
the system of concepts, expectations, beliefs and theories that support and inform my research.”
There were four bodies of literature presented that informed the conceptual framework for this
study. My conceptual framework similarly illustrated these four components as variables that

32
impacted the enactment of principal leadership. The illustration of my conceptual framework
guided the methods and instrumentation for this study. Below is the original conceptual
framework that focused on four components that influenced a principal leader’s ability to enact
collaboration of culturally based curricula, 1) the Western characteristics, qualities, and
skills of a leader, 2) Indigenous or Native Hawaiian characteristics, qualities and
skills of a leader, 3) Native Hawaiian Epistemological ideologies and, or, 4) Western
Epistemological ideologies.
Figure 1

Conceptual Framework

Indigenous and Native Hawaiian
The first section of the literature review described and defined the different types of
Indigenous and Native Hawaiian characteristics, qualities, and skills. Hohepa (2013) defined two
kinds of leadership, within and without. This indigenization term was important to my study
because it described how a leader was part of the target Indigenous culture “within,” whereas
“without” located culture as the target. I found this an important part in a leader’s journey, to

33
determine if a leader was an Indigenous leader who practiced Western leadership, a Western
leader practicing Indigenous leadership, a Western leader practicing Western leadership or
Indigenous leadership: Leaders who were born Indigenous versus leaders who participated in
indigenous practices whether they were born into it or not. These ideas of leadership within and
without were depicted at the outskirts of the conceptual framework image: Native Hawaiian
Leadership (NHL) or Indigenous Leadership (IL). These two leadership styles were one in the
same because IL was the broader leadership and NHL was a more defined leadership style
specific to Native Hawaiians. Both NHL and IL were located on the same side of the CF image
because they resembled and mirrored each other, such as Lipe (2014), Kenny and Fraser (2012),
Hohepa (2013) and Lee (2005) mirrored each other’s statements of community being an
important responsibility of the leader.
Kenny and Fraser (2012) explained different characteristics of a strong leader, their
definition based in Indigenous leadership but spanned throughout the other leadership styles,
such as Lee (2005) who explored the leadership of ethnically Native Hawaiian women in various
leadership positions. Lee (2005) described leaders through similar behaviors, similar to Kenny
and Fraser (2012) such as honesty, trustworthiness, respect, values and humility. Feinga (2016),
Lipe (2014), and Lee (2005) had great examples of qualities and traits of a good leader such as
ancestral knowledge, tenacity, ability to navigate between needs of their people and requirements
of the Western systems or even value systems such as the importance of community, integrity,
honesty, and the stewardship of ʻāina (land) and its importance to Indigenous peoples. My
thought in the placement of NHL and IL at the opposite end of Western Leadership (WL)
depicted the idea that WL was at the opposite end of IL, opposites in their value systems and
even some character and trait differences, but there was also an understanding that both WL and

34
IL have similarities, so the circle in the conceptual framework was to support the idea that there
were some intertwining ideas of leadership qualities and values that were a part of both
Indigenous and Western leadership.
Drawing on the work of Kenny and Fraser (2012) and Lee (2005), I asserted that an
Indigenous/Native Hawaiian leader would demonstrate the following knowledge and skills or
approach to leadership: They would present themselves as honest and trustworthy, as a person of
integrity and have humility. Moreover, I expected this person to bring forth ancestral knowledge
and the ability to navigate between the needs of their people and the requirements of a Western
system just as Feinga (2016) and Lipe (2014) previously described. I did not need for this leader
to have been born into an Indigenous background or a Native Hawaiian family as Hohepa (2013)
suggested but instead to be mindful of this concept.
Western Leadership & Culturally Relevant School Leadership
Heck and Hallinger (2009) and Leithwood et al. (2007) and several others explained
Western leadership styles, characteristics, and qualities. This part of literature review examined
different Western approaches to leadership in the enactment of collaboration and or culturally
relevant curricula. The Western leadership section also helped to understand what kinds of
leadership styles, practices, characteristics and qualities leaders needed or had in order to enact
collaboration of CBE curricula. Based on the literature, I assumed that a Western leader could
have all the skills and qualities of a great leader but might lack certain characteristics and the
knowledge base to be a leader that could enact CBE in an immersion Kaiapuni school. These
assumptions would lead me to believe that a leader based in Western leadership contexts would
be the contrast of a Native Hawaiian or Indigenous leader.

35
Khalifa et al. (2016) offered culturally relevant school leadership (CRSL). I suggested
that CRSL was a similar packaging of CBE but grounded in a Western mindset because CRSL
was grounded in the geographical school culture and not the ethnic and Indigenous culture and
epistemological framework of IL and NHL. Drawing on their explanation, I asserted that
Western leadership most similar to NHL would be closely linked to CRSL but should not be
confused with NHL, because though the traits, characteristics, and skills might be similar the
value system was expected to differ.
Hitt and Tucker (2016) explained different leadership frameworks as studied by some
authors in my literature review, such as Spillane’s (2006) view on distributing leadership or Hitt
and Tuckers (2012) review on Ontario Leadership Framework (OLS) which included
relationship building, developing supported desired practices, and improving program instruction
and accountability. I believed that many of these ideas of leadership practices such as a vision for
learning, instructional programming, curricular programs, assessment programs and communities
of learning are all parts of a Western system (Sebring et al., 2006). They were at the other side of
the conceptual framework because I believed it was important to see the contrast of both Western
and Native Hawaiian or Indigenous leadership.
The values of Western leadership seemed to be at opposite sides, one being driven by the
system needs and the other driven by community and ancestral needs. However, both WL and
NHL or IL included many similarities between qualities and characteristics that help to fulfill
these value systems. I used the circle to show how simple leadership value systems were but how
differing values with similar skills, qualities, and characteristics can create a polar opposite in
leadership of Native Hawaiians versus Western systems and in the same regard could have many
similarities dependent on the value systems in place.

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Native Hawaiian Epistemology

Puku’i (1995) explained how a person studies knowledge; she recited this Hawaiian
proverb, “Nānā i ke Kumu” (look to the source), the teacher the maker of said knowledge. Puku’i
(1995) was important because she explained the study of knowledge as finding the source of
knowledge and so was a part of this study because of how the principal needed to find the source
of knowledge to enact said knowledge in their leadership of curriculum development. I placed
NHE above principal enactment between the leadership circle and the principal enactment
diamond in order visualizes the idea of NHE as the source of knowledge, which gave way to
enactment of said knowledge. I saw leadership as the vehicle that knowledge was used in order
to enact the knowledge and therefore hoped to see this play out in the curricula.
Similarly, Meyer (1998) put a modern twist on Pukuʻi (1995) work as she explained and
defined the epistemology or study of Native Hawaiian knowledge as learning from
your kūpuna and capitalizing on the experiences before us in order to move forward. Her idea of
knowledge and the learning of knowledge from one’s ancestors was important to the conceptual
framework because she explained NHE as protocol, family and relationships in order to infuse
ancestral knowledge in education and so I saw this definition of knowledge and NHE as a piece
that the leader will have had to identify in order to enact NHE and CBE curricula.
Benham (2014) also presented a model of multiple ecosystems or learning systems about
how the individual interacted within the system to create relationships with people, social groups
and physical or spiritual worlds. I found this phenomenon important because she talked to the
ethereal nature of epistemology and what that meant and then the addition of Native Hawaiian to
epistemology as another piece that added to the complexity of NHE and how a principal
individual would use their knowledge and definition of knowledge to lead others to enact the use

37
of said knowledge in curriculum. I found that the outermost circle, leadership explained the most
basic part of leadership and as we arrived at the core of the circle, principal enactment there were
more complex pieces, such as NHE that helped to specify what knowledge was of value, through
the study of knowledge and its source.
Culture-Based Education
Culture-based education was grounded in the fact that Native Hawaiian students learned
and responded better to curriculum, pedagogy, and assessments that reflected their native culture
(Kanaʻiaupuni & Ishibara, 2003). Similar to the literature review, I supported these reflections on
CBE research and defined culture-based education as a strategy in teaching and learning that
fostered relationships between students, teacher, curriculum, community and culture to improve
student outcomes. Lino (2010), Feinga (2016), and Kanu (2007) all described the importance of
relevant curriculum of the host culture, in this case Native Hawaiian culture and the
incorporation of Native Hawaiian language and identity in curriculum.
I believed that like these studies in the literature review of Culture-based education it was
important to understand the illustration of the conceptual framework as CBE incorporated two
ways, first at the bottom of principal enactment because I saw CBE as the foundation of
transferring knowledge, NHE as well as CBE as the expected curriculum that would be taught,
learned, and explored as the goal of enactment. Both Western and Indigenous alike had a part in
marrying leadership skills to use knowledge and culture as the vehicle in which students learned
more about knowledge and culture that also met the Western standards of accountability.
I asserted that the leader’s background, value system, characteristics, and skill set in
Indigenous leadership, Native Hawaiian leadership and Western leadership influenced their
ability to support CBE and NHE curriculum collaboration. CBE and NHE both had influence on

38
knowledge valued and what a principal enacted in collaboration of CBE and NHE curricula.
These influences were what enabled the principal to enact a culturally relevant curriculum,
grounded in culture, and knowledge and leadership practices that best fit the school being
studied. In my conceptual framework it was essential to understand the complex relationship
between leaders and their previous knowledge of leadership, both Native Hawaiian and Western
as well as their understanding of CBE and NHE to enact collaboration of CBE and NHE
curriculum.
Summary
In summary the literature reviewed has pointed to further investigation, understanding
and the definition of the meaning of CBE and NHE curriculum as well as how this leadership
looks in action, how principal leaders enact these initiatives with their previous experiences, skill
sets and leadership qualities. I drew from four buckets of literature: Indigenous and Native
Hawaiian Leadership, Western Leadership, Native Hawaiian Epistemology and Culture-Based
education, which allows me to examine the gaps in research that inform leadership and the
enactment of CBE and NHE curricula. It was my suggestion that there be further defining of
what CBE looks like and how a principal’s leadership helped to determine true collaboration and
discussion of CBE and NHE curriculum.

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CHAPTER THREE: METHODS
According to Merriam (2009), qualitative researchers are interested in how people
interpret their experiences, how they construct their worlds, and what meaning they attribute to
their experiences. Drawing on Merriam (2009) my research questions were based on the
experiences of a principal and teachers at a kaiapuni and the meanings they attributed to their
experiences, and asked:
1. How does a principal promote collaboration in relation to school climate at a
Hawaiian Language Immersion Program School?
2. How does a principal promote Hawaiian Language and English teachers’ efforts to
develop or improve a culture-based curriculum?
In order to understand how a principal and teachers interpreted their experiences helped to
provide clear understanding of the principal’s role in this case study. It was also important that
the methodology in collecting data on this phenomenon be inductive in nature. Merriam (2009)
described the researcher’s use of inductive approaches as that which allowed theme formation,
categories, typologies, concepts, tentative hypotheses, and even theory about a particular aspect
of practice through the use of interviews and observations. Through some of these qualitative
methods, theme formation, concepts and theory of practice through interviews and observations,
I gathered rich descriptive data that explained the principal’s leadership. My goal was to answer
my research questions and learn how a principal would promote collaboration and help teachers
to develop or improve a culture-based curriculum.
Sample
The population of kaiapuni schools were a handful of only six and of these six I choose to
focus on this sample of one kaiapuni school principal. I used purposeful sampling that would

40
require criterion-based selection. For the purposes of my study, I specifically used criterion-
based selection. The criterion-based selection included the purposeful selection of a principal
who was located in a Department of Education school that hosted both an HLIP and English
language program. This distinction was important in this case study in order to see how the
principal navigated both groups of educators. Choosing a school with both a kaiapuni program
and an English based program would be important in understanding how a principal would
navigate these challenges for other principals and kaiapuni schools in a similar setting. This
sample also focused specifically on our kaiapuni teachers and how they worked together with
and without their English counterparts as well as their poʻokumu as they created culture-based
curriculum.
Setting
The main criterion for choosing a school for this sample was for the school to be a
kaiapuni serving campus. There were three different types of schools that fit this criterion: full
immersion kaiapuni, half and half kaiapuni and charter. The school that I decided to focus on in
this study was a DOE school that catered to both English and Kaiapuni students. It was important
that I looked at leadership in an immersion school where the teachers were required to facilitate
create essentially two different types of culture-based curricula. These teachers had to create a
culture-based curriculum that would be used in English and they had to create a culture-based
curriculum that was in Hawaiian language. Another important factor in this case were that the
teachers teaching this Native Hawaiian culture-based curriculum might be ethnically different
with those teaching in English also more likely to be White or not Native Hawaiian whereas
those teaching the Native Hawaiian content were more likely to be Native Hawaiian. Another
criterion included was convenience. I decided to choose the school in my case study as the

41
setting for this study because it was close by to my work that would also meet the first criterion.
Having relationships with almost all the principals at each kaiapuni school served me well when
I reached out to schools in the selection process and helped to offer aid in understanding the
ongoings of the school to better inform my study. I was able to secure one school for my case
study that met all these criteria. After getting verbal permission from the school I choose it
became clear that this campus would be relevant to my work criterion as well as the setting
criterion, having teachers who both created culture-based curriculum in English and Hawaiian
language and my relationship with said school of choice.
Participants
The research questions helped to determine the criteria for participant selection. First the
research questions,
1. How does a principal promote collaboration in relation to school climate at a
Hawaiian Language Immersion Program School?
2. How does a principal promote Hawaiian Language and English teachers’ efforts to
develop or improve a culture-based curriculum?
specifically named a principal in the Hawaiian language immersion setting as the main
participant. A principal who led a Hawaiian Language Immersion school depicted in the research
question would be the best-suited candidate for the study. The conceptual framework influenced
the type of principal leader I choose as well. Based on the conceptual framework I choose a
principal who was influenced by both Western and Native Hawaiian ideologies and leadership
practices. I was interested to see how these influences would play out in this principal leader’s
ability to promote the environment and collaboration I was looking to study. The other
participants were the Hawaiian Immersion teaching staff. I specifically focused on these kaiapuni

42
teachers to better understand their perspective of kaiapuni teachers on the leadership and their
collaboration in curriculum development. They all were already meeting with the principal
directly to address Native Hawaiian CBE and curriculum collaboration, so these participants
were ideal in learning more about the research questions. These participants were also all
kaiapuni kumu, teachers who taught in Hawaiian language immersion, which was a purposeful
criterion in my case study.
Data Collection and Instruments/Protocols
I chose interviews and observations as my methods of data collection. Interviews
provided me with insight into the knowledge and experiences of each interviewee, how they saw
their own roles in collaboration and curriculum development as well as the role that the principal
played in fostering collaboration amongst them to develop or improve a culture-based
curriculum. Observations allowed me to get insight on how the principal enacted her ideas of
NHE and CBE through her leadership with teaching staff.
Interviews
I conducted a total of nine interviews with teachers and the principal. I did a pre- and
post-interview with the principal and one interview with each of the seven Hawaiian immersion
teachers. These interviews allowed me to better understand how the kaiapuni teachers viewed the
principal’s approach to supporting their work to develop and/or improve curriculum as well as
understand the principal’s own perspective on her role as their leader. All interviews were done
on an individual basis except for one combo teaching set of two kumu kaiapuni. Most interviews
lasted between 45 minutes and 1 hour. As suggested by Merriam (2009), I used a semi-
structured, open-ended interview protocol. Some of the equipment used included a phone
recorder app, pen and paper in order to record in detail and transcribe the interviews. Shortly

43
after each interview I made my in-field reflections and wrote analytic memos as advised by
Bogdan and Biklen (2003) in order to capture my thoughts on the process of data collection as
well as my response to the data collected.
I asked questions of each participant that focused on the research question, asking about
how the leader saw herself as a leader, how she enacted her leadership, if and how collaboration
fit into those efforts, and what kinds of practices she used to validate her teams’ work. In
addition, I asked how she classified her leadership approach (Native Hawaiian/Western), the
culture-based education efforts underway and her use of Native Hawaiian epistemology. I
believed asking these questions would allow me to understand how the principal saw herself as a
leader in both a Native Hawaiian context and how her team saw her leadership qualities in the
development collaboration of a culture-based curricula. Detailed protocols can be found in
Appendix A and Appendix B.
Observations

As Merriam (2009) states, the observation is the direct account of what is happening in
the context of the study. It is the lens in which there is the least amount of bias. During the
observations I made sure to include key components as mentioned by Merriam (2009) including
the physical setting, the participants present, activities and interactions, conversation, and subtle
factors, which include informal and unplanned activities, symbolic and connotative meanings of
words, nonverbal communication such as dress and physical space, unobtrusive measures such as
physical clues and what does not happen that should happen. As Merriam (2009) suggests these
items were the focus of my observations and a detailed protocol is listed in the Appendix B. I
looked for how the principal interacted with teachers and others in the settings and how she
facilitated collaboration. I also looked for the way that the principal promoted teachers’ efforts to

44
collaborate in their efforts to develop or improve the CBE and curriculum. Bogdan and Biklen
(2007) believed that easing into and out of the scene of observations helped in any study for the
observer to become familiar with the space and participants and vice versa. I decided to ease into
the observations and ease out of the field by coming less frequent in the beginning and the end
and eventually stopping all together. I ended up taking a longer time than expected to get enough
observations. This was the case because sometimes meetings were cancelled or the meetings I
observed ended up being focused on something other than curriculum development. I observed
eight total meetings over a 7-month period for 4-6 hour-long intervals with short breaks as
participants took breaks. Four of my observations were of the group that aligned with the
po’okumu and two were with the group that was not in alignment. There were also two
observations held with all teachers present. Observations also had more participants then just the
ones who were a part of my study, including teachers who taught English language learning
students, the principal and some other support staff. Depending on the observation about 50% of
the group being observed were always not a part of the participants whom I interviewed. In the
two larger meetings more than 50% of the participants were not a part of the interview process in
this study. The interviews and observations shared insight on school climate, leadership at the
school, and collaboration on curriculum development.
Documents and Artifacts
I collected the Common Core English Language Arts Standards related to writing and the
Hawaiian Language Immersion Standards for Writing. These standards were the focus of the
curriculum design efforts underway during my data collection and were discussed at length
during the observations I attended. These documents also provided understanding as to what
teachers and kumu referred to in their observations and interviews.

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Data Analysis
Merriam (2009) described data analysis and data collection as a simultaneous act in
qualitative research; therefore, during data collection, I took reflective notes and wrote comments
where I documented what I was thinking as I finished an observation or interview. Here is an
example of comments I made during an observation, “I found that the beginning of the meeting
was a little contentious, but the second part of the meeting kind of fed into the reason why we
have protocols.” These notes and comments helped me to make sense of the data in the analysis
process. Once I left the field, I started the process of data analysis by first engaging in an open
coding process. Similar to the suggestions of Bogdan and Biklen (2003), my chair instructed me
to analyze all the data collected through a code book, first using open coding where I looked for
in vivo and a priori codes, and then by engaging in analytic coding. Throughout this process I
kept an open mind, allowing ideas and concepts to emerge from the data. I then started to
aggregate the data. An example of this can be found in Figure 2 below, where I put groups of
ideas based on interviews and observations in one column and made notes on the right column
pertaining to the material that has been grouped because of a theme or similar wording.

46
Figure 2

Open Coding Book

As Corbin and Strauss (2007) suggest, I used analytic tools throughout the analytic
process. The tools I used included, questioning, making comparisons, thinking about various
meanings of words, drawing on personal experience, waving the red flag when ethical issues
arose, looking at language, looking at emotions that are expressed and the situations that aroused
them, looking for negative cases, and the questions “so what?” and “what if?” All of these tools
were a part of my data analysis process. The Kuaʻana and Kaikaina relationship is a concept that
I reviewed several times. I tried to look at the meaning of these words and how the older sibling,
Kuaʻana and younger sibling Kaikana relationship would be mirrored in observations. Another
example of an analytic tool would be waiving the red flag when ethical issues arose. Often in
talking with my advisor she or I would ask a question of what I interpreted from the data. Where
she saw something, I saw something else, which begged the question why? So we would talk
over how my relationships with the participants or my experience in the classroom and how it

47
may cloud my judgement of what is and what I think is. For example, when looking at a writing
standard, it was normalized that the kaiapuni kumu would use the Western standard but do the
haʻawina in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi. For me this was normal, but for my advisor and some teachers they
saw it as another way to do a Western curriculum but in a different language. Why were we not
using Native Hawaiian culture-based standards?
My second round of analysis led me to write analytic memos where I wrote down how I
made sense of what was being said in interviews and observations. To sort the data in a
descriptive and organized way, I started to aggregate data, where I worded the material after
groups of teacher themes or similar ideas and explained my thoughts on how the data did or did
not represent one or all of the four concepts presented in my conceptual framework: Native
Hawaiian Epistemology, Native Hawaiian leadership/Indigenous leadership, Western Leadership
and culture-based Education. On top of detailed, coded, and organized notes I kept a detailed
audit trail of my ideas, thoughts and analysis of the data collected during the research process as
side notes. For example I wrote,
As a top-down idea, select teachers were given the responsibility to teach other teachers
the dos and don’ts to create a community in the school that promotes Hawaiian language
and culture through its protocols as the first step. These teachers (HLIP) were unsure and
a few were resistant to helping the other teachers. I found this surprising but
understandable because I can see the point of the teacher who has so much to do and
deep-seated frustration with a system what is now requiring them to teach other teachers
to be stewards of these traditions who are not invested or understanding in the same way,
but for those teachers who are truly interested, I found this sad because they want to help
make a difference. So how is there a medium where “other” teachers are able to come to

48
the teachers who “hold” the ʻike and knowledge in a playing field where these
aforementioned teachers feel less attacked and more cherished for the ʻike that they
“choose” to share.
Keeping an explicit data collection and analysis system that organized my thoughts on
the data collected helped to remind me of the conceptual framework and how each piece of data
that was analyzed related to principal leadership in the enactment of CBE and how NHE and
Western Leadership practices were all enacted in curriculum development. Eventually, this
process allowed me to sort data into bigger concepts where analytic codes and pattern codes led
to my findings.
Credibility and Trustworthiness
According to Maxwell (2013), credibility is the same as validity. He provides a checklist
to find ways a researcher promotes credibility. A few ways that I ensured that my findings were
credible included collecting accurate data. I also ensured that I reached saturation, where I was in
the field long enough to be confident that my data was saturated or enough and I was not going
to learn something new by staying in the field. In so doing I stayed in the field for about seven
months and met when teachers would meet, even extending my data collection period to account
for cancellation of meetings and changes in meetings purpose. I also triangulated data, using both
interviews and observations, using both principal and teacher’s perspectives to understand
concepts. I used my codebook to complete an audit trail, noting all parts of the data collected,
notes, feelings, etc., checking that data was rich descriptive data. I made sure that I was
descriptive and that participants provided rich data, prompted and unprompted. These actions
helped ensure the credibility of my findings.

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The trustworthiness of my findings was dependent on my ability to account for the
researcher bias that I brought to the research activities and reactivity that might have resulted on
the part of the participants because of my presence in the school. Maxwell (2013) likened
trustworthiness to reliability. To address researcher bias I was as transparent as possible about
my study and the methods I had chosen, as well as how these biases affected the study, both
consciously or unconsciously throughout the data collection and analysis process of the methods
chapter. For example, to maintain trustworthiness of this study I spoke often with my advisor
about how clear and conscientious I was being during every part of the data collection and
analysis. Making sure to discuss understandings and interpretations of the data, how my own
experiences and identity influenced how I made sense of the data and discussed what other ways
there may have been to make sense of the data. As a Native Hawaiian and a former kaiapuni
kumu, I had my own opinions of this work and what good leadership and curriculum
development looked like. My shared identity as a former kaiapuni teacher and my own
assumptions about collaboration looks like and my own understanding of curriculum design and
Native Hawaiian Epistemology versus Western Epistemology guided my work. These
conversations brought to light my biases. I was honest and explained some of the biases in my
notes and coding process so that I had a reference when starting the analysis of data. I also used
evidence to explain the analysis and reasoning behind my conclusions and analysis of the data.
When conducting interviews and observations of the participants, I made sure to note the types
of feelings I had about the place and people as well as explained how these subjective thoughts
may or may not have an effect on my ability to continue an objective voice in this study. I always
made sure to ask myself questions regarding what I am feeling, what I am seeing, why I am
feeling a certain way and noted what kinds of things were happening around me to influence my

50
behavior. For an example I remember feeling frustrated when a bunch of kumu did not want to
teach their fellow English teacher counter parts protocols. I felt this way because as a kumu
kaiapuni I felt strongly that we should not be gate keepers of knowledge but should share
knowledge so others can understand the perspective we often grumble about. Seeing this
opportunity frustrated me because instead of taking it on full force it was much like pulling teeth
to get them to agree to do this. As much as I understood the pressures they are under as a kumu,
the very kumu who were grumbling that our school know more about proper protocols, were also
the very kumu not willing to teach these protocols to the other kumu, until forced.
Overall, I did my due diligence in collecting accurate data, and used notes and comments
to address my researcher bias. I made sure to use evidence in my analysis and explain my
reasonings and conclusions. I triangulated data and perspectives of similar themes of data to best
understand all participants views on a subject. I feel certain that I addressed as much biases that
may have influenced my behavior, through transparency of what I felt during data collection or
ideas I had that may have influenced my thinking on a subject. These tools helped to promote a
credible and trustworthy study.
Ethics
Inspired by Glesne (1991), it was important to me to portray my participants in ways that
were respectful of their experiences. The ethical issues that I predicted when looking at my study
were my relationships with these participants and the small nature of the community of Hawaiian
Language Immersion Programs. Noting this complication, I did my best to make sure this did not
become a problem in my research through transparency. In order to be transparent I shared in my
credibility and trustworthiness section the relationships I held with many of the participants and
how my being a Native Hawaiian and former kaiapuni kumu were my researchers biases. I felt I

51
did well to convey these possibly ethical issues in completing an ethical study. Another ethics
concern was the interview piece as interviews are an account of what the interviewee perceives
to be, and so their subjective perspective would be something to address and explain in the
research process. I also went through the IRB at USC and used informed consent, making sure
that they understood that their participation was voluntary, that I would not interview them if
they did not feel comfortable, and that I would stop the interview at any time if they felt
uncomfortable. I also told interviewees and the school in general that I would not being using
their real names and identities in my study.
Limitations and Delimitations
Limitations are things that I had no control of. For example, the following were
limitations that I experienced during the data collection, when teachers would meet, how many
times they met in the period of data collection, cancellation of meetings, whether they were
doing what I went there for. On a few occasions, teachers chose to meet during a day or time that
I was unavailable, thus I was unable to observe those meetings. During my initial period of data
collection, which was in the Fall semester, they only met once a month and even had some
cancellations. That meant that I needed to extend my data collection period to include more
interviews and observations into the Spring semester, until I met the saturation of material and
data that I was looking for. Another limitation included staff that were not knowledgeable about
the material but were a part of the interview process, like the one support staff individual. This
meant that my study was limited to the knowledge of these participants. The last limitation that I
found to be consistent with my study was when teachers would meet up but discuss things that
were not a part of my study. These examples are a part of what limited my study.

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Delimitations were things that happened in my study, specifically my data collection
process, things in my control that limited my study. An example of this would be my being a
novice and first-time interviewer. Being a novice in this process I found later that I wished I
asked a certain question or probed for more information for a certain participant or participants.
As a novice, the interview protocol I created limited my study. Since I did not ask to write
certain questions that would have benefited the study, I therefore limited my study. In retrospect
I would have possibly benefited from asking a probing question to each of my teachers about
why they thought they felt a certain way about their principal, for example when I would ask
them about how the principal used Native Hawaiian leadership skills, after they expressed their
feelings on the subject I could have delve a little deeper and asked something like, why do you
think you feel this way about the principal and her leadership style, or why leadership style do
you think she portrays and how is it Hawaiian or Western. My being a novice researcher was a
delimitation to my study. Looking back, another delimitation included the choice to interview
only kaiapuni kumu. I believe I could have had a richer data set if I had interviewed all
participants, even the English counterpart teachers. This richer data set would have allowed me
to campare and contrast differences and similarities across kaiapuni kumu and English kumu.
Another delimitation were my assumptions about what people meant. For instance, when a
participant may have said something like “she was good at bringing us together for
collaboration” I may have thought, ok then this means this is what collaboration looked like,
coming together. When the participant may have been trying to say that they did not think that
collaboration was just coming together but more a discussion of curriculum and the content of
being together to discuss curriculum. My shared identity as a former kaiapuni teacher and my
own assumptions about collaboration looks like and my own understanding of curriculum design

53
and Native Hawaiian Epistemology versus Western Epistemology guided my work and became a
delimitation. The other delimitation of my study included my evolving sense of identity and how
I made sense of the data. For example, I personally found no fault in using Hawaiian language
and cultural practices for my own curriculum content guided by Western standards, but I know
that there were others who disagreed. At the same coin those same individuals did not have a
solution for how we would standardize learning in a kaiapuni. So my stance to me makes sense
that there should be a standardized way to measure outcomes, whereas the other kumu who may
have disagreed saw standardizing Hawaiian learning as Western and therefore something that
should not be included in culture-based curriculum development. The same things held true for
the data collection process in observations. Observations were not something that came naturally
and therefore I may have missed a probing opportunity or identified with what was being
discussed making assumptions of what was meant to be said instead of discussing what was
actually happening. I also believe my purposeful sampling was another delimitation because of
my choice to study only one school principal instead of all school principals in kaiapuni schools.
In conclusion the methods chapter was another important step in completing my research.
Merriam (2009) helped me in sampling criteria and selection of my case study principal, staff
and school, where I determined an appropriate sample, setting, and choosing of participants.
Merriam (2009) informed data collection protocols and how I would conduct data collection in
both interviews and observation protocols. Maxwell (2013) along with Bogdan and Biklen
(2003) helped me identify my limitations and delimitations in data analysis, guiding my analysis
of the data collection. Corbin and Strauss (2007) and Glesne (1991) helped to inform my notes
pertaining to credibility and trustworthiness, and ethics in this study.

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CHAPTER FOUR: FINDINGS

In this qualitative case study, I set out to discover how a kaiapuni used collaboration to
foster a collaborative school culture and to develop or improve culture-based curricula. More
specifically, I sought to examine the leadership approach taken by the school’s principal in
enacting a collaborative school culture as well as promoting collaboration in kaiapuni curriculum
development in a school setting that was still based in Western-based standards, benchmarks and
testing protocols in order to foster collaboration. The research questions for this study were:
1. How does a principal promote a collaborative school culture at a Hawaiian Language
Immersion Program School?
2. How does a principal promote Hawaiian Language and English teachers’ efforts to
develop or improve a culture-based curriculum?
I conducted eight interviews with the principal and teachers and eight observations of the
two teacher groups over a 7-month period of time. As a result of data analysis, I discovered the
principal provided time and resources in her enactment of Native Hawaiian leadership to build a
collaborative school culture. It also came to light that this Principal used a more Western
approach in the development of a culture-based curriculum. I found that in the development of
this culture-based curriculum there was a group of teachers that aligned with Principal Haukea
and another group that did not align with her principalship. The principal demonstrated both
Native Hawaiian and Western epistemologies as a leader at the school. Her Native Hawaiian
ideology was revealed through her approach to school culture. Her grounding in Western
epistemology was revealed in relation to the academic aspects of the school, and therefore
through her work with teachers developing a culture-based curriculum. More specifically, when
there was alignment between her orientation and those of her teachers, she led them to create a

55
culture-based curriculum. On the other hand, when there was a lack of alignment between her
own ideology and those of her teachers, her efforts were met with opposition and she was unable
to facilitate the creation of a culture-based curriculum.
Here I present the background of the school, the principal, and the teachers in order to
provide the context within which the findings emerged. I then present the findings in relation to
each research question.
Background of Keahiakahoe School
Located on the island of Oʻahu, the school was one of six Hawaiian immersion
elementary schools. The school was one of the older of the Hawaiian immersion schools and was
grounded in the the use of relationships to build its community. The school was a 50/50 school,
meaning it had an English-based program and a Hawaiian language-based program on the same
campus. Most students were of Native Hawaiian descent and populated both the English and
Hawaiian language-based programs. Nestled in a small community, this school thrived as they
built language and ʻāina focused curriculum. Undoubtly having two sets of teaching practices,
goals, and standards at the school created a complex scenario for the principal to navigate.
Principal
Poʻokumu Haukea was a fairly new member of the school community. As the new
principal, she wanted to get to know the community better. Her background was as a kaiapuni
kumu with a focus on curriclum development. She wanted to be a principal who was seen by her
faculty as compassionate and understanding, someone who would help facilitate opportunities
for the faculty to develop their curriculum.
Poʻokumu Haukea described herself as a passionate and supportive leader. She was a
principal of action, which she often showed in her style of leadership, where in her words, she

56
made “changes on the dime.” Haukea also identified courage, persistence, and having a problem
solver personality as being amongst her leadership traits. She further explained that she held the
values and beliefs of being strong and willing, with an attitude of “in no can, how can?” She also
described the Western school system she had to navigate while supporting Kaiapuni efforts. She
found value in traditional Native Hawaiian knowledge where most Western educators would not
and she believed she was trying to create a Native Hawaiian school climate throughout the
campus.
This principal also described her Western leadership qualities as parts of her personality
that helped her to navigate the Hawaiian educational system and work through system obstacles
to benefit the Kaiapuni school. Her disposition, as she described, was one of tanacity, a person
who thought outside the box and problem solved often. This was an overlap of both Western and
Native Hawaiian leadership qualities that helped her in her leadership. She was also adament that
she wanted both English teachers and their Hawaiian counterparts to collaborate across grade
levels during to improve both the curriculum and their teacher stratiegies. In this context, she
demonstrated a harder no excuse attitude in facilitating learning of her teachers and staff.
Faculty and Staff
Seven out of eight kumu kaiapuni, the Hawaiian Immersion teachers at this school,
agreed to be a part of this case study. These seven teachers only taught in a Hawaiian language
while their counter parts in observational data were English language based teachers in the
school, were not interviewed. The experience of these kumu ranged from 1-30+ years of service.
Not all of these teachers were fully credited to teach as they were working through their
programs to be certified and hired based on their ability to speak Hawaiian and their familiarity
with learning Hawaiian language. Three of them were new teachers, two verterans, and two were

57
parents who spoke Hawaiian and were working towards their certificates to teach. I interviewed
the seven of eight kumu kaiapuni, or Hawaiian language based teachers. I observed all teachers
and staff who were present at observations, sometimes including the English counterparts, who
were not a part of the interviews but were in attendance at some of the observations. Their being
at the meetings that I was able to observe were in the capacity of a regular English speaking
teacher who were to develop curriculum for the English language speaking based classes along
side the Hawaiian language Immersion teachers..
Finding 1: The Principal Demonstrated a Combination of Native Hawaiian and Western
Epistemologies as a Leader at the School Through Her Approach to School Climate.
In Finding 1 there are two themes. The first theme focuses on the Principal’s Native
Hawaiian Epistemology as a leader at the school and her approach to school culture. In this first
theme Principal Haukea demonstrates her promotion of a Hawaiian language and culture
throughout the campus in daily protocols and song. The second theme focuses on the Principal’s
Western Epistemological approach as a leader in her approach to school culture. In this theme
she revealed Western accountability strategies she used in her approach to school culture. She
promoted a Native Hawaiian culture outside of the classroom and a Western culture when it had
to do with things inside of the classroom.
Theme 1: The Principal Enacted Native Hawaiian Epistemology as a Leader at the School
Through Her Approach to School Culture.
As a leader, Principal Haukea demonstrated Native Hawaiian epistemologies through her
promotion of ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, Hawaiian language throughout the campus. The daily experience
with language and culture through piko,
i
the daily protocol, further solidified the principal’s
supportive approach to cultivating a Native Hawaiian climate throughout the school and aligned

58
with Kanahele’s (2011) assertion that Native Hawaiian epistemology, through chants, words and
the translation and meaning that an individual experiences from the creation, study and
decomposition of words is important. Both Kanahele (2011) and the principal shared the value of
words, the meaning of these words and the deep implications of these meanings in song and
chant.
One way in which the principal revealed Native Hawaiian epistemology in her leadership
orientation was through her promotion of piko throughout the campus, as she believed it to be a
central element of the school community’s culture. For example, she said,
I would like to see piko protocols taught to all the teachers throughout the school. This
would help us improve when we have visitors visit us. Our kaiapuni teachers should lead
us to perform protocols properly for the next time.
Here, Principal Haukea communicated her belief that it was important for piko to be something
that all teachers at the school were equally well positioned to enact and that was not necessarily
already the case. She wanted each teacher, whether they already knew how to enact piko to be
able to do so, as an expression of Native Hawaiian culture. Piko was something she believed
would create a Native Hawaiian context for visitors as it would establish traditional (or Native
Hawaiian) routines for bringing someone new (a visitor) into the community. She also believed
that there were those at the school already well positioned, the Kaiapuni teachers, to ensure that
these protocols were enacted “properly,” implying that this was not meant as a superficial act,
performing the protocols just to get them done, but rather that it was important that they be done
“properly,” consistent with Native Hawaiian tradition.
Another way in which she demonstrated her Native Hawaiian leadership orientation was
through her explanation of what she expected piko to entail and how it would ensure that the

59
culture of the school reflected a Native Hawaiian way of knowing. She communicated her
understanding that piko protocols included, “visitors, lei-ing a visitor, performances, haʻiōlelo,
mele, hōʻike are all a part of it.” Here, her description of the aspects of piko revealed her own
Native Hawaiian epistemology, that there were components of the protocols that were critical
and that they required a specific order and content. Her explanation of the order and each aspect
of piko demonstrates her belief in the importance of being a good host, which is a Native
Hawaiian concept. Similarly, Pukuʻi (1983) asserts in her ʻōlelo noʻeau, “Punaluʻu i ke kai haʻa a
ka malihini” and “Hoʻokahi nō lā o ka malihini.” In hosting a visitor, it is imperative to greet
your visitor, to hoʻokipa.
ii
Puku’i (1983) further asserts, in order to do this, you would greet them
with piko, share mele and oli and exchange makana, gifts, such as lei. It would be shameful to do
anything less. Also sharing the understanding that for one day you are the visitor but once you
stay longer than a day you have kuleana, a responsibility to adhere by the ways of your host.
Principal Haukea implied that she found these aspects of piko important to the school’s culture.
The principal also enacted Native Hawaiian leadership with her teachers as they
understood her desire that all teachers be able to engage in piko. For example, Kumu Lei
explained how Principal Haukea asked kumu kaiapuni to start teaching the other faculty
members the protocols, oli, and mele (chants and songs) for piko. Kumu Lei explained,
“Although not all teachers agreed with the way the principal approached the schoolwide piko, all
teachers did agree that piko is an important part of our values.” Here Kumu Lei’s experience of
the principal in this instance demonstrates her understanding that the principal thought it was
important to provide these opportunities throughout the campus to promote Native Hawaiian
ways of knowing. Kumu Lei also touched on the idea that not all the teachers agreed with the
principal’s approach or the way in which she implemented the schoolwide piko. What is notable

60
about this statement is Kumu Lei’s impression that all teachers at the school held the same belief
as the principal, that piko was important and were invested in participating in this protocol,
irrespective of whether they agreed with her approach to doing so.
Intent on cultivating a Native Hawaiian school environment, Kumu Kekai also pointed
out how Principal Haukea supported Hawaiian language and values in her mission statement
stating,
I guess when I first came back last school year there was some kind of hukihuki
(contention) about the work ʻike kupuna (ancestoral knowledge), ʻike kuʻuna (traditional
knowledge), see how they can put that word in the mission statement. I felt like there was
an issue, because I just came in after not knowing what was going on. I remember the
principal having to explain to everybody what that word means, but everyone has kupuna
but just because it is in Hawaiian it doesn’t mean that you don’t have ʻike from your
kupuna. When she tried to level that ground, I saw her as Native Hawaiian, leading
something for the Hawaiian language.
The Hukihuki,
iii
or contention in the meeting space is important to note, because, in contrast to
the buy-in represented in the importance of piko, some kumu were hesitant to implement Native
Hawaiian language and culture in the mission statement. In working through this hukihuki about
words like ‘ike kupuna, ancestral knowledge or ‘ike ku’una, traditional knowledge, Kumu Kekai
was able to capture Principal Haukea’s ability to explain the importance of these words and their
meanings and how they would play out in cultivating a Native Hawaiian school environment.
Kumu Kekai shared an important perspective. She felt strongly that the principal demonstrated
that a Native Hawaiian school climate is important to her. Kumu Kekai further implied that the
principal’s leadership eventually led to a school mission statement that incorporated Hawaiian

61
language and deep seated Native Hawaiian values through two simple words, ‘ike kupuna. Kumu
Kekai expressed how Principal Haukea’s Native Hawaiian leadership skills helped level the
learning curve because of her ability to relate the mission statement to all the teachers.
The principal displayed Native Hawaiian epistemologies as she worked to create a Native
Hawaiian school climate as a part of her goal to physically see ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi throughout the
school. To see a Native Hawaiian school climate aligns with Pukuʻi’s (1995) description of the
‘ōlelo noʻeau,
iv
the Hawaiian proverb, “Nānā ka maka, hoʻolohe ka pepeiao, paʻa ka waha a laila
ma ka hana ka ʻike,” which means, in order to understand how to do something you must watch,
listen and be quiet then do it. The principal cultivated a Native Hawaiian school culture in
changing the school space to build a more Native Hawaiian space. She stated, “Also for HLIP I
wanted to see ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi more, in and outside of the classroom, like physically see it, like
signs but we are doing the mural as you know which is so much better.” Here she asserted the
importance to see, indicating the whole school using ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi through her example in
which she embraced the work of others and the collective. In accepting concepts and practices of
the community she was promoting the idea of a visual Native Hawaiian environment and school
culture. It was Native Hawaiian of her to set her own idea aside in favor of something that others
brought to her. This “but” is an essential part in how she demonstrated Native Hawaiian culture,
which would focus on the whole of the community instead of herself, thereby promoting a
Native Hawaiian school climate.
Building relationships, community, a sense of family, and connection through
collaboration were all important outcomes the principal provided in her pursual of a Native
Hawaiian school climate. As Kenny and Fraser (2012) stated, characteristics such as
collaboration, community-based, diverse knowledge, ancestral knowledge, a sense of place, an

62
intimate relationship with land and spirituality are imperative for one to be an Indigenous leader.
In partnering with parents, teachers, and the community Principal Haukea displayed
collaboration. In collaborating with all stakeholders, the principal was able to deepen and
diversify the ancestral knowledge used in the mural project, therefore improving the school
climate. Her example of collaboration extended to kupuna, kumu, and parents who each were
able to share their version of moʻolelo (stories) related to the geographical space the school was
set in. These stories behind the mural art took months of collaborative work with the artist,
students, teachers, and other community members, which built a foundational sense of place. By
providing these opportunities of collaboration and getting all stakeholders involved, the principal
was able to build intimate relationships between the school, students, faculty, staff, parents, and
community members.
Another way in which Principal Haukea supported the growth of a Native Hawaiian
school space was through the way she provided or conceptualized the use of time. Specifically,
Principal Haukea dedicated time needed to cultivate communal and collaborative relationships
between the faculty and members of the community. For example, during a faculty meeting, she
turned over the entire meeting to a community partner so that the partner could engage teachers
in professional development. In handing over this valuable time, the principal was able to show
how much she valued the initiative to create this artwork throughout the campus and influenced
the connection of this initiative with the teachers’ work in the classrooms. She said, “So we have
Bailey here, you already know that she is here to continue our work on the mural project that was
made possible by our partnership with some of the parents and community members, Bailey your
up.” Here Principal Haukea did two things to support a Native Hawaiian school climate, first she
built a relationship with a community partner, bringing said partner to teach in a staff meeting.

63
Second, she referred to the project as “ours,” thereby establishing a sense of the collective,
referencing a family. In giving up valuable faculty staff meeting time, the principal shared her
trust in the community partner, which was also an example for her faculty to see a relationship
she had built with this community member, a person who had been brought to her by a teacher
who partnered in an art project for the whole school. In doing so, she embraced the whole
community and not the singular self when she referred to the project as ours, taking ownership of
the project as hers and referring to the whole group through the use of the word “our.” Benham
(2014) explains,
The core of the individual is related to their interactions with people and the social group,
physical environment and spiritual world. This connection maintains the bond to
traditions. This bond is mana or power and therefore potential power the individual is
dependent on the group and their place.
Here the principal established these bonds and connections referencing “our” and not hers,
connecting her action to the group and their place.
In setting aside this time for the mural project for the artist to come in and teach students,
faculty, community members, and families, the principal engaged all stakeholders in the
construction of a Native Hawaiian school climate. Principal Haukea took it further and set up
weekend days for these stakeholders to come and continue their work for the duration of time
that it took to finish the mural. All of the principal’s actions helped to support the Native
Hawaiian school climate that she provided for her teachers, students, and community.
Kumu Ānuenue shared her perspective on the principal’s support of family at the
workplace,

64
Her ability to let the ʻohana to be a part of the work setting. She lets me, she welcomes
my keiki and ʻohana. I feel like they come first. I think that is one thing that I can think of
that she does.
Here Principal Haukea encouraged the kumu to have her kids be a part of the school culture and
environment. Her understanding of Kumu Ānuenue’s family situation showed compassion and
understanding to her predicament but more importantly, emphasized the importance of having
family be a part of the school environment. As Meyer (2003) expressed the importance of
protocol, family, and relationships to infuse ancestral knowledge in education, the principal was
able to express the same sentiment by allowing family in the work setting. In her welcoming of
Kumu Ānuenue’s keiki, she had promoted a family environment, and therefore a Native
Hawaiian school climate.
Another way that the principal communicated the importance of connection as a part of
the school climate was through her shared exercises in the beginning of the year. Kumu Akoni
shared an experience with Principal Haukea. He said,
At the beginning of the year our principal really brought the school together when she
taught us about the hopena aʻo and she really opened up to us and it was the first time I
saw the personal side of her, and I respect that. It made me want to share too and I felt
closer actually.
Here Kumu Akoni described two actions that promoted connection through Principal Haukea’s
assembly of her teachers and staff and her show of vulnerability. Similarly, the principal brought
her school together to share the mana’o, ideas about Nā Hopena Aʻo. Nā Hopena Aʻo are eight
set ideas that allow teachers to engage with their students with a Native Hawaiian culture
foundation. By physically bringing her teachers together and teaching them central Native

65
Hawaiian concepts, for Kumu Akoni, she was able to further promote a Native Hawaiian culture
in the school and demonstrate Native Hawaiian leadership epistemology through her actions. As
Pukuʻi (1995) expressed in her ‘ōlelo noʻeau, “Aloha kekahi i kekahi,” we must show each other
love and understanding to build a healthy relationship. Principal Haukea’s openness and
willingness to share “the personal side of her” was a turning point for Kumu Akoni, that led him
to respect her more and bring him closer to her as her actions led him to want to reciprocate, to
“share too.” This example is another way in which Principal Haukea was able to foster
relationships and promote a Native Hawaiian climate in the school.
The principal’s demonstration of Native Hawaiian leadership to promote a Native
Hawaiian climate can also be seen in the annual field trips she had faculty and students
participate in as community service. As Pukuʻi (1995) proverb describes, “Pūpūkahi i holomua,
in doing together we move forward together.” Principal Haukea explained, “Encouragement to
use waikalua loko (a Hawaiian fishpond) and form relationships and walk, we help to restore,
kids go out to study it. English and HLIP still in process for long term Waikalua loko iʻa visits.”
In her example she focused on the importance of building relationships. In building these
relationships with community partners, she established a connectedness and further supported the
building of a Native Hawaiian school environment.
In establishing a connectedness and a sense of family to promote a Native Hawaiian
environment, the principal showed an understanding of the teachers and their disconnection from
their people. This was an important part of how Principal Haukea was able to create a Native
Hawaiian environment and school culture as Maaka (1992) explains,
a common history of dispossession, disconnection and dislocation of indigenous
people, due to colonialism, has been the central reminder that as a collective, indigenous

66
peoples of the world should be able to self-determinate in all matters. Only through these
informed choices and education of indigenous people by indigenous people shall the
oppressed nations of pacific islanders be freed from the generations of dispossessed
peoples.
As an indigenous leader, Principal Haukea expressed compassion for her teachers and staff as
well as a deep understanding of what she was dealing with as she navigated the kuleana
(responsibility) in her role as poʻokumu (Principal) in both a Native Hawaiian sense and a
Western system. When describing her perception of her faculty’s experience she shared,
Stages of grief of language loss, feel threatened by domination of people’s perspectives,
decolonization, understanding of background of history of Hawaii. Being a Native
Hawaiian ethnically would make it easier, but it is just as or more difficult as a Native
Hawaiian leader without. More issues with HLIP and interesting to see others and their
background.
In sharing this statement, the principal was able to show her aloha, or compassion, for her
faculty. Principal Haukea’s recognition of how her faculty felt about her leadership role was a
representation of her Native Hawaiian leadership as well as a complex understanding of her own
role in straddling the Native Hawaiian and Western leader roles and each side’s kuleana. When
Principal Haukea referenced “decolonization” and how the teachers “feel threatened by
domination of people’s perspectives,” she continued to show how she recognized the dilemma,
both her faculty and she faced in teaching Native Hawaiian language and culture in a Western
system. She also shared “stages of grief of language loss,” again a profoundly complex idea of
having teachers at different levels of understanding dealing with the loss of their language and
how they navigated their language loss while teaching to build up their Native language and

67
education in a Western system. Here she implied that she understood that they were all at these
different levels and so she understood their kūʻē (opposition) towards her leadership decisions
involving Western accountability measures used.
She also shared that she struggled with the pressure she often faced because she was a
Native Hawaiian leader of Native Hawaiian descent when she mentioned, “Being a Native
Hawaiian ethnically would make it easier, but it is just as or more difficult as a Native Hawaiian
leader without.” Here Principal Haukea shares that she, being of Hawaiian descent, felt like she
was held to a higher standard because she was of Native Hawaiian descent. Similarly, Maaka
(1992) talks about this same phenomenon about a leader with or without, referencing a Native
leader that is with or without descent and the stereotypes that come along with these different
leadership roles. The principal further implied that an Indigenous leader with descent still had to
comply with Western system mandates, and so grappled with the understanding of where her
teachers were coming from and her kuleana to them as well as her responsibility to her position.
Contrast to Principal Haukea, who was an Indigenous leader “within,” Hohepa (2013) argues
that Indigenous leadership is something that can be expressed by someone whose race and
nationality are of an Indigenous group, the concept of being an Indigenous leader from “within.”
She argues that Indigenous leadership is who a leader is from “within,” “uses the Indigenous
world as the source of theoretical concepts and methods, which emerge out of experiences of
people from said Indigenous culture” (p. 622). Hohepa (2013) further suggests that one could be
an Indigenous leader from “without.” An Indigenous leader from “without” “locates culture as
the target of theoretical concepts and methods by modifying an existing area of academic study,
and its theories, concepts, and approaches, to create or maximize its degree of alignment or fit
with a culture” (p. 622). The principal’s situation placed her in a unique predicament where she

68
was a leader within, she valued Indigenous leader practices but implemented these practices in a
way that described an indigenous leader “without.” This important revelation is the core to the
conceptual framework of this study to understand how a principal fosters teacher collaboration to
the development culture-based curriculum in a Kaiapuni (Immersion) school. She revealed her
value of Native Hawaiian concepts and values as well as her Native Hawaiian epistemological
views, while also implying value in her Western approach to implement and foster collaboration.
Both views and approaches were in conflict as she struggled to fulfill her kuleana to her culture
as well as her role as a principal.
As the principal continued to explain her kuleana to her faculty and students as well as
her responsibilities in her role as a Native Hawaiian principal in a Western system, she
continually provided examples of her compassion and ability to understand and work towards a
more Native Hawaiian school climate. Her constant battle between Native Hawaiian
epistemology in her role as a leader continued as she made decisions that were less Native
Hawaiian and more Western in her approach to school climate.
Theme 2: Western Accountability as an Expression of Western Epistemology in the
Principal’s Approach to School Climate.
The principal demonstrated Western leadership epistemologies through her accountability
measures as she implemented systemwide mandates including standards in data teams, grade
levels during PLC (Professional Learning Communities), grade level promotions in the
classroom, national and state testing. She further supported a Western school climate in her
approach to academics in school mandated activities, for example POPs (Power of Positive
Students).

69
In the principal’s implementation of mandated standards, she fostered a Western school
culture. Data teams were a large part of the time that Principal Haukea set aside for curriculum
building. All teachers answered, “data teams” as an example of what they found to be a part of
the Western school culture. For example, three out of the eight observations used in the data
collection process were data team. This example is important because the principal focused this
time allotted on data teams, which revealed data team meetings as a means to collect data to
inform better teaching strategies, which aligned with her teacher evaluation strategic plan to
improve teaching. Again, Principal Haukea displayed her promotion of Western school culture
when she placed importance on data teams during the allotted times given for curriculum
development. She further supported this idea by using data team allotted times to discuss teacher
evaluations when she said to the faculty, “data teams are to improve your teaching, a perfect time
to think about your teacher evaluations and how you can improve teaching in your classrooms.”
Here she specifically said, “a perfect time to think about your teacher evaluations…,” which
directly links data teams, teacher strategies and teacher evaluations. She further expected
teachers to use data teams to inform their evaluations when she said, “data teams are to improve
your teaching.” At the same time these ideas were all purposeful and strategies to improve
teaching while they were providing feedback to conduct accountability standards that were
mandated by the state, they all promote a Western accountability structure and school
environment. In her pursual of multiple data teams all focused on better teaching strategies
focused on teacher evaluation further solidified her promotion of a Western school climate.
The principal further promoted Western school climate in statements she made at
multiple data teams like, “Still teach to the standard and scaffold till they can meet and push
them too.” Here Principal Haukea was giving suggestions to a teacher to improve her teaching

70
with students who had difficulty in the lesson. When she said, “scaffold” and “they can meet
push them too” she shared insight on her values to standardize learning. By pushing students to
meet standards, she emphasized the importance of standards as a part of her educational value
system which further promoted a Western school climate.
Another time Principal Haukea stated, “Yes, look for the difference between the two.” In
this situation she was addressing two kumu kaiāpuni. She was asking them to use the new state
standards that the kaiāpuni teachers and administrators had worked on to provide Hawaiian
standards in kaiāpuni schools. Her statements made two distinct Western climate promotions,
first she said, “look for the difference between the two.” By saying this she was essentially
telling HLIP kumu that they need to compare Hawaiian and English standards, which was not
required of the English teachers, therefore valuing the English standards over the Hawaiian
standards. She further promoted a Western environment by supporting Hawaiian standards as a
means to meet statewide mandates to have Hawaiian standards, because it placed importance on
the idea that HLIP needed to have standards to put keiki into similar categories as teachers did in
English speaking schools.
Similarly, in another example Kumu Lei’ohu stated, “She requires too much, integrating
Hawaiian and English makes it harder and I think it has to be all in Hawaiian. So it is hard to
collaborate with the other side because they don’t do the same thing.” In this example the teacher
shared her thoughts on how Principal Haukea’s use of time required “too much” and not enough
time. Lei’ohu revealed the requirement for immersion teachers to integrate their standards with
English state standards to improve teaching strategies. In the principal’s requirement that all
teachers collaborate with each other, she “makes it harder” for Hawaiian immersion teachers.
This was because Immersion teachers were then expected to translate their material to English in

71
order to work with other teachers who spoke only English, therefore continuing to support a
Western school climate. Lei’ohu was able to verbalize why the teachers along with her all felt
this sense of too much work and not enough time despite the time provided for data team
meetings. Although Principal Haukea did provide time for Immersion teachers to get together the
implementation of this time is pre-determined for the data team agendas and therefore promoted
a Western school climate.
Principal Haukea and her faculty referenced professional learning communities (PLCs) as
part of the time that the principal provided toward curriculum development. These PLCs were
another part of how the principal supported a Western school climate. In one PLC meeting
Principal Haukea expected teachers to break out by grade level stating, “You guys can break up
into grade levels to discuss.” Their school was small so there were only two classes per grade
and each grade had one English and one HLIP class. In breaking PLC meetings a part in this
way, it was harder for HLIP teachers to grow their capacity of teaching strategies because they
had a larger load of work in having to translate items to English in order to communicate with
the other teachers. For example, Kumu Ānuenue stated, E aho e hana pū ke kaiapuni ʻaʻole hui
pū me ka English ʻae?” Here the kumu shared her concerns in having to do extra work and
suggested having teachers in the HLIP meet up during PLC instead and English teachers meet up
together separately and work together on articulation of students from one grade level to another
as well as how HLIP could spiral their work from K-6. Poʻokumu Haukea responded, “I’m open
to that but maybe another time since this is already started and we are moving forward with our
agenda today with English and Hawaiian to compare grade levels.” Here the principal left their
PLC structure as planned and demonstrated inflexibility and lack of compassion in this instance
which promoted Western values, because she valued her own agenda above the whole. In this

72
instance she further promoted a Western environment and missed an opportunity to foster a
Native Hawaiian community and school environment.
Grade level promotions were a Western notion of determining what a child knew and
when a child could move forward in their schooling based on their age. The Native Hawaiian
perspective argued that students would be promoted as they were ready, based on their
knowledge and ability. Similarly, three teachers mentioned the system of grade levels as part of
how the school portrayed a Western school culture. For example, Kumu Ānuenue shared,
Separation by age and not ability in grade levels, the idea of parents not being a part of
educational system and curriculum decisions is very western sometimes. I think that the
idea that our kids have to use the common core standard and report card is very western.
There are a bunch of things.
Here Kumu Ānuenue’s statement mentioned, “separation by age and not ability in grade levels”
focused on the fact that the grade level system was a Western part of the school culture. In doing
so she referenced the continuation of a systemic Western school culture and climate. Principal
Haukea’s allowance of grade level promotion supported the continuation of a Western school
climate.
National and state testing were another way the principal displayed support for a Western
school climate. Testing at national and state levels as well as teacher evaluations were all
Western accountability standards that Principal Haukea had the responsibility to fulfil as the
principal of her school. Principal Haukea and several of the teachers also referenced certain types
of Western knowledge needed to fulfill the school’s accountability measures, therefore assigning
value to these measures of the Western system, further promoting a Western school culture.
Principal Haukea stated, “Laws/rules, accountability, not always matched up with HLIP but have

73
to find a way to suit our needs.” Here she explained the mandates that she had to adhere to as a
principal of the school. She also implied that she realized that there were parts of her job that did
not align with Native Hawaiian learning but as the principal she had a responsibility to fulfill
these mandates. She was at least aware of these facts and continued to comply with state and
national standards, continuing to place value on the Western system requirements and promoting
a Western school culture.
Similarly, Kumu Lei stated, “Nā lula DOE and institution, make best decisions for
students. How to help students and help teachers.” Kumu Lei referenced “Nā lula, rules” that
were institutional, but also expressed her frustration when stating “make best decisions for
students.” Here she implied that the decisions that the principal made to conform to the DOE
mandates or “rules” were not what was best for the students and teachers, another example of
how the principal further promoted a Western school climate.
The principal’s support of a long-time tradition throughout many Western schools
included the POPs assembly, which focused on the individual accolades as a means to
incentivize students in their academic journey. As Benham (2014) contradicts “This bond is
mana or power and therefore potential power of the individual is dependent on the group and
their place.” In this case the principal had used the mana or the potential power of the individual
that was dependent on the group by giving students an incentive to value a Western mindset of
academics. All teachers agreed that POPs was a Western way to incentivize students. Kumu
‘Akoni stated,
POPS assembly, sometimes it seems Western how they single out one child or a couple
children in the class to make them the example and center of attention. I know they are
trying to accomplish it as a reward for goals with a criteri[on], but sometimes it singles

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out certain kids and others don’t get it. Like our more kolohe types don’t get to
experience that.
Here Kumu ‘Akoni understood what POPs represented. As a means to get lower-level students to
look up to other students as a way to incentivize them and use the group to motivate them to do
better in Western academic skills was a Western accountability strategy. His statement implied
that the principal supported POPs, which continued to support a Western school climate.
Similarly, Kumu Kekai expressed her thoughts on POPs,
some things in the school environment that makes it competition like. Kids start to look at
each other differently. But maybe we are guilty of this too, like when we do may day and
kaiapuni is doing all the oli and all of that, it’s like a competition.
This “educational competition” as Kumu Kekai expressed focuses on the individual instead of
the group. In allowing the continuation of POPs the principal promoted a Western school
environment.
Finding 2: The Principal Demonstrated Native Hawaiian Epistemology as a Leader at the
School Through Her Approach to Curriculum but Most of Her Efforts Revealed a Western
Oriented Approach to Leadership.
Theme 1 reviews the principal’s Native Hawaiian strategies in her approach in fostering
collaboration between teachers. Theme 2 reviews the principal’s Western strategies in her
approach in fostering collaboration between teachers. Principal Haukea’s efforts to encourage
collaboration revealed a combination of Native Hawaiian and Western values and beliefs. She
appeared to be guided by Native Hawaiian intentions but enacted them in predominantly
Western ways.

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Theme 1: Principal Haukea’s Native Hawaiian Strategies
Over the course of the data collection, there were two instances where the principal
demonstrated Native Hawaiian epistemology as a leader in her approach to curriculum
development and collaboration. In one instance she shared the learning space with her teaching
faculty and provided minimal guidance and feedback. Her lack of interference showed trust, trust
that her faculty were indeed working towards a common goal; the Native Hawaiian practice of
culture-based learning. In another instance, the Principal encouraged the use of Native Hawaiian-
based standards for Hawaiian Immersion kumu.
In the first instance, Principal Haukea reestablished an expectation that her teachers use
culture-based practices in their curriculum development. For example, she described the year
before and how they used Native Hawaiian cultural concepts in their curriculum, “I like how last
year you guys taught then scaffolded learning. Remember how we established a clear Native
Hawaiian culture theme and integrated the curriculum standards as you continue to work on your
data team curriculum.” The observation data in the lower grades meeting indicated that teachers
were using Hawaiian moʻolelo (stories) as the basis for their curriculum. Five out of seven
teachers in this observation used this approach, three of whom were kumu kaiapuni and two who
were English language-based teachers. The observation data further demonstrated Native
Hawaiian culture-based curriculum in their sharing of what each of them were implementing in
the classroom. One particular teacher stood out in using Kalo (Hawaiian staple food) as her
theme for the entire year, utilizing moʻolelo (stories), mele (songs), oli (chants), art, writing
prompts, social studies, and science. She was able to hit all these standards with the culture-
based food product.

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In the second example Principal Haukea stated in her interview how she encouraged her
teaching faculty to use the Native Hawaiian-based standards in their curriculum development.
Specifically, she stated, You guys are doing the Hawaiian standards one yeah? Good I want you
folks to do the Hawaiian standards, since I approved our report cards, we should start
implementing the new standards for the immersion side. In doing so she expressed the value in
the Native Hawaiian standards and its usage. She further encouraged faculty to use these
standards when she implemented the Native Hawaiian state standard report card. Here she
directly impacted the strategies of her kumu in requiring the use of the new Hawaiian language
Immersion report cards, giving her staff the leverage to implement a culture-based curriculum.
Principal Haukea displayed the importance of her HLIP community in this act of adopting the
new Hawaiian curriculum standards and in so doing, aligns with Kenny and Fraser (2012) who
asserts the importance of integrity and commitment to community as necessary skills that a
Native leader had to possess to gauge the connections and interconnectedness of all things where
position and power had no meaning.
In both instances Principal Haukea practiced Native Hawaiian leadership strategies
implementing culture-based curricula as well the use of Native Hawaiian based standards as a
foundation for improvement in teaching strategies. These two examples showcase the capacity of
which the principal was able to practice Native Hawaiian leadership strategies at that time.
Theme II: Principal Haukea’s use of Western Strategies
Principal Haukea leaned heavily on her Western strategies to manage her faculty in
collaboration of curriculum development. Hallinger (2003) describes instructional leadership,
which aligns with how the principal and her faculty describe her Western strategies. When asked
how their principal displayed Western leadership skills some of the words that the principal

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herself as well as teachers described as Western were, authoritarian, taskmaster, top down,
navigation, knowledge. The interpretation of the principal by herself and her staff lends to her
practice of Western leadership strategies in collaboration efforts in curriculum development.
Principal Haukea described how she saw an authoritarian leadership style as what she
believed to be her Western strategic approach in support of collaborative efforts in curriculum
development. Hallinger (2003) would describe this Instructional leadership approach as
directive, strong, instructional, supervising, hands on, goal-oriented and controlling. She
described her approach here, “Western way—Sit down conference and express expectations
specific examples, how you act, being quiet and allow others to talk and don’t make non-verbal
aggressive, condescending faces.” Here the principal referenced a disagreement she had with
another teacher. In this disagreement the teacher was being unkind to her co-workers who were
not a part of the HLIP program during collaboration. The teacher reacted this way due to the
principal’s mandate to collaborate with the English side in curriculum development time during
PLCs. In this instance the principal chose a strong and decisive stance, controlling the situation
with the teacher to continue collaboration between teachers. The result of the principal’s actions
continued to the goal of collaboration between teachers but also set a precedent for a
collaboration that was not brought on by the teachers naturally.
Principal Haukea continued to reference her Western strategy in data team collaborative
efforts to develop curriculum. The principal stated, “Taskmaster, administrator to refocus,” in
reference to how she had to deal with certain data team groups. The Western leadership strategy
of “taskmaster” helps to describe how the principal 1) saw herself as a Western leadership
practitioner as well as 2) kept her faculty and staff focused on tasks and accountable for their
responsibilities. When they went astray from the agenda, she then used Western strategies to

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“refocus” the group collaboration. This hands on and goal-oriented approach aligned again with
Halligner’s (2003) account of Instructional leadership.
Another leadership strategy included Principal Haukea’s top down approach. In a top
down strategy the person(s) at the top decides what those at the bottom will do, so in this case the
poʻokumu would dictate what kumu were allowed to do in collaboration efforts. Again, in
alignment with Hallinger’s (2003) statements on Instructional leadership as controlling, strong
and directive. Kumu Lei stated, “Western leadership is top down, when she is participating in
dictatorship, she listens but already has her mind made up.” Here she described “top down” as
the Western leadership strategy and further asserts “dictatorship” when she explained how the
principal fostered collaboration in a dictatorship style, further describing the principal’s strong
assertive nature. This top down example was another way in which the principal fostered
collaboration through a Western epistemological lens.
Mandated was another word that teachers used to describe their experience with Western
leadership strategies. Her strong ideas and assertive approach again showing the principal’s
natural Western selection of Instructional leadership. Two of the kumu explained times that they
believed they were mandated to comply with “things” that they had to do, even if they did not
agree or know about these mandates. Kumu Kekai expressed here,
Hm, there has been so much going on this school year that sometimes I one thing after
another and no time to stop and think about things if it will work or not and to me that is
western thinking, just continuous um sometimes not even sharing what is happening, it
just happens without no more discussion before we enter into somethings. It is just like
this is what we are going to do.

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She was able to explain that there was “one thing after another.” This statement implies that she
had to comply and continuously work toward new duties without any say; she was mandated.
She further explained that at times it was, “just continuous with no discussion” another example
of how these mandatory “things” were required of the kumu. Kumu Kekai was able to express
this lack of communication as Western and internalized the idea of not listening to her faculty as
Western.
Similarly, Kumu Kaua stated, “Do things without communication or discussion and plan
things without letting us know.” Here he explained how mandates, “things” were imposed upon
teachers without “discussion and plans,” implying he was left feeling that he was doing “things”
because it was mandatory and expected, but not because he was willing or that he believed in
what had to be done, which displayed Western epistemological leadership strategies. The idea of
mandates or mandatory was another way in which the principal misses an opportunity to lead in
a Native Hawaiian epistemological view and instead practiced Western instructional leadership
strategies.
Western knowledge and navigation of a Western system were both important parts of the
way Principal Haukea used Western leadership strategies to benefit a Native Hawaiian agenda.
Similarly, Kenny and Fraser (2012) also describe the leadership skills needed to walk between
worlds, the ancestral knowledge needed in order to remain current in the historical tides of
changing leadership and the foundation of culture and identity, as well as the different non-native
leadership skills and theories and their ability to navigate between both worlds. Here Kumu
Ānuenue explained, “Understanding the Western system and thinking, mind frames is helpful.
Speaking their language and understanding what their wanting, understanding institutional
racism is part of it.” Kumu Ānuenue was describing the benefits of a Western epistemological

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take on leadership in a Hawaiian Language Immersion Program. She described using the
Western system to benefit the Native Hawaiian language and culture agenda of a kaiapuni
school. Kumu Ānuenue continued to express the importance of Western leadership and
knowledge where she stated, “Understand between worldviews, there is a Western and ‘ike
Hawaii world view and we are continually trying to define it. When we find it, we will know it
agrees with our na’au and how to navigate between the two and don’t go in blinded.” In her
explanation knowing what constituted Western knowledge was important as well as Native
knowledge in order to distinguish the difference and navigate both words to benefit Native
Hawaiian language communities specifically HLIP schools. Although Kumu Ānuenue explained
these things she did not mention the principal in regard to these strategies, possibly implying a
lack of appropriate Western leadership skills and strategies that benefited the HLIP.
It is important to understand how the faculty internalized what they found to be Western
and chose to differentiate their experience with Principal Haukea as both Native Hawaiian in
some aspects of their relationship as well as Western. In doing so they choose what was Western
and may not be true but nonetheless was internalized as what was Western. The collective and
active consciousness, “I am choosing to use Western and naming it Western” and even the
opposite, “I am choosing to use Native Hawaiian and believe that this is Native Hawaiian” were
contentious concepts and a constant struggle for power in the creation of curriculum and
environments that supported collaborative curriculum development. Throughout this section the
faculty touched on what they found as Western strategies, navigation of Western and Native
knowledge sets, authoritarian style leadership, task-oriented collaborations and dictatorship
decision making. Their concepts of Western leadership pointed to Hallinger (2003) Instructional
leadership model.

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Both Native Hawaiian and Western leadership strategies are argued as important for the
principal to foster collaboration throughout Finding 2. Heck and Hallinger (2010) define
collaborative leadership in a Western context as strategic schoolwide actions directed toward
school improvement and emphasize governing structures and broad participation in decision
making. Similarly, Native Hawaiian leadership can be described as communal. Kenny and Fraser
(2012) further asserted the importance of commitment to community in their definition of
Indigenous leadership. Lee (2005) indicated that a Native Hawaiian practiced haʻahaʻa or
humility through selflessness and service to the community. The principals’ efforts revealed a
combination of Native Hawaiian and Western strategies. She appeared to be guided by Native
Hawaiian intentions but enacted them in predominantly Western ways.
Finding 3: Teachers Responses to the Principal’s Expectations
There are two parts to focus on in the last finding: 1) The teachers and their response to
the principal’s expectations in developing Native Hawaiian culture-based curriculum and 2) The
principal’s leadership style in navigating teachers to produce a culture-based curriculum.
Teachers were expected to develop curriculum grounded in Native Hawaiian culture but were
also required to fit said “culture-based” curriculum into a Western standardized system. Principal
Haukea’s leadership style reflected the Hallinger (2003) Instructional leadership model in that
she was directive in her leadership, focused on curriculum and instruction and Benham and
Murakami (2014) approach in that she understood the importance of Hawaiian language and
culture, but also missing other aspects of Benham and Murakami (2014) in nurturing the ethos of
the collective through respect and trust. In facilitating their development of curriculum, her
orientation towards curriculum presented a challenge for one group. This group was intent on
developing a curriculum they believed was more consistent with Native Hawaiian epistemology.

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In response to the principal’s approach and expectations, the other group did not have a
challenge with the Principal’s leadership approach and was able to move forward productively to
accomplish the goals established by the principal.
Theme 1: Principal Haukea’s Leadership Style Did Not Align with Kaiapuni Teachers

The principal’s orientation in Native Hawaiian culture-based curriculum implemented in
a Western epistemological system, impeded the collaboration of this group. Observation data
collected during one of the data team meetings helped provide context into expectations set up
by the principal. The Principal stated, “Pick a power standard. Data teams are to improve your
teaching, time to think about your teacher evaluations and improve teaching in your classrooms.”
Here, Principal Haukea referred to the Western Common Core standards when she asked
teachers in this observation group. Kumu Ānuenue and two other Kumu Kaiapuni were not
engaged in this process. As they engaged in side conversations during the observation, they
showed a disconnect with what was expected of them and their own preferences. Kumu Ānuenue
and the other kumu continued to ignore the directive and chose to work between themselves
using Kaiapuni (Hawaiian language-based) standards. There are two important things that
happened in this data set, first the principal showed her preference to align curriculum with a
Western set of standards, using statements like “pick a power standard,” evidence of her
grounding in Western epistemology. The second important thing is what the teachers did not do
in reaction to their principal’s directive. They did not pick a power standard. In doing so this
group displayed their resistance to the principal’s approach. It also showed how the principal’s
grounding in Western epistemology impeded this group from moving forward in Native
Hawaiian culture-based curriculum development.

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As the principal continued to facilitate the meeting, Principal Haukea practiced
Hallinger’s (2003) Instructional leadership approach and tried to redirect Kumu Ānuenue and her
group through conversation about the standards she had chosen. Kumu Ānuenue responded, “E
aho e hana pū ke kaiapuni ʻaʻole hui pū me ka English ʻae?” (Wouldn’t it be better to work
together with the kaiapuni and not the English?). Principal Haukea stated, “I’m open to that but
maybe another time since this is already started and we are moving forward with our agenda
today with English and Hawaiian to compare grade levels.” Here the principal signaled that the
Native Hawaiian culture-based standards and curriculum building was not important to her.
Instead, she focused on the Western standards for guidance, further suggesting that she valued
the Western set of standards on which she preferred this group of teachers focus. These
exchanges between the principal and this group of teachers were evidence of a disconnect
between the principal’s enactment of leadership, which was based in a Western epistemological
approach. Although the principal uses the Western system to create a culture-based curriculum,
she missed the point that this group of teachers felt strongly about, in using a more Native
Hawaiian epistemological approach through the Kaiapuni standards in the creating culture-based
curriculum. In this observation it would have been a great opportunity for Principal Haukea to
practice McCarty and Lee’s (2014) leadership model of respectful relationships through trust and
reciprocity and allow her kumu kaiapuni to collaborate on a culture-based curriculum founded in
Native Hawaiian, Kaiapuni state standards.
In her interview, Kumu Ānuenue shared disappointment in current leadership, stating, “I
don’t think that me and my principal have the same definition of what Native Hawaiian
leadership is.” Kumu Ānuenue continued to define what she believed Native Hawaiian
leadership was, “I think it is a different way of governance and it is a more highly evolved way

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to lead then what we see right now.” In this statement Kumu Ānuenue implied that Western
forms of leadership and maybe even that Principal Haukea’s leadership style was less evolved
than what she defined Native Hawaiian leadership as. She continued to define Native Hawaiian
leadership, “I think it is complex and it is something that we grew up with in our families so we
see it but it is not so easily articulated in words. It’s familiar.” Her statement helped to frame
how she viewed Native Hawaiian leadership as something natural and familiar. Kumu Ānuenue
continued to state, “I think it is different from Western leadership.” It is implied in these
statements that Kumu Ānuenue therefore is not familiar with the Principal’s leadership.
Therefore, it can also be said that the kumu did not find Principal Haukea’s leadership to be what
she defined as Native Hawaiian leadership because she was not familiar with what the principal
decided to practice in her leadership role. It was because of this unfamiliarity that it was also
implied that Kumu Ānuenue feels that her principal practiced Western leadership. In reference to
the principal, Kumu Ānuenue continued to specifically state, “She is a Native Hawaiian leader,
she is Hawaiian and a leader, but I think she has Western concepts on how to lead, she
implements Western leadership skills instead of Native Hawaiian.” Here the implications of her
statements prior have been plainly stated. Her statement solidified her idea of Western leadership
as “less evolved.” In explaining this concept Kumu Ānuenue provided insight into the
observation data as well. In the observation data she had complete disregard for what the
principal asks of their group, which was a Native Hawaiian culture-based curriculum based on a
Western Common Core standard. She implied that the curriculum that they were required to
develop was questionably not Native Hawaiian culture-based curriculum due to the fact that they
had to use a Western standard system. These insights during the interview data collection also
maked the observation data clearer and more understandable in that this group of teachers, all but

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one of the kaiapuni teachers present had difficulty creating Native Hawaiian culture-based
curriculum because of Principal Haukea’s strong and direct approach focused on curriculum and
instruction. In her approach the principal enacted Hallinger’s (2003) Instructional leadership
approach, focusing on the control and supervision of curriculum and instruction.
McCarty and Lee (2014) explain the importance and expectation to sustain cultural and
linguistic knowledge premised on respect and reciprocity. Similarly, Kumu Ānuenue’s response
in her interview helps set up better understanding on the kind of leadership she was looking for,
Good Native Hawaiian leaders come in different sizes, shapes and forms and my
preference in what makes a good one would be someone who knows how to cultivate
aloha, trust, understand the kaikuaʻana and kaikaina relationship. So the reciprocal
relationship and trust is built from it. From trust then you have understanding. Easy flow
of ideas and that is where aloha stems from. That kaikuaʻana and kaikaina relationship is
tested and trust is built up until there is just aloha between them.
Kumu Lei expressed what she believed impeded their ability to move forward in HLIP
curriculum development as, “lack of respect for each other and common goals.” Here Kumu Lei
helped to describe the disconnect between leadership and teachers, a lack of respect. Similarly,
Benham and Murakami (2010) describe the concept of mana and the sacredness of relations in
influencing respect. Principal Haukea’s leadership approach mirrors Hallinger’s (2003)
Instructional approach, a Western model of leadership, focused on a step-by-step process to
achieve a goal. The principal’s unwavering stance in Hallinger’s (2003) Instructional leadership
approach impeded her ability to find common goals and create understanding between her goals
for their school and the goals of her teachers. Benham and Murakami (2010) continue to describe
every individual and their place in the world and how sacred the connection is in order to reach

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and maintain mana. Benham and Murakami (2010) further describe connections from the past,
present and future and how a broken or frayed bond an individual becomes disconnected, a
downward spiral which affects potential power and all relations that this person occupies. While
the principal might have had good intentions, her intentions were lost in her approach to
collaboration and her lack of trust and understanding of kaiapuni kumu. As she continued to stay
firm in her Instructional style of leadership, she lost sight of what the group of teachers needed
from their leader in that moment of time, trust in their ability to create a culture-based curriculum
based in Kaiapuni state standards as well as a reciprocal relationship. This group of teachers
struggled to align their culture-based curriculum with the expectations of Principal Haukea as
well as her leadership style. As a result, the principal impeded the group’s forward movement in
their curriculum collaboration and development.
Theme 2: The Principal’s Orientation Towards a Culture-Based Curriculum Grounded in
a Western Ideology Supported the Second Group of Teachers in Their Curriculum
Development Efforts.
In this scenario the principal’s directedness, strong personality and focus on instruction
and curriculum—all consistent with Hallinger’s (2003) Instructional leadership model—and her
expectations related to culture-based curriculum, aligned with the group and their endeavors to
develop Hawaiian language and culture-based curriculum. This group of teachers benefited from
the principal’s Instructional leadership style, which gave them directions on how to incorporate a
Native Hawaiian language and culture-based curriculum and aligned these ideas of curriculum
and instruction with Western-based standards.
One example of the alignment between the principal’s leadership style and the group’s
orientation towards curriculum development is revealed in the following interaction. Here HLIP

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kumu adhered to the principal’s Western framework, which was based on models such as data
teams, Response to Intervention (RTI) and instructional evaluation and improvement. While
Po’okumu Haukea oriented herself in an Instructional leadership framework, which was a
Western framework, she also understood the importance of culture-based curriculum and
allowed for her kumu to base their curriculum in the Native Hawaiian language, using culture-
based content toward the Western writing standards. When Kumu Kekai started facilitating their
meeting she first asked the principal, “Last meeting we discussed RTI meetings for next week in
the classroom. Is that still happening?” Here Kumu Kekai deferred to the authority in the room,
the principal, both an example of how the teachers perceived the principal's directedness and
strong personality, as well as how Principal Haukea displayed Hallinger’s (2003) Instructional
leadership style. In response Principal Haukea nodded yes and gave her directions as follows,
“Yes. Data teams are to improve your teaching, a perfect time to think about your teacher
evaluations and how you can improve teaching in your classrooms.” The principal clearly
telegraphed to the group how they were expected to focus on instruction and curriculum. Kumu
Kekai continued her facilitation of their meeting, “Ok, Start thinking about RTI in the classroom.
Did everyone start? Focus was on writing and math prompt.” In this interaction the kumu had
determined that the principal’s expectations were still to use the writing and math prompts.
Overall, in this meeting the group focused on Western writing skill standard prompts. Their
interactions shared insight of the principal’s Hallinger’s (2003) Instructional leadership approach
in the way she stated her curriculum development expectations with strong assertiveness. This
example also showed how the teachers were aligned with her direct leadership approach, an
example of Halinger’s (2003) Instructional leadership model. The teachers even asked clarifying
questions to get more direction on how they should proceed in their meeting.

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The principal’s orientation was to develop writing skills and record data. The teachers
pursued this goal using culture-based approaches. Here the kumu papa malaa’o, the kindergarten
immersion teacher, chose to marry a Native Hawaiian culture-based curriculum, focused on a
Hawaiian fish known as the Manini for content. For the purposes of this meeting and the
principal’s expectation, which was focused on writing skills, a Western standard prompt, Kumu
Akoni shared the following example for his writing prompt, “My kids don’t write, so they copied
letters off the board, about manini fish examples.” Here Kumu Akoni implied that his students
were not all ready to write a sentence or paragraph as prompted, so he modeled it for them on the
board, allowing his students to draw and copy the writing on their assignment. He continued to
share, “One wrote: “I love you” Another wrote: “Manini and kahakaha.”” Kumu Akoni shared
his top examples of students who were able to write, without his modeling. In this example
Kumu Akoni particularly focused on a Western language art writing standard and used Hawaiian
language as the means to write, again an example that solidified the idea of alignment between
teachers and principal. The principal and Kumu Akoni’s interactions together were agreeable. He
met her expectations and presented a writing standard for their data team and he incorporated
culture-based curriculum, an action that became his norm. Principal Haukea even added to the
conversation and stated that the evidence of his high learners’ school readiness showed how their
readiness may be linked to preschool. Overall, this example shared insight into a principal’s
expectations for the group, the teachers’ alignment with the principal and how it worked for this
kumu to both present data in a Western based writing standard and taught with culture-based
content in mind. Furthermore, this example helped to solidify the Hallinger’s (2003)
Instructional leadership framework in which the principal resided, in that she was both direct and
focused on curriculum instruction.

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Another way in which the principal’s Western oriented framework was supported
through a culture-based educational content was evidenced in the following example. Here The
first-grade immersion teacher, Kumu Leiʻohu had partnered with Kumu Akoni and also taught
her students about the manini fish. Both kumu taught the same Native Hawaiian culture-based
content, the manini fish and used a Western framework, aligned specifically to Western language
arts writing standards in the Hawaiian language. Here both Kumu Akoni and Kumu Leiʻohu’s
examples aligned with the principal’s Hallinger (2003) style of Instructional leadership. As the
principal telegraphed her expectations, her strong assertive personality, focused on curriculum
instruction was received well by this group. Kumu Leiʻohu explained, “I had really good
examples for first grade, lots of writing. One said, didn’t write and I asked her, and she said,
“gray, black, yellow.” A bunch wrote: loa’a vs. lo’a wrote a lot but not full sentences.” This
Kumu implied here that her students were starting to write more at papa ʻekahi, first grade, but
also implied that they were not writing full sentences. The principal’s use of Hallinger (2003)
Instruction approach, a directiveness with her expectations to incorporate culture-based content
and utilize Western based writing standards in order to improve curriculum and instruction, were
clearly accepted by Kumu Lei’ohu and the interactions with other kumu in this group and the
principal.
In this example the teacher again focused her approach, aligned with her principal’s
Instructional orientation of leadership and her expectation of using Western writing standards,
while also incorporating a culture-based curriculum. The papa ‘elua, second-grade teacher did
the same strategy as the two previous Kumu Akoni and Kumu Leiʻohu but used a Hawaiian
moʻolelo or stories. Kumu Kekai shared here, “I gave my students a prompt about Kumu Ulu and
Kū. I wanted to see how they relate the story to their haʻawina...” Already she used culture-based

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content, it was a story about Hawaiian plants and akua and their relationship. Her “ha’awina” or
lesson was implied to be her primary objective, that they learned about this story. This kumu
further explained about her writing prompt here,
If you were a tree, what tree would you be, why and how would it help your family? Of
course, my star student had this, shows student work. She answered every question, she
would be a papaya because she can share papaya with her family, so they don’t have to
buy it and care for her family like Kū did. Papaya because my mom likes papaya.
This student’s example is data that represented their learning, they understood that in the story
Kū took care of his family by becoming an ulu tree and the student chose the papaya because her
mom liked papaya. Kumu Kekai was able to get across the importance of the story to her
students while fitting the writing standard for her second-grade class, which was writing a three-
sentence paragraph. This is another example of how the teachers had married the two concepts,
Native Hawaiian culture-based curriculum and a Western writing standard. This example is also
aligned with Principal Haukea’s enactment of Hallinger’s (2003) Instructional approach. The
principal gave direct instructions to her kumu, who listened and interpreted the expectations to
both suit her lesson as well as the expectation of the principal to work on curriculum to improve
instruction.
The relationships between the principal and teachers in this group was indicative of how
well this specific group responded to the principal’s enactment of Hallinger (2003) instructional
style of leadership, keeping focused on their principal’s expectations to align curriculum and
instruction with her Western orientation and framework, while still staying true to the culture-
based and Hawaiian language identities of their Hawaiian language immersion program.

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Figure 3
Revised Conceptual Framework

Revised Conceptual Framework
My conceptual framework changed as the study played out. The literature review and my
study informed the updated conceptual framework in Figure 2. I used my understanding of the
literature which reviewed Native Hawaiian and Western leadership and epistemology as well as
culture-based curriculum to inform my choice of the principal chosen for this study. These
themes were prevalent in how the principal used her knowledge and experiences to enact
collaboration for curriculum development. In the updated conceptual framework, depicted on the
left side of Figure 2, Native Hawaiian leadership and Epistemology was enacted by the principal
leader in the facilitation of collaboration, especially apparent in school climate and content
developed in curriculum. Western leadership informed principal enactment and facilitation of
collaboration in standards and accountability practices, depicted on the right side of Figure 2.
There is also an overlap in the way that Native Hawaiian leadership and Epistemology and

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Western leadership and Epistemology are revealed in principal enactment. In this case study, the
principal’s enactment demonstrated collaboration with respect to curriculum content and school
climate that was more influenced by her Native Hawaiian background and collaboration in
relation to standards and accountability was more influenced by her Western background. I
believe that if we were to do more studies on principals, how their background influenced their
enactment would be reflected in their approach to school climate, curriculum, standards, and
accountability.
The principal’s enactment of a school culture and the content in the curriculum culture-
based curriculum was indicative of her Native Hawaiian leadership and epistemology while. She
collaborated with community members for the school culture and values Native Hawaiian
content for the curriculum. These were the reflections of her Native Hawaiian leadership and
epistemology. Her leadership role in the collaboration with teachers on curriculum and the
structure of curriculum, including accountability measures, teacher evaluation and accountability
as well as instruction were informed from a more Western leadership and epistemology
perspective. Principal Haukea’s Native Hawaiian approach towards collaboration aligned with
McCarty and Lee (2014), integrating culture into the school’s curriculum, focused on Native
Hawaiian content. She also informed her leadership role with Native Hawaiian strategies and
ideologies when it came to creating a school culture and climate that reflected a Native Hawaiian
space and environment. She informed her leadership with Western strategies and ideology when
it came to curriculum development and collaboration. Consistent with literature, Principal
Haukea practiced Hallinger’s (2003) approach, a strong and directive leadership style focused on
instruction. The principal continued to practice Western leadership strategies consistent with

93
Heck and Hallinger (2010), as she used school wide actions in the improvement of student
learning (i.e., PLC and data teams) as a form of collaborative school leadership.
Native Hawaiian Leadership and Epistemology
As Lee (2005) described, a principal leader who should be knowledgeable in Native
Hawaiian language and culture, the principal leader in this study, Po’okumu Haukea was
knowledgeable in Native Hawaiian culture and language. Kenny and Fraser (2012) described
Native Hawaiian leadership as a leader with a sense of kuleana or responsibility to her
community who led with tenacity, courage, and compassion. Principal Haukea was all these
things. She was able to use her knowledge of Native Hawaiian language and culture to inform
her facilitation of collaborative opportunities on curriculum content. For example, she
encouraged her teachers to use Native Hawaiian stories and language in their curriculum. Feinga
(2016) described a leader of ethnic background similar to the host culture, in this case a Native
Hawaiian that put the community first and used a culture-based approach. In the building of
school culture and a Native Hawaiian climate throughout the school environment, Po’okumu
Haukea was a Native Hawaiian that used these Native Hawaiian leadership skills. She called
upon the community to come together in deciding what stories to use in their school mural art
project. Principal Haukea asked kupuna, families and kumu for their input in surveys, meetings,
and physically painted with participants, even allowing members of the community to lead parts
of the project. Meyer (1998) helped to explain and define the epistemology as the study of
Native Hawaiian knowledge. She described NHE as learning from your kūpuna and capitalizing
off of the experiences before us, using their experiences to inform our choices as we move
forward. Her ideas of knowledge and the learning of knowledge from your ancestors was
important to the conceptual framework because she explained NHE as protocol, family and

94
relationships. In order to infuse ancestral knowledge in education and NHE the leader would
have had to identify with Native Hawaiian epistemological knowledge and understanding. This
was an important part of why I chose Principal Haukea. She expressed in her interviews an
understanding of Native Hawaiian epistemology and had her own perspectives on Hawaiian
knowledge and the study of this knowledge. In the study her use of NHE played out in her ability
to create and collaborate with the community in the building of a Native Hawaiian school
climate. Principal Haukea also used her NHE knowledge and perspective to inform curriculum
collaboration and creation, expecting her staff to use Hawaiian language, mo’olelo and mana’o
in curriculum development opportunities. Kana’iaupuni and Ishibara (2003) similarly described
what Principal Haukea helped her staff to create throughout their school culture and curriculum
content, as culture-based education. They further described CBE pedagogy and assessments and
its positive effects on Native Hawaiian student learning outcomes and responses. Principal
Haukea saw positive feedback when engaged in CBE curriculum. Lino (2010) and Kanu (2007)
both described the importance of culture-based curriculum and the incorporation of Native
Hawaiian culture and language. The illustration of the conceptual framework in Figure 2 shows
how the Principal was able to take her background, value system, characteristics and skill set in
Native Hawaiian leadership to influence her staff’s ability to support CBE and NHE curriculum
collaboration. These influences are what enabled the principal to enact a culturally relevant
curriculum, grounded in culture, and knowledge and leadership practices that encouraged a
Native Hawaiian school climate and culture.
Western Leadership and Epistemology
I also used literature on Western leadership and epistemology to inform my choice of a
leader for this study. I wanted a leader that I thought would display Western leadership styles,

95
characteristics and knowledge that would benefit a Native Hawaiian community. I thought that a
Western leader could be a great leader but would lack certain characteristics and a knowledge
base to be a leader that can enact CBE in an immersion Kaiapuni school. Po’okumu Haukea was
chosen because of her Native Hawaiian knowledge base and background, but also because of her
Western knowledge and ideologies. She offered what Khalifa et al. (2016) defined as culturally
relevant school leadership (CRSL) an approach grounded in the geographical school culture.
Haukea’s Western leadership style as depicted in Figure 2 ended up using her Western leadership
practices and epistemology to inform the collaboration of faculty and staff in curriculum
development aligned with accountability and Western based standards. The conceptual
framework continues to show her leadership approach, which mirrored Halinger’s (2003)
Instructional leadership model. She used her Western knowledge of accountability measures and
effectiveness in her requirement of collaboration on curriculum development. In some cases, the
principal’s alignment with Halinger’s (2003) model aligned with staff, where they liked her
strong and directive leadership style focused on instruction. Whereas some teachers found her
Western style of leadership lacking aloha and trustworthiness. The conceptual framework also
depicts her Western ideologies and knowledge coming through in the standards used in
collaboration. Principal Haukea required teachers to use a power standard for data teams. They
used these data teams as their time for curriculum development, so where she would want the
content to reflect Native Hawaiian culture and language, she would expect teachers to base their
curriculum on standards that did not reflect Native Hawaiian culture or language. For some
teachers they were able to navigate the two, Native Hawaiian content and Western standards,
whereas most teachers struggled to use this method to create Native Hawaiian language and
culture-based curriculum that also reflected accountability methods and standards of grading that

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aligned with a Western based ideology. In this case study, the Principal compartmentalized her
Native Hawaiian and Western knowledge and leadership skills depending on the outcome that
she believed was appropriate.
The conceptual framework visual represents the enactment of Principals. Principals take
all their knowledge of leadership, their identity, their epistemological views of both Western
concepts and their Native Hawaiian and Indigenous counterparts to inform their leadership. As a
result of their influences a Principal will enact collaboration on curriculum content, school
climate, and structures of standards and accountability in their school in various ways, some will
elicit the multitudes of generations before them staying true to their traditional knowledge,
presenting Western leadership and epistemological needs in an Indigenous manner, while some
will be at the other end of the spectrum, unknowing of their Indigenous leadership and
epistemological knowledge and perspectives. Others like the Principal in our case study will take
on a mix of both Western and in this case Native Hawaiian knowledge and epistemological
perspectives.
Conclusion
Throughout the data, the principal consistently demonstrated both Native Hawaiian and
Western epistemologies as the leader at the school. Principal Haukea was oriented in a Native
Hawaiian epistemological approach towards school climate and culture, while also grounded in a
Western epistemological approach regarding curriculum, implementation and accountability. She
both demonstrated Native Hawaiian and Western strategies in fostering collaboration. Guided by
Native Hawaiian values and a Western leadership framework, Principal Haukea was met with
varying levels of opposition by her teachers in the collaboration to create a culture-based
curriculum.

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CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION

This case study examined how a principal at a kaiapuni (Hawaiian Language Immersion)
school fostered a collaborative school culture and culture-based curriculum. This chapter
presents an overview of the sample, data collection, analysis, and findings and then offers
implications from the case study and recommendations for policy, practice, and research. I
examined how the principal demonstrated her Native Hawaiian and Western ideologies and used
Native Hawaiian and Western strategies throughout school climate, collaboration and curriculum
development. The research question addressed in this study were:
1. How does a principal promote collaboration in relation to school climate at a
Hawaiian Language Immersion Program School?
2. How does a principal promote Hawaiian Language and English teachers’ efforts to
develop or improve a culture-based curriculum?
To understand the role the principal played in promoting collaboration in both school
culture and a culture-based curriculum, this study utilized a qualitative research design.
Merriam’s (2009) basic qualitative research best fit the needs of this case study. Based on the
actual experiences of teachers and the principal in a school, this study strived to analyze the
phenomenon of shared experiences. The participants for this case study were purposefully
chosen and were recruited. I specifically used criterion-based selection The criterion-based
selection included the purposeful selection of a principal who was located in a Department of
Education school that hosted both an HLIP and English language program. This distinction was
important in this case study in order to see how the principal navigated both groups of educators.
Eight interviews were conducted with teachers and the principal. The principal was able to
participate in a pre- and post-interview while the other participants completed one pre-interview.

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Participants chosen for interviews were a mix of seven kumu kaiapuni, Hawaiian language
immersion teachers and one principal. I was able to conduct eight observations. Observations
included teachers from both the Hawaiian language program and the English programs. Often
kumu and teachers from each side would meet with their grade level counterpart. I focused my
observations on the kumu kaiapuni to better understand the inner workings of the kaipuni
program and how the principal was able to navigate two teacher groups. Essentially there were
two teacher groups, an English based group and a Hawaiian language Immersion based group. In
seven of eight observations all participants were half or more English and the rest were the
kaiapuni kumu group. In one observation the kaiapuni kumu met together. The interviews and
observations shared insight on school climate, leadership at the school, and collaboration on
curriculum development.
Findings from the interviews and observations reflected the literature on Native Hawaiian
leadership practices and epistemology, Western leadership practices and epistemology as well as
the enactment of collaboration and curriculum development. My conceptual framework mirrored
these concepts. The principal used her knowledge of both Hawaiian language, culture and
leadership as well as her Western ideology and leadership strategies to inform her own
leadership practices. These influences shaped Principal Haukea leadership as she navigated the
needs and requirements of her school. As a result, the principal demonstrated a preference for
Native Hawaiian practices in the school climate, how teachers, staff and herself interacted
outside of the meeting rooms as well as Native Hawaiian strategies to create community. While
in meetings for collaboration and curriculum development, the principal favored a Western
leadership approach, specifically Hallinger’s (2003) Instructional leadership, where she practiced

99
a stern, straight forward communication style and focused on curriculum to inform instructional
strategies.
There were three findings that emerged through the data provided in this case study. First,
the principal demonstrated a combination of Native Hawaiian and Western epistemologies as a
leader at the school in her approach to school climate. Consistent with Kanahele’s (2011) manaʻo
(thoughts) on cultivating a Hawaiian space through oli and mele, Principal Haukea cultivated a
Native Hawaiian school environment, focused on piko, oli, mele and Native Hawaiian protocols
prioritizing Hawaiian language throughout the school. The principal’s Western epistemological
lens, focused her on accountability measures, her use of standardized grading, professional
learning communities, grade level promotions, national and state testing as well as her approach
to academics in mandated school activities, such as their POPs award assembly. The second
finding demonstrated the principal’s Native Hawaiian epistemology in her approach to
curriculum and revealed her Western oriented approach to leadership in fostering collaboration
between teachers. Specifically, Principal Haukea used Native Hawaiian strategies in providing
time for her teachers to develop curriculum, showing a level of trust that she had for her teachers
as they worked towards common goals. She encouraged Native Hawaiian-based standards for the
Hawaiian Immersion kumu and culture-based curriculum for both the English and HLIP
programs. She also relied on her Western strategies to foster collaboration, providing structured
time, giving out tasks, requiring this time and using her knowledge of Western leadership
strategies during the time provided for curriculum development. The third and final finding
revealed one group of teachers benefited from Principal Haukea’s Western leadership approach
on culture-based curriculum, while another struggled with her approach in collaborating on
culture-based curriculum development. The group who struggled with Principal Haukea,

100
believed strongly that the Hawaiian-based standards were still Western because they were based
on a Western standardized system and had difficulty with the structure that the principal tried to
fit their teaching into. While the other teacher group did well to use Native Hawaiian content and
concepts in a more Western standardized system.
Implications and Recommendations
For Practice
This case study highlights how the principal enacted her Native Hawaiian leadership and
epistemology to build Native Hawaiian culture-based curriculum and a Native Hawaiian school
climate with her Hawaiian Immersion teaching staff. The study also revealed the principal’s
Western approach and epistemology in her leadership style as they collaborated on curriculum.
Teachers either followed this leadership style or resisted. For most of the teachers who were not
comfortable with this style of leadership, their resolve was not to collaborate with English
speaking teachers on curriculum development and create curriculum that they found to be
culturally appropriate. For the few other teachers who aligned with her style of leadership, they
were able to follow her instruction and facilitation in the creation of curriculum for their
classrooms. Given these findings, principals should be provided with training that would ensure
that they a) understand their own ideology as a leader, b) understand the ideology of their
teachers, and c) and the implications for their staff. This means that principals would be provided
opportunities to learn about themselves as leaders to be better leaders for their schools. McCarty
and Lee (2014) describe the inward gaze, allowing yourself to note the colonized influences and
internalize it, understanding that their heritage conveys important cultural and linguistic
knowledge and use this understanding to inform school curriculum and pedagogy. Principals
should also shoulder the responsibility to provide training for their teachers in this same way, to

101
allow them to better understand their own ideology as a teacher and the implications it would
have in their classrooms and school wide collaboration efforts.
It would also be important to continue teacher and leadership development that is
facilitated through a Native Hawaiian culture and language lens, in both curriculum and school
climate. In order for both principal and teachers to incorporate and value Native Hawaiian
knowledge, culture and language in their collaborative efforts and curriculum development,
leaders should not give up one for the other, for example a teacher shouldn’t focus only on
Western concepts but instead should learn to incorporate Native Hawaiian and Western concepts
in a way that both are valued and integrated throughout curriculum. Hohepa (2013) similarly
asserts the idea of indigenous identity, indigeneity, where leaders who choose not to compromise
their indigenous identity simply because they are an educator, putting indigenous knowledge,
culture, and language at the center of educational leadership, providing a space to be different
and the same. The recommendations and implications for practice would do well to work on the
principal ability to know and understand these two concepts of ideology and indigeneity, to
better prepare them for leadership, teaching them to understand themselves and their staff.
Training in this area will allow them to better understand and inform their practice of
principalship.
For Policy
Based on the data provided in this study, kaiapuni schools were in the process of
implementing new Native Hawaiian language and culture-based standards as well as the
Hawaiian language report cards, which were based in a Western standardized system and grade
level evaluation and reporting. This case study revealed a disconnect between policy makers and
principals as far as the implementation calendar of said Hawaiian language and culture-based

102
standards and report cards. This disconnect showed itself in meetings with teachers and
principals when Western standards were still being used for data teams instead of the newly
made Hawaiian language and culture-based standards. Although the principal sometimes allowed
for the Hawaiian based standards and report cards, this usage was still in its infancy stages and
not a regular occurrence. The recommendation would be for policy makers to have
communicated more clearly when schools were to officially adopt standards and report cards. Nā
Hopena Aʻo (2015) is a Native Hawaiian based framework and a foundational example of policy
that helps to align kaiapuni and all DOE schools in teaching the whole person as a whole.
Implications of this recommendation would be to better communicate expectations improving
alignment between policy, administration, and faculty/staff in kaiapuni schools.
For Research
Throughout this case study it was clear that the principal’s role played a large part in a
fluid development and collaboration on both curriculum and the school climate. More research
would be best served in the development of principals who specifically lead kaiapuni schools and
what kinds of support can be provided to these school leaders to better develop their schools,
faculty and staff and ultimately the students. Research that showed various types of principals,
ones who are not Native Hawaiian and are principals of kaiapuni programs, principals that are
well known for their principalship of a kaiapuni program, and a comparison of these principals
and how we can better enact techniques that suit principal ship of a kaiapuni program. An
example of a great kaiapuni principal would allow others to tap into what works, how a principal
is able to focus on Native Hawaiian ways of knowing and incorporate these concepts with a
Westerns system, that is seamless and not so jarring to the teachers. Another recommendation
would be to also get the perspective of teachers. More research on how teachers would like to see

103
their principal enact collaboration, cultural-based climate and curriculum in their kula kaiapuni
would be research that would help to continue this topic of research.

104
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Appendix A
Protocol

As Maxwell (2013) & Merriam (2009) assert it is vital to have a protocol for your
interviews to ensure vitality, credibility and a complete record of said interviews.
I. Interview Protocol
Aloha and mahalo for agreeing to participate in my study to further understand how
Native Hawaiian Principal leadership enacts collaboration of culture-based curricula. I appreciate
the one-hour time slot that you have set aside to answer the following questions in order to equip
my study with valid and credible information.
Before we get started, I want to provide you with a comprehensive overview of the
purpose of my study and the background of the problems that the research question is
investigating. The primary purpose of this study is to learn about different parts of principal
leadership strategies and styles as well as the further define Native Hawaiian Epistemology as it
pertains to leadership and culture-based education. I am particularly interested in how Native
Hawaiian Epistemology is expressed in leadership in order to create collaboration opportunities
in curriculum development. I will be interviewing teachers and their principal in order to gain
insight on leadership practices that determine collaboration of CBE materials.
I am strictly a researcher today and all the data collection is in pursuance of my doctorate
in educational leadership and is in no way an evaluation. I will not be making any judgments on
your practices and performance. In my dissertation I will transcribe the data and make my own
personal reflections on the kinds of practices that relate to the different outcomes as it pertains to
the data collected. Data will only be for the purposes of my dissertation process.

109
I am happy to provide you with a copy of the interview in my final stages of the
dissertation process. Do you have any questions before we get started? (Wait for response.) If
there are no more questions I would like your permission to begin the interview. I have also
bought a recording device in order to record this interview. This will maintain accuracy of what
is said and what you have shared. May I also have your permission to record our conversation?
(Wait for response and start device if approved.)
II. Setting the Stage
Okay let us begin.
1. What is your name?
2. What is your position?
3. What is your affiliation to…
a. Native Hawaiian leadership?
b. Native Hawaiian Epistemology?
c. culture-based Education?
4. In your opinion how do Native Hawaiian leadership and Western leadership differ?
5. What is your role at your current workplace?
6. What does collaboration look like to you?
7. How does a leader foster collaboration?
8. How does collaboration lead to CBE curriculum development?
9. How does CBE curriculum become valid when used in the classroom?
10. What accountability measures are taken to ensure the proper naming of CBE in
curriculum development?

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III. Interview
1. Native Hawaiian Leadership
a. Can you define Native Hawaiian Leadership?
i. Where does this definition derive?
b. How do you believe you use your Native Hawaiian leadership skills to create
a collaborative environment?
c. How does your Native Hawaiian leadership practices influence your ability to
create collaborative environments and culture-based curriculum development?
d. Can you explain how your Native Hawaiian leadership practices and strategies
have influenced your collaboration opportunities for CBE curriculum
development?
2. Western Leadership
a. Can you define Western Leadership?
i. Where does this definition derive?
b. How has your Western leadership practices and strategies influenced your
enactment of collaboration opportunities in CBE curriculum development?
c. Can you say if and what type of Western leadership skills and strategies you
have used to help build a collaborative environment in your school?
3. Native Hawaiian Epistemology
a. Can you define Native Hawaiian Epistemology?
i. Where does this definition derive?
b. How has your position helped you to define Native Hawaiian Epistemology?

111
c. How have you used your insight on NHE in your leadership skills and
strategies?
d. How does NHE influence your use of CBE in collaboration and curriculum
development opportunities?
4. culture-based Education
a. Can you define culture-based Education?
i. Where does this definition derive?
b. How has your position helped you to define culture-based Education?
c. When you look at a piece of a curriculum, like a lesson or a unit plan, how do
you decide if the lessons are indeed CBE?
d. What kinds of accountability measures do you provide to insure the validity of
your CBE curriculum?
IV. Closing Interview
1. Before we finish today I would like to thank you for your time and help in the collection
of information for my dissertation case study. Please let me know if you have any
questions and concerns and I will make sure to address them promptly. Please accept this
makana, gift on behalf of my study as a thank you for your participation and time.

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Appendix B
Protocol

Merriam (2009) suggests an observation protocol, which includes the following to ensure
the study includes the theoretical framework, the problem, and the question of interest.
I. Observation Protocol
Aloha, I am here to observe your meeting today in order to inform my dissertation data
collection section. I will be taking notes on the physical setting, participants, activities and
interactions, conversations and other factors important to my research question and the
theoretical framework that drives my study. During my observation I will not participate in any
group activities and will be a complete observer as described by Merriam (2009). Please note
that I will not share this information, make judgment or use this information for nothing other
than my study and dissertation data collection. Please let me know if you have any questions or
concerns. Maxwell (2013) states that observations are a powerful and direct way of learning
about people’s behavior and the context in which this occurs. I believe observation will help me
to answer my research question and understand the role of a principal when enacting
collaboration of Native Hawaiian culture-based curriculum.
II. Physical Setting
In this section I will draw, mark and describe the physical environment of the observation
space in the box provided on the next page.

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III. The Participants
In the participant section I will provide a list of who is at the scene, how many people and
their roles. I’ll answer questions like what brings them her? Who is allowed here? Who is not
here and is expected to be here? What are relevant characteristics of the participants and how the

114
people in the setting organize themselves? What are some patterns of interactions, direction of
communication patterns and changes as well and the social environment as suggested by
Merriam (2009).

IV. Activities & Interactions

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V. Conversations

VI. Subtle factors
Informal and unplanned activities...
Symbolic and connotative meanings of words...
Nonverbal communication such as dress and physical space...

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Appendix C

Common Core Writing Standards

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118

119

Appendix D

120

121

122

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i
Piko: Piko is the protocols that are used to center a group of people, in this case the student and teacher body. This
happens daily as a whole kaiapuni school, in the morning before teachers and students head to their classrooms.
ii
Ho’okipa: Ho’okipa is a part of piko and is the welcome visitors. This particular part of the piko protocol only
happens on the occasion that there are special or formal visitors to the school. In this case, it is imperative that as a
school or whole group these visitors be treated well and welcomed properly, given mele and oli, and even gifts.
Sometimes visitors will reciprocate with their own mele, oli, and gifts and other times it does not occur. The
reciprocation is not always expected for all visitors.
iii
Hukihuki: Hukihuki is a contention, sometimes said or unsaid, between individuals or groups of people debating
the importance of ideas, thoughts or values.
iv
‘Ōlelo Noʻeau: ‘Ōlelo Noʻeau are Hawaiian proverbs. These sayings are looked upon highly as guiding words for
values, lessons, and ideas for Hawaiian people.

Abstract (if available)

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Asset Metadata

Creator Kama, Puanani Ashley (author)

Core Title A case study of one poʻokumu kaiapuni

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education (Leadership)

Publication Date 03/22/2021

Defense Date 12/22/2020

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

Tag Hawaiian language immersion education,leadership,Native Hawaiian education,Native Hawaiian leadership,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Slayton, Julie (committee chair), Eschenberg, Ardis (committee member), Samkian, Artineh (committee member)

Creator Email pkama@usc.edu,puananikama@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-429438

Unique identifier UC11667844

Identifier etd-KamaPuanan-9337.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-429438 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-KamaPuanan-9337.pdf

Dmrecord 429438

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Kama, Puanani Ashley

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