Volume 23 | Number 2 | 2011
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VolumePacific-Asian 23 | Number Education 21 | 2011 Pacific-Asian Education The Journal of the Pacific Circle Consortium for Education Volume 23, Number 2, 2011 SPECIAL ISSUE Inside (and around) the Pacific Circle: Educational Places, Spaces and Relationships SPECIAL ISSUE EDITORS Eve Coxon The University of Auckland, New Zealand Airini The University of Auckland, New Zealand SPECIAL ISSUE EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Elizabeth Rata The University of Auckland, New Zealand Diane Mara The University of Auckland, New Zealand Carol Mutch The University of Auckland, New Zealand EDITOR Elizabeth Rata, School of Critical Studies in Education, Faculty of Education, The University of Auckland, New Zealand. Email: [email protected] EXECUTIVE EDITORS Airini, The University of Auckland, New Zealand Alexis Siteine, The University of Auckland, New Zealand CONSULTING EDITOR Michael Young, Institute of Education, University of London EDITORIAL BOARD Kerry Kennedy, The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong Meesook Kim, Korean Educational Development Institute, South Korea Carol Mutch, Education Review Office, New Zealand Gerald Fry, University of Minnesota, USA Christine Halse, University of Western Sydney, Australia Gary McLean, Texas A & M University, USA Leesa Wheelahan, University of Melbourne, Australia Rob Strathdee, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand Xiaoyu Chen, Peking University, P. R. China Saya Shiraishi, The University of Tokyo, Japan Richard Tinning, University of Queensland, Australia ISSN 10109-8725 Pacific Circle Consortium for Education Publication design and layout: Halcyon Design Ltd, www.halcyondesign.co.nz Published by Pacific Circle Consortium for Education http://pacificcircleconsortium.org/PAEJournal.html Pacific-Asian Education Volume 23, Number 2, 2011 CONTENTS Editorial Eve Coxon 5 Articles Tala Mai Fafo: (Re)Learning from the voices of Pacific women 11 Tanya Wendt Samu Professional development in the Cook Islands: Confronting and challenging 23 Cook Islands early childhood teachers’ understandings of play. Manutai Laupepe Multiple challenges in research within the fa’asamoa context 33 Patisepa Tuafuti How can talanoa be used effectively as an indigenous research methodology 43 with Tongan people? Mo’ale ‘Otunuku Samoan research methodology: The Ula – A New Paradigm 53 Seiuli Luama Sauni Se’i tatou ‘aleaga: Samoan educators’ insights into Inclusive Education 65 development Niusila Faamanatu-Eteuati A reflection on being’‘ ‘Fijian’ and ‘belonging’ to Fiji: Conceptualizing a 77 value-theory approach to Citizenship Education Cresantia Frances Koya Vaka’uta Teaching and Learning Food and Textiles in Samoa: Curriculum 89 implementation as a contested process Faamoemoe Soti and Carol Mutch Global influences on curriculum in Samoa: The case of Business Studies 101 Faalogo Teleuli Leituaso-Mafoa and Carol Mutch Akarakara Akaouanga I Te Kite Pakari O Te Kuki Airani: 117 Culturally responsive pedagogy Aue Te Ava, Airini, and Christine Rubie-Davies Reconceptualising spirituality as a philosophy of practice for Pasifika early 129 childhood education in New Zealand: A Samoan perspective Vaovasamanaia Meripa Toso The representation of Pacific Peoples in the New ZealandSchool Journal 139 Alexis Siteine and Tanya Samu 4 Conclusion Dr Airini 153 About the Authors 155 The Pacific Circle Consortium for Education 159 Members and officers of the Consortium 159 Notes for contributors and guidelines for submitting manuscripts 160 Pacific-Asian Education Vol. 23, No. 2, 2011, 5–10 Editorial Inside and Around the Pacific Circle: Educational Places, Spaces and Relationships Eve Coxon This Special Issue of Pacific-Asian Education arose from the 35th Pacific Circle Consortium (PCC) Conference hosted by The University of Auckland’s Faculty of Education in August this year (2011). The journal theme, ‘Inside and Around the Pacific Circle: Educational Places, Spaces and Relationships’, draws on the title of a panel presentation delivered at the conference. The panel explored the theme of educational interactions arising from the spaces, places, and relationships between the countries of the ‘Pacific Rim’ and those in what is termed the ‘Pacific Basin’. The theme arose from the panelists’1 concern to revisit some of the earlier debates among academics from and of the Pacific about the contested notion of the Pacific Rim – i.e., those countries that ‘frame’ the Pacific Ocean (North and South America, Asia, Australasia) – that emerged in the United States in the mid- 1970s, around the same time the Pacific Circle Consortium was established. Pacific Rim discourse was determined by the political-economic realities that shaped the interests of the Rim countries at the time (Jolly, 2007:517). The mid-1970s was a stage of economic decline in late capitalism; a period when US hegemony was in doubt, largely because of its defeat in Vietnam and the ascendancy (and threat) of Japan as a global power; and the Cold War, which viewed the socialist bloc as the strategic ‘other’ and to be excluded as far as possible from the Pacific. Thus, Pacific Rim discourse was predicated on the development of a connectedness that would strengthen economic, political and socio-cultural relationships between the countries edging the Pacific Ocean. What was excluded from the vision was the ‘inside’ of the Pacific, and those who live there. Thus, it was argued by those who contested the discourse, most notably the late Tongan anthropologist, Professor Epeli Hau’ofa (1993; 1998), the Pacific Ocean was seen as a hole, like the proverbial hole in the doughnut. The panellists’ decision to revive these debates was based on their concern that the map on the PCC logo represents the very perception that Hau’ofa was critiquing; that is of the Pacific as an expanse of empty ocean encircled by the Rim countries; a portrayal of the “sea of islands” within the Pacific as the ‘hole-in-the-doughnut’. In his seminal work, ‘Our Sea of Islands’ (Waddell, Naidu & Hau’ofa) Hau’ofa developed an influential vision as an alternative to what he described as “the economistic and geographic determinist view of a very narrow kind” (p.6) constructed by “experts” 1 Auckland University of Technology’s Professor of Pacific Studies, Peggy Fairbairn-Dunlop, Dr David Gegeo from Canterbury University’s McMillan-Brown Centre, and Associate Professor Eve Coxon of the Centre for Research in Education and Development in Oceania, University of Auckland. 6 Editorial – E Coxon from Pacific Rim institutions and agencies. He maintained that they constantly typified the small Pacific island states in terms of what they lacked – portraying them as small, poor, isolated, dysfunctional and doomed. These “derogatory and belittling” (1993, p.3) views he saw as perpetuating Pacific peoples’ own bleak perceptions of their dependency on and subordination to the powerful rim nations. This he maintained was denying the reality emerging from the “astounding mobility” of Pacific peoples over the previous few decades. From his perspective when writing in the early 1990s, he saw both a revitalisation of the pre-colonial historical interconnectedness of Pacific island peoples, and the development of extensive and expansive new connections with the countries of the Pacific Rim. By reclaiming the term ‘Oceania’, he reconceptualised the embodied life experiences of Pacific peoples by focusing not just on their small islands (their places) within the vast ocean, but on the varied relationships maintained over many centuries throughout the Pacific Ocean, their shared space, which more recently have given rise to new relationships with places on the Rim. Oceania is thus a relational space, a “much enlarged world of social networks that crisscross the ocean all the way from Australia and New Zealand in the southwest to the United States and Canada in the northeast” (Hau’ofa 1998:391). The relationships forged through education between Pacific peoples within Oceania’s ‘sea of islands’, and by way of the Pacific diaspora in Rim countries were explored through panel presentations. It was acknowledged that PCC as an organisation does much to include and address the educational interests of those from within the circle – clearly evident in the representation of Pacific/Pasifika participants in the PCC and at the conference - and it was agreed that it was time to change the logo. Also agreed was that the PCC journal, Pacific Asian Education, would dedicate a special issue to the theme, thus expanding the body of knowledge about educational interactions within the relational space that is Oceania; about the role of education in what Hau’ofa (1993, pp 10-12) referred to as the revitalised interconnectedness of Pacific island peoples; and the development of new connections with the countries of the Pacific Rim. All conference presenters dealing with education for Pacific communities in Pacific Rim countries (those around the Pacific Circle), or education in Pacific island countries (those inside the Pacific Circle), were invited to submit articles for this issue. Thus, most of the twelve articles included in this volume are based on papers presented at the PCC conference. While Aotearoa New Zealand is the only ‘place’ from around the Circle which is written about directly, from within the Circle we have articles exploring education in Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and the Cook Islands. Each of the twelve articles explores, to some degree, relationships, interactions and connectedness between Pacific communities across the Oceanic ‘space’. Education