Policy Constructions: In Whose Interest? A Critical Analysis of Parents as First Teachers in Relation to Māori Education

Leonie Pihama

Māori academics have challenged the way education policies have been defined and constructed within dominant Pākehā epistemological frameworks, which results in these policies maintaining and perpetuating existing structural inequalities and failing to address Māori underachievement in education. In doing so, they challenge the notion that educational policies have singular, authoritative meanings.

This paper argues that the  development of social policies is not neutral, but is clearly influenced by the philosophical positions of those that control social policy. It looks specifically at the programme Parents as First Teachers (PAFT), and it American antecedents (Head Start and the Missouri Project), using a  framework of kaupapa Māori theory to provide a policy analysis that highlights the complexities of the cultural politics that exist in regard to the Treaty of Waitangi. It concludes that what is appropriate parenting has been defined within a dominant group belief system of what constitute “correct” methods for the care and education of young children, thereby disregarding Māori expressions of early education.

As a result, PAFT will only serve to maintain the structural inequalities that position Pākehā as the dominant group and Māori in a subordinate role.