32 H U M A N R I G H T S COMMISSION | A FAIR GO FOR ALL? Responses to structural discrimination in the education system Case study: Power imbalances need to be examined by educators Te Kotahitanga at all levels in terms of their own cultural assumptions A programme that shows promise in addressing structural in the systematic marginalization of students in their barriers to ethnic equality in the education sector is Te classrooms, their schools and the wider system.144 Kotahitanga, a professional development programme designed for secondary school teachers. Launched in 2001 by the Ministry of Education, it was developed in response to persistent levels of underachievement among Mäori students in English-medium schools. The aim of the programme is to improve Mäori student achievement by focusing on culturally-responsive teaching pedagogy within classrooms, putting emphasis on the and a consideration of how they might be participants Through opportunities for critical teacher self-reflection and repositioning, classroom observations and feedback, co-construction meetings and shadow coaching, the programme seeks to address power imbalances and resultant levels of educational underachievement. Bishop et al further describe the focus of the programme: The project was based on the notion that when teachers teacher’s role in power-sharing, creating classrooms where are able to engage in critical reflection about the images students’ cultural identities are affirmed and student- they have of marginalized students and the resultant teacher relations are interactive and inter-dependent. relationships they have with these students, they are While not explicitly developed to address structural discrimination, Te Kotahitanga inherently seeks to transform teacher pedagogy and school structures in an effort to improve Mäori student achievement, thereby addressing embedded ethnic inequalities in secondary education. According to an interview respondent, Te Kotahitanga “encourages teachers to step away from structural discrimination practices and examine their own positioning through a professional learning and development model.” more likely to be able to engage in power-sharing practices. This means that teachers who espouse and enact power-sharing theories of practice will better enable previously marginalized students to more successfully participate and engage in educational systems on their own culturally constituted terms.145 Bishop et al found that the quality of teacher-student relationships and interactions was a central factor in improving Mäori student achievement. Shifting teaching pedagogy and developing meaningful relationships between teachers and students dramatically improves Russell Bishop and Mere Berryman, co-creators of the Mäori academic achievement. Subsequent evaluation of programme, found that the dominance of deficit theorising the programme has found promising results, including by teachers, both consciously and unconsciously, improved numeracy levels and increasing proportions of perpetuate teachers’ already low expectations of Mäori Mäori students attaining NCEA 1.146 students’ ability. Students who feel their teachers have low or negative expectations of them will respond negatively, resulting in frustrating consequences for both students and teachers: The main consequence of such deficit theorising for the Recent research on the Te Kotahitanga programme has shown that shifting teaching pedagogy and developing meaningful relationships with Mäori students and with whänau improves educational achievement not only for Mäori students, but also for Pacific, Asian and new migrant quality of teachers’ relationships with Mäori students students as well. The research suggests that teachers and for classroom interactions is that teachers tend who are able to implement culturally responsive teaching to have fatalistic attitudes ... This in turn creates a practices in their classroom also benefit these other downward spiralling, self-fulfilling prophecy of Mäori students, through a greater awareness of both the teacher student under achievement and failure.143 and student as culturally-located individuals.147 Bishop, Berryman, T Cavanagh and L Teddy (Bishop et al) explain how society-wide power imbalances are played out in classrooms and their impacts on marginalized students: