Maori Language Information

Annotated Working Bibliography on Māori-Medium Education, 2019 Edition

The literature on Māori-medium education is mostly book chapters and journal articles. Key researchers include Mere Berryman, Richard Benton, Richard Hill, Margie Hohepa, Stephen May, Mere Skerrett and Tony Trinick.

Regrettably most of the literature below is only accessible via libraries or requires some form of payment.

Worthwhile publications, by year of publication include:

Benton, R. A. (2015). Perfecting the partnership: revitalising the Māori language in New Zealand education and society 1987–2014. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 28(2), 99-112. doi:10.1080/07908318.2015.1025001

Hill, R., & May, S. (2014). Balancing the languages in Māori-medium education in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In D. Gorter, V. Zenotz, & J. Cenoz (Eds.), Minority languages and multilingual education (pp. 59–176). Berlin: Springer.

May, S. (2013). Indigenous immersion education: International developments. Journal of Immersion and Content-Based Education, (1)1, 34-69. doi:10.1075/jicb.1.1.03may ‎PDF here.

Meaney, T., Trinick, T., & Fairhall, U. (2012). Collaborating to meet language challenges in indigenous mathematics classrooms. New York: Springer.

This book focuses on the development of Māori mathematics in a well known, highly successful Māori-medium school, Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Te Koutu. It provides insights into the issues of teaching technical subjects such as mathematics through the medium of an endangered indigenous language.

A good yet dated overview of Māori-medium education is May, S., & Hill, R. (2008). Māori-medium education: Current issues and challenges. In N. H. Hornberger (Ed.), Can schools save indigenous languages? (pp. 66-98). New York: Palgrave. Unfortunately print only.

Also see the Education Counts Māori education publications.

Important documents on Education Counts include the 3 asTTle (Māori-medium) In Focus reports on Pānui 'Reading', Pāngarau 'Maths', and Tuhituhi 'writing'. These are based on assessing approximately 7800 Māori-medium students between 2002 and 2005. It is the largest scale assessment on Māori-medium educational achievement undertaken to date and surprisingly it is often neglected in the literature above. E-asTTle Māori is the only (nationally) standardized Māori-medium assessment tool available, free to NZ kura/schools.

Last modified: 23 April 2019.