Indigenous Language and Culture Education for Mainstream Teacher Education: Students' Knowledge and Attitudes

This paper reports the results of a project investigating relationships between teacher education students' knowledge of; and attitudes towards, Maori language, culture and history. It is presumed that positive attitudes and increased knowledge improve teacher education practice. In 2008 and 2009, teacher education students at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, participating in compulsory courses focusing on Maori language, culture, and history completed pre- and post- course questionnaires (h = 769, including 8% Maori). In addition, 27 students completed post-course interviews. The key interest was the nature of changes in attitude, task efficacy (confidence in undertaking classroom tasks), and knowledge after taking the course and the relationships between these. Analyses showed major gains in terms of students' self-ratings of their own knowledge, their task efficacy, and their knowledge of Maori topics. In contrast, only a small improvement was seen in overall positive attitudes towards the aspirations of the indigenous culture. Structural equation modeling of the questionnaire data showed attitudinal and cognitive components to be independent. Student interviews confirmed that the course itself did little to change student attitudes. Instead, attitudes appeared to be largely determined by previous personal involvement with Maori people and the Maori community.