Challenges Facing a Māori Prison Education Leader

Date
Authors
Te Pere, M
Stewart, G
Supervisor
Item type
Journal Article
Degree name
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia
Abstract

Māori are severely over-represented in the prison population of Aotearoa New Zealand, making up over half of all prisoners, despite being only about 15% of the national population. These Māori statistics are well-known, and support racist perceptions of Māori in general. There is substantial literature on Māori imprisonment in Criminology and related fields, but it mostly focuses on ‘fixing’ the prisoner. Prison education is a neglected topic in extant educational research. Little research exists on the experiences of those who work in prisons, and little or none about the experiences of Māori prison educators. Prison education focuses on changing behaviours that lead to offending and helping prisoners to gain work and life skills. But security concerns and managing the prison population take precedence and restrict the availability and priority given to education. The recent Hōkai Rangi strategy has generated enthusiasm, but has yet to translate into positive results.

Description
Keywords
Agnotology; Cultural programmes in prisons; Hōkai Rangi policy; Kaupapa Māori; Prison education
Source
Access: Contemporary Issues in Education, 2021, Vol. 41, No. 2, 33-43 https://doi.org/10.46786/ac21.4929
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Authors retain the right to place his/her publication version of the work on a personal website or institutional repository for non commercial purposes. The definitive version was published in (see Citation). The original publication is available at (see Publisher’s Version).