The Criticality of Pacific Education – The Search for a Transformative Disciplinary Space
Date
Authors
Ualesi, Toleafoa Yvonne
Cunningham, Emma
Matapo, Fa’alogo Jacoba
Fa’avae, David Taufui Mikato
Iosefo, Fetaui
Allen, Jean M Uasike
Fa’aea, Aiono Manu
Baice, Tim
Supervisor
Item type
Journal Article
Degree name
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Wiley
Abstract
This paper is a collective talatalanoa by early to senior career education researchers and scholars seeking to make sense of Pacific education and its trajectory as a critical and transformative sphere within the broader context of education and education research within Aotearoa New Zealand (Aotearoa NZ). The critical stance towards the education of diverse Pacific communities is well established in Aotearoa NZ and reflects ongoing settler‐colonial negotiations within postcolonial schooling contexts. Our collaborative and ongoing conversational narratives through talatalanoa captures the potentiality of a Pacific Indigenous modality or form of communicative expression and articulation. The impact of engaging a critical discipline provides visibility and disruption, enabling the deconstruction and re‐calibration of understanding centred in Indigenous Pacific concepts and frameworks enabling shifts to occur that are agentic and transformative within initial teacher education (ITE), classroom pedagogy and policymaking and implementation in Aotearoa NZ. As Moana scholars in Aotearoa NZ, we argue for Pacific education as critical transformative disciplinary work through the lens of transindigeneity and offer implications for practice, research and policy.Description
Keywords
critical, pacific education, talatalanoa, transformative education, transindigeneity
Source
Kōtuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online, ISSN: 1177-083X (Print); 1177-083X (Online), Wiley, 21(2). doi: 10.1002/kot2.70021
Publisher's version
Rights statement
© 2026 The Author(s). Kōtuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.