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“Because they want to teach you about their culture”: Analyzing effective mentoring conversations between culturally responsible mentors and secondary science teachers of indigenous students in mainstream schools
Author(s) -
Tolbert Sara
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of research in science teaching
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.067
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1098-2736
pISSN - 0022-4308
DOI - 10.1002/tea.21240
Subject(s) - aotearoa , indigenous , mainstream , pedagogy , pacific islanders , science education , faculty development , sociology , culturally appropriate , psychology , professional development , ethnic group , medicine , political science , gender studies , ecology , anthropology , law , biology , family medicine
Te Kotahitanga is an educational reform project in Aotearoa/New Zealand demonstrated to have significantly impacted the participation, achievement, and retention of indigenous Māori students in secondary schools. In this paper, I share results from a study of culturally responsible mentoring at 4 different schools participating in the Te Kotahitanga reform project. Specifically, I investigated how Te Kotahitanga facilitators (i.e., site‐based mentors/instructional coaches) engage novice and experienced science teachers in reflective conversations around culturally sustaining science instruction for indigenous students. I identify four key themes from these mentoring conversations that can serve as a useful framework for culturally responsible mentoring in science. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 52: 1325–1361, 2015.