About the School of Critical Studies in Education

Nau mai, haere mai.

Talofa lava, Malo e lelei, Kia orana, Ia orana, Fakaalofa lahi atu, Ni sa bula, Namaste.

Greetings to you in the languages of your communities.

Critical Studies in Education (CRSTIE) engages in teaching, research and practice centred on a common theme: the place of education and its transformative potential in New Zealand society, the Pacific region and the world.

Our aim is to move education debates forward to improve learner outcomes and societal opportunity. ‘Critical’ education means we often focus on power relations associated with culture, ethnicity, identity, gender, disability, class and poverty, the reproduction of (dis)advantage, and the counter point of realising human potential through education. CRSTIE courses reflect a range of theoretical and methodological orientations within a critical social theory frame.

CRSTIE academics and students often work in research clusters around topics of interest, such as, the place of knowledge in education, applied theatre, Pacific and international education, higher education, sexuality education or researching children and young people.

Manu Tukutuku o Tangaroa  

It is te po rua - the long night

Tangaroa takes his message to Ranginuihe

He will visit his father, rising as Hinewai’s mist

On the wings of Manu Tukutuku

I nga wa o mua, we must remember

We must teach our tamariki

It is the past which will guide our future

Gather up the bloodlines

Fight for them, as gulls would

Reclaim them, pull them from

the dark recesses, our bones, our teeth

As dawn alights internal middens

quietly wait to be transformed into Taonga

Penny Howard

in Poole, D & Howard, P. (2009). Atārangi Whenua – Shadow Land. Poems of the exhibition. Blackmailpress books, Auckland, New Zealand.