“Intercultural” Perceptions and Institutional Responses

This book examines the achievement of Pacific Islands (Pasifika) students in New Zealand to find a more effective explanation for the failure of schools to address the students'' underperformance and to understand the overall performance of ethnic minority students in education. It is proposed that students'' success in education is conditional upon having their ''identifying process'', that is, the students'' construction of their own identity, valued by the school. Using the ''mediated dialogue'' methodology which allows for students and teachers to examine the accuracy of the perceptions that they hold of each other, it becomes possible to determine the value given by the schools to this ''identifying process''. The results of a study carried out with teachers and Pasifika students reveal that the intercultural perceptions and ''taken for granted'' assumptions held by the education system of Pasifika students, and the failure of schools to value the ''identifying process'' of these students, influence the institutional responses to the students in a way that adversely affects their educational performance and opportunities.