A strengths-based exploration of Māori student success at university using the Mana model

Abstract

Māori (the Indigenous people of New Zealand) are commonly framed as priority learners, a term that implicitly problematises Māori and anticipates struggle rather than success in their academic trajectories. This study resists such a framing and instead uses a strengths-based theoretical framework—the Mana model—to explore four Māori undergraduate students’ experiences at a New Zealand university. We investigate the extent to which the five elements of the Mana model, originally developed in secondary schooling contexts, supported their success at university. Three of the five elements—mana ūkaipō (sense of place), mana tū (sense of resilience), and mana whānau (sense of family)—were prominent in the students’ accounts of what enabled their success, and the remaining two elements played smaller but still important roles. By bringing the Mana model into the higher education context, this study offers promising indications that this model can inform future research, policy, and practice to foster success at university for Māori students.

Introduction

New Zealand’s education system has been identified as one of the least equitable among the developed world (UNICEF, 2018). The persistent disparities in Māori (the Indigenous people of New Zealand) and non-Māori outcomes within New Zealand’s education system do not reflect the Crown’s stated aspirations to “giv[e] better effect to Te Tiriti o Waitangi [The Treaty of Waitangi]” as the country’s founding document (Ministry of Education, 2019a, p. 1). A range of policies, initiatives, and research studies have emerged over recent decades that seek to enhance Māori educational success.

With arguably good intent, Māori students have come to be framed throughout this progress as priority learners (Education Review Office [ERO], 2012). While attending to the educational outcomes some Māori experience is essential for addressing inequities, there is a risk that this positioning creates a deficit view of Māori students, and their families or communities. Purely on the basis of their ethnicity, Māori may be automatically viewed as inherently at risk, less capable, inhibited by perceived cultural barriers, and less likely to succeed, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy through the pervasive influence of teacher expectations (Turner & Rubie-Davies, 2022).

This article contributes to a stream of work seeking to build a counter-narrative focused on a strengths-based view of Māori students and their educational successes (Derby, 2019; Duckworth et al., 2021; Macfarlane et al., 2014; Webber, 2011). We highlight factors that contribute to success, rather than barriers that inhibit achievement, and in doing so, we position this article firmly in the new but increasing body of literature regarding strengths-based approaches to research (Fogarty et al., 2018; Gallagher, 2017; Tamati et al., 2021). Such approaches to research in Māori education are important for several reasons. First, they constitute active resistance to the deficit discourses that have often circulated in relation to Māori learners. Second, they allow us to identify practical, productive strategies and levers that can support increasing Māori educational success: while studying what doesn’t work can tell us what to avoid or stop doing, this is an incomplete foundation for improving practice. It is essential to study—especially through direct student voice—what does work in terms of fostering Māori student success. Finally, strength-based approaches align well with Māori cultural values including manaakitanga (an ethic of care) (Williams & Broadley, 2009).

In this article, we take an existing strengths-based model of Māori educational success—Macfarlane et al.’s (2014) Mana model (Webber & Macfarlane, 2018, 2020), developed through interviews with successful Māori secondary school students and their whānau (families)—and apply it in the context of higher education. Through in-depth interviews with four undergraduate students at one New Zealand university, we explore the extent to which the elements of the Mana model are relevant for Māori students in higher education settings. Much of the emerging research centring strengths-based views of Māori learners has been located in the school sector, so our study, while small in scope, extends the strengths-based perspective into higher education.

Below, we introduce the Mana model and describe its development. We then review wider literature to unpack further the relationship between each element of the model and students’ educational success. While there is much literature focused on the barriers or challenges that some Māori students face in higher education and the inequitable outcomes experienced by those cohorts in comparison with other ethnic cohorts, we choose not to focus on that literature here. Rather, we deliberately select literature that is compatible with the strengths-based position inherent in the Mana model and our research.

Theoretical framework: the Mana model

In 2014, a seminal study called Ka Awatea sought to move away from deficit theorising about Māori education, and offer another position on Māori student success. Using a quintessentially Te Arawa (a confederation of tribes in the Rotorua area, North Island, New Zealand) tribal lens, the Ka Awatea project focused on Māori secondary school students experiencing success. More specifically, the study explored individual, family, school, and community conditions that fostered success for Māori students in secondary schools in Rotorua, New Zealand—the tribal area of Te Arawa.

The original Ka Awatea study focussed on three research questions:

• How is educational success perceived from a Te Arawa perspective?

• In what ways are the traits of the successful students aligned to Te Arawa distinctiveness?

• In what ways do whānau, teachers, and the wider Te Arawa community foster conditions that enable the characteristics of success to manifest?

A selection of high-achieving Māori students, who were preferably but not necessarily from Te Arawa, were identified by schools and invited to participate in the study. They were chosen for the positive qualities and attitudes they possessed, which, it was determined, contributed to their success.

Alongside the students, their whānau, teachers, school leaders, and key community members were invited to participate in the Ka Awatea study and made up the first cohort. Data were gathered using questionnaires, individual interviews, conversational interactions, and focus groups. In addition to this, a second cohort of senior leaders from within Te Arawa, as well as those at a mid-way point in their respective careers, who were on a trajectory of success, were interviewed about success. In total across the two cohorts, 283 participants were involved, including 132 students from local secondary schools, the majority of whom were in their final year of secondary school.

The Ka Awatea study revealed four themes and one overarching lever, each of which played an integral role in fostering Māori student success at secondary school. The four themes, which, together with the overarching lever, inform the Mana model, were mana motuhake (sense of identity), mana tū (sense of resilience), mana ūkaipo (sense of place), and mana tangatarua (sense of two worlds). The overarching lever was mana whānau (sense of family). The next section unpacks these themes and locates them in relation to wider literature.

Literature review: exploring the Mana model constructs in prior literature

A number of studies have been conducted exploring Māori student experiences in higher education (Funaki, 2024; van der Meer et al., 2010; Waiari et al., 2021), and the challenges faced by Māori in the education system, including in higher education, are well documented (Bishop et al., 2009; Te Momo, 2022; van de Meer et al., 2010). Recent studies have acknowledged these challenges but have also sought to highlight ways in which Māori students are achieving success in higher education contexts. Given that our study is underpinned by the Mana model, in reviewing past work we are particularly interested in studies that consider the impact of constructs captured in the Mana model on academic achievement and success. The following sections explore the Mana model constructs and their relationship to one another, and examine the role the constructs play in fostering educational success.

Mana motuhake: sense of identity

The Ka Awatea study found that the students had a strong sense of their identity as Māori, and that whānau (family) played the most important and central role in fostering this aspect of their identity. McRae et al. (2010) found that Māori students experienced greater success at school when they were able to learn without compromising their identity as Māori. Others support this contention and observe that there is a correlation between the strength of a Māori student’s identity as Māori and their ability to achieve well at school (Bennett & Flett, 2001; Cliffe, 2013; Webber, 2011). Bennett (2003) explored the relationship between cultural identity and academic achievement in a study involving 72 undergraduate Māori students. Bennett identified the challenges students faced and their effect on academic achievement. He then examined the degree to which cultural identity moderated the relationship between student difficulties and academic achievement. His study found that challenges encountered by students have a negative effect on academic achievement, and that cultural identity moderates this effect. A key finding that has relevance to our study is that students with a strong cultural identity displayed greater levels of resilience when it came to confronting challenges, and consequently those challenges led to little negative effect on their grades.

The notion of identity is complex (Derby, 2016), and determining what constitutes a strong identity is arguably subjective, as is defining Māori identity in a fixed way. However, what scholars have identified is that, for Māori students, a strong sense of identity is reliant on positive relationships with their whānau, and favourable connections with their hapū (subtribe) or iwi (tribe) as well as their school community (Bishop et al., 2003; McRae et al., 2010).

There is little research capturing the role that higher education institutions play in fostering a strong sense of identity for Māori students. However, some scholars have observed that in secondary school settings, the more aligned the culture of the school is with that of the students’ homes, the better integrated Māori students are in the school community and the more engaged they are in classrooms as a result (Cliffe, 2013; Penetito, 2010; Webber, 2011). Rata (2012) argues that “schools are institutions that are influential to ethnic identity development” (p. 143) and suggests that the greater the affirmation of Māori culture within an educational setting, the more likely it is that Māori students will achieve well. Our study provides a window into the extent to which a sense of cultural identity is similarly important for Māori students within higher education contexts.

It is difficult to determine if there is a causal link between the degree to which a school or higher education institution embraces a particular culture, and the resulting levels of achievement experienced by those belonging to that particular cultural or ethnic group. Indeed, there are numerous examples of groups who experience little to no acknowledgement of their particular culture and yet achieve well at school, in some cases outperforming those from the dominant culture (Sowell, 2019). For example, in New Zealand, Asian students average higher levels of attainment and endorsement of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement than the national average, consistently outperforming those from the dominant culture (Pākehā) on average (ERO, 2023).

However, the first theme that emerged from the Ka Awatea study is that a positive sense of Māori identity is correlated with educational success and possibly plays a causative role in bringing about that success. This finding aligns with personal and research-based perspectives from Indigenous cultures elsewhere, which similarly indicate that recognition and celebration of Indigenous people’s cultural identity, together with a strong sense of personal identity, is linked with their educational success (Derby, 2016).

A strong Māori identity also contributes to a sense of resilience (McRae et al., 2010). This—termed mana tū—was the second theme to emerge from the Ka Awatea study as a crucial factor in bringing about educational success.

Mana tū: sense of resilience

The Ka Awatea study found that successful Māori students had strong levels of resilience. They were aware that they possessed an internal locus of control, which enabled them to thrive—and achieve—at secondary school. Oyserman et al. (2007) observe the impact that a strong commitment to their ethnic group has on levels of resilience for minority students, arguing that the stronger the identification with and commitment to their group is, the better these students are able to navigate environments where prejudice may be evident. Similar contentions are put forward by other scholars, who argue that students who have high levels of cultural efficacy are better equipped to manage stress in a learning environment, or to confront challenges in ways that do not result in disruption to their learning (Duckworth et al., 2021; McRae et al., 2010; Webber, 2012). This includes, as Bennett (2003) notes, managing stress or challenge in a higher education setting.

Another study exploring the relationship between a strong ethnic identity and levels of resilience, and the subsequent impact of these factors on Māori academic success in higher education, found that Māori students were motivated to achieve by the desire to overcome negative stereotypes about the academic capabilities of Māori students (Mayeda et al., 2014). Mayeda et al. (2014) interviewed 90 high-achieving Māori and Pacific students with the aim of identifying social factors that contributed to their success. In addition to a sense of resilience, they found—like in the Ka Awatea study—that strong family support also contributed to the students’ success. Notably, and again, as in the Ka Awatea study, they found that a strong cultural identity underpinned the level of resilience and family support the students possessed.

In contrast, however, others have found that a strong cultural identity is not an influential factor in Māori students overcoming stressful situations in a university environment. For example, Gavala and Flett (2005) conducted a study with Māori psychology students that explored perceptions of stress and discomfort in a university environment, the relationship between these perceptions and academic enjoyment and motivation, and the moderating effects of perceived control and cultural identity. They found that students who reported high levels of stress and discomfort were more likely to experience a lowered sense of well-being and low levels of enjoyment and motivation regarding their studies. Conversely, students who experienced a strong sense of control and comfort in the university environment reported significantly higher levels of well-being. Gavala and Flett (2005) found that these relationships were not moderated by cultural identity. Nevertheless, the Ka Awatea study notes that successful Māori students have high levels of resilience and argues that it is a crucial factor in supporting Māori students’ learning and success. Our study therefore explores the relevance of resilience as expressed by our participants.

Mana ūkaipō: sense of place

It is commonly accepted that place plays an integral role in Māori identity development (Butcher & Breheny, 2016; Derby, 2016; Waiti & Awatere, 2019). The findings from the Ka Awatea study indicate that the students had strong connections to place, and that they both valued and thrived in instances where the learning was related to the context in which they were operating. The emergence of place-based learning has resonated in particular with Māori students (Kidman et al., 2011; Penetito, 2010), although place-based learning is also of value for other students (D’Silva, 2019; Manning, 2020; Smith, 2002). This approach considers the relationship between place and learning, aiming to draw on the potential of this relationship and to translate that into positive learning experiences and outcomes for all students, including Māori. Place-based learning encourages students to consider two axiomatic questions: What is this place, and what is our relationship to it? In attempting to respond to these questions, students learn about their local environment and its social history, biodiversity, geography, and the ways people have interacted and continue to interact with the ever-changing natural and social landscapes.

Current trends in New Zealand’s education policy emphasise the importance of place-based learning; for example, in the form of localised curricula (Ministry of Education, 2019b), the new Te Mātaiaho curriculum framework (Ministry of Education, 2023), and the Aotearoa New Zealand Histories Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2022). However, these moves are recent and are located in the early childhood and schooling sectors, meaning that it will be some years before students who have been exposed to and possibly benefitted from these approaches will enter New Zealand’s higher education institutions. Importantly, the students involved in both our study and the original Ka Awatea study had all completed their schooling before these policies were put in place. However, the Ka Awatea participants largely came from homes that maintained cultural practices related to place and sites of cultural or historical significance, and this fostered a strong connection to place that was correlated with success at secondary school.

Mana tangatarua: sense of two worlds

In addition to a strong sense of place, the Ka Awatea study found that successful Māori students were confident at navigating and functioning not only in Māori cultural contexts but in non-Māori environments as well. Similarly, a study by McRae et al. (2010) noted that Māori students who performed well in examinations and internal assessments at secondary school were equally successful and adept at navigating Māori contexts. A Māori secondary school student participating in another study that explored Māori identity observed: “For me it’s being able to walk in both worlds—te ao Pākehā me te ao Māori (the Pākehā world and the Māori world) [as written in original work]; being able to balance them both; being able to implement them into your life” (as cited in Kia Eke Panuku, n.d., para. 26). Research in other disciplines including counselling psychology (Fish et al., 2022) and school-to-employment transitions (Marshall et al., 2012) has also noted the way minority or Indigenous cultural groups must walk in two worlds.

The Ka Awatea researchers coined the term “mana tangatarua” (Macfarlane et al., 2014, p. 175) to reflect the notion of dual sites of belonging, engagement, and understanding that the participants in the study exhibited. There is a scarcity of research specifically linking this ability to walk in two worlds with students’ educational outcomes. However, other studies note a correlation between the degree to which Māori students are familiar with te ao Māori (the Māori world) and their level of achievement at school (Cliffe, 2013; Kidman et al., 2011; Rata, 2012). Importantly, such studies also argue the inverse: that students who are less integrated into te ao Māori are often disengaged in a school environment, and their potential for educational success is compromised as a result. Participants in the Ka Awatea study were confident in their ability to navigate and participate in both te ao Māori and the non-Māori world. Furthermore, they viewed both the Māori and non-Māori aspects of their identity, and the opportunities that each aspect brought, as crucial contributors to their success overall.

Mana whānau: sense of family

While there is a scarcity of research that explores the influence of cultural confidence and efficacy across both the Māori and non-Māori world on educational outcomes, a wealth of literature highlights the pivotal role that whānau play in fostering positive experiences and outcomes in education (Derby, 2021; Lehrl et al., 2020; Neha et al., 2020). Another key point to note is the centrality of whānau in te ao Māori and the influence they have on children’s learning. In traditional times, children received their education within the confines of the whānau (Metge, 1976), learning skills and acquiring knowledge that enabled them to function in and contribute to the community in which they lived. Nowadays, whānau remains a critical contemporary lever for high-quality academic outcomes for Māori students (Biddulph et al., 2003; Lundy, 2009; Macfarlane et al., 2014). Whānau support their children to be successful at school in a range of ways, such as by being actively involved in their child’s learning, by having high expectations and role modelling success, and by ensuring children have a healthy and supportive home environment with consistent routines (Feinstein et al., 2008).

The Ka Awatea study found that successful Māori students occupy a central position of importance within their whānau, and that whānau were actively involved in their children’s learning. The students in the Ka Awatea study were encouraged by their whānau to apply themselves at school, and firm boundaries and high expectations were set regarding their schoolwork. The students understood and appreciated the value that their whānau placed on education and believed their academic performance would reflect on the whānau overall. This led to the students taking seriously the responsibility of succeeding at school.

Overall, this literature review has introduced the five constructs that provide the theoretical framework for this article, and has located them alongside other literature, highlighting the areas of consistency, variation, and uncertainty. It is clear that while these constructs have been explored before, the main focus of past work has been in school settings. Little exploration of these constructs, and the role they play in fostering success, has occurred in higher education. Therefore, the present study seeks to contribute by examining the influence of the five constructs of the Mana model on success for Māori students at a New Zealand university.

The present study

Parent study

The data reported in this article sits within a larger longitudinal study that commenced in 2019 at the University of Waikato’s Tauranga campus, North Island, New Zealand. The parent study seeks to explore the experiences of those preparing for, and transitioning into, caring professions in New Zealand, and the role of well-being and resilience in those transitions and pursuits. Ethical approval to conduct the study was granted by the University of Waikato’s Division of Education ethics committee.

In the parent study, a holistic view of well-being is adopted, recognising that a multitude of factors affect well-being, and that rather than being an end goal one might attain, well-being is in fact constantly emerging, fluctuating, and changing (Derby & Stephens, 2021). Resilience is defined as the ability to address and withstand adversity, and, like well-being, is recognised as a fluid rather than fixed phenomenon that is constantly shaped by the events in one’s life (Connelly et al., 2017; Mehta et al., 2019). Two caring professions are examined in the longitudinal study: initial teacher education and social work. The study is cross-disciplinary in its nature and approach, and considers—in addition to well-being and resilience—transitions, learning environments, Māori education, and student experience and success (Amundsen et al., 2021).

The present study

The research reported in this article centred on the research question: To what extent do the elements of the Mana model support Māori undergraduate university students’ educational success? The present article involves a secondary analysis, as the data in the parent study were not originally collected with this specific research question in mind. Rather, we brought the Mana model to the data as a subsequent analytic approach given the need for more strength-based research on Māori learners in higher education contexts.

This research question was explored using in-depth interview data from four case study students. These four students were the only Māori students in the parent study at the time. We did not screen on the basis of educational success; rather, we took the view that all Māori students within the data set are successful by virtue of their presence at university and their continued progress towards their professional and academic goals. Two of the participants were enrolled in a Bachelor of Teaching degree, and the other two were enrolled in a Bachelor of Social Work. Two of the four participants were interviewed at the end of 2020, which was their final year of study; the other two participants were interviewed at the end of 2021, which was their first year of study. All four participants were female.

The interviews were semi-structured and ranged from 30 to 60 min. Since the parent study focused on the lived experiences of a diverse group of students, the interviews were conducted and analysed in the context of a broad interpretivist approach (Willis, 2007). Given the nature of the parent study, topics for the interviews included a focus on both personal and professional well-being and resilience; the factors that acted as barriers and enablers to students’ well-being and resilience (Amundsen et al., 2021); the students’ feelings about their academic progress and their preparedness for their future profession; the students’ transitions either into or out of their degree programmes; and how the COVID-19 pandemic affected their experiences personally and professionally. Because the Mana model was brought to the data later, the participants were not explicitly asked to share their experiences in relation to the five mana constructs. However, given that the interviews centred on well-being and resilience, as discussed above, it was considered appropriate to explore the extent to which the constructs of the Mana model were found in the interview data. The full interview guide is available on request from the corresponding author.

After the interviews were transcribed, we analysed the data to identify any excerpts of the data that could be conceptually linked to the Mana Model constructs, either positively, where the construct supported student success, or otherwise, where the construct was not important to the student, or the construct was not present in the student’s experience or a contributor to their success. This analysis thus involved a deductive, theory-first approach, which Yin (2009) recommends for case study research. When coding the material, we were guided by published definitions and their accompanying English translations for each of the five mana constructs. We initially screened the data for any material that seemed to be aligned with mana motuhake, mana tū, mana ūkaipō, mana tangatarua, and mana whānau. At this juncture, we undertook a closer reading of the resulting participant quotes, evaluating the resonance between participants’ accounts of their lived experiences and the mana constructs. Both authors contributed to these judgments, continually and reflexively referring back to the original definitions of the mana constructs (Macfarlane et al., 2014). We acknowledge that this process necessarily involves some degree of subjectivity but note that such subjectivity is also in the nature of the interpretivist standpoint we used in this study (Willis, 2007).

Because of the relatively small student cohort, particularly in terms of Māori students, in the two degree programmes involved in our study, care was taken when presenting the findings to ensure student anonymity was protected, including by removing personal or identifying information. Participant codes are used in the presentation of findings below to provide an audit trail for each quote from the data. The codes Y1-A and Y1-B signify the two participants interviewed at the end of their first year of tertiary study, and Y3-A and Y3-B signify the two participants interviewed at the end of their third and final year of study.

In terms of researcher positionality, Melissa Derby is a Māori woman who belongs to Ngāti Ranginui (a tribe in Tauranga, in the North Island of New Zealand). Her research interests include Māori education and success, and she has a degree of proximity to the original Ka Awatea research (Macfarlane et al., 2014). Katrina McChesney is a Pākehā (New Zealander of British or European descent) woman who researches inclusive higher education and is committed to culturally responsive, safe, and mana-enhancing practices. Both authors teach into the Bachelor of Teaching programme involved in this study, with one (Katrina McChesney) being a New Zealand registered teacher.

Findings and discussion

Mana motuhake

The first aspect of the Mana model that we looked for in our participants’ reflections on their tertiary studies was mana motuhake. In the present study, mana motuhake emerged as participants showing an awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses regarding their university studies. One participant noted: “Yeah, I’m strength based . . . I’m not a ‘box ticker’” (Y3-A). Some participants felt that studying at university helped them to discover and develop their identity, with one participant observing: “Now I can understand the sort of person I am and why I am how I am, through what I’ve learnt here” (Y3-A).

Overall, mana motuhake was evident in small but important ways in the present study. It is worth noting that the interview guide had not included any questions specifically asking about students’ sense of identity, so our insight into participants’ mana motuhake emerges only to the extent that participants chose to mention this as a factor affecting their well-being and resilience during their studies. Unlike the Ka Awatea study, in which students’ Māori identity was found to play a crucial part in cultivating success, reference to this construct emerged in the present study in relation to the participants’ identities as students, rather than their identity as Māori.

Had the parent study asked questions that focused explicitly on cultural and ethnic identity, though, we would likely have been able to draw stronger conclusions about the degree to which this construct—as it relates to a student’s identity as Māori—plays in supporting Māori students in higher education. This is an important area for further research, particularly given the significant emphasis education policy in New Zealand places on developing Māori students’ sense of cultural identity, where the implicit argument is that by developing a strong cultural identity, Māori educational outcomes will improve.

Mana tū

Of greater visibility in this study was mana tū—a sense of resilience. Mana tū is the second aspect of the Mana model, and it emerged as a dominant theme in the present study, with the perspectives of all four Māori student participants highlighting the key role that a sense of resilience played in their experiences at university.

The participants showed resilience in relation to a range of circumstances. For example, the transition from either secondary school or the workforce into tertiary study was met with resilience by participants, with one participant reflecting: “I didn’t think it [the transition] was going to be challenging . . . I saw it more as an opportunity to learn” (Y3-A). Similarly, mental and physical health challenges were also met with resilience, with one participant sharing: “I have a few health issues . . . which sent me into hospital a couple times this year . . . I wasn’t stressed while I was in hospital” (Y1-B). Finally, despite the global COVID-19 pandemic interrupting participants’ lives, all four participants showed a sense of resilience towards the associated challenges. One participant reflected,

It was challenging to keep on going with assignments when you were in lockdown and you couldn’t talk to your friends properly, and you couldn’t ask for help, and just that whole environment was kind of, “oh, why, why am I doing it?” But then . . . when you look at the big picture, I just knew I had to do it, and even though it was hard . . . yeah, [I] found ways to work around it. (Y3-B)

Participants described deliberate strategies that supported their resilience. One such strategy was reflecting on past success, which helped motivate students to continue with their studies despite the challenges they faced: “So, I look back on this year. I was sort of reflecting a bit on it this morning. I thought wow, what a huge year” (Y3-A). Having a long-term perspective was another strategy participants used to remain resilient throughout their studies. One participant described the power of remaining mindful of:

that big picture at the end, knowing I have to do this, I can’t just kind of brush it off. I found ways to get it done; I never would just give up if it got too hard. I would always find a way around it. (Y3-B)

Good planning was another important strategy used by participants to help them meet the demands of their studies, with one participant noting “I would pre kind of plan ahead when I had to have things done” (Y3-B). Conversely, poor planning and miscommunication by the tertiary institution, specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic, was detrimental to participants’ ability to remain resilient. One participant shared that: “You have some acceptance of it; you’re like, ‘yeah, that’s reasonable; it happens; it’s fine.’ Just not with every single thing” (Y1-B). Thus, there appeared to be a threshold or tolerance level in participants’ response to the specific challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Maintaining a positive mindset while studying was a final strategy that supported participants’ resilience. For example, one participant reminded themself that: “Because I know, like, if I had a horrible experience, that’s not the norm” (Y1-B), while another participant noted that remaining “calm” and resisting the urge to “panic” helped her to “survive” the year (Y3-A).

The participant responses suggest that framing plays a key role in the degree of resilience that an individual may be able to draw from. Connelly et al. (2017) note that resilience as a trait has its limitations: specifically, that an individual may be able to employ resilience up to a certain threshold, at which point they simply cannot absorb the challenges anymore. As noted, none of the participants felt that they reached a point at which they could no longer cope, even though they were all studying during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns and were therefore needing to navigate their way through this period and its associated difficulties. It may be that the framing through which they viewed challenges meant they had a much higher threshold for resilience than those who see challenges as obstacles.

Mana ūkaipō

Like mana tū, mana ūkaipō, the third aspect of the Mana model, played a key role in our Māori student participants’ experiences at university. In the present study, mana ūkaipō was taken to be a connection to place that included but also extended beyond connections to one’s ancestral lands or home. Our conceptualisation of mana ūkaipō, therefore, expanded on the definition used in the Ka Awatea study, which focussed primarily on connections to ancestral lands. Using an extended lens for mana ūkaipō, we searched for any data within the participants’ transcripts that related to physical places or environments.

One participant noted the need to have secure housing while completing tertiary studies. This student commented on their good fortune in finding an affordable place to live, which suggests that this may be an area other students struggle with:

Yep, [I’m] renting. And to tell you the truth, very, very lucky. House prices in Tauranga are generally about [NZD] $600 a week, roughly. And we pay [NZD] $440. So, I guess that makes things quite easy for me as a student [and] for us [as] a family. (Y1-A)

A safe and inviting place to study, found in the newly-built university campus, was also important to participants and assisted with their studies. One participant shared that “it’s nice having our own space and knowing we can come here and do everything here” (Y3-B). Within the university campus, a specific place of support identified by one participant was the university library. Beyond the campus, participants also described the importance of having places of “self care” (Y3-A). Activities such as “kayaking” (Y3-A) and “going up the mountain” (Y3-B) helped participants to cope with the “stresses of what [they] do” (Y3-A).

The places where participants undertook the professional work experience components of their pre-service teaching and social work degree programmes also helped to support participants’ learning, with one participant sharing:

Definitely completing practicum was my big highlight. Especially because of the experience I had last year within the classroom, I went straight into the classroom, completely confident to be in front of the class right away. So that was a massive step above, I think you’d say. (Y1-B)

In addition to their studies and professional experience, some participants had part-time jobs. Safe and secure workplaces contributed to participants’ overall feeling of well-being. One participant observed that “We were quite protected down here [in Tauranga] through work” (Y3-A) with another noting “I’ve got a permanent job so I can . . . do all of that sort of stuff without thinking, or having the stress of that, which has been huge” (Y3-B).

Participant accounts revealed that, like mana motuhake, mana ūkaipō emerged differently in the present study than it did in the Ka Awatea study, with participants in the present study referring not to connections to ancestral land as a source of strength but rather to everyday places that provided them comfort or security. This finding potentially expands meanings of mana ūkaipō, acknowledging the complexity of the many contexts in which participants are situated (Amundsen et al., 2021).

In some instances, the findings showed that two constructs of the Mana model were jointly evident in participant experiences. For example, for one participant, mana ūkaipō played a role in building her sense of identity, or mana motuhake, in that her experience with a positive practicum environment contributed to her confidence in the classroom as a teacher trainee. Oyserman et al. (2007) found similar relationships between identity and resilience in their study of African American, Latino, and Latina youth identity. While the Ka Awatea constructs have been viewed largely in isolation from one another, it is worth noting that at times they are interdependent, with one construct influencing another in regard to student experience and success, as depicted here by the interaction between mana motuhake and mana ūkaipō.

Mana tangatarua

The fourth aspect of the Mana model, mana tangatarua, was also evident in both expected and unexpected ways within the comments made by the Māori students in this study. In terms of the expected sense of balancing Māori and non-Māori worlds, one participant reflected on the challenge of balancing the westernised approach learned at university and a Kaupapa Māori focus. This participant felt that they were “walking in those two worlds, but more Western at the moment, and I won’t make apologies for that. I’m not—yeah, I always—and I still say it now, I sometimes don’t know if I fit here” (Y3-A).

Interestingly, however, a number of other comments seemed to refer to walking in two worlds in ways that did not solely focus on the sense of two cultural worlds emphasised in the original Ka Awatea study. Thus, in the present study, the experience of walking in two worlds emerged in a number of different contexts. One participant indicated that having whānau in multiple different geographical locations created a sense of mana tangatarua, noting that while located in Tauranga themselves, they were “mindful of family and friends outside of Tauranga, especially those in Auckland [North Island, New Zealand], [and] some overseas” (Y3-A). The same participant also indicated a sense of two worlds regarding maintaining professional and personal relationships “and being really clear around boundaries” (Y3-A). Another context that gave a sense of being in two worlds related to “juggling” (Y3-B) work and study commitments, which presented challenges for participants. Relatedly, participating in a part-time practicum alongside studying presented some challenges for one participant, who noted:

you’d go in in the middle of the week, and you didn’t know what was happening that week . . . it was just random to show up. And it’s like, completely different from the week before. You don’t know what you’re doing. (Y1-B)

As noted, mana tangatarua included reference to but also extended beyond the expected binary framing of Māori versus non-Māori worlds to a sense of juggling the various roles and responsibilities the students may have had in their lives. As with other constructs, mana tangatarua at times manifested alongside mana ūkaipō, evident in instances where participants felt themselves to be connected to two different geographic locations. For others, mana tangatarua interacted with mana tū, illustrated by the need to juggle activities, which required them to display resilience. Finally, in one instance, a participant spoke of actually creating two worlds by ensuring she had clear boundaries between the professional and personal aspects of her life.

Mana whānau

In the 2014 Ka Awatea study, mana whānau was the overarching lever that impacted significantly on Māori students experiencing success. In the present study, all four participants highlighted the importance of Mana Whānau in supporting them in their university studies. Even across this small number of participants, whānau considerations spanned partner relationships, children or step-children, parents, friends, and even professional relationships.

Manaakitanga was facilitated when whānau supported participants’ studies, with one participant noting:

I think having my partner is really important, and it’s keeping me on track, so I don’t have to go out drinking and partying. So I think to be 100% honest, as long as I’ve still got that relationship, that keeps me mentally healthy . . . it really has put me on the right track having such a great partner in my life. (Y1-B)

The same participant also reported taking motivation from her children: “The kids, it’s good having them as well, and just having all these things to focus [my efforts] for” (Y1-A). Similarly, participants in the Ka Awatea study were motivated to succeed in order to improve the well-being of their whānau, and this same driver was evident in the present study, particularly for those participants who had children or step-children.

Conversely, mana whānau did not always emerge positively for our participants, and participants were negatively impacted if there were issues within their whānau. Some participants reported that challenges in relationships would, at times, affect them professionally, illustrating that whānau can wield both positive and negative influence.

One participant who had a step-child with health issues shared that this family challenge:

can result in me and my partner having little arguments about how [the child’s condition] should be managed. That can cause stress on me, because obviously it’s caused stress on my relationship . . . I don’t take it to work, but it affects me professionally, because I’ve got those stresses at home. (Y1-A)

Friends and classmates also played an important role in providing support for students in their tertiary studies, as the following extract illustrates:

[Starting university] went really well because I had two of my best friends, one from forever, and one from college, come in with me. So having those guys there really, really helped. So, even with the little things, which sounds silly, like going to the first class—I didn’t want to walk in by myself and that sort of stuff, so it was nice having them there for that, and especially for all the “getting used to what uni was,” having them there to help, and then I was able to widen my friend group. (Y3-B)

The mentor teachers encountered by students as part of their professional experience placements also helped to support and guide participants’ professional learning and development, with one of our participants noting that a professional relationship played an important role in her succeeding in her studies. This resonates with a finding from the Ka Awatea study, which showed that participants appreciated extra academic support from their teachers, thus indicating that positive relationships beyond the bounds of family are also important. One pre-service teaching participant shared,

My mentor teacher was amazing. She was, like, absolutely incredible. Because she allowed me to, like I would take [responsibility for] one of the days, I took a whole day, and I planned the whole day. So that was really cool. (Y1-B)

Again, in the case of mana whānau, interactions with other constructs were evident. For example, the relationships participants in the present study had in their lives became a source of resilience, which aligns with mana tū, and supported them to stay on track with their studies.

In summary, the findings that emerged from the data show that each of the four mana constructs, and the overarching lever of mana whānau, played a role in the experiences of Māori students at university, with varying levels of prominence among the five constructs.

Conclusion

Factors contributing to the educational outcomes Māori experience have been explored over many decades, often from a position of deficit and failure. As mentioned at the outset of this article, this research aimed to build on a strengths-based view of Māori students and their educational outcomes by exploring factors that contribute to their success rather than those that ostensibly lead to failure. Using the constructs of the Mana model, this study revealed that all five constructs played a role, albeit to varying degrees and in different ways to the original study, in fostering success for these Māori students in higher education.

The present study was not without limitations. The focus of the parent study was predominantly on mana whānau, mana tū and mana ūkaipō, and specific questions aligning to mana motuhake or mana tangatarua were not asked in the interviews. This could mean that participants discussed how those constructs relate to their success and well-being less than they would have if they were asked explicitly about them. However, this presents an opportunity to explore further the extent to which the Mana model constructs apply for Māori students in higher education by explicitly considering the themes that emerged from the Ka Awatea study at each stage of the research.

Overall, this study makes a valuable contribution to the literature on Māori success in education by highlighting key considerations for those charged with supporting the success of Māori students in higher education. The application of the Mana model in the higher education context revealed rich opportunities and a high degree of potential for this model to inform future research, policy, and practices that contribute to successful outcomes at university for Māori students.