A recent innovation in early childhood care and education in Aotearoa/New Zealand has been the new curriculum, Te Whäriki (Ministry of Education, 1996), which has a strong bicultural emphasis. This means that early childhood educators and teacher educators are attempting to address the challenges posed by a document which requires them to move outside the mono cultural dominant paradigm. Most early childhood teachers and teacher educators are not speakers of the Maori language, and lack Maori cultural knowledge. This paper discusses some of the strategies identified in research which addresses these issues. The role of teacher education in preparing non-Maori students to deliver a bicultural curriculum, and ‘indicators’ of bicultural development in early childhood centres are also discussed.
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