Te Ahunganui : te Apounga : a gathering together of important elements (including spiritual elements) of growth and ideas for emotional sustenance.

Abstract

Our research project describes the journey of working together to develop an appropriate Māori centred, Aotearoa New Zealand contextualised Emotional Literacy (EL) programme, targeted at ‘second chance’ Adult Learners in a Māori educational organisation. The main research question examined how general EL can be taught to Adult Learners within and using an Aotearoa New Zealand context. The research used Participatory Action Research (PAR) (Liamputtong, 2013) methodology and the research method of ‘Whakawhanaungatanga’ – building and maintaining relationships during the research process like those experienced within a family context (Bishop, 1995). The research was located within Solomon Group (SG), an Auckland based Māori Education Organisation and addressed student feedback about a lack of ‘Emotion’ related information in their ‘Te Whānau Ara Mua’ course. Emotional Literacy has been shown to increase a person’s social skills, employment outcomes and overall wellbeing (Mayer, Roberts & Barsade, 2008) so is an important topic to include when working with Adult students. Alongside Western Emotion theories, a Mātauranga Māori (traditional Māori knowledge) theory, ‘Te Maramataka’ (the Maori Lunar calendar) and embedded concepts were included in the EL Programme. Te Maramataka concepts were used to teach both emotion identification and regulation strategies and demonstrated how traditional Māori knowledge can be applied in diverse contemporary ‘Emotion’ contexts.

Our main findings highlighted the importance of sociocultural programme design, relevance, inclusiveness and making it ‘Ours’. A framework for offering general Emotions knowledge in an Adult education environment using Te Maramataka lens was also offered by the research whānau.