Aotearoa (New Zealand)
摘要
A distinctive feature of early childhood care and education for sustainability in Aotearoa is that it is informed by Māori values, worldviews and knowledges, since Māori are acknowledged as the tangata whenua, the Indigenous people of these lands. Despite the impacts of a history of colonisation, which tailored the wider education system to serve settler interests to the detriment of Māori, early childhood education in Aotearoa can be viewed as both innovative and progressive in its commitment to acknowledging Māori worldviews. This is highlighted in the recognition by the early childhood curriculum, Te Whāriki (NZ Ministry of Education, 2017) of the importance of kaitiakitanga, the obligation for humans to exercise active stewardship of the environment. In this chapter, I explore various approaches to social, cultural, linguistic and ecological sustainability that are particular to the early child care and education sector in Aotearoa, providing a range of illustrative examples.