In te ao Māori (the Māori world) standing tall ensures that our ancestors stand tall (Norman, 2019). This presentation draws on the stories of two wāhine Māori (Māori women) who led in the education sphere in Aotearoa New Zealand (Aotearoa) from the 1970s to the 2000s. This qualitative, narrative inquiry, kaupapa Māori research focused on the origins of the women’s leadership. It explored how insights into the women’s leadership could be used in the education sector. One of the benefits of using a narrative inquiry approach is that “the closer, more holistic attention to the narrator’s perspective can provide extremely rich insights” (Taylor et al., 2016, p. 21).

Kaupapa Māori research developed during the 1970s in response to the realisation that research in Aotearoa reflected colonial perspectives not reflective of Māori epistemology, values and beliefs. Kaupapa Māori research has been defined in many ways (Pihama et al., 2019; Tuhiwai Smith, 2021a). The kaupapa Māori-centred research in this presentation used stories and the kaupapa Māori principles of whānau (extended family, family or kin) and whakapapa (genealogy, lineage, descent) as proposed by Tuhiwai Smith (2021b) to celebrate the lives and education leadership of two women. The researcher’s whakapapa connection to one of the women in the research is a fundamental characteristic of kaupapa Māori research (Simmonds, 2019).

Each women’s story was compiled from archival and other sources as well as from interviews with whānau members (extended family, family or kin). The interviews focused on missing information about the origins and orientation of the two women’s social justice leadership. Two interviews were carried out for one of the women and one interview was carried out for the other woman. Reflexive journalling was used by the researcher to help understand how the researcher's assumptions and values influenced the research process and outcomes. Once the stories were assembled Nvivo qualitative research software was used to code the data and identify themes.

The women’s leadership was influenced and shaped by five factors. These are first, their role models, second, their personal struggles, third, mana wahine and four, social norms. Forster et al. (2015) define mana wahine as the strength and power of women and Simmonds (2011) definition of mana wahine emphasizes the importance of narrative. This research draws on both of these perspectives. The fifth theme identified from the research was that there was a cost to the women’s leadership. Two overarching characteristics that influenced the women and their leadership across all five themes was one, identity and two, gender, religion and generational contexts.

This presentation concludes that examining, recalling and celebrating our indigenous education leaders stories can deepen our understanding of how we lead in education in an age of uncertainty into the future.

The methods used for data generation included document retrieval and reflexive journalling. Archival sources for the women included audiotaped and videotaped interviews with the women and other items such as letters, photos, newspaper publications and speech notes. Context and time are crucial aspects of narrative inquiry (Gunn & Faire, 2016). The researcher researched publications including books, newspaper articles and journal articles on the political, social and historical contexts that existed during the women’s lifetimes. The multiple data sources, including archival sources and non-archival data, were used to assemble each women’s story with a specific focus on the origins and orientation of her social justice leadership. This research involved a two stage analysis. The first step of the data analysis involved idenitfying missing information about the origns and orientations of each women’s stories and interviewing whānau members or colleagues with a focus on this missing information. A feature of Kaupapa Māori research practiced in this research is the process of kanohi ki te kanohi (face to face) whereby Māori value the importance of face to face interactions (Smith, 2000). Therefore, with the exception of one interview where the interviewee lived remotely and the interview was held on the telephone, interviews were held face to face. A former colleague was interviewed for one of the women and two family members were interviewed for the other woman. The choice of interviewees related to the information that was missing from the women’s stories. Once the stories were assembled they were used as data and analysed. The second step involved open and selective coding to analyse each story (Clarke & Braun, 2016). Nvivo qualitative research software was used to manage the data and to initially code the themes. In the first round of coding twelve themes were elicited for analysis. After several months and synthesis of the data these themes were reduced to five themes. The five themes identified from the data were first, role models, second, their personal struggles, third, mana wahine, four, social norms and five that there was a cost to the women’s leadership. Two overarching characteristics that influenced the women and their leadership across all five themes was one, identity and two, gender, religion and generational contexts. This research joins existing academic scholarship that has strived to understand the origins of women’s education leadership. The unique and nuanced findings offer insights into women’s education leadership for practice, policy and future research.

Social, historical, cultural and political factors including religion, gender and generational factors were strong influences in shaping the women and their leadership. As well as following others and serving people in their leadership roles the women were role models to people in the education sphere and beyond. Knowledge of their whakapapa and the sense of identity this knowledge supported was crucial in enabling the two women to carry out their leadership. This research joins existing research from Māori researchers about the importance of identity as an aspect of leader development (Durie, 2001; Tuhiwai Smith, 2021c). Māori leadership has lessons and insights for education leaders and leadership in a global context. An important outcome of this research is the celebration and appreciation of two female education leaders stories that have never been shared in this unique way previously.

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