Swings + Roundabouts Autumn 2021

and my nation. I belong to my family and my family belongs to me. I belong to my village and my village belongs to me. I belong to my nation and my nation belongs to me. This is the essence of my sense of belonging" (p. 51). However, there has been little progress made so far in terms of exploring and understanding how Pasifika values and knowledge can inspire leadership ideas, thinking and practice to support Pasifika children in educational settings in Aotearoa New Zealand. The current study seeks to address this gap. WHY IS THIS RESEARCH STUDY NEEDED? Up to 97% of all Pasifika children enrolled in ECE in this country attend a teacher-led service, with the majority (68%) attending education and care centres (Education Counts, 2019). Despite these statistics, concerns have been raised about ECE teachers’ and leaders’ ability to promote success for all Pasifika children. For example, in 2013, the Education Review Office (ERO) identified that the curriculum in 21% of the 387 ECE services reviewed was not conducive to Pasifika children’s success. An additional 13% of services were reported as not knowing how to promote success for Pasifika children. Then in 2015, ERO identified factors conducive to effective leadership regarding Pasifika children’s success, such as Pasifika leaders viewing themselves as custodians of Pacific cultural practice and emphasising culturally responsive ECE for children (e.g., using Pacific knowledge and values to guide the curriculum and embedding Pacific language into the curriculum). Even so, there are very few empirical studies on culturally nuanced meanings of leadership to inform the thinking and practice of leaders and teachers in Pasifika and non-Pasifika ECE services with Pasifika children in attendance. The current study will go some way in addressing these concerns, while enacting the vision of the Action Plan for Pacific Education 2020-2030 (Ministry of Education, 2020) that aims for Pacific learners and their families to feel safe, valued, and ready to achieve their education aspirations. The study also aligns with the intention of the 10-year Early Learning Action Plan 2019- 2029 (ELAP) (Ministry of Education, 2019b) to improve quality early childhood education and increased support for services in under- served communities, with a reassurance that children will “enjoy a good life, learn and thrive” (p. 5). We acknowledge that ECE organisations, including the Early Childhood Council, are already taking steps to respond to the ELAP with actions and strategies that will support these intentions and Pasifika children’s early learning experiences. Equally important, the study seeks to counter the enduring deficit narrative of Pasifika underachievement in education that exists more broadly in Aotearoa New Zealand. This disempowering situation reminds us that many Pasifika children in this country enter an education system that is likely to fail them at some point. Without more strengths-based and social justice initiatives, Pasifika children/students will continue to receive messages along the way that they do not matter, do not belong, and that their ways of knowing are inferior to Western ways of knowing. Positive change can start in ECE by ensuring that leaders and teachers across the sector: are open to alternative leadership norms and ideologies, feel confident to engage critically with Pasifika ways of knowing to mobilise success for Pasifika children, and know how to create opportunities for children that support a strong sense of self-worth, resilience, and identity to their cultural communities. Achieving this will help to establish a strong foundation for Pasifika success, although this also relies on leaders’ commitment to serving and growing others before themselves, as reflected in the Samoan proverb: o pou tū e malu ai pou lalo – the main pillars support the lower posts. We draw on this proverb to align wisdom with Indigenous leadership as the main pou (structural/founding pillars) of the fale (social organisation - village, community, or nation) that supports the lower pou (supporting posts/pillars) to effectively work together as one pou, holding the fale up. WHAT IS MEANT BY “A RETURN TO WISDOM” IN THE STUDY? Indigenous research reveals it is problematic to define leadership in one particular way due to varying factors that need to be taken into account, such as the culture, traditional values, beliefs, knowledge, and resources pertaining to a particular community (Fan & Liu, 2020). Researchers have, instead, encouraged us to draw inspiration from the deep wisdom (Samoan: mafaufau loloto) and knowledge (poto) that already exists within communities to inspire cultural values-based understandings of leadership for contemporary times. Ahnee-Beham and Napier (2002) have suggested that we think about the qualities that transcend normalising concepts often associated with leadership, such as individual personality traits and dispositions, and instead think about the values that have held Indigenous communities together over time - the virtue of wisdom, the condition of spirituality, March 2021 { 17 }