Dr Mere Skerrett
Position
Senior Lecturer
Qualifications
- EdD (Waikato)
- MPhil (1st Class Hons, Auckland)
- B.Ed (Waikato), Higher DipTchg BilEd (Waikato)
- DipTchg ECE (Waikato)
- Whakapakari (TKRNT)
- DipTchg Primary (Hamilton Teachers' College)
Room
Dovedale Village DC7
Contact Details
Phone: +64 3 3458225
Internal Phone: 44225
Email: mere.skerrett@canterbury.ac.nz
Fields of Research
- Assessment Māori
- Bilingual Education – Second language early childhood teaching methodologies
- Equity issues first as they relate to Māori as Tāngata Whenua
- Language Development in young children (reading, writing as well as aural, oral)
- Māori education (past and present)
- Māori politics (its progression)
- Pedagogy Māori
- Secondly as they relate to women’s issues and children’s rights
Affiliations
- Open Polytechnic of New Zealand (Teaching/Research Organisation): Advisory Board, Early Childhood Education
- China New Zealand Education Trust (Community Organisation/NGO): Member of delegation to China, May-June 2009 - to host in 2010.
Research
Please see UC Research Profile for full list of publications
Research Service
- Primary supervisor of three doctoral students (2009-present) and one masters student
- Lead Researcher, New Zealand Teachers Council project (2010)
- Lead Researcher, "Transitions" Research Ministry of Education (2010)
- Project Team, Best Evidence Synthesis translation for Iti Māori Ministry of Education (2010)
- Lead Researcher, Evaluating magazines for Māori-Medium Education, Ministry of Education (2009-2010)
- Lead Researcher, Ngāi Tahu Evaluation of Kotahi Mano Kaika (2010)
Researcher Summary
My research focuses on reversing language shift (RLS) efforts via the revernacularisation of te reo Māori (the Māori language) in Te Amokura Kōhanga Reo (Māori language nest). J. Fishman’s (2001a) graded intergenerational disruption scale (GIDS), and M. Durie’s (2001, 2003) discussions on Māori educational advancement provide conceptual frameworks for the meaning-making, cultural and symbolic relationships of language to culture and identity (Fishman, 1996). This qualitative case study involves three young children and their families who are committed to the intergenerational transmission of te reo Māori, the threatened indigenous heritage language of Aotearoa/New Zealand. Observational data was analysed illustrating these bilingual, biliterate, bicultural, bicognitive and bilateral children and their use of sophisticated language for increasingly complex purposes. This study identifies how children’s learning dispositions for shared reference with adults (who are active listeners and thoughtful speakers in meaningful activities [Carr, M., 2000, 2001]) are part of the deep structure of a unique cultural context successfully supporting language revernacularisation. In addition the study develops critical insights into how RLS can be viewed as the linguistic arm for furthering Māori aspirations of tino rangatiratanga (Bishop, R., 1997a; Bishop R., & Glynn, T., 1999) and has further implications for language planning, pedagogy and praxis in Kōhanga Reo.