Teacher and Middle Leader Perceptions of Culturally Responsive Middle Leadership Practices and Their Ability to Meet the Needs of Māori Students in New Zealand Secondary Schools

Abstract This paper examines the self-reported culturally responsive practices of curriculum leaders ( n = 53) and teachers ( n = 105) from six state funded secondary schools in New Zealand. Partcipants were surveyed to examine the relationship between middle leader self-reporting of culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) for improving Māori student engagement and teacher perceptions of those practices. School contextual factors and student academic achievement were also compared with the response ratings to understand any association between culturally responsive middle leadership and student academic outcomes. The study found that middle leaders with more experience generally reported greater confidence in their leadership of CRP. Furthermore, there was some indication that teacher perceptions of middle leader’s use of CRP practices may be higher in schools with more experienced middle leaders. However, despite the crucial role middle leaders have in supporting the use of CRP in their departments, no relation was found between the confidence of middle leaders regarding CRP and student academic achievement (155).