Māori children's everyday learning over the summer holidays

Children spend most of their lives learning from everyday experiences; they learn about their culture, how to live and be part of their family and community. This paper reports on a pilot study of everyday learning over the summer holidays to determine how and what selected Māori children learn in their everyday environment. This qualitative study used autodriving and photo elicitation over a 12 week period to facilitate conversations with three Māori children about everyday learning. The findings emphasised the importance of everyday learning for the children's skill and knowledge development and development of self-understanding and belonging in relation to family and culture. Indeed, social interactions with family in multiple social and cultural contexts were critical for assisting children to make sense of and find their place in the world. This result has important implications for the formal/informal education debate and we argue is a foundation that needs to be developed further in the classroom to facilitate Māori academic achievement in formal educational settings.