Invitation to Participate in My Doctoral Research
Pouhine Kia Mau: Reconceptualising Cultural Competence through Kaupapa Māori Pedagogy and Praxis
A kaupapa Māori study exploring cultural competence as a threshold concept in teaching, learning, and practice.
Tēnā koe, I am currently undertaking my PhD in Public Health at Massey University, within the Research Centre for Hauora and Health. My doctoral research journey is supervised by Professor Chris Cunningham, Professor Nicolette Sheridan, and Dr Hope Tupara, with tikanga supervision provided by Henare Kani.
As a Registered Midwife, and with midwifery as the generative context, my research explores cultural competence as a threshold concept — a subject or idea that transforms a learner’s understanding, perspective, and practice once grasped.
While cultural competence is widely recognised as critical to equity and service quality across health, education, and social sectors, it remains under-theorised, inconsistently enacted, and often vulnerable to superficial or compliance-based interpretations.
Titled Pouhine Kia Mau: Reconceptualising Cultural Competence as a Threshold Concept through Kaupapa Māori Pedagogy and Praxis, my research reframes cultural competence within a kaupapa Māori worldview — positioning it not as a technical skill to be acquired, but as a developmental shift in worldview, identity, and transformative leadership practice.
Research Information and Invitation to Participate in Doctoral Research
Study Title: Pouhine Kia Mau: Reconceptualising Cultural Competence as a Threshold Concept through Kaupapa Māori Pedagogy and Praxis
Researcher: Megan Tahere – PhD Candidate, Massey University
The following kōrero outlines the aims and process of my research and invites participation from Māori midwives and kaupapa-aligned professionals who may be interested in the kaupapa.
Purpose of the Research:
Through this research, I seek to explore how Māori midwives and kaupapa-aligned professionals experience, understand, and enact cultural competence through teaching, learning, and practice approaches. I also aim to develop and contribute to culturally informed models of learning and leadership practice for application across health, education, and kaupapa-aligned contexts.
Research Procedure:
This doctoral research is being undertaken alongside my roles as a Registered Midwife and as the Director of Manawa Kōkopu, a consultancy providing professional development pathways. The Manu Hōmiromiro: Poutama Insights wānanga you are invited to participate, which I developed to inform this research, is also delivered in practice through my consultancy.
In this study, the wānanga functions in three interconnected ways: as a professional development context in which participants engage in activities that explore thinking, leadership, practice, and cultural competence; as a method of inquiry and data collection; and as a praxis innovation being reviewed for its applicability and acceptability in practice.
I am inviting you to take part in this research by participating in the wānanga and post-wānanga questionnaire, and by allowing the insights shared through both to be included as research data that will inform the study’s analysis and findings.
Your participation is entirely voluntary. As a gesture of gratitude, you will receive a $20 gift card at the wānanga to acknowledge your contribution to this research.
Invitation to Participate:
The poster below provides additional information about my research. If you would like to learn more or participate, please contact me via email Megan.Tahere.1@uni.massey.ac.nz or phone 027 366 9358.
Research Purpose and Impact
Pouhine Kia Mau is an Indigenous contribution to the growing body of scholarship on cultural competence and leadership practice. Through this research, I seek to deepen understanding of how cultural competence is encountered, taught, and embodied — strengthening collective capacity for leadership that is reflective, reflexive, and relational. I also aim to develop culturally informed models of teaching, learning, and leadership practice for application across health, education, and kaupapa-aligned professional contexts.
Research Focus
The study is guided by three interrelated questions:
- How do midwifery and kaupapa-aligned professionals and learners experience, understand, and enact cultural competence?
- How should cultural competence be conceptualised?
- How can we strengthen the development of cultural competence?
Research Methodology and Methods
This research is grounded in kaupapa Māori theory and methodology, drawing on Mana Wāhine and Pūrākau, and follows a mixed-methods design.
As a contribution to Rangahau, my doctoral work presents an original kaupapa Māori methodology held within Mana Wāhine theory and shaped by the cosmological arc of Te Kore, Te Pō, and Te Ao Mārama.
I have developed Manu Hōmiromiro: Poutama Insights — a kaupapa Māori strategic thinking system that functions as both a pedagogy and a praxis innovation. This system provides a professional development experience through which participants engage in culturally grounded activities designed to explore strategic thinking, cultural intelligence, and collective insight in leadership and practice.
For this study, the Manu Hōmiromiro: Poutama Insights professional development context operates as a method of inquiry and data collection, as well as a praxis innovation being reviewed for its applicability and acceptability in practice. Participants’ reflective insights and feedback, gathered through this facilitated wānanga process and a post-wānanga questionnaire, offer a lived exploration of how cultural competence is understood, experienced, and enacted through kaupapa Māori approaches to learning, practice, and leadership.
I have also developed Pouhine Pūkōrero — an original kaupapa Māori framework for thematic explicitation and relational insight.
Ethical Considerations
This project has been evaluated by peer review and judged to be low risk. Consequently, it has not been reviewed by one of the University’s Human Ethics Committees. The researcher named above is responsible for the ethical conduct of this research.
If you have any concerns about the ethical conduct of this research that you want to raise with someone other than the researcher, please contact Massey University Human Ethics by email: humanethics@massey.ac.nz, or my Primary Supervisor, Professor Chris Cunningham – Director of the Research Centre for Hauora & Health by email: C.W.Cunningham@massey.ac.nz.
He pouhine e here ai te ao hou.
It is the sacred feminine that binds the threads of a new world.
Connect with me for more information about this research.
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