A reshaping of counselling curriculum: responding to the changing (bi)cultural context

ABSTRACT

This article describes some of the local Aotearoa New Zealand context of a general ‘mainstream’ undergraduate counselling degree. Students' learning is shaped to produce a professional practice for the local context of Aotearoa New Zealand. As counsellor educators informed by social constructionism, we detail our theoretical position and our intention to teach in ways that produce an interweaving between indigenous models of practice and selected western theories and practice. We outline our rationale for reshaping the first year ‘core’ counselling modules; our interrogation of taken-for-granted assumptions; and include a description of the reshaping of our first year ‘core’ counselling curriculum where we invoke a metaphor of weaving.

Keywords:

• counsellor education
• curriculum development
• indigenous counselling models
• Treaty of Waitangi
• social constructionism

Notes

1. Aotearoa is the traditional indigenous name given to New Zealand.

2. Māori are the indigenous peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand.

3. Throughout this article we use the term ‘Pākehā’ to denote those born in Aotearoa New Zealand who are of ‘European’ extraction although usually of British descent, and who are forging a new identity which is separate to that of their ancestors’ British origins (King, 2003).

4. The Treaty of Waitangi, considered to be the founding document of Aotearoa New Zealand, was signed on 6 February 1840 between Māori and the British Crown (King, 2003).