INTRODUCTION: This article reports on a project which explored the process of “biculturation” (settling into a country with a bicultural mandate for social work practice) for 20 foreign-trained social workers who moved to Aotearoa New Zealand. This article details the particular theme of stages that the participants navigated in new terrain working within a bicultural framework with Māori.METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with 20 foreign-trained social workers who had moved to Aotearoa New Zealand to practise social work. A thematic analysis was undertaken with the use of NVivo software.FINDINGS: Participants reported negotiating phases consistent with the international literature on acculturation. Particular challenges were noted regarding coming to terms with the impact of colonisation and the difference between bicultural and multicultural approaches.CONCLUSION: These stages have been represented by the various phases of growth of the fronds of a ponga tree described as the koru model. The stages described should be of use to social workers (or other professionals) who have shifted from one country to another, orare thinking about such a move. This is especially relevant when moving to a country where an indigenous group has experienced the negative impact and trauma of colonisation. The information will also be of use to social work agencies, employers, professional associations and regulatory bodies in understanding the process of acculturation for transnational social workers.

This article explores a synergy of inquiry-based learning and a cultural pedagogy within a Māori environment, the marae (communal meeting place) while using Academic Co-Creative Inquiry (ACCI), an innovative approach to teaching and learning which enables teachers and students to cocreate the content and the process of the course through personalized inquiries. Three areas form the focus of this article: an exploration of cultural pedagogy within a marae space, an ACCI process, and the culturally responsive Māori pedagogy of ako (teaching and learning). These three areas created a context for transformative learning. Authors reflect on how three academic women, two Māori and one Pākehā (person of European descent) each explored how the physical space of Ngākau Māhaki (name of the carved meeting house, meaning respectful heart) at Te Noho Kotahitanga Marae (name of the marae complex) contributed to transformative teaching and learning processes.

This diversity is utilised as a main asset for the course Course content and process have been adjusted to suit a particular student group still retaining prescribed learning outcomes for the course • Each group is unique but all are very diverse

Campfire sessions are springing up at conferences and educational institutes as an alternative to PowerPoint presentation workshops. As an educational tool, the campfire session is presented as innovative pedagogy, yet sitting around an open fire, telling stories, talking and ‘yarning’ has long been practised in Indigenous societies. This paper reflects on story-telling as an Indigenous educational method with a focus on traditional Māori society in Aotearoa/New Zealand. More specifically, the authors reflect on a campfire session facilitated at the Ako (reciprocal teaching and learning) Aotearoa (Māori name for New Zealand) Conference in Christchurch in November 2018. The campfire session was designed to draw on participants' experiences and stories of biculturalism and their own bicultural journeys. Its intention was to enable participants to explore what it means to be bicultural in Aotearoa/New Zealand and how being bicultural manifests in practices of ako across a range of disciplines and fields of practice. The paper endeavours to be an instructional article for educators interested in experimenting with the Indigenous teaching method of campfire sessions. Detailed explanations and descriptions of the campfire method are provided to assist teachers to design their own campfire sessions. The campfire method was well received by the initial audience, as evidenced by their full engagement and participation. All participants fed back that they felt enabled to design their own campfire sessions. The main benefit of this method is its engagement and appreciation of Indigenous wisdom. The main challenge is its unpredictability as just like fire, it can produce a wonderful warmth and transformation, but also engender inflamed discussions. It requires skilful facilitation and appreciation of potentially diverse views and opinions.

This article outlines key themes that appear in the teaching of poststructuralist ideas and practices for couples counseling within the Postgraduate Diploma in Counseling Program at Unitec Institute of Technology in Auckland, New Zealand, and it explores the congruence of this pedagogical approach with Māori (indigenous) understandings of relationality, collaboration, and partnership. The diploma program's curriculum includes narrative therapy and relational language-making. Themes explored in this article include: understanding (heterosexual) couple relationships as contextualized entities, deconstructing dominant discourses of coupledom, and the positioning of counselors/teachers as nonexpert. Taking each theme in turn, the authors, one of them Māori and two Pākehā (European), articulate points of alignment with Māori cultural concepts and practices.