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The numerous iwi (tribes) and hapū (subtribes) of Te Tai Tokerau (Northland) have a long whakapapa (genealogy) of influential leaders that have made a significant impact on the Māori world and beyond. However, ruinous media narratives that focus without relent on poverty, low employment, inadequate housing, and lagging educational outcomes—particularly among Māori—continue to negatively impact the ways students from this region define their identity. This paper presents a number of strengths-based narratives—focusing on tūpuna (ancestors) from Te Tai Tokerau whakapapa—that act as counter-narratives to this rhetoric. The paper discusses how these narratives can be used as powerful pedagogical tools that enhance Te Tai Tokerau Māori students’ self-efficacy, aspiration, optimism, and cultural pride, presenting them as powerful agents of their own destiny. This paper draws on data produced from a Marsden-funded study—led by Te Tai Tokerau descendents—that has collected and re-presented multifaceted hapū/iwi-based narratives that celebrate Te Tai Tokerau distinctiveness, success, history, and identity. This wider study has examined, contextualised, and celebrated diverse characteristics recurring in Te Tai Tokerau pūrākau (genealogical stories), pepeha (tribal sayings), waiata (songs), karakia (incantations), televisual materials, and written histories.

When gifted Māori students feel they belong and find their realities reflected in the curriculum, conversations and interactions of schooling, they are more likely to engage in programmes of learning and experience greater school success. This article reports on a teacher-led project called the Ruamano Project, which investigated whether Maker and Zimmerman's (2008) Real Engagement in Active Problem Solving model (REAPS) could be adapted successfully to identify talents and benefit the student achievement and engagement of Māori boys in two rural Northland, New Zealand secondary school contexts. The project aimed to implement Treaty of Waitangi-responsive and place-based science practices by improving home–school–community relationships through the authentic engagement of whānau and iwi into the schools’ planning, implementation and evaluation of a REAPS unit. As a result of this innovation, teachers’ perceptions of Māori boys shifted, their teaching practices changed, more junior secondary Māori boys were identified as gifted by way of improved academic performance, and iwi and community members were engaged in co-designing the inquiry projects. Our research indicated that the local adaptation of the REAPS model was effective in engaging and promoting the success of gifted and talented Māori boys.

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This qualitative inquiry compares the practice of one Māori primary school leader of urban education for indigenous multicultural multilingual learners in New Zealand (NZ), to research on the practices of nine educational leaders of colour in the United States (US). This study identifies and compares leadership practices for leaders struggling with ways to positively impact learner outcomes in similar settings (e.g., UK, Canada). From a critical comparative perspective, this school principal shares her leadership practice and lessons learned to inform leadership practice in similarly multifaceted urban settings. This research is undertaken by a collaborative cross-cultural team of educational leaders and scholars from the US and NZ, from the local university and urban primary school. The research team comprises multiple perspectives, the basis for global comparative discourse on school leadership. This contribution offers a cross-cultural model, framework, and way of doing educational research to increase understanding of leadership in different societies.