Whānau A

With the increase in globalization, certain integrated families like Māori are tending to combine
their cultures in different diversities. Similarly, Whānau A is a Māori family in Aotearoa (New
Zealand) that includes a total of five members in it, two of them are adults aging between 28 to 40
years, whereas rest three are children within 0 to 7 years of range. The ethnicity of these cultures
is constantly being disturbed which indeed is helpful in building employment outcomes
(Houkamau & Sibley, 2014). The author also suggested that these groups are aligned more towards
the European nations in terms of political attitude. Moreover, Māori people worship their ancestors
and got influenced to Christianity over 200 years ago, these people have continuously evolved
believing in Mauri, Wairua and Mana i.e. life force, spirit and prestige (O'brien, et al., 2013). In
this family, one of the adult members works fulltime to support his family economically, while
other supports by looking after the children. Further, a member that is supporting the family speaks
te reo Māori fluently, while the children are having the bilingual capability due to different varying
languages spoken by the adults.
Meanwhile, one child shows the positive symptoms of Rheumatic Fever. To explain this,
Statistics New Zealand (2015) mentioned that one in every four Māori people is disabled because
of the lack of nutrition in the community. The statistics from the past five years has shown that 96
children were suffering from acute Rheumatic fever symptoms and it is common there (Thornley,
et al., 2017). However, the government is taking significant steps to change such an environment
of disabilities in Māori people. Whānau faces many challenges to sustaining its rich cultural
heritage such as
 Communication gap will emerge as the major challenge for the Māori people, as to
survive in growing New Zealand, they need to communicate, that will be quite complex
for the Whānau members.
 Adaptability of a different culture by the local community to introduce professional
educational system will be difficult due to the diverse culture within the Māori people.
However, governmental policies are supporting education in biculturalism and
multiculturalism (Glynn, 2015).
 Another challenge is to develop the urbanization in the Māori community as with the
development of trends of colonization, the impact could be severe in Whānau
Thus, with the globalization, trends and nature of the community changes. However, there is a
need to sustain the cultural beliefs with the parallel increase in the educational level and standards.
References

Glynn, T. (2015). Bicultural challenges for educational professionals in Aotearoa. Waikato Journal
of Education, 4, 103-113.
Houkamau, C., & Sibley, C. (2014). Social identity and differences in psychological and economic
outcomes for mixed and sole-identified Māori. International Journal of Intercultural
Relations, 40, 113-125.
O'brien, L. A., Denny, S., Clark, T., Fleming, T., Teevale, T., & Robinson, E. (2013). The impact
of religion and spirituality on the risk behaviours of young people in Aotearoa. New
Zealand. Youth Studies Australia, 32(4), 25-38. Retrieved from Bigmyth.
Statistics New Zealand. (2015). He hauā Māori: Findings from the 2013 Disability Survey.
Wellington: Statistics New Zealand.
Thornley, S., Marshall, R. J., Bach, K., Koopu, P., Reynolds, G., Sundborn, G., & Ei, W. (2017).
Sugar, dental caries and the incidence of acute rheumatic fever: a cohort study of Māori
and Pacific children. Journal of epidemiology & community health, 71(4), 364-370.