Maori Youth In An Alien Society

Press, Volume C, Issue 29513, 13 May 1961, Page 3

Maori Youth In An Alien Society

[Reviewed by R.C.L.) Maori Youth. By David P. Ausubel. Price Milbum. 221 pp. What are the vocational and educational aspirations of Maori youth? And what are some of the factors that either help them attain the goals thus aspired to, or hinder them from doing so? These, broadly speaking, are the questions which Dr. Ausubel endeavours to answer in this book. Furthermore. he attempts to make a comparison of “aspirational patterns” of Maori and Pakeha secondary school boys; and where he has discovered these patterns to differ in urban as against rural areas, he tries to interpret such urban-rural differences.

During 11 months intensive study on a Fulbright scholarship. Dr. Ausubel, confined his researches to a rural and an urban group of Maori adolescents and comparable groups of pakeha adolescents from the same localities, the localities he worked in being Wanganui and Opotiki, though he avoids mentioning them by name. From the description given of their respective geographical locations, it is clear to the New Zealand reader that the institutions in which Dr. Ausubel carried out his researches, were the Wanganui Technical College and the Opotiki High School, the former institution providing him with his urban group of male adolescents, and the latter with his rural groups. (It was to male adolescents that he confined his study.) kXV.XWXXM At each of these secondary schools he questioned selected pupils as to the vocations they wished to pursue after leaving school, and as to the reasons for their wanting to excel at school and to pursue their studies further. He questioned them also, as to parental interest in their vocational aims. One of the conclusions arrived at. as a result of these investigations was that ’“the typical Maori pupil perceived his parents as less demanding of high marks, but as more desirous of the School Certificate than the pakeha pupil perceived his parents.” The typical Maori pupil, he adds, reported receiving less help and prodding about homework than pakeha pupils did. Dr. Ausubel’s interrogations ranged further afield to take in the wider Maori and pakeha communities that provided the environmental jiettings for his survey. In addition to the parents of secondary school pupils, his most valuable Maori informants. he writes, “included Maori welfare officers, tribal elders, clergymen, teachers, wardens and members of tribal committees and execu-

Lives.” The sort of information he gleaned from these people ranged over a wide number of topics including “child rearing, urban drift, delinquency, truancy, thrift, and Maori cultural survivals.” He really got alongside the Maori people, attending' their huis. tangis. weddings, birthday celebrations. and other social activities. Lastly, he paid particular attention to the problem of race relations.

He found that in the first community he worked in 'Wanganui). the Maoris living in the city proper practised little or none of traditional Maori community life. There, the tangi was fast dying out. As for the pas on the outskirts of the city. Maori social life—he writes —was there “but a , pale shadow of the intensive com. munity activity formerly centred around the marae.” However, he did find there —in an old, established pa—a Maori youth club that gave frequent concerts in which were featured traditional action songs as well as the haka and the poi. Another thing he noted in this area was the heavy drinking among both men and women, that went on at the local hotels and in private homes. Twelve miles to the south of the city, he encountered in the Ratana community a thoroughly demoralised settlement, where “alcoholism, sexual promiscuity and bodgieism” were rife. Maori housing m the city he found, for the most part, to be dilapidated and slummy in the extreme, with dreadful over-crowding; while, as for dwellings in the pas, these—apart from the new State-financed houses—were little better than tumble-down shacks. The picture of depravity, thus delineated, is not complete until it takes in the ailments from which the children in the community were found to be suffering. Many children —writes Dr. Ausubel—were afflicted with “impetigo. pediculosis (lice), scabies, upper respiratory ailments and middle-ear infections.” So much, then, for the local setting of his urban sample of Maori youth. How much more pleasant was that of his rural sample

—if one excepts the poor housing in the pas of the Opotiki district fro-m which this sample was drawn. In this locality the author found Maori community life centred about the marae to be much more cohesive, integrated and vigorous than in the urban area. Race relationship he found to be better, also; but he noted here the refusal of various banks, retail shops, private offices and garages, to employ Maori workers. * It is interesting to compare these findings of Dr. Ausubel’s with those contained in a paper read by the late Professor I. L. G. Sutherland at the New Zealand Science Congress held in Christchurch ten years ago this month. The same features of the Maori situation noted in that earlier survey—the excessive drinking, the juvenile delinquency, the urban drift and bad race relations (not withstanding persistent pakeha avowals to the contrary) —all these are plainly discernible in Dr. Ausubel’s account —whether in an aggravated form, it would be hard to say. But as persisting features they remain to be reckoned with. The recommendations that Dr. Ausubel offers as a result of his study, are tabulated at the end of chapter seven of this book; and they might well serve,—to ouote Professor Ernest Beaglehole's foreword—“as a blue-print for action by teachers, administrators and others concerned with the difficulties of Maori young people.” Here again, some of the measures he advocates are similar to those enunciated by the late Professor Sutherland a decade ago. such as the establishment of rural industries. wherever practicable, as a way of alleviating some of the problems caused by excessively rapid urbanisation. A more recent publication that challenges comparison with Dr. Ausubel’s book, is the "Report on Department of Maori Affairs," by J. K. Hunn. Indeed, if these two works are read in conjunction, it will be found that the conclusions of the one support the conclusions of the other. Both, for example, stress the need for additional hostels to accommodate young Maoris coming from outlying parts to populous centres. txxxxwwws Some of Dr. Ausubel’s observations. particularly under the heading of racial prejudice, are one-sided. Thus, he states ton page 89), that Maori university students “are not easily or naturally accepted by the pakeha student population.” There is certainly solid evidence to the contrary at the University of Canterbury, where—only last year—two Maori students were elected by popular vote to the Student Executive. Again, says Dr. Ausubel. many Maori students “are socially ostracised or given the silent treatment.' ” Silence between one person and another—whatever their race, is often occasioned by shyness. Might not Dr. Ausubel or his informants have mistaken this for racial prejudice? Lastly, it should be noted that considerable sections of this book are written in technical language that is

beyond the layman’s grasp; and in one or two places the author’s line of argument suffers from the incoherence of its presentation. This notwithstanding. his book must be acclaimed as an important contribution to the literature dealing with Maori endeavours to adapt themselves to an alien society.