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This study theorises the lack of clarity and ambiguity in education policy relating to the purpose of Māori language education for non-Māori students. The research focuses on as-asubject Māori language education in English medium secondary schools. It includes an analysis of the policies which affect these types of settings, and the experiences of a group of young non-Māori people who have learnt or are learning Māori. The study provides an explanation of the nature and purpose of a particular policy corpus, as well as the effects of those policies. The lack of clarity and ambiguity in policy relating to the purpose of Māori language education for non-Māori can be explained by understanding the nature and purpose of the policy itself. I conceptualise Māori language policy for non-Māori as a symbolic policy which functions to sustain and legitimate the educational myth of biculturalism. The purpose of the bicultural myth in education is to bind groups together with a unity of purpose. However, its promise of a happy, harmonious bicultural nation obscures its ideological strategy as a mechanism to segregate groups and to justify group rather than universal rights. The study draws on an anthropology of policy approach which conceptualises policy as ‘charters for action’ producing certain kinds of social relations by influencing attitudes and practices. This approach enables a focus on how symbolic education policy works in practice to sustain and legitimate bicultural ideology. I argue that the primary purpose of Māori language learning for non-Māori is not the development of communication skills but rather a means of ensuring that the ideology of biculturalism remains hegemonic. Instead of working to promote the use of Māori language among Māori language learners, Māori language policy, as symbolic policy, works to sustain a ‘Māori people as ethnically and culturally distinct’ narrative. This is an important narrative thread in the myth of biculturalism. The study found that the lack of clarity and ambiguity in the policy does in fact contribute to this narrative thread.
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