AbstractsEducation Research & Administration

Ph.D. University of Hawaii at Manoa 2013. Public education in the Hawaiian Kingdom is often looked at as a foreign endeavor, established and promoted by the missionaries. This dissertation demonstrates that public education was actually established and promoted in Hawaiʻi by Kanaka Maoli Aliʻi who employed the missionaries and other Haole to support the development of a successful system of education for Hawaiian subjects. Through the use of an occupation paradigm, this study analyzes aspects of public education during the kingdom period in order to elucidate the agency of Kānaka Maoli in government affairs, specifically in education. It also examines the positive culture of educational attainment that proliferated during that period. The eventual loss of Kanaka Maoli agency through the overthrow of the Hawaiian government and the occupation of Hawaiʻi by the United States contributed significantly to a decline in Kanaka Maoli school performance and the culture of educational attainment. As a result, Kānaka Maoli have been the lowest achieving ethnic group in Hawaiʻi for decades. In terms of contemporary education, this dissertation employs a cultural-ecological theory of minority schooling to explain the importance of maintaining a historical perspective in developing successful Kanaka Maoli educational programming today.