Negotiating between subject area and student: The devolution and evolution of language arts traditions in Hawaiian-based education

This dissertation researched how sixth, seventh, and eighth grade language arts teachers in a Hawaiian language immersion school and a Hawaiian public charter school culturally negotiate their students' contrasting social and educational worlds (the indigenous and mainstream Euro Western) through specific culturally based language arts teaching practices. In the first phase of the study, grounded theory design was used to compare common practices across the sites and determine where and how these practices intersected two differing educational frameworks---the language arts state standards and the Hawai'i Guidelines for Culturally Healthy and Responsive Learning Environments (also known as Na Honua Mauli Ola), which is specific to Hawaiian-based education. Teaching practices that were found to intersect the two educational frameworks were characterized as "culturally negotiated" language arts teaching practices and contextualized further during the second phase of the study, consisting of case study analyses of four teacher-participants. Five significant culturally negotiated commonalities in content, methodology, and ideology surfaced throughout the study, each characterizing the actualization of culturally negotiated language arts teaching: (1) the relationship with the "traditional" uses of and the attitude toward language, (2) the understanding and incorporation of mo'olelo [Hawaiian myth], (3) the creative means of language expression; (4) the "family" environment of the class and the connection to community, and (5) the physical learning environment in which learning takes place. These findings are presented in terms of the learning benefits for Native Hawaiian students and the innovative and necessary evolution of language arts teaching.