DESCRIPTORS

A study examined how pedagogic work in Queensland (Australia) schools could be reformed to meet the educational needs of low-achieving students from working-class and unemployed Samoan/Pacific Islander communities. Interviews were conducted with 39 primarily Anglo-Australian teachers and 35 Samoan/Pacific Islander parents and community members serving as paraprofessionals at five schools in a low socioeconomic area with many working-class Samoan immigrants. The interviews revealed that Samoan children are likely to enter school having been socialized into the respectful communicative practices of the "fa'aSamoa" (Samoan Way). Samoan culture has distinct social classes, and three language forms and accompanying dispositions are used in different social contexts. A Samoan individual's importance is in relation to the importance of other people, but Australian schools are operated from a European perspective, which is based on the individual. This sets up a disjuncture between the communicative dispositions of Samoan children and the behaviors expected o