<p><font color="#33711E"><strong>Russell Bishop</strong></font></p>
Project Director, School of Education, University of Waikato
Russell Bishop is foundation Professor for Maori Education in the School of Education at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. He is also a qualified and experienced secondary school teacher. Prior to his present appointment he was a senior lecturer in Maori Education in the Education Department at the University of Otago and Interim Director for Otago University's Teacher Education programme. His research experience is in the area of collaborative storying as Kaupapa Maori research, having written a book "Collaborative Research Stories: Whakawhanaungatanga" and published nationally and internationally on this topic. His other research interests include institutional change, Critical Multicultural Education, and Collaborative Storying as Pedagogy. His most recent book, with Mere Berryman, "Culture Speaks", examines the experiences of Maori students, their families, their principals and their teachers in terms of the schooling of Maori students. The message of this book is simple; Classroom relationships are paramount; all other actions flow from this wellspring. He is currently the project director for Te Kotahitanga, a New Zealand Ministry of Education funded research and professional development project that seeks to improve the educational achievement of Maori students in mainstream classrooms through the implementation of a culturally responsive pedagogy of relations.