This paper describes an attempt to address, through pre-service teacher education, the complex interaction of the ideologies carried by schooling, the denial of the rights of Maori as promised by the Treaty of Waitangi and the underachievement of Maori children in New Zealand schools. It is set in the context of an action research project that sought to reveal student teachers' responses to this component of their degree programme. The authors describe how, as teacher educators, their teaching evolved in response to the research findings through three distinct phases.