Russell Bishop is Emeritus Professor of Maori Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. He is well known for developing and directing Te Kotahitanga, a large New Zealand Ministry of Education-funded research and professional development project, from 2001 to 2012. This project demonstrated how teachers and other school leaders could improve the educational achievement of Maori students in mainstream classrooms by implementing a culturally responsive pedagogy of relations. Since his retirement from Waikato University, he has developed the notion of relational pedagogy and leadership further with Cognition Education in New Zealand, Australia and Canada. He is the author of seven books and approximately eighty other publications. He has delivered more than a hundred keynote addresses, nationally and internationally, has attracted approximately $32.5 million in research and development contract funding in recent years, and has won numerous awards for his work.
