Professor Smith is Pro Vice-Chancellor Maori at the University of Waikato, and Dean of the School of Maori and Pacific Development and a professor of Education and Maori Development. The first edition of this book has become a seminal text in indigenous studies. Her other publications canvass a wide range of academic disciplines. She has worked with a number of Maori scholars, most notably her husband Professor Graham Hingangaroa Smith. She has been President of the New Zealand Association for Research in Education, a Council and Chair of the Maori Health Committee, Chair of the Social Sciences Panel of the Marsden Council and member of the Constitutional Review Panel. She has also been active in establishing Maori educational initiatives from early childhood to higher education, was an inaugural co-Director of the Maori Research Centre of Excellence, Nga Pae o Te Maramatanga, and is currently the Director of the Te Kotahi Research Institute at the University of Waikato. Linda is a daughter, a sister and cousin, a mother and aunt and a grandmother in an extended family.