Theoretical Perspectives on American Indian Education: Taking a New Look at Academic Success and the Achievement Gap 9780759119918, 9780759119932, 2010018679

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THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON AMERICAN INDIAN EDUCATION

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CONTEMPORARY NATIVE AMERICAN COMMUNITIES Stepping Stones to the Seventh Generation

Acknowledging the strength and vibrancy of Native American people and nations today, this series examines life in contemporary Native American communities from the point of view of Native concerns and values. Books in the series cover topics that are of cultural and political importance to tribal peoples and that affect their possibilities for survival, in both urban and rural communities. SERIES EDITORS: Troy Johnson, American Indian Studies, California State University, Long Beach Duane Champagne, Native Nations Law and Policy Center, University of California, Los Angeles RECENT BOOKS IN THE SERIES Alaska Native Political Leadership and Higher Education: One University, Two Universes, by Michael Jennings (2004) Indigenous Intellectual Property Rights: Legal Obstacles and Innovative Solutions, edited by Mary Riley (2004) Healing and Mental Health for Native Americans: Speaking in Red, edited by Ethan Nebelkopf and Mary Phillips (2004) Rachel’s Children: Stories from a Contemporary Native American Woman, by Lois Beardslee (2004) Reading Native American Women: Critical/Creative Representation, edited by Inés HernándezAvila (2005) Indigenous Peoples and the Modern State, edited by Duane Champagne, Karen Jo Torjesen, and Susan Steiner (2005) A Broken Flute: The Native Experience in Books for Children, edited by Doris Seale and Beverly Slapin (2005) Native Americans in the School System: Family, Community, and Academic Achievement, by Carol J. Ward (2005) Cultural Representation in Native America, edited by Andrew Jolivette (2006) Indigenous Education and Empowerment: International Perspectives, by Ismael Abu-Saad and Duane Champagne (2006) American Indian Nations: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, edited by George Horse Capture, Duane Champagne, and Chandler C. Jackson (2007) Social Change and Cultural Continuity among Native Nations, by Duane Champagne (2007) Drinking and Sobriety among the Lakota Sioux, by Beatrice Medicine (2007) Not Far Away: The Real-life Adventures of Ima Pipiig, by Lois Beardslee (2007) Notes from the Center of Turtle Island, by Duane Champagne (2010) Theoretical Perspectives on American Indian Education: Taking a New Look at Academic Success and the Achievement Gap, by Terry Huffman (2010) EDITORIAL BOARD Jose Barreiro (Taino Nation Antilles), Cornell University; Russell Barsh, University of Lethbridge; Brian Dippie, University of Victoria; Lee Francis (Pueblo), University of New Mexico; Carole Goldberg, University of California, Los Angeles; Lorie Graham (Blackfeet), Harvard Law School; Jennie Joe (Navajo), University of Arizona; Steven Leuthold, Syracuse University; Nancy Marie Mithlo (Chiricahua Apache), Institute of American Indian Arts; J. Anthony Paredes, Florida State University; Dennis Peck, University of Alabama; Luana Ross (Confederated Salish and Kootenai), University of California, Davis

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THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON AMERICAN INDIAN EDUCATION Taking a New Look at Academic Success and the Achievement Gap Terry Huffman

A Division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Lanham • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

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Published by AltaMira Press A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 http://www.altamirapress.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2010 by AltaMira Press All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Huffman, Terry E., 1958Theoretical perspectives on American Indian education : taking a new look at academic success and the achievement gap / Terry Huffman. p. cm. — (Contemporary Native American communities) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-7591-1991-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7591-1993-2 (electronic) 1. Indians of North America—Education—Philosophy. 2. Indians of North America—Education—History. 3. Indians of North America—Education. I. Title. E97.H795 2010 371.829’97--dc22 2010018679

 ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

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This book is dedicated to my mother, Lola Huffman, and to the memory of my father, Darrell Huffman (1931–2009), and my sister, Della Huffman Peck (1956–2010).

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Contents

Preface

xi

Acknowledgments

xv

1

American Indian Education Scholarship The Beginning of a Disciplinary Tradition Nature of Scholarly Theory Theory and Education Scholarship Emergence of American Indian Education Theory Themes in American Indian Education Theoretical Perspectives About the Theoretical Perspectives The Enduring Concern: Educational Success Suggested Reading

1 1 3 4 10

Cultural Discontinuity Theory Overview of Cultural Discontinuity Theory Intellectual History of Cultural Discontinuity Theory The Premise of Cultural Discontinuity Theory Cultural Discontinuity Theoretical Assumptions on American Indian Education Implications of Cultural Discontinuity Theory Criticisms of Cultural Discontinuity Theory

19 19 20 23

2

10 12 16 17

24 33 39

vii

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viii / Contents

Discussion on the Reading Suggested Reading Reading 1 Teachers’ Cultural Knowledge and Understanding of American Indian Students and Their Families by Lawrence Ingalls, Helen Hammond, Errol Dupoux, and Rosalinda Baeza 3

Structural Inequality Theory Overview of Structural Inequality Theory Intellectual History of Structural Inequality Theory The Premise of Structural Inequality Theory Structural Inequality Theoretical Assumptions on American Indian Education Implications of Structural Inequality Theory Criticisms of Structural Inequality Theory Discussion on the Reading Suggested Reading

Reading 2 Constructing Failure and Maintaining Cultural Identity: Navajo and Ute School Leavers by Donna Deyhle 4

Interactionalist Theory Overview of Interactionalist Theory Intellectual History of Interactionalist Theory The Premise of Interactionalist Theory Interactionalist Theoretical Assumptions on American Indian Education Implications of Interactionalist Theory Criticisms of Interactionalist Theory Discussion on the Reading Suggested Reading

Reading 3 Ethnicity and the Concept of Social Integration in Tinto’s Model of Institutional Departure by Edward Murguiá, Raymond V. Padilla, and CHiXapkaid (Michael Pavel)

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42 43

45 63 63 64 72 73 87 91 93 94

97 121 121 122 128 130 142 147 149 150

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Contents / ix

5

Transculturation Theory Overview of Transculturation Theory Intellectual History of Transculturation Theory The Premise of Transculturation Theory Transculturation Theoretical Assumptions on American Indian Education Implications of Transculturation Theory Criticisms of Transculturation Theory Discussion on the Reading Suggested Reading

163 163 164 169 171 179 184 186 187

Reading 4 Transculturation Theory as an Explanation for College Persistence among Culturally Traditional American Indian Students by Terry Huffman

189

6

207

Continuing the Tradition New Directions/Old Issues in American Indian Education Indigenous-Generated Perspectives Decolonization Theories and Methods Family Education Model Medicine Wheel Culturally Intrinsic Research Paradigm Model The Need for Theory in American Indian Education Suggested Reading

207 208 208 219 227 230 232

References

233

Index

251

About the Author

261

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Preface

It is said the book a person writes is the one he/she wants to read. I suppose that is the case with this book. After over twentyfive years engaged in American Indian education, I have often wanted to have a single work that included an overview of the most prominent perspectives in the field. Thus, this volume grew out of the desire to articulate the established theoretical perspectives on American Indian education. Specific treatment includes an examination of cultural discontinuity theory, structural inequality theory, interactionalist theory, and transculturation theory. Through an examination of the literature produced over the last forty years, I describe each theoretical perspective along four dimensions. First, the basic premise of each theoretical perspective is identified. The premise establishes the essential view of social and educational phenomena held by theorists working from each framework. Second, the fundamental assumptions on American Indian education as articulated in the literature are discussed. Third, I try to delineate the prominent pedagogical and/or policy implications associated with each perspective. Again, the existing literature serves as the basis for these discussions. Finally, important criticism of each framework as presented in the literature is offered to the reader. Several notes on the approach of this book are necessary. The first relates to the focus of the book. I believe there are two xi

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general camps in Native education studies. There are those who take a “globalized” perspective and attempt to weave Indigenous peoples around the world together with an emphasis on shared experiences and challenges. For this camp, Native education studies include Indigenous peoples around the world. Yet, there is another camp that emphasizes the uniqueness of American Indian experiences and challenges. Both of these camps have merits and certainly have and will continue to contribute important scholarship. While some may disagree with the approach taken in this book, I have elected to focus exclusively on American Indian educational issues. This is not to diminish the importance of the global perspective on Indigenous education; merely, it reflects the desire to concentrate exclusively on the scholarship related to American Indian education. Thus, this delimitation allows for a more concentrated examination of the literature associated with American Indian education in particular rather than Indigenous education in general. Second, it is important to note that I attempt to trace the development of the four theoretical perspectives firmly established in American Indian education. These perspectives are of rather recent vintage, yet they are also clearly identifiable in the scholarly literature. Together they span from the 1970s to today. As such, I have included a review of the literature throughout that time frame. The reader will quickly notice that I do not limit my discussion to current literature alone. It is necessary to examine the research published in the last forty years or so in order to gain an appreciation of the evolution of the themes, issues, and concepts important to scholars as each theoretical perspective initially emerged and subsequently took shape in American Indian education studies. Third, the readings were selected because they reflect the manner in which the authors use a particular theoretical perspective to guide their research and explain their findings. Thus, the readings are intended to illustrate how each theoretical perspective is found and used in American Indian education studies. Like the literature reviewed in this book, the articles too span several decades of work in the field. All the articles have been edited for length, and the titles of several have been slightly

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altered to reflect the nature of the reading. A full citation, including the complete original title of the article, is provided with each featured reading. Fourth, the book concludes with a consideration of current theoretical trends in American Indian education. Specific in this regard is an examination of Indigenous-generated theoretical perspectives. These theoretical perspectives are not treated in individual chapters as they are extremely new and related research is just now emerging. As such, it was not possible to examine the four dimensions (premise, assumptions on American Indian education, implications, and criticisms) of these emerging theoretical perspectives in the same manner as the slightly older and more established theories. A book specifically on Indigenous-generated theoretical perspectives may be several years away. However, when that time comes, such a volume will make an extremely important contribution. Theories, by their very nature, are dynamic. They emerge, evolve, are modified, and frequently disappear as they are replaced by new perspectives. In this regard, American Indian education theoretical perspectives are no different. I have elected not to include one theoretical perspective in this volume that was at one time firmly established in the American Indian education literature. That theoretical perspective is frequently referred to as cultural deprivation theory. The cultural deprivation perspective generally regards Native peoples as suffering from cultural deficiencies that render them disadvantaged in mainstream education. This perspective is found from the first scholarly attempts in American Indian education up until certainly the 1980s. It is an essentially assimilationist model of education that overtly advocates cultural assimilation as the solution to educational difficulties. Today, most scholars recognize the inaccuracies of the cultural deprivation theoretical perspective. Indeed, research revealing the fallacies of the basic premise and assumptions of this theory is mounting higher and higher. As such, cultural deprivation theory is an example of a theoretical perspective that was widely held and used by a generation of scholars but has since been largely rejected. In its wake, the four theoretical

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perspectives treated in this book emerged. In many respects, the four theoretical perspectives treated in this book were attempts to answer cultural deprivation theory. Certainly this is the case for cultural discontinuity theory and transculturation theory. It is hard to predict the longevity of the theoretical perspectives included here. They may endure for many more years or, like cultural deprivation theory, they may be replaced relatively quickly. Whatever the case may be, the intellectual growth of the last four decades (as evidenced by the appearance of these four theoretical perspectives) provides a solid scholarly foundation for American Indian education studies. Today we find there is a great deal of vitality in the field. Scholars from a variety of disciplines lend differing and rich perspectives to American Indian education studies. New generations of researchers and theorists, almost entirely Native scholars, are adding fresh voices and much-needed views. It is safe to say that for American Indian education studies as an academic field of scholarship, the best is yet to come.

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Acknowledgments

A number of people assisted in the completion of this book. I appreciate the support rendered in both small and large ways by my colleagues at George Fox University—Scot Headley, Linda Samek, and Gerald Tiffin. There are too many George Fox University graduate students to mention who have contributed to the ideas that have gone into this work. Mostly their contributions have come as a result of class and informal discussions on the theoretical approaches found in educational studies in general and American Indian education in particular. And of course, I must recognize the appreciation I have for my family’s patience during the many hours of work in the writing of the book. I appreciate the cooperation of the publishers of the articles featured as readings. Specifically, the assistance of Bryan Brayboy and Teresa McCarty, editors of the Journal of American Indian Education; Vernon Wall, director of Educational Programs and Publications of the American College Personnel Association; and Belva Collins, executive editor of the Rural Special Education Quarterly, is especially appreciated. Also I want to recognize the good work of the authors of the featured readings. I thank them for the tremendous efforts and dedication to Native education.

xv

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I am especially grateful for the guidance of Jack Meinhardt, Elaine McGarraugh, and Marissa Parks at AltaMira Press as the book progressed though the publication process. Also I want to thank the reviewers who offered valuable insights through their comments and critiques. There is no doubt in my mind that they have made this book much better than it would have been otherwise.

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1 American Indian Education Scholarship

The Beginning of a Disciplinary Tradition In 1959 Irving W. Scott and G. D. McGrath founded the Center for Indian Education at Arizona State University (Trujillo & Shepherd, 1999). Two years later scholars working out of the center established the Journal of American Indian Education. Since that time this journal has continuously published scholarship on American Indigenous educational issues. The creation of both the Center for Indian Education and the Journal of American Indian Education represent critical events in the evolution of Native education scholarship and mark the beginning of what has become a recognized and significant area of educational studies. For five decades the field of American Indian education studies has matured and attracted scholars from a variety of academic disciplines. Few can doubt the continued vitality of Native educational studies. Each year hundreds of researchers and educational practitioners attend the National American Indian Education conference. Notable scholars such as Bryan Brayboy, Duane Champagne, the late Vine Deloria, Donna Deyhle, Jack Forbes, Jon Reyhner, and Karen Swisher have made significant contributions. The result has been an impressive array of scholarship. Moreover, there have emerged a number of important theoretical perspectives found in American Indian education studies. 1

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Unfortunately, many of these theories have been presented in a rather unsystematic fashion. Largely because they derive from differing academic fields and are specific to a variety of educational issues, existing theoretical efforts appear in the literature in an assortment of forms. Additionally, even what is essentially the same theoretical perspective is frequently referred to by differing labels (Champagne, 2007). The result is that much of the theories on American Indian education appears disjointed, inconsistent, and too frequently not particularly useful to many educational professionals (St. Germaine, 1995). This book presents four of the most prominent theories found in American Indian educational studies. The purpose is to bring together theoretical perspectives from different academic fields into one discussion to allow a consideration on the nature, basic premise, and assumptions of each theory and to construct a uniform treatment. Thus, this book focuses on several features of these theories. First, the historical evolution of the various theoretical perspectives is examined and a consistent label is provided to each one. Included in this examination is an identification and discussion on the more notable scholars who have contributed to the development of each theory itself. Second, the book identifies the basic premise of each theoretical perspective, including an articulation of the essential image the framework holds on the nature of social/educational phenomena. Third, the fundamental assumptions relevant to American Indian education within the individual frameworks are outlined. Fourth, the book discusses the implications connected to the perspectives. Finally, this treatment addresses the major criticisms associated with each of the theoretical perspectives. Before beginning an examination on the specific theories found in American Indian education studies, it is important to consider the nature of scholarly theory in research. By their very nature theories are abstract and complex, and many educational practitioners, students, and beginning researchers find them to be a challenge. However, theories can, and indeed should, bring clarity of meaning to everyday phenomena. In essence, theories help us to interpret and understand the world.

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Nature of Scholarly Theory Despite what television lawyers proclaim, facts do not speak for themselves. The research process of systematically collecting and analyzing data culminates in the presentation of findings. However, researchers must explain the findings of their investigative efforts. Further, these findings must be articulated in a logical and consistent fashion. Scholarly theories provide those explanations. Thus, an uncomplicated (but not incorrect) way of thinking about theories is that a theory is an explanation of research findings. Scholarly theories have two essential components. First, scholars engage in the process of theorizing about how the social world operates. They consider specific phenomena as revealed by the findings of systematic research investigation and construct appropriate explanations. Second, from the initial theorizing, scholars proceed to establish greater and more elaborate explanations and present them for others to consider. This part of their work requires that scholars identify the basic image of social reality, elaborate on the associated assumptions, and provide an appropriate label to their explanations. In effect, theory in academic scholarship involves both a process (theorizing about important, albeit specific, phenomena) and a product (creating a specific and ongoing theoretical perspective to explain related phenomena). By combining these two efforts, scholars construct a number of recognizable theoretical perspectives. As such, a theoretical perspective can be defined as an intellectual framework containing a basic image of social life and associated assumptions that serve to integrate research findings in order to render meaning and guide explanations. Once a theoretical perspective is established, other scholars critically examine the merits of the theory through extended research investigation. If the assumptions embodied in the theoretical perspective seem to adequately account for research findings, the theory has served its basic purpose—it has provided a reasonable and logical explanation. If, on the other hand, it only partially explains research findings, modifications to the theoretical perspective are necessary. If the theory fails to account for enough research findings or subsequent investigation reveals

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flaws in the explanative power of the perspective, new theoretical directions become necessary. Essentially, theories are guidelines that help frame understanding, and scholars must continuously critically evaluate and modify them. A number of theories remain useful for long periods of time. Other theories, however, have surprisingly short lives until they are abandoned as new insights and understandings replace them. In the end, theories are critical to the scientific enterprise. It is through the development and presentation of theories that scholars account for their findings and, thus, interpret the world. In fact, the very goal of science is to generate theories (Collins, 1989; Turner, 1991).

Theory and Education Scholarship There is an important difference between what are generally referred to as basic disciplines and applied disciplines in relation to theory. The primary purpose of basic disciplines, such as anthropology or sociology, is to gain insight and knowledge about the social world and human behavior. The thrust of basic disciplines is to advance human knowledge. As such, basic disciplines place a great deal of emphasis on generating theory (Larson, 1993; Nafstad, 1982; Sullivan, 1992). For applied disciplines, such as social work or public administration, the focus is on the application of insight and knowledge. These fields frequently use the knowledge produced by basic disciplines to solve immediate problems. Thus, traditionally applied disciplines place a lower emphasis on creating new theory (Feuer, Towne, & Shavelson, 2002; Thyer, 2001). The fact that education has elements of both basic disciplines and applied disciplines has significant consequences for educational research and theory. Perhaps most obvious is while educational scholars have created theory in their own right, they have also relied heavily on theory found in other academic disciplines to guide research and account for their findings (Bridges, 2006). The result is that the theory found in the educational literature comes from a number of academic fields and focuses on a wide variety of conceptual issues and levels of analysis. Unfortunately, this fact

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makes much of the theory found in the educational literature appear disjointed and confusing (Mackenzie & Knipe, 2006). Indeed, due to the reliance on an assortment of disciplinary theoretical perspectives, frequently educational scholars do not necessarily even agree on the meaning of fundamental concepts (Berliner, 2002). Nevertheless, theories are critical to the research enterprise. To do research requires that scholars engage in theorizing at some level by providing explanations for the findings of their investigation. However, there are more to theories than merely declaring them explanations. Theories must be logical, structured, and consistent. Thus, there are important components to theories. Specifically, in this regard, theories possess an intellectual history, a basic premise, and essential assumptions. Together these components allow theories to serve their primary purpose. Theories provide a perspective, an image of reality that serves to guide what questions a researcher should be asking and how to explain what he/she has discovered. Intellectual History It seems obvious enough to say, but all scientific theories derive from somewhere. That is, all theories possess an intellectual history. Typically, this means theories develop from a particular intellectual, social, and political climate when certain issues are especially compelling and relevant. In this sense, theories tend to reflect the prevailing cultural sentiments of their origins. By contemporary standards, some older and at one time respected theories appear not only archaic but also outlandishly incorrect, odd, or even silly. It was not that long ago in social history criminologists accepted phrenology as an explanation for the tendency toward criminal behavior. According to this theoretical perspective, criminal conduct is associated with the size, shape, and contours of the head (Rafter, 1997). As peculiar as this theory seems to us today, lest we forget, it did serve an important purpose. Phrenology served as an intellectual vehicle to advance understanding. It offered a systematic framework to analyze criminal behavior. In so doing, phrenology allowed researchers to build up greater understanding until it was replaced by other explanations.

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The fact that theories have an intellectual and cultural context is especially important when we assess the nature of educational theories. American education is and always has been decidedly politicized and subject to a variety of social agendas (Apple, 1996). Strong political forces bearing on the institution of education heavily influence the manner in which educational researchers have understood the findings of their work (DeBray, 2006). Indeed, social and political concerns have even driven what issues educational scholars deem to be important and select as worthy of scholarly attention (Henig, 2008). Thus, educational research and theories are highly susceptible to political and social conditions (Shapiro & Purpel, 2005). It is even more critical to consider the political and cultural context of specific theories employed in American Indian education studies. Native peoples have been subjected to an array of federal and state policies. The institution of education in particular has been frequently used as a means to implement federal policy directives. Indeed, this is true whether those directives included assimilation or self-determination policies (Deloria & Wildcat, 2001; Wilkinson, 2005). Premise Theories rest upon a fundamental assertion. The premise identifies the manner in which the theory regards the essential nature of social phenomena and renders an image of social reality for the theorist. Thought of in this way, theories provide a perspective or a point of view. Some scholars have referred to this dimension of theories as a paradigm, a fundamental image of the subject matter (Ritzer, 1975). Whatever its label, by offering a perspective on social life, the basic premise of a theory allows scholars to make sense of the world. Working from an established basic premise, theories frame our understanding and render a sense of structure and coherence to our explanations. In essence, the basic premise establishes the foundation upon which a theoretical perspective is erected. Moreover, theories cannot possibly provide a perspective on all of social reality. The world is far too rich and complex for that.

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As a result, scholarly theories concentrate on a specific aspect of social reality. We tend to think of theories as being either macrolevel theories or microlevel theories (Giddens, 1976). Macrolevel theories focus on large-scale social phenomena. It is the general assumption of these theories that historically created social, political, and economic conditions are powerful influences on the social behavior of individuals (Collins, 1988; Turner, 1998). Indeed, social behavior can only be understood in relation to these larger social forces. Thus, these types of theories examine the impact social history and socioeconomic circumstances have on the lives of individuals (Ritzer, 1992). Microlevel theories, on the other hand, focus on small-scale social phenomena. These theories concentrate on the character and meaning of social interaction (Charon, 2001). Here the assertion is that individuals create social reality and, thus, it is necessary to investigate the nature of constructed and shared experiences (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Goffman, 1959). Typical of such treatments is attention on social exchanges between individuals and the analysis of the personal experiences and perceptions individuals report. Fundamental Assumptions Once a theoretical perspective is established, theorists proceed to develop supporting assertions upon its basic premise. Typically, this means theorists must identify important assumptions of the theory. Assumptions are ideas about how phenomena are connected. For instance, the conceptual notion that higher levels of self-esteem are associated with higher rates of academic achievement among school children is an assumption. However, assumptions are more than statements of relationship between phenomena. Theoretical assumptions also need to be consistent with the basic premise of a theoretical perspective itself. Whatever the fundamental image of social reality held forth by the premise of a theory, the assumptions must reflect and expand on that image. Thus, assumptions are notions about how phenomena are connected and serve to elaborate on the foundation provided by the basic premise of the theoretical perspective.

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Important to theoretical assumptions is the role of concepts. Sometimes referred to as the “building blocks” of theory, concepts help to identify the most important phenomena for a theoretical perspective and establish their essential meanings (Turner, 1991). Concepts are abstract constructs that attempt to capture the important characteristics of phenomenon. Abstractions such as alienation, cultural conflict, cultural discontinuity, and transculturation mean a variety of things to different individuals. However, developing theoretical understanding, including the assumptions as to how such phenomena are connected, require that theorists specify and clarify their centrally important ideas. Moreover, theorists must conceptualize key abstract notions in a systematic, consistent fashion. Thus, it is critical that before scholars articulate fundamental assumptions of a theoretical perspective, they identify its most important concepts and develop specific definitions for each of these ideas. Regarding the role of concepts to theory, Jonathan Turner (1991) observes: Theories are built from concepts. Most generally, concepts denote phenomena; in so doing, they isolate features of the world that are considered, for the moment at hand, important . . . Each term is a concept that embraces aspects of the social world that are considered essential for a particular purpose . . . Thus, concepts that are useful in building theory have a special characteristic: they strive to communicate a uniform meaning to all those who use them. (pp. 4–5)

In essence, theoretical perspectives are arguments about how phenomena are associated and, thus, can be explained. Theories present a basic premise regarding the nature of social reality and articulate fundamental assumptions about the relationships between important abstract concepts. Taken together they offer a guideline for the explanation of research findings (Giddens, 1979). As Jonathan Turner suggests, “theories are stories about how and why events occur” (1998, p. 1). Criticisms of Theories Theories do not represent final explanations. They are not statements of ultimate truth. Rather, they outline prevailing no-

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tions on how social phenomena operate. Thus, theories are best understood as intellectual guidelines that enable us to perceive and interpret the world for a time until they are replaced by new insights and improved explanations. It has been suggested that the usefulness of theories is more important than whether or not they are true (Burr, 1995). While this statement may be troubling to some, in it is much wisdom. If we accept that theories are temporary frameworks enabling us to intellectually account for phenomena, then we understand their true role. The primary purpose of theories is not to provide ultimate truth but to offer a means to explain and make sense of our present observations. Thus, theories are vehicles used to achieve understanding and derive conclusions. They are useful to us in the immediate but will certainly be modified or even abandoned as they lead us to new knowledge and understandings. Moreover, there are multiple ways of explaining the same phenomena. Because no one theory can lay claim to definitive truth, an important, albeit often overlooked, component of theories is its associated criticisms. Theories must be critically evaluated (Bell, 2008). The ultimate expression of this type of critical examination is found in what are known as competing theories. Simply put, competing theories are theoretical perspectives that explain the same phenomena in sharply contrasting and even contradictory ways. For instance, structural-functionalist theory and social conflict theory in sociology can be regarded as competing theories. However, competing theories generally only appear in academic disciplines that have achieved relative maturity in their historical development. In a field like American Indian educational studies, many scholars work from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and theoretical traditions. There has been little opportunity for truly competing theories to emerge. As a result, it is important to consider the nature of the criticisms leveled at specific theoretical perspectives rather than considering the intricacies of competing theories. However, it is also important to be clear about the purpose of the criticisms of scholarly theories. The purpose is to sharpen intellectual thought. That is, criticisms are intended to refine scholarly thinking and evaluate the utility of the explanations offered by theories.

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Emergence of American Indian Education Theory There are two general ways of thinking about theories in American Indian education studies. First, we can consider the intellectual source of the theoretical perspectives. Many theories have developed from scholarly efforts investigating educational issues among a variety of groups and not specifically Native peoples. With time these theories have been applied to American Indian educational research efforts. Additionally, there are theories distinct to Native educational issues. However, much of these theories are of relatively recent vintage. Indeed, American Indian education studies have produced little theory unique to Native educational issues (Huffman, 2008). Second, theoretical perspectives also vary according to the educational level of the Native students of concern to the scholar. Here the distinction is simple enough. Some scholars have focused their attention on the educational experiences of primary and secondary students. Much of the theory, particularly those that originally developed with scholarship on other cultural groups and later applied to Native students, has come from research on preK– 12 students. Other scholars have concentrated on the academic life among American Indian college students. Distinct theoretical perspectives have emerged from both efforts. However, it is important to note that while these various theoretical perspectives have developed from work with specific types of students, they have tremendous application across the educational spectrum. In other words, theoretical perspectives primarily used to explain the educational experiences of college students often have great applicability to precollege students, and vice versa.

Themes in American Indian Education Theoretical Perspectives Whatever their origin, prevailing theories found in American Indian education studies reflect the issues of concern to scholars. An examination of the literature reveals that American Indian

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educational scholarship has tended to concentrate on three general themes. The first theme surrounds barriers external of the individual that serve to inhibit a successful academic career. In this regard, scholars have documented a myriad of troublesome obstacles facing Native students. Among these impediments are poverty or related financial difficulties (Falk & Aitken, 1984; McAfee, 1997) and inadequate academic preparation (Pavel, Skinner, Farris, Cahalan, Tippeconnic, & Stein, 1998). Whatever the particular focus happens to be, these scholarly treatments emphasize barriers to education advancement to which students have limited or no control. Curiously, these efforts have produced little systematic theories. The second theme centers on factors inhibiting greater educational persistence internal to American Indian students themselves. Here scholars have identified anything from an alleged lack of achievement motivation (Bryde, 1971), substance abuse (Barnhardt, 1994), to low self-esteem (Sanders, 1987) as serving to prevent greater educational persistence. The commonality among these works is the attention on the personal and social psychological characteristics of the individual. Frequently scholars have employed theories to account for their findings. However, these efforts have not produced specific and narrow theoretical treatments. Typically, scholars with this research focus have borrowed from larger and more general theoretical perspectives found within academic disciplines (Cajete, 2006; Herring, 1992). For example, social cognitive theory from the discipline of psychology has been used to explain the nature of substance use (Mitchell & Plunkett, 2000) and self-esteem issues (Halpin, Halpin, & Whiddon, 1981) among Native adolescents. The third theme has likely produced the most scholarly activity. This theme relates to the way in which Native students experience educational institutions. The issue for scholars working within this theme is to better understand the manner in which Native students perceive and interpret their educational experiences. Most of the more developed theory derives from these efforts. In fact, the four theories presented in this book have emerged around this general theme. Indeed, scholars who examine the educational experiences among American Indian students tend to center their work on four considerations.

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Largely for that reason, four specific theories in American Indian education studies have emerged. The first of these considerations include scholarly efforts that examine the complexities associated with cultural conflict (Sanders, 1987; Van Hamme, 1996). Common among these theoretical efforts is the question of how cultural incongruence between the home life of Native students and the formal educational setting influences the academic experience. These efforts have led to the evolution of a theoretical perspective typically referred to as cultural discontinuity theory. Second, researchers have identified how historically created social inequalities result in inherently disadvantaged educational experiences for Native students (Deloria & Wildcat, 2001; Wilkinson, 2005). Interestingly, these scholars have simultaneously identified prevailing sociohistorical conditions that the individual cannot possibly control while exploring the manner in which students perceive and experience their educational endeavors (Deyhle, 1994). In this book, these theoretical efforts are labeled structural inequality theory. Third, a number of scholars have explored the nature of the transition from home and/or community to that of the formal educational institution (Pavel & Padilla, 1993; Taylor, 2005). Typical of these theoretical considerations is the notion that individuals proceed through a series of stages in the adjustment from the informal community of home to the formal community of school. This theoretical perspective too is known by a variety of names but is commonly referred to as interactionalist theory. Finally, there are those who investigate the relationship between cultural identity and heritage and the academic efforts of Native students (Huffman, 2008; White Shield, 2009). In sharp contrast to much of the thinking of the past, these scholars contend that a strong cultural identity and adherence to cultural traditionalism are facilitating factors to educational attainment among American Indian students. This newer theoretical approach is known as transculturation theory.

About the Theoretical Perspectives The four theoretical perspectives treated in this book have largely developed within a forty-year time frame. Cultural discontinuity

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was the first to appear beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s, while transculturation is the latest to emerge in the mid-1980s. As such, they represent the rapidly maturing nature of American Indian education studies. This book not only presents the most prominent theoretical perspectives on American Indian education from the past forty years but also traces their evolution. Thus, the use of the literature spanning the last four decades is necessary to develop that understanding. As will be discussed in greater detail, while these various theoretical perspectives share the attempt to answer a similar question, they also contain a number of important distinctions in terms of their level of analysis, primary focus, and theoretical theme (table 1.1). Level of Analysis As discussed earlier, theories are typically considered to be either macrolevel, focused on large-scale social phenomena such as the social arrangements of society itself, or microlevel, focused on small-scale phenomena such as the personal interaction between individuals. The notion that theories emphasize differing aspects of social life is referred to as its level of analysis. That is, level of analysis is the primary focus on either macrolevel social phenomena or microlevel social phenomena typical for a specific theoretical perspective. Simply put, some theories are better suited to explain large-scale social phenomena. The basic premise and their associated fundamental assumptions are deliberately constructed to account for issues at a more sweeping level of social life. These Table 1.1.

Theoretical Perspectives on American Indian Education

Theoretical Perspective

Level of Analysis

Primary Focus

Theoretical Theme

Cultural Discontinuity Theory

Microlevel

Precollege students

Cultural incongruence

Structural Inequality Theory

Macrolevel

Both precollege and college students

Social inequality

Interactionalist Theory

Microlevel

College students

Community transition/college integration

Transculturation Theory

Microlevel

College students

Cultural identity

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types of theories are known as macrolevel theories. Conversely, the basic premise and fundamental assumptions of other theories are specifically crafted to explain issues related to the personal exchanges among people, the perceptions individuals hold regarding their circumstances, and the nature of personal attitudes. These theories are known as microlevel theories. Both types of theories are found in American Indian education studies. However, American Indian educational scholars have tended to focus more on microlevel issues than they have on macrolevel ones. In fact, of the four theoretical perspectives treated in this book, only one, structural inequality theory, takes a macrolevel approach to the issues and challenges confronting Native education. The other three frameworks, cultural discontinuity theory, interactionalist theory, and transculturation theory, are fundamentally microlevel theories and emphasize personal interactions and perceptions in their treatment of American Indian education issues and challenges. Primary Focus Theorists working from each of the four theories found in this book tend to focus on different educational levels. For instance, cultural discontinuity theory was first applied as an explanative tool to account for the school experiences of elementary and secondary Native students. Only later was this perspective used to explain the academic encounters of American Indian college students. Moreover, cultural discontinuity theory is still primarily used in scholarly investigations on precollege Native education and only lesser so in research examining American Indian higher education. As such, the author contends that the primary focus of cultural discontinuity theory is on precollege American Indian education. In contrast to cultural discontinuity theory, both interactionalist theory and transculturation theory have primarily focused on the nature of the higher educational experiences of American Indian students. In fact, both of these theories originally developed as frameworks to account for college experiences. As of yet, interactionalist theory and transculturation theory have not been widely used to explain research findings related to precol-

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lege education. Indeed, interactionalist theory is specifically designed to explain collegiate experiences of students and holds little applicability to elementary and secondary education. Thus, the primary focus of interactionalist theory and transculturation theory is on American Indian higher education. Structural inequality theory, however, has been frequently used in research investigations into both American Indian precollege and college issues. While originally this perspective developed to account for the lack of academic achievement among precollege minorities, its application to higher education was quickly recognized. As used by American Indian education scholars, structural inequality theory is used equally to explore elementary, secondary, and postsecondary Native educational issues. Theoretical Theme It is relatively easy to identify the prevailing theoretical theme for each of the four theoretical perspectives. The theme is prominently found in the basic premise and fundamental assumptions of the individual framework. These four themes will be treated in detail in subsequent chapters. However, for now it is important to acknowledge the primary theme for each of these theories. Cultural discontinuity theorists emphasize the importance of cultural incongruence in impacting the education of Native students. For these scholars a lack of cultural alignment between the dominant culture of the mainstream society and the kinds of cultures found among American Indian peoples is fundamental to academic challenges. The primary theme found in structural inequality theory is the social disparity found pervasively in society is also duplicated in the educational system. This fundamental inequality ultimately works to frustrate American Indian education. Interactionalist theory emphasizes the nature of the transition among different types of communities necessitated by proceeding through the higher educational system and the subsequent level of integration into the academic and social setting of the institution. For these scholars, greater difficulty in the transition typically results in lower levels of integration into college, which means educational achievement will suffer. Finally, transculturation theorists accentuate the importance of strong cultural identity and heritage

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in the educational experience of Native students. Specifically, the theoretical theme regards the employment of an established personal cultural identity as instrumental in successfully navigating the demands of mainstream dominated education.

The Enduring Concern: Educational Success The one persistent commonality in the American Indian education literature is the concern over the lack of educational achievement among Native students. There is certainly recent encouraging progress. During the 1990s, the high school graduation rate for American Indian and Alaskan Natives increased from 56 percent to 66 percent (Pavel et al., 1998). For the first time in U.S. history the median average years of schooling for Native peoples increased to above twelve years (Ward, 2005). These successes were also reflected in positive developments in higher education. The rate of American Indians attending colleges and universities has grown impressively (Cole & Denzine, 2002). During the last two decades, college enrollment among American Indians increased by 68 percent compared to the 30 percent increase among non-Native peoples (Pavel et al., 1998). Some have suggested, however, the recent positive developments only serve to underscore the dismal state of education among America’s original people (Tippeconnic, 2000). The educational situation for Native students is improving, but the reality is it could not have gotten much worse. There remains great need. Dean Chavers (2000) claims that in the early part of this century we find that nearly half of Native students drop out of high school. Less than 20 percent of American Indian high school graduates enroll in higher education institutions. Moreover, Chavers contends that among those who do go on for higher education, about 80 percent never graduate from college. Thus, notwithstanding positive trends, perplexing difficulties continue to exist. American Indian scholars have long lamented the enduring academic achievement gap between Native students and white students. A host of serious barriers inhibiting educational success face Native families and commu-

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nities (Huffman, 2001; 2008). The result is that American Indian students experience more problematic and negative educational outcomes than many of their non-Indian peers (St. Germaine, 1995). There is evidence demonstrating that American Indian children enter school behind African American, Latino, and white children in mathematics, reading, and general knowledge and remain behind in most areas throughout high school (Demmert, 2005). They display higher rates of behavioral problems in school than whites (Kerivan-Marks & Garcia-Coll, 2007). Researchers have even found that self-esteem decreases as the years of schooling increases among Native children (Dykeman, Nelson, & Appleton, 1995; Luftig, 1983; Mitchum, 1989). Consistently through the decades, American Indians have one of the highest high school dropout rates in the nation (Demmert, 2001). Sadly, the attrition from college is equally as gloomy (Benjamin, Chambers, & Reiterman, 1993; Demmert, 2001). Amid these concerns and these realities is the commonality binding together the various theoretical perspectives on American Indian education. These four theories emphasize dissimilar concepts and assumptions. They tend to focus on different levels of the educational experience. Indeed, as will be seen, they certainly come to contrasting conclusions. However, the question driving scholars working from each of the theoretical perspectives presented in this book is the same—why do American Indian peoples lag behind in academic achievement? It is a crucial question upon which various theorists tend to agree. It is with the answers they depart. Constructing solutions requires we understand the true nature of the problem. Moreover, a problem as complex as the nature of American Indian education requires a number of different points of view.

Suggested Reading Bridges, D. (2006). The disciplines and discipline of educational research. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 40(2), 259–272. Champagne, D. (2007). In search of theory and method in American Indian studies. American Indian Quarterly, 31(3), 353–372.

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Deloria, V. & Wildcat, D. (2001). Power and place: Indian education in America. Boulder, CO: Fulcrum Resources. Swisher, K. & Tippeconnic, J. (Eds.). (1999). Next steps: Research and practice to advance Indian education. Charleston, WV: ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools. Trujillo, O. & Shepherd, J. (1999). An enduring voice in American Indian education: The Arizona State University Center for Indian Education 1959–1999. Journal of American Indian Education, 38(3), 19–33.

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2 Cultural Discontinuity Theory

Overview of Cultural Discontinuity Theory Cultural discontinuity theory is likely the most recognized and well-developed theory found in American Indian education studies. As a theoretical perspective it began to take form in the 1970s, largely emerging from the work of educational anthropologists. During the ensuing decades it has been referred to by a variety of labels, including “cultural incongruence theory” (Tewell & Trubowitz, 1987), “cultural difference theory” (Jacob & Jordan, 1993), “cultural dissonance theory” (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995), and “communication process theory” (Erickson, 1987). However, since the mid-1990s this theoretical perspective has been generally referred to as cultural discontinuity theory (Au, 1993; Ledlow, 1992; St. Germaine, 1995). Whatever the specific name scholars use, cultural discontinuity theory is undoubtedly one of the most influential theoretical perspectives on American Indian education. Cultural discontinuity theory is more commonly applied to studies involving elementary and secondary students, although it has also been used to explain the academic experiences of Native college students (Lin, LaCounte, & Eder, 1988). The application of cultural discontinuity theory as an explanation for the problems besetting Native education has met with varied success. As a result, this theoretical perspective is not without 19

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its critics. Nevertheless, cultural discontinuity theory has proven its staying power, evolving through decades of application and refinement by scholars working from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds.

Intellectual History of Cultural Discontinuity Theory Over a century ago anthropologist Edgar Lee Hewett (1905) decried the failure of American schools to appreciate and respect the cultures of American Indian students. Central to Hewett’s criticism was the fact that American schools operated on a blatantly assimilationist agenda. He deemed the full-frontal assault on the cultures of American Indians as morally offensive as well as socially devastating. Fellow anthropologists Franz Boas (1928) and Bronislaw Malinowski (1936) voiced similar criticisms during the early half of the twentieth century. However, it would not be until the 1950s and 1960s that anthropologists and sociologists began to systematically examine American schools and classrooms as cultural settings and question many of the social scientific assumptions underpinning prevailing pedagogical practices and policy (Ogbu, 1982). Yet, this examination would take a rather circuitous route. The Culture of Poverty Hypothesis During the 1950s, anthropologist Oscar Lewis (1960) began to formulate the idea of a “culture of poverty.” The premise of Lewis’s culture of poverty hypothesis was simple enough. He argued that one generation tends to transmit poverty to the next. Moreover, Lewis contended the poor are predisposed to develop specific cultural patterns in the form of values, normative behaviors, and personal aspirations that are unique to living in impoverished conditions. Among these common traits are a sense of helplessness, strong notions of fatalism, a focus on immediate gratification rather than deferred gratification, feelings of inferiority, and a lack of trust in major social institutions. Taken together, these traits serve to create a culture of poverty.

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To a number of scholars the assumptions of the culture of poverty hypothesis seemed to conveniently fit together. A unique culture develops around the need to survive in stark, impoverished conditions. Internalizing this culture equips individuals to cope with their immediate conditions but makes them ill prepared to escape those circumstances by functioning in the mainstream society. The result is not only an evolution of a crippling culture of poverty common to a segment of society but also the creation of a cycle of poverty continuing from generation to generation. Thus, the culture of poverty hypothesis simultaneously explained both the presence of poverty in capitalist society as well as its perpetuation. The policy implications of the culture of poverty hypothesis seemed clear enough. Obviously, needed were efforts to break the cycle of poverty created by the culture of poverty itself. The culture of the poor needed to be dramatically changed. In short order, the culture of poverty hypothesis became an intellectual centerpiece in the War on Poverty policies of the Johnson administration (Jencks, 1993; Katz, 1990). Moreover, what institution, it was suggested, is better suited for the task of breaking the cycle of poverty by instilling new cultural imperatives among the poor than American schools (Etzioni, 1972)? Thus, schools and teachers found themselves on the front line of the war on poverty (Gans, 1995). Cultural Deprivation Theory and Educational Difficulties The culture of poverty hypothesis found a home in a larger theoretical perspective—cultural deprivation theory (also known as cultural deficit theory). Fueled by the culture of poverty hypothesis, many social scientists and educators began to advance the argument that the lack of educational achievement common among the poor (and especially poor minorities) was due to the fact they lacked an intellectually stimulating home environment (Bloom, Davis, & Hess, 1965). Many poor families hampered by the crushing weight of impoverished conditions, survival mentalities, and values developed around immediate needs rather than long-term goals were simply socially disadvantaged and failed to value education or provide the home learning environment necessary for academic success (Biber, 1967; Chafel, 1997; Crow, Murray, & Smythe, 1966).

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The explanation offered by cultural deprivation theory had another appeal. Educators and policy makers alike were content to contribute the reasons for academic failure outside the school (Erickson, 1987). Schools were not in need of change. Rather, it was the poor, particularly poor minorities, who required necessary changes (Gans, 1995). However, against this theoretical and political backdrop, many social scientists harshly criticized the ethnocentric logic found in cultural deprivation theory (Banfield, 1977; Ryan, 1976). Indeed, Frederick Erickson (1987) observes: As the anthropology of education became a distinct field in the mid-1960s, its members were generally appalled by the ethnocentrism of the cultural deficit explanation. It was not literally racist, in the sense of a genetic deficit explanation. Yet it seemed culturally biased. The poor were still being characterized invidiously as not only deprived but depraved. The cultural deficit explanation seemed especially reprehensive to many because its ethnocentrism was cloaked in the legitimacy of social science. (p. 335)

Largely as a response to cultural deprivation theory, cultural discontinuity theory emerged as an alternative model. Beginning with sociolinguistic anthropologists such as Dell Hymes (1974), scholars identified factors within educational institutions that serve to create serious barriers for minority students. For these scholars the lack of academic success among the poor and minority students was not due to culturally deficit conditions found in their homes. Rather, the difficulty was to be found in dissimilar (and often competing) communication styles between students and teachers (Erickson, 1987). This new theoretical direction began with the systematic analysis of the patterns of ordinary social interaction most people take for granted. Yet, these patterns involve complex communication in order to sustain even the most common social exchanges (Goffman, 1967). The total of these communication/interaction patterns is sometimes referred to as “invisible culture” (Erickson & Mohatt, 1982; Hymes, 1974; Philips, 1983). Ultimately, scholarship revealed the vast potential for miscommunication in ordinary social life. More importantly for educators, they also pointed out the enor-

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mous likelihood for misunderstanding when interaction involves cross-cultural communication (Spindler & Spindler, 1982). It did not take scholars long to apply the insights gained from sociolinguistics to the dynamics of the classroom (Cazden, Hymes, & John, 1972). From these specific efforts emerged a new theoretical perspective. Further, this fresh theoretical direction successfully challenged cultural deprivation theory as a viable explanation for lagging educational achievement rates among the poor and minorities (Erickson, 1987). This new perspective is now generally known as cultural discontinuity theory.

The Premise of Cultural Discontinuity Theory Kathryn Au (1993) relates “the theory of cultural discontinuity centers on a possible mismatch between the culture of the school and the culture of the home, which results in misunderstandings between teachers and students in the classroom” (p. 8). Similarly, Susan Ledlow (1992) observes “the cultural discontinuity hypothesis assumes that culturally based differences in the communication styles of the minority students’ home and the Anglo culture of the school lead to conflicts, misunderstandings, and ultimately, failure for those students” (p. 23). These two descriptions contain the basic premise of cultural discontinuity theory. Namely, cultural discontinuity theory asserts there is a disjunction between the traditional culture of American Indian homes and the mainstream culture of the classroom. Moreover, not only does a cultural incongruence between Native homes and mainstream classrooms exist but also these differences frequently create significant misunderstanding, conflict, and perplexing dilemmas for American Indian students, Native parents, and non-Indian educators. The fundamental premise of cultural discontinuity theory is rather uncomplicated. The problems created by contrasting cultural nuances are at the center of academic difficulties for Native students. Thus, a definition of this theoretical framework is simple enough. Cultural discontinuity theory attributes much of the frustration in the nature and consequences of American Indian educational endeavors to opposing Native and mainstream cultural patterns, especially those in the form of communication and interaction styles.

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The above definition establishes an important feature of this theoretical perspective. Namely, cultural discontinuity theory is a microlevel theoretical framework. That is, this framework focuses on the interpersonal social exchanges found in everyday classroom behavior (Philips, 1983). While recognizing the importance of larger sociohistorical phenomena in shaping American Indian/non-Indian relations, scholars working from this perspective do not necessarily attempt to untangle the complexities created by these circumstances (St. Germaine, 1995). As will be discussed later, the fact that cultural discontinuity theory does not concentrate on macrolevel phenomena has led some scholars to criticize this perspective (Ledlow, 1992).

Cultural Discontinuity Theoretical Assumptions on American Indian Education Review of the literature reveals that scholars of American Indian education using cultural discontinuity theory generally work from three interconnected assumptions. First, cultural discontinuity theory asserts that distinct communication and interaction patterns represent the fundamental cultural incongruence between Native homes and mainstream schools and pose serious difficulties for American Indian students. Second, this perspective assumes cultural discontinuity significantly impacts teacherstudent relationships. The third assumption regards culturally based communication and interaction differences as symptoms of larger and even more complex forms of cultural conflict. Cultural Discontinuity as Incongruent Communication and Interaction Reflecting its sociolinguistic origin, cultural discontinuity theory assumes culturally based differences in communication and interaction styles common to the family and community life of Native students and those established in mainstream educational institutions create considerable challenges for American Indians (Garrett, 1995; Philips, 1983). That is, scholars contend distinct styles of communication frequently mark the interaction

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between American Indians and non-Indians. Basic to this contention is the notion that many Native individuals are socialized to embrace the community over individual self-interests; generosity as opposed to selfishness; cooperation rather than competition; and deference toward elders instead of behaviors and attitudes designed to promote one’s own ideas or sense of importance (Garrett, 1995). Ultimately, the communication and interaction behaviors of Native students echo these cultural attributes. However, mainstream schools generally operate in direct opposition to most of these common Native American cultural traits. Educational institutions replicate the culture of mainstream society and reward individualistic, highly competitive communication styles and interaction patterns. The result of these opposing cultural communication and interactional traits is a misunderstanding of the way in which Native students relate and learn among most non-Indian educators (Erickson & Mohatt, 1982). The assumption that there is a fundamental incongruence in communication and interaction has led some scholars to examine the learning process for Native students in mainstream classrooms. These scholarly efforts are connected to the work on learning and cognitive styles of Native students (Guild, 1994; Swisher & Deyhle, 1989; Van Hamme, 1996). The scholarship on alleged unique learning and cognitive styles among Native students is beyond the scope of this book. Nevertheless, a number of cultural discontinuity theorists have explored the interaction and communication styles commonly displayed by American Indian students as they engage learning and curricular content. For instance, some have argued that Native students tend to display a reflective rather than an impulsive style of learning (Little Soldier, 1997; Tafoya, 1989). According to this view, American Indian students tend to learn through quiet reflection, considering various options rather than responding to a teacher’s queries immediately with fluent, albeit often incorrect, answers as a way to engage in a problem-solving process (Pewewardy, 2002). Most mainstream schools operate along impulsive interaction dynamics. As a result, non-Native teachers may not understand that many American Indian students engage in a period of wait time before responding to questions or content material (Pewewardy, 2002). Indeed, this period of reflection is actually quite

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important to many Native learners. The reluctance to impulsively attempt to answer questions may be associated with the desire not to be shamed in front of others (Pewewardy, 2002) and/or reflect the cultural notion that an individual must assume a respective attitude toward a task, demonstrating its importance (Lacy, 2002). However, many educators may misinterpret these behaviors as indicators of a Native student’s disinterest or lack of motivation (Duda, 1980; Pewewardy, 2002). Other scholars have discussed the cultural differences in the disposition toward mainstream classroom dynamics. In this regard, cultural discontinuity theorists emphasize the cultural preference for cooperation rather than competition (Swisher, 1990). Given a pervasive value on harmony and unity found in Native cultures, some American Indian students feel uncomfortable with classroom activities and assessments that include individualistic accomplishments and rewards (Miller Cleary & Peacock, 1998). Cornel Pewewardy (2002) explains that many Native students do not desire to be singled out as either above or below the group. Moreover, such a common educational practice will likely not produce motivation. Rather, cooperative learning strategies are far more effective with American Indian students (Brown, 1980; Little Soldier, 1997). Unfortunately, many teachers in mainstream classrooms do not recognize or acknowledge the importance of this cultural attribute (Swisher, 1990). The frequent result is American Indian students find themselves either intentionally or unintentionally disadvantaged by routine educational practices. Cultural Discontinuity Influences on Student-Teacher Relationships Cultural discontinuity scholars contend the level of cultural understanding is connected to the nature of the relationship between Native students and their teachers (Sleeter, 1993). More to the point, some American Indian education scholars have argued the degree of cultural understanding and appreciation influence the teaching techniques and styles employed by teachers (Nuby, Ehle, & Thrower, 2001; Pewewardy, 1999). The willingness for teachers to examine their assumptions and practices about teaching is crucial (Pewewardy, 2002). Indeed,

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the reluctance among white teachers to engage in an evaluation of the cultural appropriateness of their teaching strategies is considered a form of racism (King, 1991). Conversely, when educators are willing to evaluate their own cultural assumptions and the cultural uniqueness of their students, opportunities for respect and appreciation increase (Eberhard, 1989). In what is likely the most well-known application of cultural discontinuity theory in American Indian education studies, Susan Philips (1983) documented the communication and interactional complexities confronting students and teachers on the Warm Springs reservation of Oregon. In her study, Philips observed and compared the culturally distinctive uses of language and interaction in four classrooms (two classrooms on the Warm Springs reservation with predominantly Native students and two classrooms in a nearby off-reservation town primarily enrolling non-Native students). She reported substantial culturally based communication and interaction differences between the American Indian students and their non-Indian teachers. Philips argues that communication and interaction styles are established by age six. Thus, by the time Native children enter school they have been thoroughly socialized into the communication and interaction styles appropriate to their culture. However, they are met with completely different communication and interaction patterns employed by teachers. Philips found the potential for misunderstanding was pervasive and the consequences were seriously unfortunate for the Native children in her study. Philips (1983) concludes: Warm Springs Indian children learn socially appropriate ways of conveying attention and regulating turns at talk in their homes and their community before they come to school . . . And they are deliberately socialized so that they acquire skills in the use of the visual and auditory channels of communication in culturally distinctive ways. Thus in regard to both the structuring of attention and the allocation of turns at talk, Warm Springs Indian children learn culturally distinctive systems for socially appropriate communication. At the age of six, the Indian children enter a classroom where the organization of interaction is Anglo in its hierarchical structure, and in the control of talk that one individual exercises. The

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relative use of the visual and auditory channels and the organization of participant structures for the presentation of curriculum have been developed for the Anglo middle-class child. The organization of classroom interaction at the first-grade level is designed to fit with or build on the interactional skills the Anglo children have acquired during their first six years of life. That organization does not, however, completely fit or build on the interactional skills acquired by the Warm Springs Indian children . . . In the structuring of attention, and in the regulation of talk, there are differences between Anglo and Warm Springs Indians that result in miscommunication between student and teacher in the Indian classrooms. Those differences contribute to the general uncertainty Indian children experience as they find they do not understand the teacher, and the teacher does not understand them. (pp. 126–127)

Cultural discontinuity scholars catalog a number of misunderstandings arising from communication incongruence. For instance, research has revealed some teachers view the hesitation to engage in competitive classroom activities as a lack of motivation among American Indian children (Amerman, 2007; Deyhle & LeCompte, 1994). Investigation has also found that culturally unaware teachers interpret the lack of eye contact, typically a nonverbal indication of respect, as a suggestion of a lack of security or evidence of unassertiveness (Safran & Safran, 1994). Additionally, Native children socialized to learn through quiet observation and listening have been defined by educators as slow and/or lazy (Garrett, 1995). Cultural discontinuity theorists conclude the cumulative effect of communication and interaction misinterpretation significantly contributes to the lack of educational persistence (Pavel et al., 1998; Ward, 2005). Simply, it is extremely problematic for Native students to succeed when their teachers misunderstand them and they, in turn, have difficulty understanding their teachers (Garrett, 1995). As a result, the all-too-common response is an early exit from secondary and postsecondary educational institutions (Coladarci, 1983; Erickson, 1987).

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Cultural Discontinuity as Cultural Conflict A number of cultural discontinuity theorists expand this perspective beyond a focus on patterns of miscommunication in the classroom. These scholars attempt to build on the assumption that the divergence in communication styles and patterns derive from the incongruence created between two juxtaposed cultures (Van Hamme, 1996). That is, mainstream American society and Native traditional cultures operate in fundamentally dissimilar ways. Namely, they value different social attributes, emphasize contrasting personal characteristics, and, ultimately, socialize young members to see and relate to the world in a different fashion (Reyhner, 1992a). The result is Native students do not simply experience inconsistent communication patterns in the classroom. Rather, for a number of cultural discontinuity theorists a third important assumption is that many American Indian individuals systematically encounter the complexity of more sweeping cultural conflict while engaging mainstream education (Stairs, 1994). This assumption requires that cultural discontinuity theorists examine other forms of cultural conflict beyond a mismatch in communication styles and patterns. Jon Reyhner (1992a), for instance, argues cultural discontinuity theory needs to include a wider consideration of perplexing cultural dilemmas facing Native students aside from dissimilar communication and interaction dynamics. Reyhner identifies the nature of the school setting; uncaring and/or untrained teachers and counselors; passive teaching methods; inappropriate curriculum; inappropriate testing methods; tracked classes; and the absence of opportunities for parental involvement as complicating factors serving to create cultural incongruence for American Indians. He concludes that: Academically capable American Indian students often drop out of school because their needs are not being met. Others are pushed out because they protest, in a variety of ways, how they are being treated . . . American schools are not providing an appropriate education for Indian students who are put in large, factory-like schools. Indian students are denied teachers

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with special training in Indian education, denied a curriculum that includes their heritage, and denied culturally appropriate assessment. Their parents are also denied a voice in the education of their children. (Reyhner, 1992a, p. 37)

Others have also suggested this theoretical perspective needs to consider culturally produced inconsistencies beyond those found between schools and Native homes (Wilson, 1991). Michael Garrett (1995) outlines broader cultural conflicts working to frustrate educational efforts for Native students. Indeed, Garrett describes these dilemmas as a collision between two worlds. He challenges us to consider what educational experiences would be like if cultural roles were reversed. Specifically, he speculates as to what schools would be like if children were expected to give away their possessions; discuss their extended families and heritage and avoid relating about themselves; engage in group-oriented activities rather than individual accomplishments; divert their eyes when speaking with teachers who represent elders; learn through quiet contemplation and observation; and attend school even during important holidays such as Thanksgiving or Christmas. Obviously, such reasoning takes scholars further than the examination of culturally based differences in communication and behavior (McCarty, Wallace, Lynch, & Benally, 1991). In a widely cited study by cultural discontinuity theorists, Theodore Coladarci (1983) documented a variety of reasons recounted by a sample of Montana American Indians for leaving high school before graduation. A number of these reasons clearly relate to cultural conflict. While Coladarci did not specifically work from a cultural discontinuity theoretical perspective, his work and conclusions are quite comparable with the assertion that generalized cultural conflict beyond incongruent communication and interaction patterns contribute to the lack of educational success among Native learners. Coladarci directed a group of professional educators in interviews with forty-six American Indian individuals who had left high school before graduation. The purpose was to identify their reasons for dropping out of high school. The results indicate the cultural conflicts experienced by the sample were not isolated to miscommunication in the classroom. Rather, the participants identified such

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factors as a general discontent with the curricular content; a perception of a culturally insensitive or neglecting educational approach; a desire to be with other school leavers; involvement with substance abuse; perceived unfair school policies, especially those related to attendance; and home life difficulties. Certainly, not all of these factors to leave school reflect cultural conflict. Yet a number of them do and suggest additional forms of incongruence are important cultural discontinuities. In a rigorous ethnographic study, Peggy Wilson (1991) examined the transitional experiences of a group of Canadian Native students as they moved from an elementary school located on a reserve to a mainstream high school found in an urban center populated almost entirely by non-Natives. Wilson takes a wider theoretical view as opposed to a more narrow treatment employed by most cultural discontinuity theorists. That is, she did not limit her investigation to incongruities in communication and interaction. Rather, Wilson explored the conditions and context produced by pervasive racism reported by the students, and interestingly enough, also by their teachers. Wilson’s approach represents the treatment of cultural discontinuity as generalized cultural conflict rather than cultural discontinuity as culturally based communicative misunderstandings. Wilson reported three general findings. First, the limitations in academic achievement at the secondary school level were directly connected to what she termed “macrostructural factors.” However, she does not use this term to refer to the types of sociohistorical conditions typically discussed by structural inequality theorists such as John Ogbu (chapter 3). Rather, for her macrostructural factors refer to the institutional conditions and culture of the setting for her research. That is, macrostructural factors relate to the culture of the local school and represent the pervasive racism found in the community. These conditions certainly reside outside the control of the Native students in her study, and they reflect historical and political structural conditions. Nevertheless, the macrostructural factors are localized within the community and its high school and are different from the macrostructural conditions of interest to most structural inequality theorists. Second, Wilson found that the Native students in her study reported overwhelming feelings of frustration and isolation as

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they transitioned to the mainstream high school. She characterizes these experiences as the “trauma in transition” (p. 377). This transition involved bouts with seemingly irresistible cultural conflict and took a devastating psychological toll. She explains the dilemmas faced by the students in her study and the difficult choices many of them made: Because students felt themselves to be insufficiently prepared for life in the mainstream high school, they did not invest heavily in academics. They needed all their time and energy just to survive in the school. In effect, these students were transitioning from a position of security and eminence to one of an underclass. To cope with the trauma caused by that transition, students chose the adaptive strategy of dropping out of school. They did not accept an underclass status, and, instead, they chose to opt out of the system. It is true that the initial reaction was one of hopelessness, but then that hopelessness spurred them on to action. The action that they chose was that of dropping out or of abandoning school for a time. To them, staying in school would have been an unwise choice. The adaptive strategies required withdrawal because the setting was impossible. They chose psychological survival. (Wilson, 1991, p. 378)

The third finding involves the lack of awareness among mainstream school personnel regarding the seriousness of the cultural conflict experienced by the Native American students. Wilson reports school personnel typically exhibited low expectations for Native students, preconceived stereotypes, and blatant racism rather than an attempt to understand their dilemma. Unfortunately, these pervasive views frequently played out as self-fulfilling prophecies of academic failure. Wilson summarizes, “From my observations and from interviews with school personnel, I was led to believe that they were rationalizing the macrostructure (of the community). The assumptions, the policies, and the beliefs in place did not allow for Indian students to succeed, not even those who had been highly successful previously” (p. 379). Wilson concludes that structural inequality theory (chapter 3) does not adequately explain the experiences of the American Indian high school students in her study. Interestingly, she also suggests educational efforts to reduce racism or enhance bicul-

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turalism will likely do little toward better preparing these Native students to deal with what she refers to as the “negativism they faced as they entered high school” (p. 381). In this regard, Wilson seems to indicate she might not have a great deal of confidence in the theory of transculturation (chapter 5) to explain the educational experiences of these Native students.

Implications of Cultural Discontinuity Theory There are a number of important implications associated with the cultural discontinuity theoretical perspective. Prominent among these implications are the recognition of a cultural/ academic paradox, that modifications within the mainstream educational institution will reduce cultural conflict and provide the opportunity to build greater awareness and respect between Native students and non-Native teachers. Cultural/Academic Paradox The experience of cultural conflict between values emphasized at home and in their community and those stressed at school results in a collection of perplexing paradoxes for many Native students. Richard St. Germaine (1995) suggests success in one area may result in failure in the other. Other researchers too have reported on the nature of the cultural/academic paradox created by cultural discontinuities between school and home for American Indian students (McDermott, 1987; Sanders, 1987; Wilson, 1991). The ethnographic work of Carol Ward (1998; 2005) reveals the complex frustrations experienced by some Northern Cheyenne as they attempted to satisfy competing cultural mandates. Working in association with the Northern Cheyenne Education Commission, Ward spent three years doing extensive field research on the nature of schooling among the Northern Cheyenne reservation in Montana. The core of her investigation involved the case study analysis of three high schools serving Northern Cheyenne youth. One of these schools was a public school located in a community adjacent of the reservation, another was a private Catholic school also located just off the reservation, and the third consisted of a

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tribal high school on the reservation. Ward’s findings on the nature of the educational experience for Native students at the public school, at least in part, relate to the cultural/academic paradox suggested by cultural discontinuity theorists. She reports: The public school, which offered somewhat higher academic expectations and greater opportunities for Indian students to succeed, also had some important contextual elements that reduced these benefits . . . the differences between Indian students and the overall culture of the school created a social and cultural chasm between Indian students and others in the public school environment that undermined their success relative to White students. (Ward, 2005, p. 212)

Jackson, Smith, and Hill (2003) also identified a cultural/academic paradox in their qualitative study with fifteen successful American Indian college students. According to these researchers the students in their investigation reported conflicting pressures to maintain their identity as members of their reservation or community as well as pursuing academic success. This paradox was not easily resolved, and most students struggled with these issues to the very end of their academic studies. Regarding the paradox identified by their participants, these researchers reflect: Though students feel considerable pressure to leave the reservation, attend college, and enter a prestigious profession, they feel that if they do those things they will not be able to maintain their identity as a legitimate resident of the reservation and its culture—whether they choose to live on the reservation or not. They fear they will be seen as a sellout for acculturating to the dominant culture’s definition of academic and vocational success. (Jackson et al., 2003, p. 560)

Need for Culturally Responsive Educational Approaches Cultural discontinuity scholars contend cultural modifications within the educational institution will reduce the cultural conflict experienced by Native students and lead to greater academic success (Reyhner, 1992b). Specifically, cultural discontinuity theorists argue the cultural realignment of teaching practices will work to simplify the learning process for Ameri-

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can Indian students. Thus, Native students will not be forced to simultaneously master culturally different behavior and styles along with academic material (Sanders, 1987). Linda Van Hamme (1996) has outlined a number of important modifications that can serve to lessen the cultural conflict experienced by American Indian students. Most of the changes she suggests deal with altering teaching methods and content. Moreover, she argues mainstream schools need to build on the cultural strengths of Native students. As such, she contends educational approaches should include the use of teaching methods congruent with the cultural learning and communication styles of American Indians; an integration of traditional Native concepts and values into curricular content; and an inclusion of the historical and contemporary contributions of Native peoples into the classroom. Similarly, Lovelace and Wheeler (2006) argue teachers need to be cultural mediators in the classroom. That is, teachers must assume the responsibility to create continuity in the learning that occurs in the home of minority students and the classrooms they manage. To achieve this goal, teachers need to employ flexible pedagogical techniques that allow for convergence and even separation of communication styles and patterns among minority students. In essence, teachers must use a culturally responsive teaching approach (Ladson-Billings, 1995). Using this method, teachers affirm the cultures of minority students; regard the cultures of those students as strengths, not deficiencies; and allow students to speak from their own cultural experiences and make sense of curricular material within their own realities (Gay, 2000). Reading 1 by Ingalls, Hammond, Dupoux, & Baeza (2006) addresses this point at some length. There is evidence to suggest that modifications designed to reduce the incongruence between the classroom and home is related to improved academic performance for minority students (Mehan, Lintz, Okamoto, & Willis, 1995). Indeed, the argument for culturally responsive teaching for Native students is compelling. Cornel Pewewardy (1994) contends: Most Indian students today attend public school. When Indian students are confronted with white, middle-class cultural norms and behaviors within many public schools, the result is usually “cultural discontinuity” or “lack of cultural synchronization”

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between students and their schools . . . Cultural conflicts can be minimized and cultural continuity maximized by restructuring teacher training programs to promote the concept of culturally responsible pedagogy. (p. 82)

Recognizing the need for culturally consistent educational approaches, some educators advocate novel and innovative school experiences for minorities in general and Native students in particular (Miller Cleary & Peacock, 1998; Taylor & Whittaker, 2009). For instance, Pewewardy (1994) describes the general pedagogical philosophy and practices incorporated into the American Indian Magnet School, a K–8 school in Saint Paul, Minnesota: Significant aspects of the instructional environment of our school include the absence of bells and clocks. Teachers and students are not constrained to set “periods” of time in which to “teach” reading, math or any other subject . . . Each has the flexibility to establish and alter his/her instructional schedule to address the specific needs of the students. Classrooms are self-contained in “family-style” rooms, linked to another class by connecting doors. Team teaching and cross-age grouping approaches to instruction capitalize on the strengths of teachers and students alike. These cooperative methods ensure the highest degree of social and academic success with the least frustration possible. Whole language instruction utilizing a wide variety of multicultural literature is employed across the curriculum to strengthen the thinking and communication skills of all students . . . The pedagogy used for learning is based on the traditional American Indian belief that children learn and retain knowledge better through experience, touching, and active participation in educational activities . . . Indian children bring to Indian magnet school a unique set of cultural forms and behaviors that include tribal history, language dialect, traditional values, cultural norms, rituals, symbolism, imagery and spirituality. Thus, school culture soon becomes a tribal environment conductive to feeling good about being Indian. (pp. 79–82)

Opportunity for Greater Awareness and Respect If educational difficulties arise from cultural discontinuity, then there is significant potential for improvement. Cultural awareness

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and institutional adaptations can lead to opportunities for greater understanding and respect between Native students and non-Indian instructors. A few cultural discontinuity scholars directly address the prospect for enhancing the relationship among American Indian students, parents, and mainstream teachers. They contend the employment of culturally responsive teaching practices can lead to the development of greater cultural understanding and respect for all involved in the education of Native students (Lovelace & Wheeler, 2006). In a study on the perceptions and reactions to silence in the classroom among teachers of Navajo children, Gary Plank (1994) reported notable differences between Navajo and non-Navajo educators. Plank found the Navajo teachers generally found little unusual about the silence exhibited by their students and, thus, did not alter their typical teaching strategies. Non-Navajo teachers, on the other hand, displayed a variety of reactions and views on the pervasive silence of their students. According to Plank the non-Native teachers provided four explanations for the silence common among their Navajo students. First, they accounted for the silence by relating that Navajo children do not value education, thus they are indifferent (e.g., silent) in the classroom. Second, some teachers indicated that the silence emerged from language differences that cause Navajo children to remain silent. Third, a number of teachers regarded classroom silence as a product of the tendency of Navajo students to be visual learners rather than audio learners. Finally, other teachers attributed classroom silence to cultural differences, namely that Navajo culture emphasizes quiet reflection. Interestingly, the non-Navajo teachers reacted to the silence in their classrooms in a variety of ways. Many attempted to adjust their teaching approaches to the perceived needs of their students. Notable in this regard were those who had greater experience working with Navajo children. These teachers were more likely to recognize the cultural value of silent reflection. Further, teachers with longer experience teaching Navajo children reported higher levels of verbal participation and interaction among their students. The personal accounts and reflections of the teachers indicate those who had more experience working with Navajo children also tended to display greater appreciation

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for the Navajo culture. The response of one non-Native teacher is especially insightful as it suggests the potential for gains in respect and appreciation through acknowledgment of unique cultural values and the willingness to accept those values: They don’t like answering in front of a group, they don’t want to be singled out, not in anything, not in dress, the way they look, the way they talk, anything. So this is just another area they don’t want to be singled out in. I noticed that they took notes, but wouldn’t ask questions. So what I had them do was to write a question down on paper and hand it in. The next day I would answer the questions and nobody knew who had asked it, it worked very well. Also, I emphasized how good the questions were. Pretty soon they were real comfortable and started writing lots of questions. Sometimes I would purposely make a break in the lecture, have them answer a question in their notebooks and while they were answering the question, I would look at their questions and make notes, then I could answer the question before they even left that day. Everybody’s questions got answered and they began to trust me, I never embarrassed anybody. (Plank, 1994, p. 15)

Michael Garrett and his associates challenge educators to recognize the imperative to honor and respect Native children and their cultures: Simply put, with Native youth, your word is your bond. In the traditional way, life is not about what is on paper but what happens between people, within people, and between people and other living beings. Therefore, as a professional, if you say you are going to do something, then do it. Trust is always an important issue with Native youth, given the historical context of broken promises and exploitation. Not only that, but traditionally, breaking promises is “Bad Medicine” and worse than harming someone physically it is harming someone’s spirit . . . Typically, the child from a cultural or linguistic background different from the educator is using learning strategies that may not match classroom expectations. The challenge for the educator is to bridge the gap between the student’s individual learning style and classroom expectations. This can only occur when all professionals working with a child collaborate in determining the

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best method of teaching and planning to meet the needs of the child. (Garrett, Bellon-Harn, Torres-Rivera, Garrett, & Robert, 2003, pp. 232–233)

Criticisms of Cultural Discontinuity Theory While cultural discontinuity is one of the most well-known and widely applied theoretical perspectives in American Indian educational studies, it has not been without its detractors. Scholars have challenged the perspective with a number of serious criticisms. Among these criticisms are that cultural continuity theory suffers from a lack of empirical research support, some research findings contradict its assumptions, cultural discontinuity itself is underdeveloped as a theoretical construct, and an emphasis on microlevel social phenomena deflects attention away from understanding the impact of persisting inequalities created by social structural conditions. Lack of Empirical Support Some scholars have argued there is little empirical evidence to support cultural discontinuity theory. Susan Ledlow (1992) contends relatively few studies have actually established specific reasons for the lack of academic persistence among Native students. As such, many scholars have uncritically accepted the premise that cultural incongruence is associated with academic attrition. Thus, she argues, researchers have tended to examine how this assumption is true rather than if it is true. Similarly, others argue that cultural discontinuity theory’s fundamental assumptions cannot explain a number of significant research findings. Patrick Brady (1996) criticizes cultural discontinuity theory for failing to account for 1) why research has demonstrated a consistent correlation between the socioeconomic status of Native students and the tendency to leave school; 2) why the patterns for dropout rates vary among American Indian groups and/or communities; and 3) why there is a close resemblance in the school experiences between Native and non-Native school leavers.

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Contradictory Research Evidence Some scholars suggest important emerging research findings contradict cultural discontinuity theoretical assertions. For example, cultural discontinuity theory implies that the more culturally traditional a Native student, the greater the cultural incongruence he/she is likely to experience and, presumably, the less likelihood for academic success. However, there is growing research evidence to indicate that cultural traditionalism is actually associated with greater academic achievement (Deyhle, 1994; Huffman, Sill, & Brokenleg, 1986; Huffman, 2008; Whitbeck, Hoyt, Stubben, & LaFromboise, 2001). Such a phenomenon is hardly what one would expect according to cultural discontinuity theory. In a study on the academic experiences among a sample of college students, Huffman (2008) found many culturally traditional Native students successfully traversed the difficulties and incongruence they encountered. These individuals retained their cultural identity and used it to their advantage despite pervasive and frustrating cultural conflict. Regarding cultural discontinuity theory, Huffman (2008) concludes: [N]ot all culturally traditional students dropped out of college. Many successfully navigated cultural differences and barriers while retaining their cultural identities. These culturally traditional students did not assimilate nor did they succumb to the cultural difficulties confronting them. The cultural discontinuity perspective simply does not adequately explain their ability to succeed. (p. 180)

Lack of Conceptual Development Scholars such as John Ogbu (1982) have charged that cultural discontinuity itself is an ill-defined and misleading concept. According to Ogbu, the cultural discontinuity perspective emerged before educational anthropologists could conduct the necessary ethnographic research for conceptual refinement. As such, many of the major concepts and assumptions of the perspective have developed and been applied without appropriate theoretical reflection. The major concept, cultural discontinuity, is a case in point.

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Ogbu contends many cultural discontinuity theorists have failed to recognize that there are different types of cultural discontinuities associated with the educational experience. (Greater discussion on this point will be presented in chapter 3.) The result is that much of cultural discontinuity analyses are ill conceived. He explains: Given the social and political context in which educational anthropology was born, anthropologists have not critically reexamined their long-held view that the educability problems of some minority children are due to culture conflict. Depending on subdiscipline background, we simply proceed to describe differences in general cultural values or in specific cultural domains, such as rules of behavior for achievement, and cognitive skills, and then argue that these differences cause the educability problems. That some discontinuities are inherent in formal schooling and universally experienced by children and that some other discontinuities may be transitional rarely appear in our analysis. (Ogbu, 1982, pp. 291–292)

Misplaced Emphasis on Microlevel Phenomena Another important criticism of the cultural discontinuity perspective is that its focus on supposed incongruence experienced by individuals detracts from systematic analysis of macrostructural factors contributing to the lack of American Indian educational success (Ledlow, 1992). According to this criticism, scholars have been so preoccupied with identifying the nature of cultural discontinuity they have failed to recognize their true origins or sources of continuation. As such, the emphasis on culturally relevant pedagogical practices as a means to combat cultural discontinuities is misguided. That is, culturally responsive instruction will ultimately do little to provide long-term solutions for the educational problems besetting minorities as long as social structural conditions serve to deny substantial economic and political opportunities (Ogbu, 1982). About cultural discontinuity theory, Susan Ledlow scathingly argues, “This exclusive focus on culture and curricular innovation draws attention from the very real possibility that economics and social structure may be more important” (1992, p. 33).

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Discussion on the Reading The following reading illustrates the way the authors use cultural discontinuity theory to explain the findings of their research. In reading 1, “Teachers’ Cultural Knowledge and Understanding of American Indian Students and Their Families,” Lawrence Ingalls, Helen Hammond, Errol Dupoux, and Rosalinda Baeza examine the potential consequences associated with cross-cultural misunderstanding in the classroom. In this regard the authors hearken to the emphasis on a mismatch in communication styles traditionally identified by sociolinguistic cultural discontinuity theorists. These researchers employed a focus group of seven teachers from a rural reservation to examine the best teaching practices identified in a prominent text used to train educators. The results document that these teachers perceived prevailing teacher preparation strategies as inappropriate for their Native students. Indeed, like other cultural discontinuity scholars, the authors argue that common teaching practices jeopardize the learning process for many American Indian students. The findings provided by the authors are all the more significant when one considers that American Indian children have one of the highest referral and placement rates for special education. Implied in the reading is that culturally incongruent communication styles pervasive in teaching practices and evaluation are likely critical reasons for these placements. The research reported by these authors also provides important insights on how to combat cultural discontinuity. They emphasize the need for culturally responsive teaching. However, they go beyond rhetoric. The authors identify specific common teaching practices, the problems they create, and the solutions to those difficulties. In so doing, culturally responsive teaching becomes more than educational buzzwords; educational practice has the potential to be transformational. For these scholars cultural discontinuity is a problem that has a solution.

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Suggested Reading Erickson, F. & Mohatt, G. (1982). Cultural organization of participation structures in two classrooms of Indian students. In George Spindler (Ed.), Doing the ethnography of schooling: Educational anthropology in action (pp. 132–174). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Klug, B. & Whitfield, P. (2003). Widening the circle: Culturally relevant pedagogy for American Indian children. New York: Routledge Falmer. Philips, S. (1983). The invisible culture: Communication and community on the Warm Springs Indian reservation. New York: Longman. Sanders, D. (1987). Cultural conflicts: An important factor in the academic failure of American Indian students. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 15(1), 81–90. Wilson, P. (1991). Trauma of Sioux Indian high school students. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 22(4), 367–383.

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Reading 1 Teachers’ Cultural Knowledge and Understanding of American Indian Students and Their Families Lawrence Ingalls, Helen Hammond, Errol Dupoux, and Rosalinda Baeza Lawrence Ingalls and Helen Hammond are professors of education in the Department of Educational Psychology and Special Services at the University of Texas, El Paso. Errol Dupoux is a professor at St. Petersburg College. Rosalinda Baeza is a teacher at Mescalaro High School in Mescalaro, New Mexico. This reading was originally published in 2006 as “Teachers’ Cultural Knowledge and Understanding of American Indian Students and Their Families: Impact of Culture on a Child’s Learning” by Lawrence Ingalls, Helen Hammond, Errol Dupoux, and Rosalinda Baeza in Rural Special Education Quarterly, 25(1), 16–24. The reading is adapted from the original article and used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

Introduction Culture plays an important role in influencing a child’s learning process and the skills that are learned. American Indian students’ cultural heritage often conflicts with mainstream school practices. At the classroom level, interactions between teachers and students with tribal backgrounds can be difficult due to teacher practices that are often in direct contrast to unique attributes prized in the student’s home and culture. Some authors speculate the Ameri45

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can Indian’s cultural worldviews differ the most from traditional school practices of all minority groups in the United States (Nel, 1993; Pichette, Garrett, Kosciulek, & Rosenthal, 1999). The research literature supports the notion that cultural context has a significant impact on educational outcomes for minority students (Ornstein & Levine, 1989; Salend, Garrick-Duhaney, & Montgomery, 2002). Differences between mainstream behaviors and the home culture can contribute to the academic and social failure of the student (Cummins, 1989; Heath, 1983; Michaels, 1981; Ogbu, 1987). Recent reports about educational outcomes for American Indians seem to support that contention as demonstrated by nationwide poor graduation rates from high school (48 percent; Wald, 1998), the highest dropout rates of any minority group (60 to 70 percent; Shirley, 2004), and disproportionate overrepresentation in special education (13.1 percent; Donovan & Cross, 2002; U.S. Department of Education, 2000; Wald, 1998). The issue of culturally responsive teaching is a very important special education issue. Since this population of students has one of the highest referral and placement rates for special education services, educators need to attend to this matter and seek viable solutions. This is even more critical in our rural schools as this is where the more traditional American Indian families reside. For the past thirty years, American Indian students’ cultural characteristics and differences have been studied. Since approximately 90 percent of American Indians receive their education in rural mainstream schools, a teacher’s cultural responsiveness is an important educational issue. Throughout these years, many advocates for American Indian students in mainstream schools have urged teachers to use effective and culturally relevant instructional and classroom management practices (Bannon, 2004; Garrett, 1995; Nel, 1993; Pertusati, 1988; Pichette et al., 1999; Youngman & Sadongei, 1974). These practices require that teachers demonstrate knowledge, cultural competence, and the willingness to adopt new strategies and concepts that meet the academic and social needs of American Indian students. Culturally responsive education recognizes and addresses students’ learning styles, the modalities of reflective learning, the role of group collaboration, the function of nonverbal behavior, and the implications of self-regulation (see Ladson-Billings, 1992 and

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Appendixes A through E on pp. 58–62). These concepts promote cultural infusion in the classroom and provide opportunities for the teacher and the community of people to share the responsibility of educating their children.

Cultural Responsive Adaptations for Traditional American Indian Students An individual’s learning style is the way he or she uses strategies to help learn tasks and organize information (Riding & Rayner, 1998). Research supports that many American Indian children tend to have a global cognitive style of organizing information and an emphasis on using visual strategies and mental representations for processing information (Hilberg & Tharp, 2002; Swisher & Deyhle, 1989; Vasquez, 1990). Rohner (1965) found the preference with children from the Kwakuit tribe, John (1972) with the Navajo, Philips (1972) with the Warm Springs, Appleton (1983) with the Yaqui, and Plank (1994) with the Navajo and Apache. This process allows individuals time to understand an event from beginning to end, mentally visualize key events on a gradual basis, and develop conclusions about the events from a holistic perspective. Related to this process of visual imagery is the process individuals go through as they are learning a new skill. During skill acquisition, American Indian children benefit from the visual models of someone demonstrating a skill. Following the demonstration, children typically prefer to engage in private practice until mastery is obtained. Werner and Begishe (1968), Longstreet (1978), and McCarthy and Benally (2003) found this with the Navajo, Brewer (1977) with the Sioux, and Appleton (1983) with the Yaqui. The traditional American Indian value of reflection supports the process of developing a holistic perspective. McCarthy and Benally (2003) in their research with Navajo children found these children tend to wait six to ten seconds to respond to an interaction. This is a sharp contrast to non–American Indian children whose wait time was typically three to five seconds. In similar research, Plank (1994) found Navajo and Apache students preferred fifteen to thirty seconds of time to allow for reflective

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thinking. This type of reflective processing is consistent with children’s use of a global perspective for processing information. The wait time allows them to carefully produce an answer that is compatible with the values of inclusion, generosity, mastery, and independence (Brendtro & Brokenleg, 1996). This global learning style also shapes the way students collaborate and cooperate within the group. Since collaboration and cooperation is culturally valued, children are taught not to be opinionated or hasty in reaching conclusions. Children learn to strive to see other people’s perspectives and come to a reasonable conclusion that is harmonious with others. Miller and Thomas (1972) found this cooperative preference with the Blackfoot students, as well as Brown (1979) with the Cherokee and McCarthy and Benally (2003) with the Navajo. Therefore, during a problem-solving activity, these children would tend to favor a solution that demonstrated generosity (Brendtro & Brokenleg, 1996) instead of egoism or self-serving actions. Cooperative-learning activities as opposed to individual, competitive activities are compatible with a number of American Indian values (Butterfield & Pepper, 1991; Cajete, 1988; Dumont, 1972; Pichette et al., 1999; Strand & Peacock, 2002). Students from this ethnic group learn most effectively within small groups that focus on hands-on learning in activity-based contexts (Cajete, 1988). For example, McCarthy and Benally (2003) found the Navajo children learned social studies, math, and science skills most effectively when they were able to work in groups using charts, maps, drawings, sculptures, and even their own artistic creations to show evidence of their knowledge. Related to the value of collaboration and cooperation, many American Indian children are taught the importance of humility not only with regard to their own performance but also with regard to peer performance (Jacobs, 2003; McCarthy & Benally, 2003). A child who witnesses a fellow classmate who errs on a question would feel highly uncomfortable answering the same question correctly. Plank’s (1994) research with the Navajo and Apache children found they are not likely to respond to a question asked of him or her in the classroom when it would appear he or she is trying to compete with peers. Similar research was found with the Warm Springs children (Philips, 1972) and the Cherokee

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children (Dumont, 1972). Thus, a teacher may incorrectly assume the child who is silent and does not answer a question does not know the correct response. Moreover, the silence may be interpreted as noncompliance, nonattentive, or disrespectful. However, a child who has been taught to display humility would feel it is inappropriate to be singled out in front of others. Over time, a child’s use of silence and possible misinterpretation by the teacher may put the child at risk for an inappropriate referral to special education. A referral of this type that is based on a cultural difference is very concerning. Since the national trend for qualification for special education services is very high once an individual has been referred, educators want to be assured the referral is verifiable and not based on a cultural or linguistic difference. Finally, it appears these values such as harmony, respect, cooperation, and humility, as demonstrated by many American Indians, help to develop self-regulation (Brendtro & Brokenleg, 1996). Research indicates that American Indians value inner discipline, self-monitoring, and harmony for the group in contrast to dominance and discipline from others for obedience (Brendtro & Brokenleg, 1996; Strand & Peacock, 2002). Children are taught to respect others, to develop self-respect, and fulfill their social responsibilities to the community (Jacobs & Reyhner, 2002). Through both types of respect, children once again are encouraged to selfregulate, to solve problems, and to show responsibilities for challenges they encounter. In many instances, young American Indian children are given training in self-management skills without rewards for good behavior. They are encouraged to view their good behaviors as a reward in itself, as it not only benefits the child but also benefits the group or community as a whole (Strand & Peacock, 2002). Wlodkowski and Ginsberg (1995) similarly stressed the importance of American Indian children to develop intrinsic rewards and self-motivation when learning a task. In terms of taking responsibility for their actions, discipline that is abrasive is incompatible with gaining students’ cooperation. Subtle messages that highlight the value of completing a task and why the task is of value are more appropriate. The importance of mastery is a cultural value, and children are encouraged to achieve a mastery level for a personal goal instead of an extrinsic reward (e.g., grade, candy, attention). Since self-regulatory behaviors are

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modeled and thus promoted at an early age in young children, the acquisition of this skill emerges at an early age. According to Brendtro and Brokenleg (1996), even the youngest of children in the traditional American Indian communities are given daily tasks of responsibility. All of these young children are nurtured to learn to manage their own behaviors and to achieve mastery. Although each American Indian group may promote self-regulatory behaviors, the manner of how these behaviors are promoted may vary.

Methodology A focus group format of discussion took place throughout a semester in a graduate course on early childhood special education led by one of the authors of this paper. Seven teachers from a rural southwestern American Indian Apache reservation school, five of whom are themselves American Indians, were engaged in discussions of “best practices” recommended in a commonly used textbook on the topic of early childhood special education. During discussions in the first few sections of the sixteen-week course, it became apparent these teachers were noticing a disjuncture among their preservice training, the recommendations in their graduate textbook, and their own experiences in the classroom with Apache students and their students’ family members. Thus, the domain of interest for further discussions in the remaining sessions took place in a focus-group format, where the instructor led discussions with the teachers (students) on culturally responsive teaching practices. Each session, the instructor kept notes on the comments and points of discussion from the teachers (students). The students provided additional notes on their observations regarding educational practices used in their school. These notes were provided to the instructor at the end of each session. Subsequent sessions involved a recursive process of discussion and reflection on the instructor’s synthesis of notes from previous discussions. Additionally, these students expanded the discussions on the topic of traditional educational practices and ways in which such practices seem to be at odds with the practices, values, and beliefs of the Apache students and their families at the reservation school. It is important to note that the incompatible

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educational practices the students compiled were discussed and validated with tribal members of their community. This collaboration between the instructor and students (teachers) further helped in reviewing common educational practices, speculating on how these practices would most likely be viewed by the Apache students and their families and identifying strategies that would lead to more appropriate interaction. By the end of the semester, the instructor and students had compiled a list of educational practices that appeared to be culturally unresponsive to these Apache families, reasons for the incompatibility, and alternative practices that would meet the same educational goals but would be culturally sensitive. From this list, the authors developed a folk taxonomy of salient categories of distinction between the values underlying mainstream pedagogical practices and those of this population. These five categories include the following: Learning Styles; Reflective Learning; Cooperative Learning; Nonverbal Learning; and Behavior Modification Learning. The final stage of the analysis involved sharing the taxonomy with the students who concurred that the taxonomy reflected their understanding of the major areas of difference in values between current “best pedagogical practices” and those of the Apache community in which they teach.

Discussion This project involved a small group of individuals who were used to collect these data. Although the sample was small, the authors were impressed with the fact that the data closely resembled the results of many studies that have been collected from other American Indian groups. Although the authors caution educators to avoid generalizations on the characteristics of the American Indian groups, this project, along with many studies discussed in the review of the literature, suggests that there may be some commonalities among the various American Indian groups. However, in order to avoid generalizations, it is recommended that educators working with any group of people take the effort to become familiar with the learning characteristics of the particular group. The one major conclusion that this

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project and other related studies revealed is that many American Indian families from various tribal groups tend to teach their children through a different approach than the teaching approaches used in the typical mainstream educational setting. As educators become more knowledgeable of the families’ teaching practices and the consequent learning styles of the children, fewer referrals to special education may result. Since a majority of these families reside in rural communities, this is a critical issue for rural special education teachers. The results of these class discussion sessions suggest that educators in this rural community are using typical teacher communication methods that are culturally insensitive. The typical approaches taught in teacher preparation programs are not the best strategies to use with many American Indian populations (Emmer & Stough, 2001; McCarthy & Benally, 2003; Wlodkowski, 1999; Wlodkowski & Ginsberg, 1995). These discussions indicate that the use of these practices could hinder or jeopardize a student’s learning process. Additionally, typically educational practices used with many American Indian students may create feelings of isolation, anxiety, and rejection (Luftig, 1983), as the practices are incompatible with the teachings and values of their families. Appendix A shows that teachers from this community continue to teach Apache students using small story segments, quizzing students on parts of the whole and requiring individual work from students. These teaching strategies are not compatible with the learning style the families have used during the rearing of the children. It is quite possible that changing these teaching strategies in accordance with the solutions provided in this article could improve a student’s learning. Consistent with other reports (Guilment, 1976; Pewewardy, 2002; Plank, 1994), the discussions reveal this group of Apache students on the reservation are more likely to engage in silent observations as they visually process information rather than verbalize knowledge as they process the information. As seen in Appendix B, these Apache students became reflective of a whole concept as opposed to analyzing small pieces of information. This reflection process allows the individual time to clearly think about a response prior to responding as opposed to sharing their first impulses of thought. Teachers should become aware

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of the learning characteristics of the students they serve so as to enhance their educational achievement. As shown in Appendix C, teachers should embrace group work and noncompetitive teaching practices when working with these Apache students from this community. A teaching approach that develops group-oriented classrooms and avoids a focus on individual students would be much more successful with these students. Additionally, when students are learning new skills, the skills should have relevance to the student’s group and not for the sole gain of the individual. The quiet and unassuming nature of these Apache students is characterized by periods of quiet thinking. The students will typically look down when being instructed and use observation for an extended period of time to learn a new skill. These behaviors are noted in Appendix D and suggest that their learning patterns are quite different from more traditional students in mainstream schools. These behaviors should be embraced by teachers and not be seen as a learning deficit. In terms of behavior management, teachers in this project continue to monitor student learning and do not use the natural self-monitoring style of these children. Appendix E shows that teachers from this community continue to provide extrinsic rewards, use delayed reinforcements, and administer punishments as a way to change behaviors. These strategies do not match the cultural value of these students and most likely continue to impede the learning of the child. Overall, the findings of this study and the studies cited in the review of literature relay the importance of teachers learning about the cultural characteristics of the American Indian students and the families they serve. This knowledge can become a valuable tool to assist educators in teaching this population. Traditional university and college programs can tailor courses with a focus on the importance of cultural differences as well as provide experiences in the strategies that address this population’s preferred learning styles. To further this process, school districts should regularly provide in-service training for teachers in regard to these issues. Teachers need to increase their skills at being aware of cultural differences and the various preferred learning styles of students they teach.

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Teachers should develop a new sense about the way they approach the American Indian child and their families. The literature has, for years, focused on good practices for teachers to use with the American Indian populations (Berry, 1969; Wilson & Black, 1978). These authors have called on teachers to move away from cultural immersion practices learned in teacher preparation programs. Teachers, in contrast, should learn to embrace students’ cultural characteristics and become more flexible to alter teaching practices in their classrooms. These strategies can enrich the education of the American Indian population and alleviate fears that relate to loss of group identity, alienation, and anxiety during the learning process (Berry, 1969; Wilson & Black, 1978). This project’s summation of issues from the series of discussion sessions with the teachers highlights the importance of using culturally sensitive teaching practices. This cultural sensitivity has been supported by a host of educational advocates for American Indian children for the past three decades (Bannon, 2004; Garrett, 1995; Nel, 1993; Pertusati, 1988; Pichette et al., 1999; Youngman & Sadongei, 1974). The concerning issue and major point for readers to consider is that the educational systems appear to have done very little to change the manner in which teachers are interacting with their American Indian students and their families. Culturally unresponsive teaching practices continue to be used in many schools. Thus, training agencies, in-service delivery, and other teacher preparation programs should focus on using the solutions to the commonly known problems discussed in this article. Without this type of attention, the field will continue to revisit this issue. The success rate for a large segment of American Indian children in rural schools will continue to reproduce the same disturbing results. We will continue to see high dropout rates, low graduation rates from high school, and a disproportionate overrepresentation of American Indian students in special education programs. This is a critical issue for rural schools serving this population and their families. Typically, the traditional American Indian families reside in rural areas and their children attend rural schools. These families have maintained their tra-

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ditional values and continue to pass these values on through the generation of families. Their cultural beliefs and values are subtly ingrained through teaching and experiences within their family and community systems. If our educational system is culturally unresponsive to these values, the educational impact may be devastating. Therefore, the message today is even more urgent than thirty years ago, as little has changed in addressing the educational practices prevalent in schools serving many American Indian students.

References Appleton, N. (1983). Cultural pluralism in education. New York: Longman. Bannon, K. T. (2004). Reaching children through their ancestral language and authentic literature. Reclaiming Children and Youth, 12(4), 232–236. Berry, B. (1969). The education of America Indians. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Brendtro, L. K. & Brokenleg, M. (1996). Beyond the curriculum of control. Journal of Correctional Education, 47(4), 160–166. Brewer, A. (1977). On Indian education. Integrated Education, 15, 21–23. Brown, A. D. (1979). The cross-over effect: A legitimate issue in Indian education? In Multicultural education and the American Indian. Los Angeles, CA: American Indian Studies Center, University of California, Los Angeles. Butterfield, R. & Pepper, F. (1991). Improving participation in elementary and secondary education for American Indian and Alaska Native students. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED343763). Cajete, G. A. (1988). Motivating American Indian students in science and math. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED296812). Cummins, J. (1989). Empowering minority students. Sacramento, CA: California Association of Bilingual Education. Donovan, S. & Cross, C. (Eds.). (2002). Minority students in special and gifted education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Dumont, R. V. (1972). Learning English and how to be silent: Studies in Sioux and Cherokee classrooms. In C. Cazden, V. John, and D. Hymes (Eds.), Functions of language in the classroom. New York: Teachers College Press. Emmer, E. T. & Stough, L. M. (2001). Classroom management: A critical part of educational psychology with implications for teacher education. Educational Psychologist, 36(2), 103–112. Garrett, M. T. (1995). Between two worlds: Cultural discontinuity in the dropout of Native American youth. The School Counselor, 42, 186–195.

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Guilment, G. M. (1976). The nonverbal American Indian child in the classroom: A survey. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED255336). Heath, S. B. (1983). Ways with words: Language, life, and work in communities and classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hilberg, R. S. & Tharp, R. G. (2002). Theoretical perspectives, research findings, and classroom implications of the learning styles of American Indian and Alaska Native students. ERIC Digest: Special Edition, Indian Edu/Research Net (EDO-RC-03-6). Jacobs, D. T. (2003). Shifting attention from “discipline problems” to “virtue awareness” in American Indian and Alaska Native education. ERIC Digest: Rural Education and Small Schools (EDO-RC-03-6). Jacobs, D. T. & Reyhner, J. (2002). Preparing teachers to support American Indian and Alaska Native student success and cultural heritage. ERIC Digest: Special Edition, Indian Edu/Research Net (EDO-RC-01-13). John, V. P. (1972). Styles of learning–styles of teaching: Reflections on the education of Navajo children. In C. Cazden, D. Hymes, and V. P. John (Eds.), Functions of language in the classroom. New York: Teachers College Press. Ladson-Billings, G. (1992). Reading between the lines and beyond the pages: A culturally relevant approach to literacy teaching. Theory into Practice, 31(4), 312–320. Longstreet, W. S. (1978). Aspects of ethnicity. New York: Teachers College Press. Luftig, R. L. (1983). Effects of schooling on the self-concept of Native American students. The School Counselor, 30, 251–260. McCarthy, J. & Benally, J. (2003). Classroom management in a Navajo middle school. Theory into Practice, 42(4), 296–305. Michaels, S. (1981). Sharing time: Children’s narrative styles and differential access to literacy. Language in Society, 10(4), 423–442. Miller, A. G. & Thomas, R. (1972). Cooperation and competition among Blackfoot Indian and urban Canadian children. Child Development, 43, 1104–1110. Nel, J. (1993). Preventing school failure: The Native American child. Preventing School Failure, 37(3), 19–25. Ogbu, J. (1987). Variability in minority school performance: A problem in search of an explanation. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 18(4), 312–334. Ornstein, A. C. & Levine, D. U. (1989). Social class, race, and school achievement: Problems and prospects. Journal of Teacher Education, 4(5), 17–23. Pertusati, L. (1988). Beyond segregation or integration: A case study from effective Native American education. Journal of American Indian Education, 27(2), 10–20. Pewewardy, C. (2002). Learning styles of American Indian Alaska Native students: A review of the literature and implications for practice. Journal of American Indian Education, 41(3), 22–56.

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Philips, S. (1972). Participant structures and communicative competence: Warm Springs children in community and classroom. In C. Cazden, V. John, and D. Hymes (Eds.), Functions of languages in the classroom. New York: Teachers College Press. Pichette, E. F., Garrett, M. T., Kosciulek, J. F., & Rosenthal, D. A. (1999). Cultural identification of American Indians and its impact on rehabilitation services. Journal of Rehabilitation, 65(3), 3–11. Plank, G. A. (1994). What silence means for educators of American Indian children. Journal of American Indian Education, 34(1), 3–19. Riding, R. & Rayner, S. (1998). Cognitive styles and learning strategies: Understanding style differences in learning and behavior. London: David Fulton Publishers. Rohner, R. P. (1965). Factors influencing the academic performance of Kwakiutl children in Canada. Comparative Education Review, 9, 331–340. Salend, S. J., Garrick Duhaney, L. M., & Montgomery, W. (2002). A comprehensive approach to identifying and addressing issues of disproportionate representation. Remedial and Special Education, 23(5), 289–300. Shirley, J. V. (2004). On the right path. Black Issues in Higher Education, 21(9), 88–92. Strand, J. A. & Peacock, T. D. (2002). Nurturing resilience and school success in American Indian and Alaska Native students. ERIC Digest: Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools (EDO-RC-02-11). Swisher, K. & Deyhle, D. (1989). The styles of learning are different but the teaching is the same: Suggestions for teachers of American Indian youth. Journal of American Indian Education, Special Edition, 1–14. U.S. Department of Education. (2000). Twenty-second annual report to Congress on the implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Washington, DC: Author. Vasquez, J. A. (1990). Teaching to the distinctive traits of minority students. The Clearing House, 63, 299–304. Wald, J. (1998). Culturally and linguistically diverse professionals in special education: A graphic analysis. Reston, VA: Council for Exceptional Children. Werner, O. & Begishe, K. (1968). Styles of learning: The evidence for Navajo. Paper presented at the conference on Styles of Learning in American Indian Children, Palo Alto, California. Wilson, J. G. & Black, A. B. (1978). Native American Indians and variables that are interrelated with academic achievement. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Opportunities Program Personnel, Fontana, Wisconsin. Wlodkowski, J. R. (1999). Motivation and diversity: A framework for teaching. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 78, 7–17. Wlodkowski, J. R. & Ginsberg, M. B. (1995). A framework for culturally responsive teaching. Educational Leadership, 53(1), 17–21. Youngman, G. & Sadongei, M. (1974). Counseling the American Indian child. Elementary School Guidance and Counseling, 8, 273–277.

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Appendixes Appendix A.

Learning Styles

Practices

Problems

Solutions

Teachers tend to tell or read a story. They provide some information and then check students’ comprehension with discussions, comments, and questions.

American Indian children are taught to hear all of the information and then come to a conclusion. They value seeing the “big picture” first before breaking down the information.

Teachers can accommodate the students by exposing them to the entire story or larger segments of the story to allow students to reflect and understand the whole story and its elements.

Teachers emphasize independent work from children within the classroom.

American Indian children are taught to work in groups for the benefit of the group. They value collaboration and use a group process to accomplish tasks.

Teachers should feel comfortable with using cooperativelearning activities where students are encouraged to accomplish a task together and to experience success as a group unit.

Teachers quiz children on new skills they are learning so to assess a child’s level of acquisition.

American Indian children are taught to learn through modeling and practice. As children view a model, they then proceed to learn the skill through private practice. Children are uncomfortable in demonstrating their skill level until they have reached mastery.

Teachers need to allow students time to privately practice learning the new skill. Teachers can request volunteers to demonstrate their acquisition of the skill. Their demonstration should be private and not be a public display.

Teachers may use artificial activities to teach concepts such as math or phonics worksheets.

American Indian children learn best from meaningful, handson activities that are functionally based and are being learned for a purpose. If the task is deemed beneficial, the child will be more invested in learning the task.

Teachers should clearly explain the purpose of learning a skill. The skill should be meaningful to the students. As students learn the skill, teachers should use hands-on activities that represent the task. This process promotes unity between the teacher and students and makes the teacher a part of the group.

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Appendix B.

Reflective Learning Modality of American Indians

Practices

Problems

Solutions

When teachers ask questions of children in the classroom, they expect a verbal response from the child.

American Indian children are taught to be comfortable with silence. When a child does not verbally respond to a teacher, the child may be considered rude or incompetent. The American Indian child may be intentionally not responding because he or she has assessed the situation and decided it is most appropriate to be silent.

Teachers need to become more comfortable with various students’ learning styles. Do not publically address students who are silent learners. If a student is doing fine in class and chooses not to answer, allow this silent behavior. Teachers need to be cautious in interpreting students’ silence as it may not indicate a lack of understanding. Teachers may increase the chances for a student to provide a verbal response if the teacher comments on an issue rather than directly questioning a student.

Students are expected to answer questions in class when called upon. At times, they are expected to volunteer to answer questions in class.

American Indian children are often uncomfortable answering questions. To answer a question may be interpreted as being boastful or competitive. This is especially true when another student failed to answer the question. Also, if a student does not fully understand a concept or has not mastered a skill, he or she will not offer an answer. The behavior may be interpreted as defiant.

When teachers ask questions, they should phrase it to say, “What do you think?” or “What should we do?” When teachers assign students to group projects, students are more likely to volunteer answers that represent the group’s efforts. Also, students are more apt to volunteer their participation when they believe they have a choice.

Teachers ask questions of children in the classroom, and wait time for a response is generally three to five seconds.

American Indian children are taught the importance of reflection. They begin practicing at a very young age to think a situation through before responding. In order to do this effectively, children require extra time to allow for reflection.

Teachers need to allow adequate time (six to ten seconds) for students to process and reflect on information. With the increased wait time, students can generate answers that represent well-thought-out answers.

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Appendix C.

Cooperative Learning Method for American Indians

Practices

Problems

Solutions

Teachers often “spotlight” a student in the class for his or her accomplishments or good behaviors.

American Indian children are taught to exhibit humility. Putting a child on a pedestal makes him or her feel very uncomfortable. They feel this makes them look like they are better than others. This makes them appear to be competitive as children are taught to never shame others.

Teachers should quietly and individually acknowledge a student’s accomplishments. It is important to remember, however, acknowledgment is not always necessary as American Indian students learn at an early age to monitor, evaluate, and intrinsically reward themselves. If work needs to be praised, a teacher can “spotlight” a group’s effort.

Teachers often have competitions within school activities and assignments.

American Indian children are taught to work in unity and to help others for the benefit of the group, not solely for the individual.

Teachers should emphasize cooperative work assignments as opposed to competitive activities. Mixed-ability grouping can enhance classroom diverse learners.

Teachers instill the importance of children being responsible for their own academic assignments (working by themselves, not assisting fellow classmates).

American Indian children are taught to view this type of behavior as one that results in selfgain. A philosophy that promotes “togetherness” and “helping others” is much more congruent with American Indian cultures.

Teachers should arrange assignments that allow students to work in collaborative groups. Students should be encouraged to assist one another and function as a team. When students are expected to work alone, students may be tempted to talk to others so to help them. Students view themselves as part of the group irrespective of classroom arrangements by the teacher.

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Appendix D.

Nonverbal Learning Styles of American Indians

Practices

Problems

Solutions

Teachers may have set standards and expectations of children’s behaviors in the classroom.

Rigid teacher standards regarding students’ behaviors may not allow for the cultural variances and diversity among children in the classroom. If a child does not fit the teacher’s set standards, the child may appear to be overly quiet, uninterested, and/ or unknowledgeable. American Indian children may exhibit more silent types of behaviors than other children. Thus, these students may not meet the standards of the teacher who expects verbally responsive students.

Teachers must feel comfortable educating a variety of students with various learning styles. Using one type of teaching style does not fit all children’s strengths and needs in learning. American Indian students learn from models and through observation. Consequently, teachers need to reinforce these strategies and allow students to be silent and verbalize when appropriate. Students love humor. Teachers need to learn to laugh with the student and even at themselves.

Teachers expect children to look at them when they are talking to them.

American Indian children may be taught it is disrespectful to make eye contact with an adult. This is especially true when the child is perceived to be in trouble with the adult.

Teachers should become comfortable with students who are respecting this value. Teachers can learn to realize students are not being disrespectful when they do not look directly into their eyes. In fact, it may be a sign from the student indicating his or her respect.

Students are expected to be verbally interactive in class activities.

American Indian children are taught to listen quietly and observe adults while learning. Children are taught to learn from modeling.

Since modeling and observation strategies are favored in the learning process of American Indian students, teachers need to reinforce these strategies during class instruction. Do not expect hand-raising. Instead, have an openended discussion where students may volunteer answers or comments. Usually the students will designate a leader to speak for the group.

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Appendix E.

Behavior Modification for American Indians

Practices

Problems

Solutions

Teachers tend to monitor children’s learning and progress. The teacher is in control over the child’s learning process.

American Indian children are taught at a very young age to be responsible individuals. They are taught to self-monitor and selfevaluate their own behaviors.

Teachers should encourage and reinforce students’ self-monitoring skills. Teachers can acknowledge the importance of students monitoring, evaluating, and rewarding their own behaviors. Give the students a sense of directing his or her own behavior.

Teachers may rely heavily on extrinsic rewards for children in their classrooms (stickers, tokens, candy).

American Indian children are taught to achieve for the intrinsic reward of accomplishment. They are taught to value success in itself, not the extrinsic reward that may be given.

Teachers should gear their practices toward reinforcing selfmonitoring skills. Self-monitoring is the highest level of behavioral control, thus in keeping compliant with family members’ teaching practices. Allowing a student to help another classmate may be highly rewarding since it serves as a reinforcement and allows the student to fulfill a cultural role.

Teachers may use reinforcements that consist of delayed rewards that may come at the end of the week or month.

American Indian children are most motivated to accomplish for the present day and not so much for future goals.

Teachers can encourage children to think of ways they can use a skill in the present and model how the skill will be of future use. Teachers should also encourage selfreinforcement to assure that delays are not interfering with learning.

Teachers use punishment as a means to change behavior.

Since American Indian children are taught to self-monitor and self-evaluate their behaviors, they habitually assess how their behavior hurts or benefits others. Children are taught to adjust their behavior to benefit the group.

Teachers must continuously encourage students to self-monitor. Teachers need to exhibit patience and remind the student to be a good team player. As teachers reinforce group unity, it will encourage the student to act appropriately.

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3 Structural Inequality Theory

Overview of Structural Inequality Theory Similar to cultural discontinuity theory, structural inequality theory also attempts to explain how cultural conflicts impact educational outcomes. However, the similarity between these two theoretical perspectives ends at that point. There is a sharp contrast in the manner each of these theoretical perspectives considers the source, implications, and consequences of cultural conflict. In its various forms, structural inequality theory has had a tremendous impact on American Indian educational studies. Interestingly, however, this perspective does not have a consistently applied label in the literature. This theoretical perspective has been referred to as macrostructural explanations (Ledlow, 1992), cultural-ecological theory (Ogbu & Simons, 1998), and oppositional culture theory (Ainsworth-Darnell & Downey, 1998). The first label designates the collective theoretical efforts of scholars who share a common theme in their work, namely the impact sweeping social structural phenomena have on the institution of education. The latter two labels refer to more narrow theoretical treatments on minority education, largely emerging from the work of John Ogbu (1978; 1982; 1987; 1992; 2003). This book adopts the label used by a number of scholars, most notably Kathryn Au (1993), that of structural inequality theory. 63

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The label itself is a bit vague, but it probably needs to be such. Structural inequality theory borrows from several disciplinary and theoretical traditions and is applied in a variety of ways by scholars. As such, a more general label is used in the attempt to include as many of these applications as possible rather than focus on a more narrow treatment, such as John Ogbu’s cultural-ecological theory or the lesser-known oppositional culture theory (which has not been widely applied to American Indian education studies). Structural inequality theory largely developed as a challenge to cultural discontinuity theory. Moreover, compared to other theoretical perspectives, structural inequality theory is often considered to be a less conservative theoretical perspective. Its basic premise and assumptions offer critical assessments of existing social arrangements, and its implications call for dramatic action. Likely this theory has proven to be more popular among academicians than among educational practitioners, but it has been subject to significant criticisms by both sets of educational professionals (Ladson-Billings, 1995). Yet, it has been demonstrated that structural inequality theory is a useful explanative tool for many of the enduring and perplexing dilemmas found in American Indian education.

Intellectual History of Structural Inequality Theory By the late 1970s cultural deprivation explanations had fallen into disfavor by most education studies scholars. Cultural discontinuity theory in very quick order became the theoretical perspective of choice among a large contingent of academicians and practitioners alike. But there also developed a small group of scholars who were dissatisfied with many of the finer details of cultural discontinuity theory. While their numbers would grow throughout the 1980s and beyond, within Native education studies their collective efforts have not received the level of popularity of those of the cultural discontinuity theorists. Perhaps more than any other single individual, structural inequality theory owes its evolution and place in educational scholarship to a Nigerian-born anthropologist named John Ogbu. However, before reviewing

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the contribution of Ogbu it is necessary to consider the basis for structural inequality theory for many American Indian education scholars. That theoretical foundation can be found in the conflict theoretical framework from the discipline of sociology. Theoretical Foundation: Conflict Theory In 1849 a thirty-one-year-old German political exile crossed the English Channel in order to take up what turned out to be lifelong residence in Great Britain. As historical happenstance would have it the young man, already disillusioned with what he considered to be the gross political and social injustices of European society, arrived in England as the Industrial Revolution was dramatically altering British social life. No doubt as he walked through the grimy, disease-infested, and crowded industrial cities, he saw firsthand the misery created by the social transformations of the Industrial Revolution. Those scenes included orphaned and abandoned children, many of whom had been maimed in the factories and left homeless; women forced into prostitution with no other means of income; dejected men, old far before their years as a result of agonizing toil at low wages for long hours. Likely this German expatriate was made even more bitter by the fact that three of his own children died as he and wife struggled in abject poverty living in the Soho district of London (Ashley & Orenstein, 2005). That young man, of course, was Karl Marx. He is one of the world’s most recognizable historical figures, best known as the cofounder of modern socialist communism. However, Karl Marx had another, lesser recognized impact on world history. His ideas have had a significant impact on social science scholarship. As it relates to social scientific theory, fundamental to Marxian thought is the notion that social conditions are heavily influenced by the economic realities found in society. This premise can be clearly found in the conflict theoretical framework of sociology. Conflict theory is one of sociology’s three major theoretical frameworks, the others being structural-functionalist theory and symbolic interactionist theory. Sociologists work from one of these broad theoretical frameworks in an attempt to answer fundamental questions about social life. Among these questions

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are: How is social order maintained? What are the causes and consequences of social change? What is the source of social inequality? What are the consequences of social inequality? Each of the three sociological theoretical frameworks rests upon a sharply different premise and contains dissimilar assumptions about the nature of society and social behavior. As a result, the theoretical frameworks present a different image of society and social life and lead to contrasting conclusions. Thus, the three theoretical frameworks provide very different answers to each of the fundamental questions raised above. For instance, structural-functionalism asserts that human society is basically stable. According to this theoretical framework, the various parts of society (such as social institutions, social groups, social norms and values) all play a functional purpose in the overall objective to maintain the survival of the society. That is, all the components in a society work together in the necessary function to maintain social order and societal continuation. The basic notion is that if human society were organized otherwise, predictable and enduring social arrangements could not be possible. Symbolic interactionism, on the other hand, does not make sweeping assumptions about the nature of society. Rather, this framework asserts individuals create “society” through complex social interaction using symbols (such as language, behavior, events, and signs) to convey meaning. Essentially, society is created in the minds of people and they must learn the complexity of important cultural symbols from others. In the end, this theoretical framework contends the perceptions people hold about their social circumstances are crucial as they determine social behavior (Goffman, 1959). This assumption is captured in the famous Thomas theorem that holds if people define the situation as real; it is real in its consequences (Thomas & Thomas, 1928). Simply put, if people perceive something to be so, for them it is reality. Reflecting basic Marxian thought, conflict theory holds that the economy is the most important social institution and molds all other social arrangements. For example, in American society, family, legal, political, religious, and educational structures are all shaped by the needs of the capitalist economic system. Moreover, one of the by-products of this social dynamic is continual conflict among opposing social interests. For a society like the

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United States, this means the competing interests among its most basic social divisions: the social classes, genders, and racial/ethnic groups. Moreover, typically these various divisions intersect with one another. For instance, large numbers of many minority groups are also found in the lower socioeconomic classes, women are more likely than men to be poor, and so forth. The task for conflict theorists has been to appreciate the nature and consequences of social tensions and competition. More specifically, for conflict theorists concerned with minority educational issues, the challenge has been twofold. First, conflict theorists have attempted to explain the persisting inequalities in American education. Second, they seek to understand how the institution of education has worked to perpetuate existing inequalities in American society. These common themes in conflict theory are pervasively found in the American Indian education literature. The scholarly literature is replete with research efforts that attribute the continual lag in American Indian educational success to structural barriers inhibiting achievement. For conflict theorists, chief among these obstacles are the crushing weight of poverty and personal as well as institutionalized forms of racial discrimination. Thus, from this point of view, frustrated educational success among Native peoples is the direct consequence of the way in which society is structurally arranged. Conflict scholars also point out that larger social, economic, and political inequalities are duplicated in the very way the educational system works. From this view, mainstream education operates according to values and procedures advantageous to the most powerful social interests in society. The cultural and personal needs of Native students are rarely served and may even be ignored if not intentionally manipulated to suit the needs of the dominant society. Thus, whether intentional or not, the institution of education often works to continue the cultural, political, and economic suppression of American Indians. John Ogbu and Cultural-Ecological Theory Born in 1939 to Nigerian farmers, John Ogbu first came to the United States to attend Princeton Theological Seminary as part of

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his preparation for the ministry. However, Ogbu turned his attention to the formal study of anthropology as the desire to understand more about his native land grew. In 1961 he enrolled in the University of California at Berkeley, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in 1965. He remained at Berkeley to pursue graduate study in anthropology, earning a master’s in 1969 and a doctorate in 1971. After a short stint as an ethnographer with the Stockton, California, school district, Ogbu returned to the University of California at Berkeley as a faculty member. He remained there until his untimely death in 2003 at the age of sixty-four. During his tenure at Berkeley Ogbu produced an impressive amount of scholarly work and rose to become one of the nation’s most respected anthropologists. Moreover, his lifelong work on minority educational issues has led to the emergence of what is often referred to as cultural-ecological theory (Foster, 2004). Cultural-ecological theory is an attempt to account for why some minority groups do poorly in school while other minority groups experience academic success. As described by John Ogbu (2003): “The cultural-ecological theory of minority schooling takes into account the historical, economic, social, cultural and language or dialect situations of minority groups in the larger society in which they exist” (p. 45). There are three major components to Ogbu’s cultural-ecological theory. The first component is the assumption that two major types of social forces consisting of the system and community impact minority educational endeavors. The system is essentially the societal arrangements that frame minority education. Ogbu argued the system negatively impacts minority education in a number of important ways. For instance, the system often includes patterned and persistent barriers to educational achievement in the form of inadequate education opportunities; relational discrimination and prejudice; and the denigration of minority cultures, languages, and/or intellectual abilities. In conjunction with the system, Ogbu also recognized the community, which consists of the ways in which minorities respond to the system forces. He contended that community responses to mainstream education include a range of reactions. Significantly, Ogbu regarded the community responses to the system to be culturally based (Foster, 2004). That is, the way in which minorities respond to educational barriers presented by

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the system is heavily influenced by the specific cultural context and history of the group (Ogbu, 1991; 1992). The idea that community responses are associated with the cultural context of the group is connected to the second component of cultural-ecological theory, the notion that there are three basic types of American minorities: autonomous minorities, voluntary minorities, and involuntary minorities. Ogbu distinguished among these groups based on their specific historical and cultural experiences in the United States. Thus, he contended each of these types of minorities typically exhibit unique, patterned responses to mainstream education offered by the system. Autonomous minorities include those groups that, while clearly occupying a minority status, historically have not been reduced to a crippling subordinate position in society. Rather, these groups have enjoyed a measure of political, economic, and cultural autonomy. Typical of autonomous minorities in American society are Jews and the Amish. These groups have generally responded to the system by accepting the educational institution and/or creating their own parallel institution. As a result, autonomous minorities do not experience systematic educational difficulties and have generally fared well academically. Voluntary minorities are those groups that have not been coerced to move to U.S. society but have arrived as a result of their own initiative. These groups often migrate to the United States as a means to pursue greater opportunities or to escape difficult political and economic circumstances in their homeland. Ogbu contended these groups typically respond to the system through instrumental means (Ogbu, 1991). That is, they approach schools in terms of the potential benefits that can be gained through educational advancement. Although they recognize prevailing barriers such as personal prejudice and institutional discrimination, these minorities tend to remain focused on the greater opportunities that can result from educational achievement. As a result, voluntary minorities generally have done well academically. Ogbu identified a number of Asian groups, such as the Chinese and Japanese, as examples of voluntary minorities (Ogbu, 1978). Involuntary minorities, on the other hand, historically were coerced into American society against their will. As Ogbu explains, involuntary minorities include “people who were originally

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brought into the United States involuntarily through slavery, conquest, or colonization” (1987, p. 321). Additionally, involuntary minorities have the least social, political, and economic power and occupy the lowest social strata in American society. Examples of involuntary minorities include African Americans, Alaska Natives, American Indians, and Native Hawaiians. Typically, these groups have responded with an oppositional approach to the dominant society, especially the institution of education (Ogbu, 1990). Consequently, their educational experiences have proven to be extremely difficult and marked by a lack of success. As Kevin Foster (2004) explains: Because of long periods of discrimination by the dominant society and its institutions, involuntary minorities have developed responses and behaviors that emphasize their distrust of and opposition to the dominant society and its institutions, including schools. In addition, they maintain alternative selfaffirming norms and values that maintain boundaries between themselves and the majority group—norms and values that undermine academics. Further, involuntary minorities’ actions and attitudes reflect the fact that they come to school with distinctive cultural and language patterns that distinguish them from the majority cultural behaviors. In fact, they will go so far as to defend their “alternative” behaviors, even though the behaviors—having been disapproved by the school—facilitate academic failure. (p. 372)

The notion that minority members often create oppositional responses to mainstream education has led to the emergence of a distinct theoretical perspective generally referred to as oppositional culture theory (Ainsworth-Darnell & Downey, 1998; Harris, 2006). It is important to note that oppositional culture theory developed out of cultural-ecological theory. The third part of cultural-ecological theory involves a refinement of cultural discontinuity theory. Ogbu was a strong critic of cultural discontinuity theory. In particular, he argued that its principal concept, cultural discontinuity, is underdeveloped. Specifically, he contended cultural discontinuity theorists do not sufficiently appreciate the various forms of incongruence experienced in school situations (Ogbu, 1982). In an effort to correct

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this theoretical deficiency, Ogbu identified three types of cultural discontinuities separating students and schools: universal discontinuities, primary discontinuities, and secondary discontinuities. For Ogbu, universal discontinuities are, to some extent, experienced by all children regardless to their dominant/minority group status. Because children leave the comfort and intimacy of their home to go to a formal institution where they are evaluated on impersonal standards of performance, incongruence is created between the home and the school. As such, all children deal with some level of discontinuity in their educational experiences. This is the fundamental notion of universal discontinuity. However, this is not the primary focus of cultural-ecological theory. Primary discontinuities are differences in cultural values, norms, and language among students and those prevailing in mainstream educational institutions. Thus, primary discontinuities are particularly problematic for minority children. According to Ogbu, cultural discontinuity theorists are preoccupied with primary cultural discontinuities. He also considered it highly significant to recognize that primary discontinuities existed before differing populations came into contact and is not the result of cultural subjugation. That is, primary discontinuities emerge from the fact there are cultural differences between the dominant group and minority groups. Thus, primary discontinuities can presumably be overcome through culturally appropriate instruction (Ledlow, 1992). On this point, cultural discontinuity theorists are correct in their general assertions. However, Ogbu did not believe that cultural discontinuity scholars take their analyses far enough. There is a third critically important form of cultural discontinuity, that of secondary discontinuities. Secondary discontinuities are created by historic and enduring social inequalities built into a society’s social structure. These forms of incongruence involve greater complexity than differences in language and behavioral patterns. They include institutional and personal discrimination and prejudice. Moreover, secondary discontinuities are produced after the dominant and minority groups come into contact. Historically, this typically meant that the dominant group deliberately and systematically erected social and political barriers designed to subjugate minority members. In contemporary America, secondary discontinuities take the form

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of the residual effects of its cultural history. Namely, secondary discontinuities involve what is sometimes referred to as “white privilege,” whereby members of the dominant group enjoy the social, political, and economic advantages that build up over centuries of white prominence (Rothenberg, 2004). It is on secondary discontinuities that social inequality theorists focus their attention and criticize cultural discontinuity theorists for largely ignoring.

The Premise of Structural Inequality Theory As found in the American Indian education literature, structural inequality theory includes a collection of scholars who share common themes in their work and typically borrow heavily from either conflict theory, cultural-ecology theory, or a combination of both. Some scholars specifically use Ogbu’s cultural-ecological perspective in their work. However, there is a much larger group who merge elements of both cultural-ecological theory with the general theoretical notions contained in sociology’s conflict theory. As such, structural inequality theory is an appropriate label for this theoretical approach as it captures the efforts of scholars who share a common focus on the educational problems associated with the social inequity produced by societal arrangements. Kathryn Au (1993) describes this perspective as: “The theory of structural inequality looks beyond the mismatches between the culture of the home and the culture of the school to the larger historical, political, economic, and social forces which have shaped relationships among ethnic groups in the United States. In this theory, conditions of schooling are seen as a reflection of these larger forces” (p. 10). Peter Wood and W. Charles Clay (1996) expand on this definition by explaining: “This perspective maintains that some minority groups have experienced prolonged periods of discrimination . . . From this viewpoint, the effect of prolonged discrimination at the hands of Anglo-dominated society is manifested in a distrust of Anglodominated institutions and in negative perceptions regarding the likelihood of achieving social mobility through educational attainment” (p. 43).

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These scholars suggest three general themes that unite the efforts of structural inequality theorists: (1) historically created structural conditions have produced unequal opportunities for educational and economic success; (2) the educational institution is designed to serve the interests of the dominant society; and (3) minorities do not passively accept their daunting social and economic disadvantages but actively challenge the assumption that education will improve their lives. Out of these themes the basic premise of this perspective can be established. Structural inequality theory asserts that persistent educational difficulties for American Indians are rooted in historically created disparate social opportunities and many Native people are skeptical of an educational institution they perceive as serving the interests of the dominant society. Structural inequality theory directs attention toward largescale social arrangements and is less concerned with the personal interactions between individuals. Thus, this theoretical perspective is considered to be a macrolevel approach to American Indian education. However, just as cultural discontinuity has been criticized for a lack of attention to social structural conditions, structural inequality theorists have been criticized for failing to appreciate the importance of such microlevel phenomena as teaching practices and personal relationships (Huffman, 2008).

Structural Inequality Theoretical Assumptions on American Indian Education The themes uniting structural inequality theorists also constitute the fundamental assumptions of this perspective. The first assumption is that historically produced social structural conditions have resulted in unique educational challenges for Native people. The second assumption is that education is still largely an exclusionary institution and is primarily designed to serve the needs of the mainstream society and not the needs of American Indian students. Finally, this theoretical perspective assumes many Native students actively resist the social disadvantages duplicated in the educational institution.

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Social Structure and Educational Disadvantage Structural inequality scholars contend the way society is structured contributes to the lack of educational success for minorities such as American Indians. This assumption draws heavily from conflict theory in sociology and maintains that the poor, especially poor minorities, are heavily victimized by enduring social inequalities. Most notably, individual and institutional forms of discrimination work against those with less social and political power. Fundamental to structural inequality theory is the political and economic disenfranchisement of Native peoples. In terms of Ogbu’s typology of minorities, American Indians are an involuntary minority and occupy a unique place in American history and social structure. Structural inequality scholars contend it is crucial to recognize the historically generated social conditions that frame current educational practices and policies (McKenna, 1981). This point was emphasized over forty years ago in sociologist Robert Blauner’s (1969) notion of internal colonialism. Blauner suggested the situation for many American minorities is similar to colonized people around the world. Like colonies, minority communities operate as a source of resources and wealth for some members of the dominant society. Yet, minority individuals exert no real power or control over their own communities. For instance, although they reside in the world’s most influential democracy, many American Indian groups are politically, culturally, and even geographically isolated from the mainstream society. They are frequently economically subjugated either through the exploitation of the natural resources found on their lands and/or through the ownership and control of businesses by outsiders (Lujan & Adams, 2004; McKenna, 1981). Moreover, as a result of their political marginalization in the society, there is little opportunity to generate significant political change. Blauner characterized internal colonization as involving four components: 1) the minority has been brought into the United States against its will, generally by force; 2) the dominant society enacts policy directives that deliberately attack and weaken the culture and social arrangements of the minority; 3) the minority group is economically and/or politically controlled by ethnic outsiders; and 4) the initial subjugation of the minority was justified on blatantly racist doctrines. It is easy to see how each of

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these conceptual elements is part of the historical experiences of Native peoples. While the concept of internal colonialism is not as widely applied as it was during the 1970s and 1980s, today a growing number of scholars work within this tradition and have introduced the concept of decolonization as an explanative tool in understanding the continuing political, economic, and educational disadvantages plaguing many American Indian peoples (Biolsi, 1992; Fenelon, 1997; Grande, 2004; Lujan & Adams, 2004; McKenna, 1981; Wilson & Yellow Bird, 2005). Greater discussion on decolonization is offered in chapter 6. To structural inequality theorists, historically produced social structural conditions create the current difficulties in educational advancement for American Indian students. For instance, structural inequality theorists suggest that years of blatantly assimilationist educational policies resulted in a disjointed array of schools serving Native children. These schools ranged from mission and Bureau of Indian Affairs day schools to private boarding schools often operating far removed from local reservations. The commonality shared by these diverse schools was their original objective to eradiate Native culture from the lives of American Indian children (Reyhner & Eder, 1989; Szasz, 1974). While much of the aggressive assimilationist educational efforts ceased by the latter part of the twentieth century, Native people have been left with fragmented and inconsistent school systems that have not served them especially well (Nagel, 1996; Senese, 1991; Wilkinson, 2005). As such, inferior schools have significantly contributed to the academic disadvantages faced by Native students. Carol Ward (2005) observes: In spite of the differences in structure, approaches, and orientation among these schools, they had a common purpose in Indian education; in support of the government policy to assimilate American Indians, they each attempted to eliminate the use of native language and religious practices . . . Thus, the types of schooling found in Indian communities include a variety of educational settings and approaches: Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and tribally controlled schools, public schools, Catholic and other private schools, and alternative Indian schools. Current variation in American Indian schooling, especially on reservations, has important consequences for educational attainment.

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For reservation populations, which still experience the legacy of the special status of American Indians in all facets of their lives, it is important to consider the range of school experiences that contribute to diverse school outcomes. (pp. 8–9)

Related to the difficulties created by the fragmented assortment of school systems serving Native children is the inadequate funding for many reservation schools. Specific in this regard are BIA sponsored schools that have encountered serious funding challenges (Ward, 2005). While conducting personal interviews with over sixty Native and non-Native teachers of American Indian students, Linda Miller Cleary and Thomas Peacock (1998) discovered the dramatic impact of inadequate funding of a number of BIA schools: Facilities at many of the BIA-funded schools are in an advanced state of deterioration and need replacement. Unfortunately, there is a large backlog of buildings in need of minor and major repair or replacement. Most tribes do not have their own resources to build new facilities or to keep existing facilities in even a minimal state of repair. Unlike most public schools, which can rely on a tax base to support capital projects through referendum or normal budgeting processes, most tribes have no tax resources to back the issuing of bonds to construct facilities. Congress has been reluctant to allocate sufficient funds for facilities because of the BIA’s poor educational track record. The end result is that many American Indian children attend schools that meet few fire or safety codes . . . As we traveled throughout American Indian country to interview teachers, we came on nearly third-world conditions in some of the schools. High school students on my [Thomas Peacock] own reservation are being educated in dilapidated mobile homes. Students in another school (since replaced with a new facility) were using outhouses. In yet another school, I could see through a large crack in the gymnasium wall. (p. 75)

Abiding institutional racism, colonial-like relations with external political and economic entities, fragmented school systems, and inadequate funding for schools are a few of the serious challenges facing the education of Native children. Structural inequality theorists are quick to point out that all of these fac-

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tors have been produced and perpetuated by social and political structural conditions (Ogbu, 1978). What is more, however, these scholars challenge theoretical perspectives such as cultural discontinuity theory because they do not adequately explain educational failures associated with these conditions (Ledlow, 1992). Exclusionary Nature of Mainstream Education Structural inequality theorists contend major institutions, such as education, operate primarily to serve the most powerful social interests. Notable in this regard is the notion that schools prepare students for participation in the capitalist economic system. However, according to structural inequality theorists, members of the dominant society are presented with a number of significant educational advantages ranging from higher-quality academic opportunities to an emphasis on standardized testing, which is culturally slanted in the direction of dominant group members (Lomax, Maxwell West, Harmon, Viator, & Madaus, 1995; Ogbu, 1978). The result is that while educational success ultimately results in economic rewards, the situation is perpetually biased in favor of the dominant society. Faced with an economic reality of what John Ogbu refers to as a “job ceiling,” minorities conclude that educational advancement for them has little meaning (Ogbu, 1978). Ogbu (2003) explains the job ceiling as it relates to the historical circumstances of African Americans: People will believe more strongly in the school as a delegate agency and put more effort in pursuit of school credentials if, as a group and as individuals, they are usually rewarded with jobs and wages or other benefits commensurate with their education than if they are not . . . Historical and comparative research suggests, however, that until the 1960s the American educational system did not function effectively as a delegate agency for Black Americans because of discrimination. Before the 1960s there was a job ceiling against Blacks that prevented them from getting jobs and wages that were commensurate with their education . . . [A] consequence is that the uncertainty that education will pay off probably discouraged many from pursuing education beyond the legal age requirement . . . [B]ecause Blacks did not experience a strong connection between their schooling and their chances in the job market,

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they were discouraged from developing a strong norm of academic pursuit, in spite of their aspirations. Therefore, many generations of a lack of connection between school success and success in adult life probably resulted in skepticism about the real value of schooling. This skepticism undermined their academic engagement. (pp. 145–147)

Following the lead of scholars like John Ogbu, American Indian education structural inequality theorists assert that the educational institution was designed for and still operates to serve the needs of the mainstream society. Thus, a number of American Indian educational scholars concentrate on the way in which schools reflect and reproduce social disparities (Forbes, 2000; Ledlow, 1992). Illustrative of structural inequality theorists is the argument made by Linda Van Hamme (1996): The curriculum content and teaching methods in American schools have served to perpetuate the cultural and social values of the dominant society at the expense of those whose cultural values, traditions, and ways of experiencing and learning about the world conflict with this worldview. Culturally-biased curriculum, low teacher expectations, and practices such as standardized testing, tracking, and ability grouping, which assign a disproportionate number of Indian and other minority group students to low-ability groups, tend to perpetuate the social and economic status quo while rejecting the cultural worth of minority groups (Darder, 1991; Estrada & Vasquez, 1981; Lomotey, 1992). (p. 24)

Van Hamme identifies an intersection of concerns frequently identified by many scholars of American Indian education. However, attention to these issues is especially prominent among structural inequality theorists. Foremost in the literature is the twofold contention that 1) schools are designed to propagate mainstream culture on Native students (especially as evidenced by the emphasis on standardized testing) and 2) low teacher expectations for American Indian students harm the nature and quality of their education. Moreover, the convergence of these two dynamics creates an essentially exclusive education institution that works to diminish the cultural dignity of Native students.

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Peter Wood and W. Charles Clay (1996) use quantitative methods to explore structural inequality theory’s assertion that involuntary minorities, in this case a sample of Native high school students, perceive a “job ceiling” that serves to reduce their confidence in the opportunities provided by educational advancement. These researchers employ a comparative approach in which the attitudes toward education and perceptions on the value of education between a sample of over 1,000 white high schools students is contrasted with those of a sample of 352 American Indian high school students. Of specific concern are the dispositions on two key variables: educational achievement (measured by self-reported grade average) and perceived opportunities derived from educational success (what the authors refer to as the “do well” variable). The findings reveal notable racial differences in the manner in which these two groups regard their own educational performance and the potential opportunities educational success holds. The authors conclude that their general findings render support for structural inequality theory and refute the assertions of cultural discontinuity theory: In sum, our findings support the contention that perceptions of occupational opportunity differ by race, and these differences significantly influence the academic performance of American Indian students. Consequently, the observed race differential in academic performance between Whites and Indians cannot be wholly explained by a cultural discontinuity hypothesis, but rests somewhat in American Indian students becoming aware of structural constraints to status attainment. An awareness of these constraints affects students’ beliefs regarding their chances for mobility within the existing opportunity structure. Despite lip service to the importance of doing well in school, our results suggest that an awareness among Indian students of the unequal opportunities society provides them results in decreased achievement motivation and poorer performance compared to Whites, who are traditionally offered better opportunity . . . We speculate that what we have observed is in fact one step in an evolving process whereby structural constraints have an increasing impact on Native American achievement motivation and academic performance, whereas cultural discontinuities may be declining in influence. (Wood & Clay, 1996, pp. 53, 56)

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Propagation of Mainstream Culture and Standardized Testing Structural inequality theorists share a concern with cultural discontinuity theorists regarding the nature of the curriculum offered to Native students. However, for these scholars there is a more insidious dimension to the American educational institution than generally recognized by cultural discontinuity theorists. The curriculum typical of American schools is not merely culturally irrelevant for American Indian students; it is specifically designed to maintain the cultural hegemony of the dominant society (McKenna, 1981; Senese, 1986). According to this view, the expectations, norms, and values found in American schools are designed to perpetuate the dominant society’s worldview on minorities such as American Indians (Darder, 1991; Duchene, 1988). Such reasoning led renowned scholar Vine Deloria Jr. to remark “[Educational practices directed at American Indians] resemble indoctrination more than it does a form of teaching because it insists on implanting a particular body of knowledge and a specific view of the world, which often does not correspond to the life experiences that (Native) people have or might be expected to encounter” (1990, p. 16). An important component of this continued cultural hegemony is the emphasis placed on standardized testing as a means to assess general knowledge. A number of scholars have suggested standardized testing serves to extend cultural hegemony by requiring students to recite and incorporate the knowledge and values that primarily reflect a worldview important to the dominant group (Common & Frost, 1988; Garcia & Goldenstein-Ahler, 1992). As such, a common objection among structural inequality theorists is that a reliance on standardized testing is detrimental for Native students. In scathing criticism Jack Forbes (2000) argues: [T]here is reason to believe that the push for “standards” is actually an attempt to destroy multiculturalism, pluralism, and non-Anglo ethnic-specific curriculum by forcing all public schools to adhere to a curriculum approved by centralized agencies controlled by white people. The standards are to be enforced by means of constant testing of students (and often of teachers) based solely on the centrally approved curriculum . . .

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What standardized tests surely do is to force upon states, localities, and regions a collectivist “testing culture” that negates the unique heritages, dialects, and values of a particular area. Native nations and the schools serving their pupils will most likely become as assimilationistic as the pre-1928 BIA boarding and mission schools. (p. 8)

On average, American Indian students generally do not score as high on standardized tests as their white counterparts (Fox, 1999; Garcia, 2008). The pattern of lower scores is typically thought to be due to the nature of the tests themselves. Many educational practitioners and scholars charge that standardized tests are culturally biased as they reflect the knowledge base of the culture of the mainstream society (Forbes, 2000; Van Hamme, 1996; Winstead, Lawrence, Brantmeier, & Frey, 2008). As such, those Native students who do not share the culture of the mainstream society are at a disadvantage when taking standardized tests. Additionally, children from families of lower socioeconomic status generally do poorly on standardized tests (Boloz & Varranti, 1983; Sacks, 1997). As American Indian peoples have a high rate of poverty, many Native students face the dual disadvantages of cultural and socioeconomic status biases inherent in standardized testing. For structural inequality theorists, the central issue surrounding standardized testing is power (Forbes, 2000; Garcia & Goldenstein-Ahler, 1992; Jester, 2002; Van Hamme, 1996; Winstead et al., 2008). Standardized testing represents the ability of the dominant group to impose its version of knowledge, values, and worldview on American Indians. Moreover, for many Native people the issue is not only a power issue but also a moral one (Boyer, 2006; Miller Cleary & Peacock, 1998). The coerced acceptance of the authority of standardized tests diminishes the legitimacy of Indigenous ways of knowing and understanding. As Carol Locust (1988) eloquently explains: The formal education process, as well as standardized achievement and intelligence tests, are designed to assist and measure mental functions desirable in the dominant culture. Their use for other cultures is discriminatory; nevertheless, little change has occurred to adjust either the educational or the testing process to accommodate the language or cognition styles of

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other cultures . . . Belief systems are the framework upon which cultures and societies function. It is the bond that holds civilizations together, and it is the small voice inside each of us that urges us to be true to what we have been taught. As Native people, we cannot separate our spiritual teachings from our learning, nor can we separate our beliefs about who and what we are from our values and our behaviors. As Indian people, we ask that educational systems recognize our right to religious freedom and our right, as Sovereign Nations, to live in harmony as we were taught. (pp. 326, 328)

Racial Stereotyping and Low Teacher Expectations of American Indian Students While a number of educational professionals have asserted standardized tests do not reflect the true intellectual attributes of Native individuals and serve to portray them as academically less capable students (Fox, 1999; Locust, 1988), others contend the reliance on such assessment devices has a seldom recognized but seriously important consequence. Namely, poor performance on standardized tests serves to reinforce the negative attitudes toward American Indian students held by some teachers (Powers, 2005). Research has documented an alarming pattern of racial stereotyping and prejudice among some teachers of Native students (Ambler, 1999; Goodstriker & Pace, 1997; Plank, 1993). The extent to which standardized tests operate to reinforce preexisting stereotypes is unclear. Ironically, former president George W. Bush used the rationale of the “soft bigotry of low expectations” to justify the policy of No Child Left Behind, the most sweeping and ambitious use of standardized testing in American educational history (Welner & Weitzman, 2005). However, even when standardized tests do not directly contribute to personal prejudicial attitudes, educational practices based on them may have other detrimental effects. Essentially, the purpose of standardized tests is to assess the strengths and weaknesses of students in order to identify the most appropriate educational practices (Fox, 1999). Evidence for the educational disadvantages associated with standardized testing can be found in the high rate of placement of Native youth in special education, grouped into lower-ability groups as well as their persistent underrepresen-

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tation in gifted programs (Ford, Grantham, & Whiting, 2008; Ingalls et al., 2006). These facts point to the potential for labeling children on the basis of preexisting racial stereotypes and/or to form faulty but lasting impressions based in part on accepted educational testing strategies. Thus, perhaps more common than overt racial prejudice is the tendency for some teachers to develop low expectations for their Native students (Dingman, Mroczka, & Brady, 1995; Reyhner, 1992a). Illustrative is research conducted by Fisher, Bacon, and Storck (1998). These researchers found significant differences in teachers’ perceptions of the behavior of white male adolescents and American Indian male adolescents. Specifically, the teachers tended to view American Indian male students as displaying greater levels of anxiety/ depression, social problems, thought problems, attention problems, delinquency, and aggression than white male students. While the authors review a number of possible interpretations for these findings, they include as an explanation the possibility “that the teachers rated the American Indian male youth according to a globally symptom-oriented conceptualization; thus, whether or not particular behaviors occur they may be more frequently endorsed as a way of designating the youth as a ‘generally troubled’ individual” (Fisher et al., 1998, p. 16). It is possible that low expectations among teachers may be interpreted as a lack of concern by Native students. In his research with forty-six high school dropouts in Montana, Theodore Coladarci (1983) found that over a third of the respondents reported their teachers did not care about them. This perception contributed to their decision to leave school. It is important to acknowledge that this was the perception of some individuals and, therefore, may or may not constitute the actual dispositions of their former teachers. Nevertheless, the fact that over a third of the forty-six participants indicated that a perceived lack of personal concern exhibited by teachers was a factor in their decision to leave school is in itself a significant and disturbing finding. Combined Effects In essence, structural inequality theorists contend a combination of factors contribute to the current dire educational

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situation for Native students. Namely, American Indians are faced with a curriculum that serves the interests of the dominant group, an undue emphasis on standardized testing, and low teacher expectations. Ultimately the cumulative effect is emergence of a culturally exclusive educational system. The fact that schools are culturally exclusive generates a type of cultural capital used to defend the privileges of the most powerful in society (Lomawaima, 1995; Lomawaima & McCarty, 2002; 2006). It is for these reasons that some structural inequality scholars have leveled the devastating criticism that the American educational institution is little more than another agency of subjugation of Native peoples (Forbes, 2000; McKenna, 1981). Resistance to Mainstream Education In his cultural-ecological theory, John Ogbu asserted that a perceived job ceiling common among many minority youth discourages academic success. At times these reactions take on extreme forms. For instance, it has been suggested some minority young people equate academic success with cultural betrayal and an acceptance of the dominant society’s norms and values. Most notable in this regard is the much-debated notion of “acting white,” whereby academically successful minority students are perceived by their peers as rejecting their ethnic identity (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Ogbu, 2003). Unfortunately, such reactions work to guarantee academic failure for many minority youth. Consistent with Ogbu’s contention, American Indian education scholars working from the structural inequality perspective assume that Native students are not passive social actors in the face of their social obstacles. Rather, they respond to the disadvantages produced by both personal and institutional discrimination in a variety of ways. These responses can range from passive resistance to unabashed hostility (Bowker, 1992; McAfee, 1997; Melchior-Walsh, 1994; Sanders, 1987). The reasons for these reactions are sociologically and psychologically complex. However, structural inequality theorists are virtually universal in their agreement that these responses frequently result in poor educational performance and high levels of attrition for Native students (Deloria & Wildcat, 2001; Pottinger, 1989).

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It is with this assumption that structural inequality theorists deal most directly with microlevel social phenomena. However, even in this treatment they typically do not stray too far from the social structural conditions that frame personal experiences and relationships. For instance, Ogbu suggested involuntary minority students, such as American Indians, often appropriate behavior and attitudes they regard as distinct from and even contradictory to those embraced by the white dominant society. He refers to these dispositions as “cultural inversion”: Cultural inversion is the tendency for members of one population, in this case involuntary minorities, to regard certain forms of behavior, certain events, symbols, and meanings as not appropriate for them because they are characteristic of members of another population (e.g., white Americans); at the same time, the minorities claim other (often the opposite) forms of behaviors, events, symbols, and meanings as appropriate for them because they are not characteristic of white Americans. Thus, what the minorities consider appropriate or even legitimate behaviors or attitudes for themselves are defined in opposition to the practices and preferences of white Americans . . . Involuntary minorities . . . appear to develop a new sense of social identity in opposition to the social identity of the dominant group after they have become subordinated, and they do so in reaction to the way the dominant group members treat them in social, political, economic, and psychological domains. (Ogbu, 1987, p. 323)

As indicated earlier, this aspect of Ogbu’s work, with the concept of cultural inversion as its centerpiece, has evolved into its own specific theoretical perspective known as oppositional culture theory. However, Ogbu originally treated the notion of cultural inversion as part of cultural-ecological theory. To Ogbu cultural inversion is best understood as what he termed a “survival strategy” (1987, p. 324) for involuntary minorities who are subjugated at the lowest strata of society. That is, cultural inversion works to provide a coping mechanism for individuals who feel trapped in subordinate social positions by instilling a sense of cultural and personal identity unique from the dominant society. Thus, for Ogbu, cultural inversion only makes sense when considered in relation to the social structural arrangements of society itself.

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There is little research specifically on cultural inversion among American Indian youth. The most well known on this issue comes from the intriguing work of Donna Deyhle (1994) on the complex nature of school attrition among Navajo and Ute youth (see reading 2). Perhaps more common than overt cultural inversion is the documentation of resistance among American Indian peoples to attempted cultural assimilation implied within the mission of schools. Research shows there is a prevailing suspicion toward mainstream education among Native peoples. For instance, Robinson-Zanartu and Majel-Dixon (1996), in research with 234 American Indian parents and community leaders, found that support for education systems was connected to the perceived cultural responsiveness of schools. Notable in their findings was while parents and community leaders were particularly supportive of tribal-controlled schools, the respondents displayed discontent with BIA schools. Significantly, they generally believed that BIA schools actually serve to culturally harm Native students. Researchers also document ambivalent attitudes toward schools among American Indian students. Coladarci (1983) discovered one of the more salient reasons for dropping out of high school for a sample of Montana American Indian individuals was frustration related to the perceived lack of respect toward Native cultures displayed in school systems. He reports that “Adolescents who tenaciously identify with a particular culture can easily become dissatisfied with a local institution that appears oblivious or, worse, insensitive to their identity” (Coladarci, 1983, p. 20). Huffman (2008) too found that a segment of the American Indian college students in his study rejected what they perceived to be the assimilationist design of the predominately non-Indian university. The most typical response for these individuals was an early departure from school. Significantly, these individuals did not view their decision as academic failure but rather as an act of cultural defiance aimed at the preservation of their ethnic identity. In this sense, at least for some of the Native students in Huffman’s study, resistance to the non-Indian dominated college was a kind of cultural survival strategy.

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Implications of Structural Inequality Theory Implied in structural inequality theory is the notion that real change can only result from a reordering of societal arrangements (Senese, 1986). While the possibility for immediate largescale social reordering is unlikely, the best that can be expected is for Native Americans to gain greater cultural and political autonomy, especially over the schooling of their children. Thus, specific implications associated with this theoretical perspective reflect that basic contention. Need for Native Community Control over Education Some observers question whether genuine community control over American Indian education is likely to be seriously realized. Indeed, a number of people argue that even under the current policy period of self-determination, educational policy is in reality designed to promote the cultural assimilation of Native peoples and the eventual termination of federal responsibilities (Forbes, 2000; Lomawaima & McCarty, 2002; Senese, 1991). Nevertheless, other scholars assume greater local control will ultimately lead to schools that are more responsive to the unique needs and concerns of Native communities. Thus, a persistent contention in the literature is that greater Native control over educational practices and policy will lead to greater academic success among American Indian students. Important efforts have attempted to enhance Native autonomy over the education of American Indian children. An example is the Rural Systemic Initiative. In the mid-1990s funding provided by the National Science Foundation launched the Rural Systemic Initiative as an endeavor to create public school reform aimed at economically disadvantaged rural regions of the nation. Three of those initiatives targeted Native communities, one in the Four Corners area, one in Montana, and another in Alaska. The Rural Systemic Initiative holds as an object to improve natural science and math education through instructional as well as policy reform. Additionally, it is designed to integrate Indigenous ways of knowing and teaching into the educational

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reform (Larson, 1996). While the efforts of the Rural Systemic Initiative have frequently worked at cross-purposes with the imperatives found in the No Child Left Behind policy, notable improvements were realized in bringing greater community engagement into the educational process. Regarding the intent of the Rural Systemic Initiative, Paul Boyer (2006) observes: Most Indian educators would agree. They reject the long-held belief that low academic achievement is always the fault of Indian children. They resent the arrogance and racism that still exists in some schools. They also know that small changes to the curriculum don’t get to the root of the problem. But what, exactly, should be done? What does it mean to pursue “systemic” reform? How do we start, and how do we know we are succeeding? At the most pragmatic level, how do we gain the support of non-Indian educators and—no less troublesome—how do we overcome indifference and division within our own communities? There is no one formula for successful reform of Indian education, but we can now start answering some of these questions with a small measure of confidence, thanks to the work of educators participating in the National Science Foundation’s decadeold Rural Systemic Initiative . . . Most education reform strategies offer Native communities a prepackaged, one-size-fits-all solution; a new curriculum, a new approach to classroom management, or expensive new computer technology. In contrast, the Rural Systemic Initiative encouraged communities to craft their own approaches to school reform, responding to local needs and taking advantage of local resources. Despite their different approaches to reform, all shared a common definition of success: Rural Systemic Initiative leaders believed a quality education must reflect the values of tribal peoples and must ultimately serve to strengthen whole tribal communities. (pp. 14–15)

Much of the effort of the Rural Systemic Initiative was frustrated by the mandates of the No Child Left Behind policy. Still, strides were made, as evidenced by the partnership with tribal colleges to integrate Native languages and cultural immersion experiences into the curriculum, working with tribal elders to create culturally based standards that attempt to promote traditional knowledge and the initiation of cultural leave policies. After ten years of effort, Boyer (2006) concludes:

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But when a clear and compelling vision takes root, real change can happen. After 10 years of work . . . many of the system reform efforts managed by tribal colleges are making significant progress. The changes are not immediately measured in climbing test scores but in the essential precondition for academic improvement: community engagement in school reform and productive collaboration with local school leaders . . . What happened between then and today was an incremental process of relationship-building between the tribe and the school system . . . Not every goal has been accomplished . . . But no one would have predicted how much attitudes would change. This, all agree, is a sign of real progress and offers hope for the future. And, of course, the achievement gap remains. In the short term, the achievement gap will not be eliminated by any one program—even a good program like RSI. In the end, the national goal of academic “excellence” cannot be imposed. Instead, real and lasting school reform begins when communities define, for themselves, the purpose of education and become more involved in the process of education . . . The goal of reform is not only higher scores on a math test but also healthier, more hopeful, more empowered communities. (pp. 18–19)

The Rural Systemic Initiative is only one limited effort to enhance local control over American Indian education. Moreover, as Boyer admits, it has not achieved the long-term goal of narrowing the academic success gap between American Indian students and their non-Native counterparts. However, it does represent the potential educational benefits when Native communities are empowered in substantial and meaningful ways. Emphasis on Intrinsic Instead of Extrinsic Rewards of Education An important implication derived from structural inequality theory is that educators and decision makers need to modify pedagogical practices and policy directives in ways that will work to reduce the resistance to education. The reasoning is that if American Indian students regard educational success as detrimental to their own cultural identities, they will continue to regard schools with ambivalence. As Linda Miller Cleary and Thomas Peacock (1998) point out, “schools that acknowledge,

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accept, and teach a child’s cultural heritage have significantly better success in educating these students” (p. 108). As a way to combat resistance to education, some scholars suggest educators need to appeal to the intrinsic rewards of education rather than extrinsic rewards. As discussed earlier, structural inequality theorists argue many involuntary minorities find little extrinsic reward from educational success. As suggested by John Ogbu, this is largely due to the perceived job ceiling confronting them. Consistent with this notion, Miller Cleary and Peacock (1998) explain: The incentives that work for many students in mainstream schools (a beckoning college career, attention accorded by family for good grades, rewards that are meaningful, enjoyment of competition, potential shame in failing grades) are simply not there to pull many American Indian students along. These extrinsic motivators, motivators external to the individual, just do not work for students who have been marginalized by society, who rarely see how academic endeavor has served/ rewarded the adults in their community, who do not see real purposes for the knowledge and skills they are supposed to accumulate. (p. 203)

Yet, there are important intrinsic rewards for American Indian students that frequently go unrecognized by educators. Miller Cleary and Peacock offer a number of ways in which teachers can encourage the intrinsic rewards of education for Native students. However, fundamental to all these suggestions is that students’ cultural heritage be recognized and honored. They argue, “A very strong intrinsic motivator for schoolwork is a student’s own curiosity, but it is only when the world of the student has some overlap with curricular content that we can tap the student’s curiosity” (Miller Cleary & Peacock, 1998, p. 223). Toward this end, they suggest educators enhance the intrinsic rewards in learning by allowing students opportunities to choose how and what to learn, provide real-life interests and relevance to the learning experiences, and connect material to the student’s cultural experience. Scholars also recognize the importance of intrinsic motivators for American Indian college students. In two separate research investigations, Guillory and Wolverton (2008) and Huffman (2008)

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found that American Indian college students in their respective studies reported a desire to use their higher education advancement as a means to serve Native peoples and communities. Essentially, these individuals were driven by the internal motivation, not for greater material reward, but to help their people. Interestingly, for many their sense of cultural identity and purpose was both clarified and strengthen in the endeavor to pursue both educational and social goals. Significant structural barriers still inhibit the educational success of Native students. Unfortunately, many professional educators may not recognize these complex and powerful macrolevel deterrents or understand what they mean in the lives of American Indians. An undue emphasis on the extrinsic rewards of educational success will likely ring hollow for many. However, the intrinsic desire to serve and contribute to one’s people can be a powerful motivator. When education is framed in these terms it is more likely to connect to the cultural experiences and values of Native students (Miller Cleary & Peacock, 1998).

Criticisms of Structural Inequality Theory Despite its popularity among academics, structural inequality theory has been seriously criticized on a number of points. Notable is the contention that this perspective overemphasizes economic conditions and diminishes the importance of cultural experiences for American Indian students. However, perhaps the most serious criticism of structural inequality theory is that it fails to offer practical solutions to the many immediate perplexities besetting Native education. Diminishes Important Cultural Considerations According to structural inequality theory the educational difficulties facing American Indian students are tied to the economic arrangement of U.S. society. American Indians occupy a socioeconomic status that has subjugated them to a politically disenfranchised condition with little to no power to affect their situation. As such, they possess minimal control over the educational efforts

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directed at them. Implied in this assumption is the contention that academic success should follow greater Native autonomy over education. However, a criticism of this perspective is the reduction of academic problems to economic factors diminishes the powerful role culture plays in American Indian education. Indeed, cultural considerations are so significant that they often supersede economic circumstances (Huffman et al., 1986). Research reveals that greater control over education does not necessarily lead to improved educational success for Native peoples. The work of Alan Peshkin (1997) demonstrates the cultural complexity of American Indian education. After a year of ethnographic fieldwork in a Native-controlled boarding high school in New Mexico, Peshkin made a number of important observations that are not adequately explained by the structural inequality perspective. This school was well funded, equipped with good facilities and instructional materials, and staffed by the highest percentage of Native teachers of any school in New Mexico. It was designed specifically to prepare Native youth for college. Yet, students from the school scored very low on ACT tests and exhibited high levels of attrition. Moreover, about 75 percent of the students from the school who went on to college dropped out in their first year. Peshkin concluded these educational problems were not due to the lack of Native political or educational autonomy over the school. The problems were associated with the cultural context of the Pueblo people served by the school. Specifically, Pueblos were inclined to view the school, even with its Native control, as a culturally alien institution. As a result the ambivalent attitudes pervasive toward the school among both parents and children were followed by poor academic performance. In the end, the difficulty laid not in the political disenfranchisement of the Pueblos from their schools as much as the hesitancy to accept what they considered to be essentially a foreign cultural arrangement. Offers Impractical Solutions to Educational Difficulties A serious criticism of structural inequality theory is that it offers little practical and realistic solutions to the immediate educational difficulties besetting Native peoples. Miller Cleary and Peacock (1998) argue that while educators need to be keenly aware

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of the historically created inequality that continues to be perpetuated, they must realize the urgent needs of Native students, which cannot wait for the structural rearrangement of society: There is a need to return full circle to where we began this journey—with the elements of oppression. What happens to these young people? Many become victims of oppression, exhibiting suboppressor behavior or suffering from the oppression of others. They drop out of school; they graduate with few skills; they become angry; and they lose hope. They simply survive . . . How can teachers lessen the effects of oppression on students? Teachers should build trust in their students by demonstrating in their actions and behavior that they are worthy of trust. They should be fair and consistent in their treatment of students. They should become knowledgeable of the people and issues in the American Indian community, as well as get to know their students on a personal level by assessing where students are on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs . . . Finally, how can teachers protect their own wellbeing and dignity so they can effectively deal with all of the remnants of oppression they might encounter in schools? Teachers, especially first-year teachers, should focus on students. (pp. 94–95)

According to these scholars, ultimately, the consequences of social oppression must be met on a personal level. Both immediate and long-term solutions need to be addressed. However, such contentions are frequently absent in the work of structural inequality theorists.

Discussion on the Reading In reading 2, “Constructing Failure and Maintaining Cultural Identity: Navajo and Ute School Leavers,” Donna Deyhle uses an ethnographic approach to examine the issues associated with school attrition for Navajo and Ute American Indians. Deyhle’s methodological approach is complex and intense. She spent years collecting and analyzing data. Ultimately, Deyhle produces an extremely thorough examination of the dynamics related to what is commonly referred to as “dropping out”

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of school. Her findings reveal that this common euphemism is misleading and, from the perspective of structural inequality theory, incorrect. Typically, leaving school is regarded as a personal failing, a deficiency located within an individual. However, in this article Deyhle charges that it is more appropriate to examine how institutions fail individuals. Using structural inequality theoretical assumptions to guide her investigation, Deyhle identifies the structural barriers that operate to discourage the educational advancement of Native students. What is more, she also documents the reactions of individuals to those barriers. In so doing, Deyhle takes to task many of the assumptions of cultural discontinuity theory while using her findings to substantiate structural inequality theory. As suggested by John Ogbu, Deyhle documented the existence of a perceived “job ceiling” that served to undermine academic success among the participants in her research. Interestingly, she also found those with a stronger sense of cultural identity viewed schooling in a different light. While these individuals were only a little more successful in completing secondary education, they also interpreted the reasons for leaving school differently than individuals with a weaker sense of cultural identity. For these individuals leaving school was an act of cultural resistance. This is, of course, consistent with the structural inequality assumption that minority members are not passive social actors in the face of a culturally hostile educational system. The reader should be aware this reading offers a version of the original article and is heavily edited for length. All attempts have been made to preserve the integrity of the article. Nevertheless, the original version offers much greater analysis over a wider range of data sources than is included in this feature reading.

Suggested Reading Forbes, J. (2000). The new assimilation movement: Standards, tests, and AngloAmerican supremacy. Journal of American Indian Education, 39(2), 7–28. Ledlow, S. (1992). Is cultural discontinuity an adequate explanation for dropping out? Journal of American Indian Education, 31(3), 21–36.

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Lomawaima, K. T. & McCarty, T. (2006). “To remain an Indian”: Lessons in democracy from a century of Native American education. New York: Teachers College Press. Pottinger, R. (1989). Disjunction to higher education: American Indian students in the southwest. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 20(4), 326–344. Senese, G. (1991). Self-determination and the social education of Native Americans. New York: Praeger. Wood, P. & Clay, W. C. (1996). Perceived structural barriers and academic performance among American Indian high school students. Youth and Society, 28(1), 40–61.

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Reading 2 Constructing Failure and Maintaining Cultural Identity: Navajo and Ute School Leavers Donna Deyhle

Donna Deyhle is a professor in the Department of Education, Culture, and Society as well as Coordinator of American Indian Studies at the University of Utah. Professor Deyhle is author of Reflections in Place: Connected Lives of Navajo Women, Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press. This reading was originally published in 1994 as “Constructing Failure and Maintaining Cultural Identity: Navajo and Ute School Leavers” by Donna Deyhle in Journal of American Indian Education, 31(2), 24–47. The reading is adapted from the original article and used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

Introduction As I entered the trading post in a small border reservation community, I passed two Navajo youth leaning against the wall, one leg propped behind them for support. They wore black tee shirts, one declaring “Indian Pride on the Rise,” the other showing the heavy metal rock group Twisted Sister. Both wore high-topped basketball shoes and hair free-flowing to their shoulders. One spoke to me. “Hey, are you the lady who is talking to dropouts? You should talk to me. I’m a professional dropout.” I did. And to many others. Their stories spoke of racial discrimination and 97

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rejection by teachers. “The way I see it seems like the whites don’t want to get involved with the Indians. They think we’re bad. We drink. Our families drink. Dirty. Ugly. And the teachers don’t want to help us. They say, ‘Oh, no, there is another Indian asking a question’ because they don’t understand. So we stopped asking questions.” Their stories spoke of the importance and power of families and the Navajo culture. “I go crazy worrying about my parents. They need me so us Navajo stick together. I feel kinda proud to be a Navajo.” And their stories spoke of academic and social marginalization in their classes and schools. “It was just like they wanted to put us aside, us Indians. They didn’t tell us nothing about careers or things to do after high school. They didn’t encourage us to go to college. They just took care of the white students. They just wanted to get rid of the Indians.” This article is about these Navajo and Ute youth who leave high school. In mainstream research the phenomenon of “dropping out” is commonly defined as an issue of individual failure. Youth “fail,” either academically or socially, to make it through school. The problem exists not because of deficiencies in the schools but rather because of deficiencies in individuals and families. Youth who leave school are described as deviant, dysfunctional, or deficient because of individual, family, or community characteristics. Solutions reside on remediating or changing youth and families to better “fit in.” After all, most youth do succeed in school, suggesting evidence of the school as an effective institution. This body of research ignores the barriers institutions themselves create for youth. Another line of research on dropouts has turned a critical eye toward the role that school and structural barriers play in creating the problem. The research reported in this article follows this line of inquiry. A critical examination of the “place” of Navajo and Ute youth in their school and community reveals other reasons than just individual failure for “dropping out.” Structural factors restricting opportunities, in effect, “fail” youth. The decision to leave school can then be seen, in part, as a rational response to irrelevant schooling; racism; restricted political, social, and economic opportunities; and the desire to maintain a culturally distinct identity. There are many similarities between Indian and other kinds of dropouts. In most cases, the reasons for leaving school are

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alike. For example, nearly all dropouts say school is boring, teachers don’t care, and school will not help them with what they want to do in life (LeCompte, 1987). Many come from substance-abusing families. There are, however, differences between other dropouts and these Navajo and Ute school leavers that only become clear when examining the cultural context surrounding these youth. Cultural and structural factors that might be easy to overlook if only examining “student characteristics” are important in understanding why many Navajo and Ute youth leave school. Specific to this cultural framework are 1) racial and economic relations in the community and school, 2) home child-rearing patterns of noninterference and early adulthood, and 3) cultural integrity and resistance.

The Database: Master Student List, Questionnaires, and Ethnography In the fall of 1984 I started an ethnographic study of a border reservation community. I looked at interactions, understandings, and strategies related to education, schooling, success, and failure both in and out of school, among and between three culturally distinct groups of adolescents—Anglo, Navajo, and Ute. Presented here is only one part of this ethnography, focused on school leavers. Throughout this article I use the tribal names, Navajo and Ute, in recognition of the distinctness of these two cultures. I use the term Indian in situations that include both Navajo and Ute for simplicity, not for stereotyping. In addition, fictitious names are used for both communities and schools. These results were produced from four data sets: (1) a master database from school records; (2) ethnographic field notes and collected documents; (3) interviews with a convenience sample of school leavers; and (4) a questionnaire. In trying to determine an accurate picture of the attrition rates in this district, a database was established to track all of the Navajo and Ute students by name who had attended Border High School (BHS) and Navajo High School (NHS) from 1980–1981 to the 1988–1989 school year. The questionnaire was developed by Coladarci (1983) and his staff for a study of Indian dropouts in Montana. The questionnaire

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contained twenty-seven open-ended statements, expanding to seventy-eight variables with probe questions, which began with “You left school because. . . .” The statements covered issues such as distance from school, alcohol and/or drug problems, pregnancy, home problems (with specific probes such as abuse, sibling rivalry, or crowded homes), reading difficulties, school troubles, teacher attitudes, the lack of Indian teachers, and curriculum content. A total of 168 people who had left school were interviewed and completed the questionnaire. Forty-seven percent of the interviewed population was from a small community, Border, on the edge of the Navajo reservation. The remaining half of the population was equally divided between the most traditional Navajo community in the district on the Navajo reservation, Navajo Mesa, and a nearby Ute reservation. In understanding Navajo and Ute relations to schools, I have found essential the complementary employment of Ogbu’s (1978) concept of involuntary minorities and Cummins’s (1986) view of cultural integrity. According to Ogbu, an involuntary status of some minority groups has resulted in a rejection and distrust of schooling. He ascribes involuntary group failure to economic and social discrimination combined with the internalization of the inferior status given to them by the dominant group. Cummins suggests that school failure is less likely among minority groups that have a strong, culturally intact identity. The Navajo and Ute represent minorities that have historically experienced social, political, and economic discrimination which, in turn, has resulted in a castelike position for them in the larger society. As will be illustrated in this paper, although both the Navajo and Ute were in castelike positions in the community, there were differences in their rates of success. Most of the Navajo have responded with a culture that, although changed over time, remained strong. The Ute, and some of the Navajo, however, faced their marginalized position from a fragmented and weak cultural foundation. Although a Ute population was represented in the questionnaires, most of my ethnographic research was done among the Navajo. I use the Ute as illustrative of the severity of some Indian youths’ conflicts with school. The Navajo youth who lived off the reservation and attended BHS with the Ute also expressed extreme discomfort and distrust toward school. The Navajo who attended

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NHS on the reservation, however, were more successful and expressed less conflict in school. In the following sections I will examine the students’ reasons for leaving school that were given on the questionnaire, on official school records, and in interviews. These different “voices” spoke of dissatisfaction with schools, feelings of mistrust, alienation, academic difficulties, and the importance of family responsibilities. Most youth who left school did so with concrete and stable reasons when these decisions are framed by the larger sociocultural structures surrounding them.

Youth and Teachers: Caring and Mistrust The relationship between students and their teachers was important for retaining youth in school. When youth experienced minimal individual attention or personal contact with their teachers, they translated this into an image of teacher dislike and rejection. The issue of a teacher “caring” was very important to many of the Indian youth. When asked about good teachers, students consistently explained a good teacher was one who “cares.” The subject the teacher taught was rarely connected to what made a teacher good or not. The issue was a demonstration that the teacher “cared.” And the form of this demonstration was direct help on work in class. Three Navajo girls described teachers as, “Some are forgetful, some absent minded, some great. Like________, she is real neat. She cares about us and helps us with our work.” In hearing about teachers who are “not good,” one gets a picture of teachers who attended little to individual Indian students. “Some of them are all right, but they have prejudice against Indians. Like they look at us when we ask questions like, ‘Oh, I’m tired of trying to help you.’ They care about the students who don’t need help,” and “She is a bad teacher. She never lets us know what we do that is right. Only what we do wrong.” Mistrust of teachers was often justified. A past superintendent explained the “cultural problem” to me. “Some of our older teachers hold traditional views of Indians,” and “wiping the slate clean” of these teachers would help the Indian students. “Our Indian students learn which teachers don’t like them and

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avoid them. Just ask the principal, he can even supply you with their names.” I did not need to ask their names. These teachers openly revealed their feelings toward Indian students. One student commented on a subject she enjoyed, science, but complained about the teacher. I observed this particular class. The teacher was trying to encourage his Indian students to perform well in class. From the perspective of his Indian students, his encouragement was seen as a put down of the Navajo in general: He is prejudiced. He talks about Navajos and welfare. “You all listen, you aren’t going to be on welfare like all the other Navajos.” He shouldn’t talk like that! And then the White students say things like that to us. Like all Navajo are on welfare. I’m not like that. We work for what we have. He shouldn’t say things like that. It makes us feel bad.

Teacher discussions of Indians illustrated the conflict between groups. Utes, who were described as aggressive, were the least liked group, Border students were a bit too “defiant,” and the most traditional Navajo from Navajo Mesa were described as “real” Navajo. Some teachers at Border High School expressed sorrow at the departure of the more traditional Navajo students from Navajo Mesa, who now had their own school. I don’t know what it is, but these students from Border are, well, it’s their attitude. They are defiant. They walk around with their heads in the air. They just don’t care. They have no respect. The other Navajo students were real nice and quiet in class. They did their work and what you told them to do in class.

Some of the teachers expressed frustration at the passivity of the Navajo students in regard to their interactions with Anglo students. I wish they would fight back. We need to teach them to be assertive as a minority. I’d like to see a healthy battle between the Indian and Anglo! They need to feel pride and not be overwhelmed by the Anglos up here. One Anglo boy said, “I smell bad like an Indian” and they [Indian students] voted for him! I wish they would have said, “Hell no, we don’t even like you!”

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It is clear that some of the teachers were happy to be teaching Indian youth and spoke out in support of their students, urging them to “stand up” for their rights. They were the ones who continually moved around their classrooms providing constant feedback to the students and who talked about wanting to bring new and “meaningful” information into their classes. Many were excited with their jobs and expressed a “liking” for Indian students but were frustrated with the minimal impact they had on student achievement. I shared in the frustration of a reading teacher, who urged her Indian students to perform. You guys all speak two languages. Research shows that bilinguals are twice as smart. I only speak one language, you should be smarter than I am. Language is not your problem. It’s your attitude. You have given up because Whites intimidate you.

She asked her students, “Don’t you want to be a top student?” “No!” the class responded loudly, “We don’t care.” Indian students didn’t trust their teachers, even good teachers who deeply cared about their students. The teacher represented a member of the outside Anglo community, a community that has actively controlled the economic, religious, and political lives of the Navajo community. Tensions in the larger community were often mirrored inside classrooms. A look at the larger structural factors in the community gives light and credibility to students’ feelings that they were unwanted in school.

Youth and the Anglo Community: Institutional Racism The voices and patterns described in this section are not merely based on inherited traditions of racism, prejudice, or ignorance. Rather, they represent a constructed model of assimilation that has been used by Anglos to structure and maintain political and economic control in this community. The only path to “success” for Indians was to become “non-Indian.” It was a path many Indian youth rejected. This was part of the landscape confronting these youth.

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The Navajo have lived in their current location since the 1500s. The Anglo population in this county arrived in the 1880s as pioneers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), or, as they are commonly called, Mormons. The pioneers were sent to colonize the Navajo and Ute and to increase the land base and religious influence of the LDS church throughout the region. From the beginning, the Mormons dismissed Indians’ claims to political and cultural sovereignty. The underlying philosophy of assimilation guided all early interactions with Indians. Anglos constructed institutions that represented Anglo values and beliefs. To be successful, Indians needed to conform to Anglo norms of behavior. This is still the case today. An Anglo storeowner said, “The only good Indian is a Mormon.” Schools, in particular, became a vehicle for cultural assimilation, and thereby a way to eliminate the “Indian problem.” In a very real sense, the schooling package that provided literacy for Indians also required becoming “white.” Navajos had to forget their own language, religion, values, and beliefs. This practice has changed very little in the past one hundred years. A teacher told me, The Indian students need to learn English and basic skills to survive in the Anglo world. That bilingual and bicultural stuff is not important for them. The jobs are off the reservation so they need to learn how to work in the Anglo world.

Indians who resisted assimilation by maintaining their culture and remaining on the reservation were described as failures by many Anglos. A counselor explained, “Most of the kids want to stay right here. On the reservation. It’s kinda like, we say, they have ‘gone back to the blanket.’ They will sit in their hogan [traditional round Navajo house] and do nothing.” If they chose to remain “Indian” they did not deserve the wealth of the land. Racism, therefore, became a rationale for institutional structures to develop that served to maintain Anglo power and control in the community. Over the last one hundred years the Anglo population, predominantly LDS, expanded and prospered. The Navajo and Ute populations also expanded, comprising 47 percent of the county’s population, but they remained poor, with marginal public voices compared to the dominant Anglo population. Nearly 90 percent of

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those in the county on public assistance were either Navajo or Ute. The unemployment rate of Navajo or Ute was 68 percent, three times the unemployment rate for Anglos. All public institutions in the county were controlled by individuals who were members of the LDS church. The school superintendent, all four high school principals, four out of five elementary school principals, and the administration of the local community college were all LDS. Almost half of the county’s population was Navajo or Ute; however, Navajo accounted for only 15 percent of the teaching staff, and more than half of those Navajo had converted to Mormonism. There was tension between the Indian and Anglo populations in this border reservation community. As one Navajo parent said, “We know that they don’t like us. It would help if they would change their attitude towards us.” Many Anglos expressed their perceptions of Indians as lazy, unmotivated, undependable workers who had drinking problems and who were irresponsible and uncaring parents. A community health worker said, “It’s a bloodbath down there [the Ute reservation]. Drinking, drugs. My God, they don’t have any human values or dignity left!” One teacher who had taught in the district for thirty-three years explained it this way, “The whites came here to be friends of the Indians and bring the gospel. They did a lousy job of both.” In explaining why Indian students did so poorly in school, an Anglo teacher stated, “It’s the local attitudes of the whites. They think, ‘dumb Indians’ and it has worn off on the Indians. Then they act like they are dumb, ’cause the whites expect it.’” Another teacher, who had expressed a great deal of concern and empathy for her Indian students three years ago, recently told me, You are not going to like what I say about Indians now. I am a racist! I’m not kidding. Working with these Indian kids makes you a racist. They just sit there and do nothing.

Many Anglo and Navajo spoke of friendships between groups and expressed genuine concern about each other’s wellbeing. Nor did all the Indian high school students see themselves as not supported and helpless in the racially mixed BHS. Students formed groups for support and used subtle counterattacks when put down by their non-Indian peers. In class one day two Anglo students were teasing a young Navajo, who was

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studying to be a medicine man, about his hair bun, lice, and the length of his hair: “Hey, how long did it take you to grow that?” The Navajo boy replied with a soft smile, “Ten minutes.” Other confrontations were not so subtle. One young woman, whose last name was Cantsee, explained why she was no longer in math class. “When I came into class late that teacher said, ‘Oh, here is another Indian who can’t see how to get to class.’ I told him to go to hell and left class.” In some cases, Navajo and Ute people resisted the discrimination experienced in the Anglo community by turning inward to the support and strength of their culture and life on the reservation. Some moved out of town, increasing the physical distance between themselves and the dominant Anglo community and widening the cultural rift between the Navajo and Anglo communities. The Navajo and Ute, however, were not silent when expressing their sense of racial discrimination, isolation, and being “unwanted” by many in the Anglo community. Some Indian students openly spoke about “hating whites”; others spoke about fearing the high school where stories, repeated by siblings, peers, parents, and relatives, told them they would experience discrimination from their teachers; and still others spoke about the richness of the multicultural experience in racially mixed schools. Although both sides assumed the prevalence of contempt and discrimination toward Indians, such attitudes were not universal. Just as most Indian students were not dropouts, most also did not feel overwhelmingly discriminated against. Although these students did not feel uncomfortable with Anglos and pointed out they had some Anglo friends, they acknowledged there were distinctions. “I don’t get no different treatment. Whites are just whites. And Indians are just Indians.” The community and school treatment they received was the same as their parents had experienced. Historically established patterns of discrimination created a sense of “the ways it has always been” for these Indian youth and adults. One Navajo parent said she should have told the vice principal, who had gone to school with her twenty years ago, “You know what it is like for the high school kid. You used to do the same things the kids are doing now against Indians. You remember when you put the pins in my seat? All the things that you used to do

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to Indians. It is still going on here and now. You did it, and now your kids are doing it.” The Indian community vividly felt a sense of disempowerment. Political power was in the hands of Mormon Anglos. The few Navajo and Ute they saw in power had joined the LDS Church. Patterns of restricted political and economic opportunity colored the perceptions of school success paying off. For some youth leaving school was a statement of rejecting a system that had already rejected them. Over one-third of the youth that left NHS did so because of disagreements and fights with teachers and the administration and with the terse official dropout code that stated “an active dislike of the schooling experience.”

Academic Difficulties: School Curriculum and Reading The academic requirements of school were also a problem for many of the Navajo and Ute school leavers. Two-thirds said schoolwork was too hard for them. On the other side of this issue, one-third of the group said schoolwork was too easy. They spoke of the boredom of remedial classes, the repetition of the same exercises, and uninteresting subjects. The strongest issue related to academic work was difficulty with reading. Over half of the total group, 53 percent, felt reading difficulties contributed to their problems in school. An average Indian graduate from this district was reading at only the seventh-grade level. Most of the school leavers were at least six grade levels behind the national average. Many Indian youth explained they simply did not read anything outside of school. “I know if I practiced I would learn to read better. I sometimes read some magazines, like National Enquirer or a four-wheeler one. But I just don’t need to read very much.” The issue of reading difficulties might be connected to the “boredom” expressed by many Indian youth in and out of school. The undecipherable text created a barrier to the ideas encoded in the symbols. Faced with materials they could not read, the thirty minutes seemed to expand for hours. Some slept. Some said they felt too overwhelmed or embarrassed to ask for help. Others looked for pictures in the text to

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pass the time. The classrooms were quiet, but little of what the teachers expected to be occurring—learning—was taking place. Boredom increased and many simply gave up, leaving school to seek some other form of success outside the school walls. The content of what was taught in school also emerged as an important issue in the decision to leave school. A little less than half of the Navajo and almost two-thirds of the Ute felt school was not important for what they wanted to do in life. One-third of the total group felt school did not teach what was important to them as Indians. Half of the Ute, the most “dissatisfied” community, said school did not teach what was important to them as Indians, whereas in the most traditional Navajo community, Navajo Mesa, over 80 percent did not see this as an issue that led to their leaving school. In both studies the school curriculum, perceived as not connected to life goals, was an important reason for leaving school. This did not mean that these youth left school because the content was not subject-specific enough to American Indian cultures, but rather because school simply was not an avenue to obtain the knowledge or skills they desired. Students resisted the emphasis on basic, remedial, and vocational tracking in the high schools, which they saw as limiting their opportunities, even with a high school degree. As one Navajo expressed, “I didn’t care to finish high school. It was not that important. You see, I was just learning the same thing over and over. Like the teachers didn’t expect anything of you because you were an Indian. They put you in general education, basic classes, and vocation. They didn’t encourage college bound classes.” At BHS Indian students enrolled for, but often quickly dropped, advanced academic courses when they saw few Indian faces in their classrooms. A teacher explained, “I had one Navajo girl in my physics class. She said the whites didn’t want her in class so she gave up. If she had really cared about her education she would have stuck it out. The Indian students don’t care about school.” This student explained, “I was the only Indian! So I moved back to basic math. I knew it all ’cause I had it before. But it was all Indian and I felt better. I was the top in that class.” Both schools encouraged students to emphasize vocational courses in their school careers. A principal explained, “We need to recog-

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nize the needs of the people in this local area. I’m not saying we should ignore the academic classes. But the vocational training is where the jobs are for the local Navajo people.”

Navajo Graduates and School Leavers: Economic Marginalization Reflecting on the larger economic world around these youth, one teacher said, “Some can’t see any point for school. There is no purpose for school if you don’t see it getting you a job.” Economic opportunities were few in this depressed area, and many of the jobs available to Indian youth did not require a high school degree. Navajos were not encouraged by school officials to compete for professional jobs that were seen as beyond their capabilities and desires, and were, therefore, “white jobs.” Most available jobs, that is “Navajo jobs,” required semiskilled labor, and only a few required school credentials. Navajo youth faced the existence of a racially defined job ceiling. This was not a simple economic reality that somehow existed due to an outside or larger economy but rather was constructed to maintain the power structure and local Anglo employment interests. The realities of limited job possibilities in the community gave students reasons to question the importance of finishing school. One senior, who did not graduate, explained, It’s pretty slim, if you want to stay around here. I haven’t really seen any Navajo people working like in convenience stores or grocery stores; unless you figure out something else to do. Like shoveling snow or something. But the job outlook isn’t really great.

High school graduates were twice as likely to have jobs as those who did not finish school. On the surface this seemed like an incentive for youth to finish high school. Below the surface, however, there was little difference in the kinds of jobs held by graduates and nongraduates. With rare exception both groups of employed youth worked at the same kinds of service industry jobs: cooks, motel maids, school aides, bus drivers, tour guides,

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making or painting pottery, clerical workers, electrical assistants, janitors, waitresses, seamstresses, the military, uranium and oil workers, and in construction. Service industry jobs typically are characterized by low pay with little or no benefits, seasonal employment, and a highly transitional workforce. Even with a high school diploma, if they remained in their home community as most did, they looked forward to a future of semiskilled jobs, mirroring those of their parents. Looking at their peers who completed school, working beside them at the same job, many school leavers questioned the relevance of completing school. Less than one-half of 1 percent of the Navajo youth in this area will complete a four-year degree. And only 2 percent will finish two-year degrees. The rhetoric of equality of opportunity, that formal education leads to higher social status, higher self-esteem, better employment opportunities, better jobs, and better salaries, was a hollow promise for most of these Indian youth. They faced not “unlimited” opportunities dependent only on individual achievement but a set of political, economical, and social constraints that intertwined in schools and communities to limit the frames of their lives.

Youth and Families: Parents Don’t Care Half of the Navajo and over three-fourths (78 percent) of the Ute said lack of parent encouragement was a factor for them in the decision to leave school. However, two-thirds of the total group indicated their parents did want them to stay in school. Although a majority of parents were described as wanting their children to attend school, they were at the same time described as not giving enough “encouragement.” This is a difficult issue and seems to be connected to the actual contacts parents had with teachers and the school. Anglo parents expressed concerns that Navajo parents did not “take care” of their children. “That seventh-grader was away from home for five days, and his parents didn’t care!” one said. The cultural and value differences between the Navajo and Anglo were evident when these two groups interacted over schoolrelated issues. For Navajo, early autonomy of and noninterference

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with their children was desirable, whereas adult supervision over children and adolescents was a strong value among the Anglo. Two apparently opposing concepts function within Navajo culture. The autonomy of the individual regarding possessions and actions is strongly maintained, while at the same time the consensus and cooperation of the group is desired (Kluckhohn & Leighton, 1946; Lamphere, 1977). Appropriate cooperative behavior is encouraged, but individualistic behavior is respected without overt punishment. Authority relations were egalitarian among Navajos as opposed to hierarchical among Anglos. This had serious implications for how Navajo parents interacted with their children. Unlike the Anglo, who experience a period of adolescence and dependence, the Navajo have little or no time “in-between” when the individual was neither a child nor an adult. Social and physical maturity occurred simultaneously. Young Navajo individuals, who were viewed in the school district and the larger Anglo society as immature adolescents or teenagers were seen as adults by their parents. From the Navajo parents’ perspective it is inappropriate to make decisions for their middle-school- or high-school-age children, whom they considered to be adults and capable of making their own decisions. They guided their children and made their opinions known, but noninterference of youth and individual autonomy was a strong, traditional cultural value still practiced. For many Navajo parents this translated into “noninterference” for their children who chose to leave school. For many Anglo parents and school officials, this translated into “lack of support” or “neglect.” Another issue frequently mentioned by Anglos and Indians concerned the “pulling down” of youth who did well in school by peers and community members. Peer pressure was mentioned by almost one-third of the total group as a reason for leaving school. One of the teachers explained it graphically with a story about lobsters. You know what they say about lobsters? You can put them in water this high [motioning a depth of less than a foot with his hands] and they won’t get out. As soon as one tries to climb out the others pull him back in. [Laughter] That’s what it is like with the Indians. As soon as one of their kind tries to better himself the others pull him back in.

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A Navajo administrator said to me, “This is the biggest problem we face as Navajos. There is jealousy, instead of pride, when someone does well.” Teasing among Navajo was a traditional form of social control (Kluckhohn & Leighton, 1946). They teased the individual who thought himself or herself “better” than other Navajo, looked down on “Navajo stuff,” and had forgotten how to speak Navajo. Two young women, speaking about a friend who had gone away to a vocational training institution, said, “We saw her last weekend and she didn’t even look at us. She must think she is too good for us now.” A Navajo woman explained that an uncle who was away at school received some strong teasing when he returned with his family for a vacation. “They teased him and said, ‘Do you still remember how to speak Navajo words or have you forgotten now that you are so good in school.’” Many Anglo teachers used this “reality” to explain why Indians students failed in school. One teacher explained, “They would have it made (a high school degree) if it weren’t for the pressure of their Navajo peers that pulled them down.” The irony of this logic was that it effectively ignored the concurrent rejection many of the Indian youth faced from their school experience. Some youth did experience negative pressure from individuals in the community, but at the same time they faced a school that expected them to do poorly because they were Indian. It was a double bind. For some of these youth, the result was the rejection of the importance of school. Youth who left school, as well as their families, were seen by school officials as having personal characteristics that were “deficient.” Parents were seen as not caring for their children or supporting the efforts of schools. Navajo families were judged by what they didn’t have—money, middle-class Anglo values, higher education, and professional jobs, rather than by what they did have—extended families, permanent homes, strong Navajo values, and religious beliefs. These cultural differences intertwined in the school and community as Navajo asserted their commitment to their families and culture.

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Parents Do Care: Cultural Integrity and Resistance For many of these parents the world of the family and the tribe was equally as important for their children as school. Parents wanted to secure an identity as “Navajo” in their children. As one young woman said, “You know, they tell us to do good in school, but that we will still always be Navajo, even when we finish school.” This frequently meant children were kept out of school to herd sheep, care for younger siblings, or join the family on a shopping trip to a nearby town. Although this provided youth with the richness of family and social relationships, it also created a burden on students. The peer and community pressure on some successful students was real, and it did seem to work against successful school performance for some individuals. One view of this is that it was a means of expressing cultural integrity and the desire to maintain the group intact. In some ways this pressure was based on a fear that if one did better, he or she would leave, and the family or community would lose that individual to the “outside” world. This fear was based on the factual experiences of the past and the economic situation of the present. For youth who received advanced training, the prospects of returning to the reservation for job possibilities were limited. There were few jobs available in this area, even for well-qualified Indians. The issue of having to leave school to work either at home or at a job was a salient factor for almost half of the total Navajo and Ute group. Historically, Navajo parents were often opposed to school, not because they did not want their children to “learn” but because of the economic necessity of the additional worker at home. In some cases this was still true. With the death of a mother, a young Navajo girl’s work became caring for younger siblings. Sometimes young children were kept home from school to help with herding the family flock of sheep. However, parents were aware of the need for their children to be in school. Some tried to hire outside sheep herders, but for some, adolescents had to assume adult responsibilities for economic survival. This

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was especially true in the most traditional area of the district, Navajo Mesa, where half of the cases said having to work was significant in their decision to leave school. When talking about the home problems of the school leavers it must be emphasized that most Navajo and Ute youth came from stable, although culturally different, homes. This “stability” did not obviate drug abuse. A family that drank could also be a stable one. And most Indian parents did want their children in school and doing well. However, problems in youths’ homes clearly contributed to students’ decisions to leave school. Two-thirds of the Navajo and 92 percent of the Ute said problems in the form of alcohol or drug abuse, crowded homes, fighting parents, and unemployment existed in their homes. The existence of home problems, however, often was overemphasized. Too often the “reservation” was characterized as only a place of child neglect, broken homes, drinking, and poverty. Teachers admitted they had not been to their students’ homes, and most parent-administration interactions were over “problem” youth rather than youth who were doing well in school. There was a positive side to “life on the reservation,” a side that most Anglos did not see or experience. In particular, young Navajo women’s lives were hidden and misunderstood by those in the Anglo community. Birth and women’s “place” of security and power in the matriarchy of Navajo culture provides a different perspective on leaving school. Pregnancy as a problem leading to dropping out of school was viewed as a biological inconvenience or mistake from the school’s perspective in this community. A teacher explained, “The girls turned 14 and all they could think of was ‘boy crazy.’ The Navajo race is a pure one and survival is important. I’m a biologist and I speak from this angle. It is important for them to reproduce.” Within the Navajo community, however, there was joy and support for the young mother. It was not a biological “mistake.” Once a young woman became a mother, she changed into an “adult” role and her life moved beyond the immediate need for schooling. In some cases parents discouraged their daughter’s return to school. One Navajo parent told me, “I told her, ‘Daughter, you need to grow up now. You have a baby.’” Although there was sometimes temporary embarrassment from family

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members when a young girl became pregnant and left school, there was joy and acceptance over the new baby. The young mother was then seen as “successful” (creating new life), which overshadowed the importance of school. In interviews with four young women who left school during their pregnancy and returned briefly after their babies were born, all spoke of feeling “out of place.” One said, “The teachers, you know, they look at you differently. They know you have had a baby and they stay away from you. I didn’t like the way they looked at me.” At the same time they spoke with pride at their accomplishments. “I really wanted a baby of my own. I would be really happy, then, at home with my baby. That’s what us Navajo do.” A parent explained that not many Anglos knew what it was like to be Navajo living on the reservation. “I guess this is what being an Indian is all about, living in isolation. This is what it means to be a Navajo.” Anglos misunderstood this isolation and only saw a “cultural vacuum” rather than an active, supportive, social, and religious community on the reservation. The Enemy Way, a three-day ceremony for the purpose of curing illness caused by a ghost, an alien, or an enemy, occurred frequently during the summer months. Birthdays were frequently celebrated by large clan gatherings. Additional ceremonial dances occurred in the area at least monthly, and a strong Native American church was active weekly on the reservation (Aberle, 1982). Young high-school-age girls still participated in Kinaalda’, a four-day celebration and ceremony for a first menstruation. The superintendent admitted he had never heard of this ceremony. In many of these ceremonies prayers were offered to restore “balance” and the good life to individuals (Aberle, 1982; Lamphere, 1977). In particular, the seeking of school success for children became the focal point of many ceremonies. This side of Indian students’ lives most teachers and school officials rarely saw.

Conclusions The decision to leave school is complex. My ethnographic research has shown how leaving school involved culturally embedded factors that pointed toward larger sociocultural and political factors.

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As I found out, when youth revealed the feelings they had of being “pushed out” of schools and “pulled into” their own Indian community, one must look beyond “individual failure” as pivotal reasons for leaving school. For the Navajo and Ute, multiracial experiences in their community and school had reinforced feelings of being unwanted in their school. Their repeated cries of “teachers don’t care” spoke to these feelings. In some cases, the feelings of rejection by youth were soundly based on actual experience; for others stories of historic and current examples of discrimination were enough for them to “feel” the discrimination. This was clearly important for understanding why so many Indian youth rejected schooling. As Ogbu (1978) has pointed out, any comprehensive understanding of minority students’ school failure must include the power and status relations between minority and majority groups. Ogbu argued that because minorities perceive their future chances for jobs and other benefits of education as limited, they are not so strongly motivated as the dominant group members to persevere in their school work. In turn, the dominant group maintains this adaptation by providing inferior education and then by channeling minorities mainly to inferior jobs after they finish high school. The Navajo and Ute saw the basic or vocational thrusts in schools as a mechanism to limit their future opportunities. And they resisted the explanations of their “failure” as being caused by their Navajo culture. Learning involves a trust relationship between learner and teacher. A teacher asks of a student to move into an “unknown” or new area, which involves risk. If the student does not trust the teacher, or has reason to fear humiliation, rejection, or being revealed as incompetent, the risk is too great. Living in the context of family and friends who had also experienced negative experiences left many Navajo and Ute students with little choice but to not trust schools and teachers. This issue is complex and involves “rejection” on both the part of the school and minority youth. Although not neglecting issues such as lack of economic opportunities and academic problems, crucial to the “rejection” of school by many of these Navajo and Ute youth was the issue of cultural identity. A young Navajo woman explained it this way,

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I’ve always wanted to do things but it’s like I couldn’t because of school. That’s what has held me back. I feel that. If I go to college I will get a job in the city and then I won’t come back very often. When am I going to have time to spend with my grandmother learning about my culture? I feel that kind of resentment towards school. I feel cheated out of my own culture.

There is a body of research that argues that the lack of positive cultural identity of students in relation to both the school and home cultures is important in understanding the school failure of some minority groups (Cummins, 1986). The Navajo and Ute youth who left school saw and lived with an inferior status conferred on them by their Anglo neighbors and resented the discrimination; they struggled to retain and gain their own cultural traditions; and they challenged the “myth” that a high school education would result in a good job. They had seen evidence to the contrary. This was clearly illustrated by the differences between the Navajo and Ute school leavers. The most culturally secure group of youth was Navajo from Navajo Mesa, one of the most traditional areas of the Navajo reservation. They felt least as though school was irrelevant, expressed little “trouble” in school, and dropped out primarily because of pregnancy or work needs. In many ways the school was marginal to their lives as young Navajo. Teachers accepted these Navajo because “they did what they were told and were quiet.” In the middle were the Navajo students living in Border community. They expressed feeling the “pull” of their community toward retaining an identity as “Navajo” as they tried to succeed in an Anglo society. Youth from the most disjointed and fractured culture, the Ute, were most likely to feel school to be either a threat to their identity or irrelevant to their lives. None of the Ute students spoke Ute. They had a 64 percent dropout rate from high school. Less than a handful had ever been to college. The unemployment on their reservation was over 80 percent. They were confrontational in their stance to school, and many teachers expressed fear and discomfort with them in their classrooms. Facing a school that refused to acknowledge their “Uteness” in any positive, contemporary light and coming from homes that transmitted little of “traditional” Ute culture, these youth clearly were living

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in the margin. An irony existed when the Ute were portrayed by teachers as “proud” Indians compared to the Navajo. This image originated with the historical picture of a Plains tribe warrior with a long, feathered headdress on horseback. However, the Ute student’s defiance in classrooms came from the context of a fractured culture—a “glory” that no longer existed. This was in contrast to the Navajo youth who resisted passively, with the support of a largely intact cultural foundation, by maintaining silence in the classroom and moving through high school as a short “interruption” in their progression to lives as adult Navajo men and women. The difference between the two high schools is also illustrative of this issue. Located on the Navajo reservation, NHS was more “successful” in retaining and graduating Indian students. With few Anglo students the racial conflict was minimal, and Indian youth moved through their school careers in a more secure and supportive peer and community context. At BHS, with an over 50 percent Anglo student population, Indian students experienced racial conflict daily in school and in the town. Struggling for an identity off the reservation seemed to increase the likelihood of the decision to leave school. It must be emphasized, however, that after high school all of these youth faced the same structural barriers because they were “Indian.” Navajo and Ute youth faced institutional racism that created a job ceiling in their community, whether or not they completed high school. This economic limitation was mirrored by their parents’ experiences. The Navajo community knew intuitively what Cummins (1986) prescribed—they must give their children a good, solid, cultural identity as Navajo or their children would not succeed at any level in either world. Rather than viewing pregnancy as failure, they celebrated and supported their young women’s success at creating life. And both young women and men were admonished to remain Navajo. Given the current structure of schooling, with assimilation as its model, the Navajo community supported their youth, regardless of school success. Resistance against school and cultural assimilation can take different forms: classroom passivity, school nonattendance, verbal confrontations, and violence. Many of the Navajo and

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Ute youth who left school voiced the opinions they were either “pulled out” of school because of family and community pressure or “pushed out” by an unaccepting Anglo society. For these youth, school remained a set of buildings representing a world to which they did not belong. A large mural on the local elementary school hallway pictured a Navajo family in traditional dress viewing a school building across the river. The hand-painted sign read: “Go forward my children. Education is the ladder to success.” The river divided two cultures. For some of these school leavers school represented a bridge that fell before a successful crossing. Or, from other perspectives, it was a bridge that never existed.

References Aberle, D. F. (1982). The peyote religion among the Navajo. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Coladarci, T. (1983). High-school dropout among Native Americans. Journal of American Indian Education, 23(l), 15–22. Cummins, J. (1986). Empowering minority students: A framework for intervention. Harvard Educational Review, 56(l), 18–36. Kluckhohn, C. & Leighton, D. (1946). The Navaho. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Lamphere, L. (1977). To run after them: Cultural and social bases of cooperation in a Navajo community. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. LeCompte, M. D. (1987). The cultural context of dropping out: Why good dropout programs don’t work. Paper presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, Chicago. Ogbu, J. (1978). Minority education and caste: The American system in cross-cultural perspective. New York: Academic Press.

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4 Interactionalist Theory

Overview of Interactionalist Theory There is a curious yet little-known pattern regarding American higher education. With the exception of World War II, between 1880 and 1980 the national college attrition rate remained consistently around 45 percent (Tinto, 1982). This means that just under half of the students entering American four-year colleges and universities did not persist to obtain a degree. The attrition rate is greater than most likely realized, and higher education professionals have exerted a great deal of effort to understand the reasons why. Likely, the most significant theoretical model emerging from these endeavors is interactionalist theory, developed by Vincent Tinto. This theoretical perspective is specifically designed to understand the nature of higher education attrition and has little application to precollege educational experiences. Interactionalist theory is known by a variety of names, and the reader will be challenged by the wide array of labels found in the literature. Among others, this theoretical perspective is referred as “student integration theory” (Nora, 2001), “institutional departure theory” (Pavel & Padilla, 1993), “voluntary student departure theory” (Hurtado, 2007), and very frequently simply as “Tinto’s theory” (Benjamin et al., 1993). Interactionalist theory

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is selected in this volume as its originator, Vincent Tinto, seems to have accepted this name (Tinto, 2002). In many respects interactionalist theory represents a paradox in educational studies. On one hand, there are few theories that have attained the level of usage and recognition as this perspective. Despite a myriad of other theoretical efforts designed to explain college attrition, John Braxton (2002) claims there are over 400 journal articles and 170 doctoral dissertations associated specifically with interactionalist theory. Indeed, even in the face of other theoretical challengers, Braxton declares “Tinto’s interactionalist theory, nevertheless, enjoys near paradigmatic stature in the study of college departure” (2002, p. 3). On the other hand, in spite of its widespread usage, few theories are as controversial among scholars of minority education. Many educational scholars strenuously object to what they consider the essentially assimilationist nature of this theoretical perspective (Nora, 2001; Tierney, 1992). Whatever its shortcomings, interactionalist theory represents a popular and apparently enduring framework for understanding college departure. It has been and continues to be revised and expanded in new theoretical directions (Braxton, 2002; Engstrom & Tinto, 2008 Tinto, 1987; 1993; ). Moreover, despite its many detractors, interactionalist theory is prominently found in the American Indian education literature.

Intellectual History of Interactionalist Theory Research on college attrition stretches back to some of the earliest systematic research on American education. Work in this area can be traced back at least to the mid-1920s (Braxton, 2002), and a flurry of scholarly activity on college attrition ignited during the 1950s and has proceeded unabated since that time (Braxton, 2002; Pantages & Creedon, 1978). However, a major breakthrough in scholarship on higher-education attrition studies came with the seminal work of Vincent Tinto, which began in the mid-1970s and continues to this day (Engstrom & Tinto, 2008; Tinto, 1975; 1987; 1993). Tinto, trained as a sociologist, has been heavily influenced by classic social scientific theory,

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especially those from anthropology and sociology. Indeed, he credits two major figures from those disciplines as particularly significant in shaping interactionalist theory (Tinto, 1988). Those figures include the French anthropologist Arnold van Gennep and the French sociologist Emile Durkheim. Education as Rites of Passage: Contribution of Arnold van Gennep In many ways Arnold van Gennep (1873–1957) lived a life on the margins. His parents were Dutch, but both had strong family connections to France. At age six, upon the separation of his parents, van Gennep was taken to France, where he grew to adulthood and received most of his formal education. He gained a reputation for behavioral problems during his school years and seemed to be at odds with virtually everyone for the majority of his life. He developed disagreements with his stepfather over what he should study, with his parents over the woman he would eventually marry, and, most notable of all, with the scholars of the emerging French social sciences, including its leading figure, Emile Durkheim. It has been speculated that van Gennep’s failure to secure an academic position in France was due to his vocal dispute with French social scientists (Zumwalt, 1982). In fact, he only held one academic position in his long life, the University of Neuschatel in Switzerland, a position van Gennep lost when he publically questioned Swiss neutrality during World War I (Belmont, 1979). He eventually supported his family through employment as head of translations in France’s Ministry of Agriculture, research and writings as an independent scholar, and lectures throughout the world. When van Gennep died in 1957, he had produced an impressive body of work, which has significantly impacted the field of cultural anthropology (Belmont, 1979). Rosemary Zumwalt (1982) summarizes van Gennep’s life and contributions: Outcast as he was, van Gennep did not allow this to interfere with the progress of his work . . . Undoubtedly, van Gennep was able to accomplish so much precisely because he did not have an academic position. As he said, “All the times I have

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been an ‘official,’ they have never given me the liberty to work on my own ideas.” (p. 9)

Of his intellectual legacy, van Gennep is best remembered for his book The Rites of Passage, published in 1909. The ideas contained in this work would eventually influence many of the central notions found in interactionalist theory (Tinto, 1988). In The Rites of Passage, van Gennep focused on the transition when individuals move from one status to another. Typically, this movement involves ascending from the status of child to that of an adult with the subsequent rights and responsibilities full, mature societal membership entails. He contended there are three general stages in the transition between social statuses. Each of these stages involves its own specific ceremonies and rituals. Thus, van Gennep referred to these phases as “rites of passage,” and they include the stages of separation, transition, and incorporation. In the first stage, separation, the individual disconnects from former associations and identity and experiences a sharp decline in interactions with past relationships. At this stage, van Gennep suggested that important specific ceremonies mark the movement in status and serve to underscore the outmoded nature of the views and behaviors of former associations. The second stage, transition, involves a period during which the person begins to form interactions with members of the group he/she is attempting to join. A variety of experiences are typical during this stage, including isolation, training, and even assorted ordeals that serve to advance the separation from former associations. Finally, in the third stage, incorporation, the individual becomes a full member of the group and assumes new forms of interaction and responsibilities. Typically, this stage is marked by a special ceremony representing a distinct and clear rite of passage. The movement among these stages is necessarily troublesome for the individual who must work to establish himself or herself in a new status and engage in novel social interaction. As a result, each person has to struggle to form appropriate relationships and prove himself or herself as worthy of full membership in the group. Although van Gennep developed the notion of rites of passage from research on tribal societies, he as-

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serted the concept could be applied to a variety of situations in which individuals move from one social status, group, or even community to another. Some seventy years later, Vincent Tinto would attempt to demonstrate how van Gennep’s notion of rites of passage could inform the transition into, and, unfortunately, out of college. College Departure as Lack of Integration: Contribution of Emile Durkheim While Arnold van Gennep is relatively unknown to most students of the social sciences, the same cannot be said about his nemesis, Emile Durkheim (1858–1917). Indeed, Durkheim is as celebrated as van Gennep is obscure. Regarded as one of the founders of sociology, his methodological and theoretical contributions to the discipline are too numerous to list. Durkheim was born into an unbroken line of eight generations of rabbis (Ashley & Orenstein, 2005). In fact, his father was the chief rabbi in the eastern region of the province of Lorraine, and young Durkheim was given religious training in preparation to become the next rabbi in his family. However, at an early age Durkheim announced he was an agnostic and his rabbinical training was replaced with secular education. Obtaining his initial education at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, eventually he was recognized as one of the most promising young scholars in France. Yet, because he was Jewish, initially Durkheim was forbidden from securing an academic position in a French university. He briefly taught secondary school before being appointed to the faculty at the University of Bordeaux. As his scholarly achievements accumulated, Durkheim was eventually invited to join the prestigious Sorbonne in Paris. He experienced consistent scholarly success during his career, and his reputation grew virtually unimpeded until the outbreak of World War I. During the war, while Durkheim served France in the Foreign Ministry, many of his best students perished in the trenches. On a fateful day in 1916, Durkheim received word his only son, an army lieutenant and a talented young scholar in his own right, died of wounds received in combat. The devastated Durkheim toiled on for almost a year until he too passed away in 1917 at the age of

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fifty-nine. Those closest to him claimed that he died of a broken heart (Parkin, 1992). Of all of Durkheim’s many contributions, it is his study on suicide that most directly influences the theoretical notions found in interactionalist theory. Regarded by many to be one of the first empirical studies in the discipline of sociology, Durkheim’s analysis on suicide is methodologically important (he demonstrated how to collect and analyze social data), and the theory he crafted to explain the findings of his research is nothing less than monumental. Durkheim was concerned the impressive gains made by Wilhelm Wundt and experimental psychology might lead to the absorption of the new discipline of sociology into psychology (Coser, 1977). However, he reasoned certain phenomena could not be accounted for by psychological factors alone but required sociological explanations. Thus, Durkheim deliberately selected to investigate a behavior that is the utterly private matter of the individual (in other words, within the domain of psychology)— suicide. To simplify Durkheim’s work, he observed that suicide rates are not uniformly found in central European society, which might be expected if suicide was solely a psychological phenomenon. Rather, the rate of suicide varies according to the type of social group. Moreover, the way in which suicides varied seemed to defy conventional wisdom. For instance, Protestants in central Europe occupied a much higher social position than Jews. They had greater political power and enjoyed more social opportunities while Jews had suffered under a long history of anti-Semitism. Yet, Jews, the socially persecuted group, displayed a much lower suicide rate compared to Protestants. Likewise, urban dwellers, relying on wages from employment, tended to have greater family incomes than rural residents, many of whom were little more than subsistence farmers. However, rural people, who appeared to be more economically if not socially disadvantaged, also revealed lower rates of suicide than urban people. Durkheim’s explanation for these patterns in suicide would become part of classic sociological theory and has been used to account for a wide array of social phenomena. He contended suicide rates are associated with the nature of the social integration characteristic of social groups. Simply put, individuals belonging to groups with strong social bonds and united by

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unambiguous social norms are less likely to commit suicide than individuals belonging to groups with weaker social bonds with less-clear social norms. Thus, Jews may have suffered from generations of anti-Semitism, but the years of hostility served to create strong social bonds and enduring social traditions within Jewish communities, whereas Protestants who enjoyed greater social privileges also tended to be characterized by individualistic social norms and weaker social ties. Likewise, rural residents tended to be more traditional in their social views and live and work within strong, extended family networks compared to those who lived in cities typified by more progressive but less stable social mores and smaller nuclear families. Further, Durkheim identified four types of suicide. Altruistic suicide occurs when individuals take their own life for the benefit of others or for the larger good of the group (e.g., a soldier who sacrifices himself for his comrades). Fatalistic suicide is typical under excessively rigid normative control of an authority, such as occurs with the mass suicides of some cults. However, Durkheim was most interested in anomic and egoistic suicides as explanations for the inconsistent rates of suicide in Europe. Anomic suicide is related to the disruption and resultant ambiguity found under certain social conditions. Central to this conception is the notion of anomie. For Durkheim, anomie is a condition of social uncertainty when the norms regulating social order and processes either break down or are unclear. As levels of anomie increase, social pathologies, such as suicide, are more likely to occur. Related to anomic suicide is egoistic suicide. Egoistic suicide occurs when individuals are insufficiently integrated into a social group. The lack of social support and belonging serve to isolate individuals and exacerbate their personal difficulties, providing more conductive conditions for suicide to happen. Durkheim attributed suicide to the nature of social integration, whereby individuals firmly integrated into a group and possessing clear social purpose and direction are less likely to commit suicide. Rapid social change combined with the erosion of traditional forms of social cohesion across Europe at the close of the nineteenth century created the conditions for suicide. There conditions were felt more keenly by some groups compared to others. In this way, Emile Durkheim was ultimately

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able to portray suicide as being caused as much by social factors as it is by psychological ones. Moreover, Durkheim’s notions of anomie and the critical importance of social integration would eventually find their way into interactionalist theory.

The Premise of Interactionalist Theory Descriptions of interactionalist theory abound in the scholarly literature. However, because the theory is multidimensional, scholars tend to emphasize a specific aspect of the perspective that most applies to the focus of their particular study. As such, there are few definitions in the literature that capture the essence of interactionalist theory. In one such description, Kristen Renn and Karen Arnold (2003) explain: Tinto’s framework features elements unique to individuals (pre-entry attributes such as family background, skills, and abilities, and prior schooling), interacting with elements shared with others at the institution (formal interactions with faculty/staff; formal extracurricular activities and informal peer group interactions with other students). These person-environment interactions lead to varying levels of academic and social integration that are believed to contribute to decisions to persist or depart from college. Finding congruence within one or more student subcultures, even in the context of a broader campus culture that is largely incongruent, can lead to retention, whereas the absence of an adequate experience of congruence may lead to departure. (p. 265)

Vincent Tinto’s own description of his interactionalist theory suggests the intricacy of the perspective. Regarding the interactionalist perspective, he relates: In its full form our model of student institutional departure sees the process of persistence as being marked over time by different stages in the passage of students from past forms of association to new forms of membership in the social and intellectual communities of the college. Eventual persistence requires that individuals make the transition to college and become incorporated into its ongoing social and intellectual life.

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. . . [T]he model is an interactional system model of individual leaving. It recognizes the fact that the individual and the institution as represented by other members of its communities are, over time, continually in interaction with one another in a variety of formal and informal situations. Both play an important part in the process of departure. (Tinto, 1993, pp. 135–137)

Clearly the interactionalist perspective is a complex theory. However, a number of themes are included in the above descriptions. According to interactionalist theory, entrance into college is analogous to the transition between communities. Moreover, individuals bring to college certain background characteristics (e.g., family socioeconomic status, academic preparation, race/ ethnicity, etc.) that work to either facilitate or hinder the transition. Further, the greater the social and academic integration of the individual into the institution the less likely the student is to depart from college. This perspective is called interactionalist theory because it is assumed the student’s background characteristics interact with levels of integration and thereby serve to create the conditions for persistence or attrition. From these themes the basic premise of interactionalist theory can be identified. Interactionalist theory asserts that the college experience involves a transition between communities in which important background characteristics of the student interact with levels of social and academic integration to facilitate or hinder persistence. The influence from both van Gennep and Durkheim is obvious in this basic premise. Regarding their respective contributions to interactionalist theory, William Tierney (1992) observes: Tinto has suggested that we ought to think of colleges in light of Durkheim’s and van Gennep’s work. Following Durkheim, Tinto argues that to the degree participants are integrated into the institution’s fabric, the greater likelihood exists that the individual will not develop a sense of anomie, and will not commit “suicide” by leaving the institution. In effect a college is an institution designed as a rite of passage that functions in much the same manner as ritualized institutions in other societies. Postsecondary institutions serve as functional vehicles for incorporating the young into society by way of their integration into the college or university. (p. 606)

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Interactionalist Theoretical Assumptions on American Indian Education As used by American Indian education scholars, interactionalist theory contains three general assumptions. The first assumption is the process through college involves a transition between communities. Second, students bring to college an assortment of important background characteristics that interact with the college experience. Finally, persistence in college depends on the level of social and academic integration of the individual. Higher Education as Transition between Communities Vincent Tinto suggests entrance into and progress through college is in actuality a transition between communities (Tinto, 1988; 1997). Taking from the work of Arnold van Gennep, Tinto conceived this movement as a kind of rite of passage. As any rite of passage, this transition involves the acquisition of new social statuses and roles, the establishment of new relationships, and the possession of new identities. Resultantly, individuals entering college must successfully navigate through the transition between communities, meeting necessary demands along the way. For Tinto, van Gennep’s notion of rites of passage provides an appropriate framework for understanding college as the movement from one community to another: The point of our referring to the work of van Gennep is not that the college student career is always clearly marked by ceremonies and symbolic rites of passage . . . Rather our interest in the concept of rites of passage is that it provides us with a way of thinking about the longitudinal process of student persistence in college and, by extension, about the time-dependent process of student departure. Specifically, it argues that it is possible to envision the process of student persistence as functionally similar to that of becoming incorporated into the life of human communities generally and that this process, especially in the first year of college, is also marked by stages of passage, through which individuals typically pass in order to persist in college. By extension, it further suggests that the process of student departure in part reflects the difficulties individuals face in seeking to

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successfully navigate those early passages to membership in the communities of the college. (Tinto, 1993, p. 94)

Moreover, just as van Gennep envisioned rites of passage as involving three stages, so too Tinto regards the passage into and through college as including the same sequential three stages: separation, transition, and incorporation. In the first stage, separation, students are required to “disassociate themselves, in varying degrees, from membership in the communities of the past, most typically those associated with family, the local high school, and local areas of residence” (Tinto, 1993, p. 95). This stage frequently leads to an abrupt alteration in the life and views of the student. For Tinto, separation can be a traumatic but necessary stage. Tinto describes the second stage of transition as “a period of passage between the old and the new, before the full adoption of new norms and patterns of behavior and after the onset of separation from old ones” (1993, p. 97). During this phase of their college experiences, individuals engage in the process of adopting new views, values, behavior, and even personal identity while jettisoning former ones. To Tinto this process is necessary in order that the student be adequately equipped to socially and academically engage the higher educational institution. However, because this stage involves the passage from former values, norms, and personal identity to new ones, individuals will likely experience confusion and uncertainty. To use Emile Durkheim’s notion, they are likely to experience anomie. The third stage of the interactionalist model, incorporation, involves the task of becoming fully integrated into the higher educational institution. Tinto conceptualizes this stage as both ongoing but potentially troublesome. As he puts the matter, “Having moved away from the norms and behavioral patterns of past associations, the person now faces the problem of finding and adopting new ones appropriate to the college setting” (Tinto, 1993, p. 98). While emphasizing the importance of incorporation for college persistence, Tinto also admits it is uncertain how the stage unfolds. Moreover, he further indicates that van Gennep’s framework reaches its explanative limit, and in order to extend interactionalist theory, Durkheim’s work is needed:

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But how that incorporation comes about is not yet clear. Though the work of van Gennep has led us this far in the development of a theory of student departure, it does not give us a way of thinking about the largely informal processes of interaction among individuals on campus which lead to incorporation. For that purpose we now turn to the work of Emile Durkheim and the study of community and suicide. (Tinto, 1993, p. 99)

Most American Indian education scholars go to great lengths to discuss, and frequently criticize, Tinto’s three stages of college transition. Curiously, however, little research specifically examines these stages or even identifies their existence in the college experiences of Native students. Nevertheless, a few studies have explored the nature of college transition itself and a number have identified stages of the college experience (although these do not necessarily correspond directly to the stages outlined in interactionalist theory). One such study, part of which comes close to Tinto’s three-stage conception, is Huffman’s (2008) ethnographic work on the college experience among sixty-nine Native individuals. Huffman identified a typology of four kinds of American Indian college students based on the use of one’s ethnic identity. One of those groups is referred to as “assimilated students.” Assimilated students consist of individuals who, largely due to their early socialization and place of residence, are culturally oriented to the mainstream of American society. Huffman further identified a three-stage process typical of these students’ college experiences. While these stages do not entirely match those suggested by Tinto, they do offer some similarity. The first stage he refers to as “enhanced ethnic awareness.” At this stage, the assimilated students found that even though they were largely culturally aligned with the cultural patterns and expectations located in the mainstream university, they were still a racial minority on campus. As a result, many of these students typically experienced a heightened awareness of their ethnicity, which created the need to examine and assess their ethnic identity. Huffman’s enhanced ethnic awareness stage focuses specifically on issues of ethnicity, whereas Tinto’s separation stage does not. Yet they are similar in that, like Tinto’s stage of separation, Huffman too conceives individuals who must evalu-

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ate their personal social statuses, roles, and relationships upon entering college. The second stage Huffman calls “culturally uncomplicated transition.” Because of their cultural alignment with the mainstream university, assimilated students did not experience nagging cultural conflict. Their experiences did not include the descriptions of “cultural shock” typical among the more culturally traditional students. For assimilated students, the transition to college could be difficult, but for similar reasons as non-Indian students. This stage is relatively similar to Tinto’s second stage of transition. The most obvious difference is that Huffman’s conceptualization of the culturally uncomplicated transition is much more narrow and specific than Tinto’s second stage of transition. That is, Huffman only relates this stage to Native students who are more culturally aligned with the mainstream society (i.e., culturally assimilated individuals) and only deals with cultural issues confronting these students. Tinto’s second stage of transition is a more sweeping conceptual notion involving a variety of transitional issues confronting all types of college students. Finally, in the third stage of “active engagement,” most assimilated students displayed the ability and willingness to participate both socially and academically in college. This aspect of Huffman’s work on assimilated students is the closest to Tinto’s theoretical conception of the stage of incorporation. Essentially, both theorists are dealing with issues of social and academic integration into college. Huffman found the assimilated students in his study displayed the capacity to socially and academically integrate into college and most ultimately enjoyed successful college endeavors. Jackson, Smith, and Hill (2003) used a qualitative approach to examine the nature of the transition to college among fifteen American Indian college seniors attending schools in the Southwest. Quite different from Huffman, these researchers did not report a specific sequence of stages in their participants’ college experience. Rather, they found the Native individuals in their study progressed through college by taking what the authors call “nonlinear paths” in which they attended a variety of schools before nearing the completion of their degrees. They did

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not exhibit the neat, orderly, three-stage transition suggested by Tinto or Huffman. However, Jackson and his colleagues also investigated the college experiences of individuals who were more culturally oriented toward Native traditionalism than the assimilated students in Huffman’s study. Nevertheless, the nonlinear path to college success is a significant finding, as it suggests that a wholesale application of Tinto’s three stages of college transition may be an inappropriate framework in understanding the higher educational experiences of more culturally traditional Native individuals. Moreover, in regard to more culturally traditional students, Huffman (2008) also reported similar findings to Jackson and his colleagues. A significant proportion of the findings related to culturally traditional students in Huffman’s study are different from the experiences that would be suggested by interactionalist theory. Students’ Background Characteristics Influence the College Experience A second assumption found in interactionalist theory is that students possess important background characteristics that influence the manner in which they proceed through college. The range of these characteristics is rather extensive, but it is easy to understand how they might impact the way an individual experiences college. Background characteristics are divided into three types: family characteristics, individual attributes, and precollege school experiences (Braxton, 2002). Family characteristics include family socioeconomic status, educational level of parents, and family expectations and value on education. Individual attributes include such characteristics as age, race, gender, and even academic ability. Finally, precollege school experiences include the characteristics of the individual’s secondary school as well as one’s high school academic record. While background characteristics are significant for all college students, they hold obvious importance for minority students, such as American Indians. Tinto has been severely criticized for doing little to develop this part of interactionalist theory in regard to minority individuals (Pidgeon, 2008; Tierney, 1992). Particularly in his earlier theoretical efforts, Tinto appears to only

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superficially acknowledge the importance of unique background characteristics for students who do not fit the traditional aged, white, middle-class profile. For instance, he acknowledges that due to their unique background characteristics, the shift from one community to another is particularly difficult for such students: “In the typical institution, one would therefore expect persons of minority backgrounds and/or from very poor families, older adults, and persons from very small rural communities to be more likely to experience such problems [with transition to college] . . . than other students” (Tinto, 1988, p. 445). While Tinto largely ignored the distinct nature of background characteristics for minority students, American Indian education scholars have focused a great deal of attention on how such features as family background, personal attributes, and precollege school experiences impact the college endeavor. Franci Lynn Taylor (2005) sought to examine the interactionalist assumption related to minority students’ background characteristics with a sample of Native women who had successfully completed a terminal graduate degree. The majority of her respondents were first-generation college graduates who came from lower socioeconomic families and generally grew up on reservations or tribal areas. About one-fourth of them indicated active parental support for their initial undergraduate academic efforts. Taylor made an important extension to interactionalist theory by including cultural considerations as part of the individual attributes of her participants. Most reported a strong identification with traditional Native culture and at least some fluency with a Native language. The precollege school experiences of the respondents indicated most had received secondary education some distance from their reservations or communities (although a third did receive their secondary schooling either on a reservation or close by in a border town located just off the reservation). Taylor’s findings provide partial support for interactionalist theory, but they also identify important shortcomings when applied to the higher educational experiences of Native students. For instance, interactionalist theory suggests individuals who are older and are more oriented toward Native culture should have more difficulty in becoming incorporated into the college and, thus, less academic success. However, Taylor reports it is

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these background characteristics that were instrumental in assisting the individuals in her study to become academically successful. Although her participants initially experienced a great deal of difficulties in the transition to college, eventually “their life skills and culture allowed them a foundation and anchor to allow persistence and eventual success” (Taylor, 2005, p. 86). Taylor concludes that while interactionalist theory provides an explanative foundation for the nature of Native higher educational endeavors, it is not presently designed to account for the rich complexities of American Indian cultures or the diversity of personal experiences among Native peoples. Regarding the applicability of the interactionalist perspective to American Indian higher education, she contends that the framework “does not explain why some culturally grounded American Indian women who consider themselves traditional are successful at the university level” (Taylor, 2005, p. 92). Huffman (2003) examined Tinto’s contention that the college experience is essentially a movement between communities and the associated assumption that those from communities different from the mainstream would have greater difficulty in college. In this quantitative study, Huffman compared assessments of the college experience between Native students who had lived the majority of their lives on a reservation to American Indian students who had not lived or spent relatively short periods of their lives on a reservation. The study examined these groups’ respective assessments on reported academic difficulties, personal/ social difficulties, satisfaction with college, difficulty in the transition to college, and the impact of college on their appreciation of Native heritage. While the two groups related comparable levels of personal/social difficulties and levels of satisfaction with college, there were notable differences between them as well. In particular, as interactionalist theory would predict, the American Indian students from reservations were more likely to report academic difficulties and more problematic transitions to college compared to the nonreservation Native students. However, a significant finding was the students from reservations were also more likely to report being in college had resulted in greater appreciation for their American Indian heritage. This finding is not what one might expect given the interactionalist

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assumption that individuals need to move away from former associations to become incorporated into the college. Much like Taylor (2005), Huffman concludes interactionalist theory, at best, only partially accounts for the complexity of the college experience for American Indian students. Findings such as those reported by Taylor (2005) and Huffman (2003) provide some support for the interactionalist theory as an explanation for American Indian college students. This support is most evident in the interactionalist assumption that background characteristics significantly interact with the higher educational experience for Native students. However, their findings also point out serious flaws in the interactionalist perspective. While it may be true difficult transitions to college are linked to a different cultural background and orientation, interactionalist theory fails to consider that individuals may be resilient enough to use those same differences as sources of strength and purpose. In other words, for many Native students cultural differences may be connected to an initially problematic transition to college, but they may also ultimately be the source of their perseverance in college. Thus, interactionalist theory overlooks an essential cultural component, namely the importance of cultural identity and heritage for Native individuals enrolled in mainstream academic institutions. College Persistence Depends on Successful Social and Academic Integration According to interactionalist theory, college consists of two basic components, an academic system and a social system (Tinto, 1993). The academic system relates to formal educational activities. It includes interaction with faculty, completion of assignments, and performance in the classroom. Conversely, the social system involves the daily affairs, ordinary interactions, and personal needs of students typically occurring outside the classroom. An assumption of interactionalist theory is persistence in college depends on successful integration into both of these systems. Successful integration into the academic and social systems is related to a number of important factors. As discussed, the background characteristics of the student interact with other features

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of college to influence the nature of the higher educational experience. The more congruence between the background characteristics of the student and the nature of the academic and social systems of the college the more likely the individual will become integrated. Thus, it is to be expected that individuals who had been academically successful and are socially/cultural similar to the university will find the transition to higher education less troublesome and, therefore, more likely to persist. While integration into both sides of college is important, Tinto (1993) argues academic integration and social integration need not be accomplished at comparable levels. That is, an individual may display greater integration in one system compared to the other. Likewise, the way these systems interact with the individual’s college experience may be uneven and largely depends on the nature of the college. For instance, some schools emphasize the intellectual environment over the social climate. In such cases, an individual will have greater opportunity and pressure to engage in academic integration. The point is the nature of the individual’s college experience is strongly impacted by the institutional culture of the school. This environment interacts with the student’s felt need to integrate academically and socially. Additionally, interactionalist theory asserts that proper integration depends on two key elements. First, individuals must at least tacitly accept the values and norms prevailing in the college. On this point there is some contradiction in the work of Vincent Tinto. At times, he presents a rather ardent argument that students must abandon previous associations and values for new ones at the college. However, at other times, perhaps in response to strong and persistent criticism, he appears to soften his stance. For instance, in the second edition of his book Leaving College (1993), Tinto does not conceive integration into college as requiring wholesale adoption into the cultural mainstream of the college. However, he does argue students must at the very least display a degree of consensus on the normative expectations, both academically and socially, of the college in order to function. If consensus is not present, he contends, it is not possible for an individual to persist in college:

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Though it is true that many colleges are marked by a dominant culture, one that sets the tone for the college generally, it is not always the case that students have to conform to that culture in order to persist . . . it does not follow that membership requires a full sharing of values. Rather, it suggests that some degree of consensus or sharing of values is a requisite condition for persistence and by extension the absence of the sharing of values of any kind a precondition for departure. (Tinto, 1993, p. 105, italics in the original)

A second key element toward integration is that students must be committed to the goals and procedures of the college. On this point Tinto makes a distinction between intentions and commitments. For Tinto, intentions involve the educational and occupational aspirations of students. Frequently these are lofty and highly motivating. However, he focuses most of his attention on commitments and implies these are more instrumentally important in interacting with college persistence/attrition: Intentions, whether educational or occupational, reflect both aspirations and expectations. Most often stated in terms of goals, they mirror both the person’s hopes for the future and his/her assessment, based upon past experience, of the likelihood of attaining that future . . . Though commitments, too, reflect past experiences, they mirror as well important aspects of personality which predispose a person toward the completion of tasks once begun and/or the attainment of goals once established. Highly motivated or committed persons presumably are those who are willing to commit themselves fully to the attainment of valued goals and expend the energies and resources required to do so. Persons lacking such motivation, however, may hold lofty goals for themselves but may be unable or unwilling to commit themselves to their attainment. And the more committed the person is to the attainment of those goals with a specific institutional context (institutional commitment), the more likely will he/she be to complete that degree within that institution. (Tinto, 1993, pp. 110–111)

Included in this conception is that the more committed individuals are to their intentions, the more likely they are to accept

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the values and procedures of the college. Tinto refers to this notion as “institutional commitment.” Implied in this concept is institutionally committed individuals are more likely to adjust to the college and, presumably, be more willing to disassociate from former community relationships and personal identities. While this may be of minimal consequence to students who share the cultural orientation of the mainstream higher educational institution, for minority students like American Indians, this notion has seriously negative connotations (Tierney, 1992). The integration of Native college students has been the subject of much scholarly investigation. Two quantitative studies from the 1980s lend direct support for the interactionalist theoretical assumption that success in college is connected to the level of integration. Harold Kerbo (1981) reported the social integration of American Indian students attending several Oklahoma universities was significantly associated with academic success. Similarly, in a specific examination of Tinto’s assertion on the importance of integration, Wilbur Scott (1986) found integration into the university was inversely correlated with attachment to American Indian culture among a sample of Native students attending the University of Oklahoma. In other words, those individuals who were less culturally assimilated into the mainstream were less likely to engage the social system of the university. Moreover, he also reported integration in the university was one of the best predictors of college success (as measured by the number of credit hours completed). Assessing these two findings, Scott (1986) concludes: Considering its [attachment to Native culture] direct effect on integration into the university community in conjunction with the effect of the integration variable on credit hours completed show how attachment to Indian culture nevertheless influences how successful the student is likely to be. Indian students who are less devoted to Indian ways are more likely to feel comfortable in the university community and, in turn, those who feel that way are more likely to succeed academically . . . The findings clearly show that being a “cultural Indian” reduces the chances of academic success. Independent of all other considerations, including how much measured academic ability the student has, such a student is more likely to fail because

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he or she is less likely to become integrated into the university community. (pp. 392–393)

Mary Jiron Belgarde and Richard Loré (2003) use Vincent Tinto’s interactionalist theory as a theoretical guide for their research on retention issues for American Indian students. They used a mixed method study designed to evaluate the outcomes of a retention program developed at the University of New Mexico. This approach included a quantitative approach employing a survey in combination with a qualitative component based on personal interviews conducted via telephone with 183 American Indian students (some of whom participated in the intervention program and some who did not). The findings revealed that those students who participated in the intervention program attempted and accumulated more credit hours compared to those who did not participate in the program. Moreover, they also found that, as predicted by interactionalist theory, important background attributes of students are associated with their college experience. For instance, academic history, family characteristics, and economic circumstances were associated with perceptions on the effectiveness of the intervention program in the manner generally suggested by interactionalist theory. The authors acknowledge the cultural shortcomings of interactionalist theory and, in an interesting twist, attempt to demonstrate how the basic tenets of this perspective may actually be compatible with traditional Navajo and Pueblo educational philosophies. Their findings suggest Tinto’s assertions on the importance of academic and social integration in student retention are correct. However, they also try to present a framework on how social and academic integration may occur in ways consistent with Navajo and Pueblo epistemology. Belgarde and Loré argue for an important modification in the interactionalist perspective in regard to the cultural context of the academic and social integration for Native college students. That is, this model of retention (along with institutions that use interactionalist theory as a framework for retention efforts) needs to recognize that institutional integration must not be regarded as incompatible with integration in Native communities.

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These studies notwithstanding, most American Indian education scholars have not examined college integration per se. Rather, they tend to explore a closely related phenomenon—isolation. While there is a substantial number of studies related to social isolation among American Indian college students, most have not specifically tested interactionalist theory. Nevertheless, the findings from these scholarly efforts provide insight on the nature of integration as assumed by interactionalist theory. Moreover, the findings of these various efforts are strikingly similar. Researchers almost exclusively report pervasive social isolation among the Native participants that serves to facilitate college departure (Lin et al., 1988; Melchior-Walsh, 1994; Taylor, 2001; Yang, Byers, & Fenton, 2006). The general findings from these investigative efforts support the interactionalist contention that lack of social integration, as implied by the pervasiveness of social isolation, is associated with student departure from the higher educational institution.

Implications of Interactionalist Theory As has been previously noted, the college enrollment rate for American Indians has increased impressively. Nevertheless, the persistence rate still lags far behind most other groups. Clearly the access to higher education has improved for Native students. Unfortunately, greater access has not necessarily resulted in enhanced opportunities for success. No one understands this more than the originator of interactionalist theory, Vincent Tinto (Tinto, 1993; Engstrom & Tinto, 2008). There are a number of important implications derived from this theoretical perspective. More than anything else these implications are associated with the need to ease the transition into college by meeting the social and academic integration needs of Native students. Increasing Opportunities for Academic Integration: Learning Communities There is greater access to higher education than in any other period of American history. Recent years have witnessed a prolif-

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eration of community colleges in both urban and rural areas (Mellow & Heelan, 2008), while online and distance education brings higher education right into the home (Allen & Seaman, 2008). Additionally, most colleges and universities have placed an emphasis on the recruitment of minority students (Patterson-Lorenzetti, 2008). Yet, despite these developments, the support necessary for academic success lags behind the pathways into higher education, and some have questioned whether greater access necessarily leads to greater opportunity (Engstrom & Tinto, 2008). Obviously, in order to be successful in college a student must do well enough academically to persist and progress. Academic success is especially important early on in order to establish confidence and an intellectual foundation for further growth. Moreover, according to interactionalist theory, initial connections with faculty are instrumental in forming the academic integration essential for persistence. However, frequently, colleges (especially larger universities) are arranged to seemingly discourage academic integration during the first year of study. Tinto (1993) makes the observation that often freshman classes are the largest on campus and are quite typically taught by graduate students. Rather than fostering academic integration during the first year of higher education, institutions may be functioning in ways to disassociate students from faculty who represent key players in academic integration. For these reasons, Engstrom and Tinto (2008) point out a serious contradiction in American higher education: Access without support is not opportunity. That institutions do not intentionally exclude students from college does not mean that they are including them as fully valued members of the institution and providing them with support that enables them to translate access into success . . . the fact [is] that without support many students, especially those who are poor or academically underprepared, are unlikely to succeed. Little wonder then that our gains in access have not closed the gap in four-year degree completion among low-income and highincome students. (p. 50)

As a way to partially compensate for this dilemma, Tinto stresses the importance of establishing learning communities

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within institutions of higher education. Learning communities are becoming increasingly common on American campuses and take a variety of forms. Learning communities consist of some combination of students, peer mentors, and faculty who share common interests and learning experiences. Sometimes courses are networked together with a small core of faculty providing direction and contact for students. Whatever the specific form, learning communities are designed to actively engage students in a collaborative learning process whereby they gain a sense of connection and direction. In other words, learning communities foster a sense of academic integration by bringing students and faculty closer together (Tinto, 1997). There is ample research evidence on the importance of academic integration, especially in the form of connection with faculty for American Indian students. In their study involving fifteen academically successful Native students, Jackson et al. (2003) found faculty and staff contact significantly enhanced a positive college experience among their participants. Consistent with the assumptions of interactionalist theory, the “perception of care from faculty/staff gave them confidence that they had (a) a place to go to ask questions about the college or university, and (b) an important personal connection to the college or university” (Jackson et al., 2003, p. 554). In a case study of ten Northern Plains American Indian students who successfully completed a four-year degree, Judith Davis (1992) reported that virtually all identified a key faculty member as playing an important role in their academic success. Similar findings have also been reported among graduate students. For instance, Franci Lynn Taylor (2005) found over one-third of the Native women who had completed a terminal graduate degree cited the significance of mentoring from a faculty member in sustaining their academic efforts. Unfortunately, many Native college students are disappointed with the lack of contact with faculty. Reyhner and Dodd (1995) discovered that while 75 percent of the Native students in their sample reported seeking assistance from faculty, only 25 percent reported receiving help. Further, however, the participants also identified ways in which faculty can facilitate the educational efforts of Native students, including: being caring

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and understanding; willing to respond to questions; relaxing time requirements; and being culturally sensitive. Increasing Opportunities for Social Integration: Multiple Communities Implied in the interactionalist perspective is that the lack of social integration may be as important as the lack of academic integration in leading to higher education attrition. There are good reasons to suspect this is true for Native students. Many American Indians face daunting challenges posed by social isolation while in college. In fact, likely the two most commonly identified barriers to educational success in the American Indian literature are cultural conflict and social isolation (Huffman, 2008). Tinto (1988; 1993) suggests one way to mitigate the overwhelming feelings of isolation frequently produced by college is to regard the institution not as one large community but as composed of multiple communities. He draws the analogy that universities are much like solar systems. Each system has its own sun (the intellectual center) around which smaller systems (mostly social in nature) revolve. Reducing the university into multiple communities serves “the important function of enabling new students to break down the university into smaller knowable parts where social integration is more readily possible” (Tinto, 1993, p. 124). Moreover, Tinto (1993) explains that approaching college as multiple communities has particular significance for minority students such as American Indians: The concept of multiple communities leads to . . . the implied hypothesis that the greater the variety of locally available subcultures or communities on campus, the greater the likelihood that a greater range and number of persons will be able, if they so desire, to become integrated and establish competent intellectual and social membership while in college . . . [O]n most racially and ethnically diverse campuses, local ethnic/race communities may provide much needed havens or safe places that, for some students, may be essential for continued persistence. In this way, ethnic communities on campus can provide a stabilizing anchor in what might otherwise be a large, foreign campus environment. (p. 124)

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Researchers have reported the effectiveness of reducing the university into smaller segments similar to Tinto’s conception of multiple communities. Especially beneficial is the support provided by other Native students in personal enclaves. The academically successful students in the study conducted by Jackson et al. (2003) specifically described what Tinto would regard as multiple communities that are critically important to students’ achievement. Indeed, so significant were these communities to their experiences that some of the participants contended Native students should be required to join a smaller community: Students talked about the positive effect of Native American clubs, multicultural offices and other groups organized to provide social support to Native American students. They saw their association with such groups as a critical aspect of their success despite the fact that many of them were initially reluctant to be involved in these groups. Some students went so far as to recommend that involvement in such groups be made mandatory. (Jackson et al., 2003, p. 553)

Using a qualitative design to examine interactionalist theory’s assertion on the importance of social integration, Murguía, Padilla, and CHiXapkaid (Pavel) (1991) found social integration to be essential to college persistence for their sample of twenty-four Chicano and American Indian students (see reading 3). However, they reported the participants tended to “scale down” the various environments of the university in order to make it manageable (p. 436). In essence, these individuals created their own multiple communities in much the same fashion suggested by Vincent Tinto. In an interesting twist to the research typically reported in the literature, Shotton, Oosahwe, and Cintron (2007) investigated the perceptions and experiences of seven American Indian students who served as mentors in a peer-mentoring program. This program was specifically designed to enhance retention among Native students. Their research provides evidence that the peer-mentoring relationship is a potentially powerful tool in overcoming personal, social, cultural, and academic barriers for incoming American Indian college students. However, they also identified four key factors necessary for effective peer mentoring: 1) the peer mentor must be committed to the mentoring

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program and to the student; 2) the peer mentor must display genuine concern for the student; 3) the student needs to perceive the peer mentor as someone he/she can respect; and 4) the peer mentor and student must be able to relate to one another. When those four factors were present, the peer-mentoring relationship was highly successful in leading the new student toward greater social and academic integration.

Criticisms of Interactionalist Theory Perhaps because of its widespread application, minority education scholars have aggressively criticized interactionalist theory. Among the critiques are charges that interactionalist theory only explains the educational experiences of students who fit a specific racial and social class profile; there is an assimilationalist nature to the perspective; and it ultimately places the burden of transitioning to college on the student and not on the institution. Designed to Explain Middle-Class White Students’ Educational Experiences A number of critics charge interactionalist theory offers a comprehensive general theory on student departure that accounts for the experiences of the most common type of college student—white, middle-class individuals. As such, this theoretical perspective does not represent a particularistic model that considers the unique experiences of minority students (Tierney, 1992). Because of this focus, interactionalist theory is only equipped to explain the transitional experiences of white, middle-class students and is not as useful in understanding the educational endeavors of those individuals who do not fit this profile. Thus, nontraditional aged individuals and minority students are virtually ignored in the premise and general assumptions of interactionalist theory (Rendon, Jalomo, & Nora, 2002). Assimilationalist Nature of Interactionalist Theory Likely the strongest criticism of interactionalist theory is the assimilationalist nature of the perspective. A number of American

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Indian education scholars have taken exception with the nature of the stages of transition, need for social integration, and consequences of the general college experience implied by the perspective (Pidgeon, 2008; Tierney, 1992). For instance, summarizing the likely consequences of the transition to college, Tinto (1993) concludes that: Such communities (of former association) differ from college not only in composition but also in the values, norms, and behavioral and intellectual styles that characterize their everyday life. As a result, the process leading to the adoption of behaviors and norms appropriate to the life of the college necessarily requires some degree of transformation and perhaps rejection of the norms of past communities . . . In order to become fully incorporated into the life of the college, they have to physically as well as socially disassociate themselves from the communities of the past. (pp. 95–96)

Obviously such a suggestion implies that American Indians, along with other minority students, need to weaken, if not sever, the ties with their families and communities. However, these associations hold crucial cultural, emotional, and spiritual significance for Native people. To suggest the replacement of such connections with the community of the mainstream is viewed by many as tantamount to the advocacy of cultural assimilation for Native college students (Nora, 2001; Pidgeon, 2008; Tierney, 1992). Undue Responsibility on Students Rather Than on Institutions Interactionalist theory asserts that key to the academic and social integration of students into the college is their commitment to the institution’s values and goals. This contention is captured in Tinto’s concept of “institutional commitment.” However, such a view places an undue amount of the responsibility for the transition to college on the student rather than on the institution. Michelle Pidgeon (2008) charges by emphasizing institutional commitment among students, ultimately higher educational institutions “are absolved from their responsibilities to modify policies and practices to meet the needs of students” (p. 347).

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Certainly, with its emphasis on the need for individuals to adjust to institutional values and norms and acquire appropriate institutional commitment, interactionalist theory places the onus for academic and social integration largely on the student. However, Tinto does not completely absolve institutions from facilitating the academic and social integration of their students. In his more recent work Tinto strongly argues higher educational institutions must recognize the unique racial/ethnic, age, and gender needs of their students (Engstrom & Tinto, 2008; Tinto, 2002). Nevertheless, clearly interactionalist theory focuses more heavily on the necessity that students transform to the institutions enrolling them. The prominence of the concept of institutional commitment within interactionalist theory leads scholars working from this perspective to diminish important systemic barriers facing American Indian students. Specifically, problems posed by personal and institutional racism, inadequate financial support, and low expectations, among a myriad of other difficulties, make institutional commitment extremely difficult for many minority students (Cabrera, Castaneda, Nora, & Hengstler, 1992). Unfortunately, generally interactionalist theorists have little to say about these considerations (Tierney, 1992).

Discussion on the Reading In the 1980s and 1990s, interactionalist theory drew considerable attention. In one of the earliest efforts among American Indian education scholars, Edward Murguiá, Raymond V. Padilla, and CHiXapkaid (Michael Pavel) engage in theory modification of the perspective. Reading 3, “Ethnicity and the Concept of Social Integration in Tinto’s Model of Institutional Departure,” presents suggestions on how interactionalist theory might be adapted in order to be more sensitive to the cultural features of higher education for minorities such as American Indians. This article is typical of the uneasiness many minority education scholars have felt with interactionalist theory’s presumed assimilationist nature. Yet it also illustrates that scholars, including

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some American Indian education scholars, were not willing to discount the perspective altogether. Murguiá, Padilla, and CHiXapkaid use personal interviews with Hispanic and American Indian students attending a Southwestern university to explore the role personal ethnicity plays in their social integration on campus. Their findings suggest interactionalist theory suffers from a serious shortcoming. While this perspective recognizes that personal ethnicity creates unique barriers to social integration, it fails to identify that ethnicity may also open up novel forms of social affiliations as well. Based on the findings of their research, they argue ethnic enclaves serve as a means for minority students to “scale down” the university, making it more manageable, while locating the individual within the institution. In short, ethnic enclaves are unique forms of social integration generally not accounted for in conventional interactionalist theoretical assumptions.

Suggested Reading Belgarde, M. J. & Loré, R. K. (2003). The retention/intervention study of Native American undergraduates at the University of New Mexico. Journal of College Student Retention, 5(2), 175−202. Huffman, T. (2003). A comparison of personal assessments of the college experience among reservation and nonreservation American Indian students. Journal of American Indian Education, 42(2), 1–16. Kerbo, H. (1981). College achievement among Native Americans: A research note. Social Forces, 59(4), 1275–1280. Pavel, D. M. & Padilla, R. V. (1993). American Indian and Alaska Native postsecondary departure: An example of assessing a mainstream model using national longitudinal data. Journal of American Indian Education, 32(2), 1–23. Scott, W. J. (1986). Attachment of Indian culture and the “difficult situation”: A study of American Indian college students. Youth and Society, 17(4), 381–395. Tierney, W. G. (1992). An anthropological analysis of student participation in college. Journal of Higher Education, 63(6), 603–618.

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Reading 3 Ethnicity and the Concept of Social Integration in Tinto’s Model of Institutional Departure Edward Murguiá, Raymond V. Padilla, and CHiXapkaid (Michael Pavel) Edward Murguiá is a professor of sociology and director of the Mexican American and U.S. Latino Research Center at Texas A&M University. Raymond V. Padilla is professor emeritus of education in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. CHiXapkaid (Michael Pavel) is a professor of Native American Studies in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of Oregon. This reading was originally published in 1991 as “Ethnicity and the Concept of Social Integration in Tinto’s Model of Institutional Departure” by Edward Murguiá, Raymond V. Padilla, and Michael Pavel in Journal of College Student Development, 32, 433–439. The reading is adapted from the original article and is used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

Introduction The research reported here was motivated by the well-established Tinto model of institutional departure (Tinto, 1975; 1987). At the heart of the model is the idea that successful college students are well integrated into the academic and social systems of the campus and its environment. Quantitative studies based on the model, however, have accounted for only modest amounts 151

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of explained variance in dropout rates (Williamson & Creamer, 1988). For example, a nine-year longitudinal study based on the Tinto constructs accounted for the following percentages of explained variance: 15.7 percent for white men, 15.6 percent for white women, 18.5 percent for black men, and 13.9 percent for black women (Stoecker, Pascarella, & Wolfle, 1988). These low levels of explained variance may be due to a lack of fit between the Tinto model and the social processes that it is intended to reflect. Alternatively, the central constructs of the model, social and academic integration, may have been incompletely conceptualized and, as a consequence, only imprecisely understood and measured. The latter view guided the research. Hence the purpose of this research was to understand more clearly and in greater detail what it might mean for a student to be integrated into the social system of a campus. Specifically, the study investigated how ethnicity (in this case Hispanic and Native American) may influence the social integration process as experienced by students on campus. Given a deeper understanding of the concept of social integration, the purpose of the research also was to indicate how the Tinto model might be improved based on the qualitative analysis.

Research Design The study used a naturalistic design with a priori theory (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Although designs based on a priori theory are not common in qualitative studies, in this case the design was appropriate because the phenomenon to be studied already had been described in an extant model of college departure. The key objective of the design, therefore, was to reconstitute Tinto’s theory (or part of it) rather than to elaborate new theory. Techniques for data collection and analysis were drawn from Agar (1986), Glaser and Strauss (1967), and Spradley (1979). Data display strategies are adaptations from the work of Miles and Huberman (1984).

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Data Collection Twenty-four junior and senior Hispanic and Native American students were interviewed using an open-ended, structured interview. The participants were students in a large Southwestern university that is located in a metropolitan area with cultural diversity. Juniors and seniors were chosen so that we could capture the perspectives of students who had been at the university long enough to have had the opportunity to experience a breadth of university activities. Because the goal of qualitative research was to generate theory rather than to describe a population, the representativeness of the sample is not an issue. Nevertheless, the sample was selected with care to ensure that an equal number of Hispanic and Native American students were included and that they were enrolled in various colleges and departments of the university. The interview schedule included eighteen key questions and probes. It was designed to investigate several aspects of social and academic integration as expressed in the Tinto model. Two of the questions in the interview provided the data for the current analysis. The two questions were as follows: 1. Do you identify yourself as [Hispanic/Native American]? If yes, probe: Why is it important to be identified as [Hispanic/Native American]? If no, probe: Why not? 2. How do [Hispanic/Native American] students as a whole get along socially at the university?

Data Analysis The fundamental analytical task was to identify concepts to describe how the informants experienced their own ethnicity in the context of a university campus and to relate those experiences to Tinto’s model of institutional departure, particularly to the concept of social integration. The identified concepts are empirically grounded (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) in the sense that they

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are derived from the interview data. Collectively the concepts can be related to each other and expressed as a concept model. The concept model can be considered a general account of how Hispanic and Native American students experience ethnicity on campus and how it functions in their social lives. The grounded concepts that constitute the model were identified by careful scrutiny of the informants’ responses to the interview questions. Using the constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), chunks of data were identified and isolated from the raw data. There chunks were then compared and categorized to define specific concepts that were related to each other. In this study, each chunk of data that is used to define a concept is called an assertion, which is a statement by an informant that she or he believes is true based on experience. Thus, an assertion is the basic unit of analysis, and an important step in this research method is to identify and cull relevant assertions from raw interview data. This is done by tagging (i.e., labeling) individual assertions to define and to ground a concept. To ground a concept means to demonstrate a concept’s empirical existence. In our method, concepts are grounded by means or an assertion or assertions made by informants. Some assertions are chosen as examples and displayed in appendixes as evidence either of the existence of a concept or of relationships among concepts. Such assertions are called exemplars. Locating assertions in the raw interview data can be made easier by using analytic questions that are framed by the analyst. Analytic questions can be derived from evolving hypotheses, insights gained during interviews, preliminary data analysis, and so forth. Analytic questions are used as tools to interrogate and segment the data. They help the analyst to identify, select, and group assertions into meaningful categories. The resulting groups of assertions define concepts. The analytic questions used in this study were the following: 1. How is ethnicity rooted in the life of the individual? 2. What is the function of ethnicity for individuals on campus? The results obtained from each of these analytic questions are presented in the following section. They are then discussed in the context of Tinto’s concept of social integration.

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Results The Rootedness of Ethnicity Use of the first analytic question yielded two grounded concepts: the first concept holds that ethnicity is rooted biologically; the second that ethnicity also is rooted in the family (seen as a social-cultural unit) and friends. Appendix A shows exemplars that demonstrate the biological rootedness of ethnicity. From the assertion in Appendix A, it can be seen that the physical appearance of the respondent is important to his or her sense of ethnicity. Exemplars 1.1 and 1.2 are lucid statements of respondents seeing themselves as looking different from members of the majority society and, therefore, of being different or having a different origin. Appendix B presents exemplars demonstrating that ethnicity is also rooted in the family as a social-cultural unit. In exemplar 2.1, the respondent makes a distinction between immediate family (parents) and extended family (relatives) and states that ethnicity encompasses both. Exemplar 2.4 adds a fourth element, friends, to the triad of self, immediate family, and extended family. The category friends goes beyond family in the sense of blood relatives but is well within the concept of primary relationships; that is, close ties among those who know and like each other. “Friends” in this case means those of the same racial and ethnic origin, although not all of one’s primary relationships have to be ethnically based. Ethnicity for these students, then, is rooted in their immediate and extended family and in close friends of the same racial or national origin.

The Functions of Ethnicity The second analytic question (What is the function of ethnicity for individuals?) yielded three concepts that describe the functions of ethnicity. These may be summarized as self-identity, a sense of place in the world, and affective support. Self-Identity Appendix C shows exemplars that demonstrate how ethnicity serves to define self-identity. Exemplar 3.7 is especially telling

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here. The respondent believes that it is important to “know who you are.” Exemplar 3.8 reinforces this idea. Exemplar 3.5 adds the idea of uniqueness. Apparently, ethnicity serves to differentiate the individual from the mass of humanity. The person becomes more than just a generic human being. He or she has a context and a purpose. Exemplar 3.6 contributes the idea of permanence in that ethnicity anchors the individual in a world of instability and change. A self-identity based on ethnicity apparently gives one stability in an otherwise changing world, as detailed in the following section. A Sense of Place in the World Appendix D shows exemplars that demonstrate how ethnicity gives an individual a sense of place in the world. Exemplar 4.1 indicates that ethnicity is a source of stability in the face of constant change. Exemplar 4.2 indicates that fellow ethnics are a source of constancy in that the participant has no need to continuously explain himself or herself. With a fellow ethnic, much information about oneself need not be explicated but can be taken for granted. The idea of having a place comes through clearly in exemplars 4.5 and 4.6. Ethnicity provides a foundation by means of which a purpose is given to one’s life. Affective Support Appendix E shows exemplars that demonstrate how ethnicity provides the individual with affective support, largely through providing a sense of pride and security. Respondents seem to be aware of the benefits of recognizing one’s ethnic background (exemplar 5.1) as well as the possible dangers of ignoring it (exemplar 5.2). Ethnicity thus can act as a ballast in the individual’s emotional life (exemplar 5.6).

Discussion An individual’s ethnicity is rooted biologically and socioculturally. Thus, ethnicity is transmitted biologically from the parents

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and socioculturally through the immediate and extended family and friends. This produces a sense of ethnic identity, a place in the world, and pride and security. These are important characteristics that provide the context for an individual’s everyday actions, such as functioning successfully within a university campus. According to Tinto’s model, students who succeed are integrated into the social life of the campus. Such integration does not necessarily occur at the campus level but within smaller subunits or enclaves (Tinto, 1975). Attinasi (1986) found that students in a large university attempt to “scale down” the social, physical, and academic environments so that they can deal with them effectively. Once integrated into one or more enclaves, the rest of the campus simply becomes a backdrop that the student can explore if and when she or he desires or needs to do so. Examples of social enclaves include fraternities and sororities, student government, as well as athletic and religious groups. Ethnic clubs, groups, and organizations thus should be considered as another expression of social enclaves on campus. Such ethnic enclaves can provide a means for students to scale down the campus and integrate socially. Thus, ethnic enclaves can provide the student with an ethnically compatible environment that may be important for some ethnic students.

Summary This study has implications both for theory and practice. Regarding theory, Tinto’s concept of social integration seems applicable to the situation studied. Nevertheless, it needs to be refined to include the following considerations: 1. Ethnicity can be an important conditioning element in the social integration process. Ethnicity can limit access to majority enclaves either through self-selection or though enforced segregation. If in fact a student’s access is limited largely to ethnic enclaves, then the efficacy of those enclaves in socializing the student to campus life becomes paramount.

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2. Because social integration involves participation in enclaves rather than in the campus as a whole, social integration needs to be measured with respect to these enclaves. Well-calibrated measurements of ethnicity and enclave efficacy at socializing students needs to be included in an operational definition of social integration. 3. Data analysis should reflect this underlying structure of campus life and pay particular attention to ethnic enclaves if the research involves ethnic participants. If the ideas expressed here are correct, and if the empirical indicators can be crafted with precision, the reconstructed Tinto model should be able to account for more of the variance in persistence rates than it has been able to so far. This, however, is a hypothesis that remains to be tested using more traditional quantitative designs. Because social integration is only one component of the Tinto model, it may be necessary to reconstruct other key concepts (such as academic integration) using qualitative analysis in order to detect more clearly the accumulated impact of these reconstructed concepts on explained variance. With respect to student affairs policies and practices, the following implications can be drawn from this study: 1. Given the important functions of ethnicity for the individual, it is difficult for the student to leave his or her ethnicity outside the campus gates. It is also unnecessary and unwise to require students to do so. 2. The existence of enclaves is a structural feature of campus life, and ethnic enclaves are a natural part of that ecology. Therefore, campus policies should support ethnic enclaves because of their potential to integrate the student to campus life. Such support should promote enclave efficacy at integrating students both socially and academically. Finally, additional research is needed to reconstruct the various key concepts of the Tinto model and to find out the specific ways in which ethnic enclaves can be effective in integrating students into the social and academic life of the campus.

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References Agar, M. H. (1986). Speaking of ethnography. Beverly Hills: Sage. Attinasi, L. C. (1986). Getting in Chicano students’ perceptions of their college-going behavior with implications for their freshmen year persistence. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. Glaser, B. G. & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine. Lincoln, Y. & Guba, E. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Beverly Hills: Sage. Miles, M. B. & Huberman, A. M. (1984). Qualitative data analysis: A sourcebook of new methods. Beverly Hills: Sage. Spradley, J. P. (1979). The ethnographic interview. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Stoecker, J., Pascarella, E. T., & Wolfle, L. M. (1988). Persistence in higher education: A 9-year test of a theoretical model. Journal of College Student Development, 29(3), 196–209. Tinto, V. (1975). Dropouts from higher education: A theoretical synthesis of recent research. Review of Higher Education Research, 45, 89–125. Tinto, V. (1987). Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Williamson, D. R. & Creamer, D. G. (1988). Student attrition in 2- and 4-year colleges: Application of a theoretical model. Journal of College Student Development, 29(3), 210–217.

Appendix A: Exemplars Demonstrating That Ethnicity Is Rooted Biologically 1.1. It is hard not to. I mean look at me. 1.2. You can tell just by looking at me. 1.3. I know that I am naturally.

Appendix B: Exemplars Demonstrating That Ethnicity Is Rooted in the Family 2.1. Because that is who I am and how my parents, relatives, and I like to see myself. 2.2. Because it is me; who I am and who my family are.

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2.3. Yeah, my parents call themselves Chicanos, so I grew up that way. No, I don’t really identify as Hispanic. That’s too generic. I am Chicano first, only because my parents instilled that in me. 2.4. Well, it is what my family is and who most of my friends are.

Appendix C: Exemplars Showing That Ethnicity Serves to Define Self-Identity 3.1. Well, it has a lot to do with identifying with your culture and accepting it as your own, feeling proud of it, that it is a very positive influence in growing up, and having a self-identity. 3.2. Because I think that saying I am Native American, I know myself and accept my heritage, traditions, and family. 3.3. It is important to be myself; to have an identity that is comparable to where I came from, who my friends are, and how I want to live. 3.4. They are about the only group of people that can understand me as person. 3.5. In a world that seems so much alike—people dress the same, talk the same, do the same things—it is my identity and I am proud of being Navajo. 3.6. Being Native American is something I have that cannot be taken away from me. It is my background and identity. 3.7. It helps me be aware of who I am because some things get mixed up and at times I don’t feel who I am unless I have that feeling of being Native American. 3.8. To accept myself as a Native American enables me to explain myself in this world and in life by forming a self-identity.

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Appendix D: Exemplars Showing That Ethnicity Locates an Individual in the World 4.1. It is the only consistent factor in my life in today’s life that is changing every day, each generation. 4.2. They [Native Americans] are about the only group of people that can understand me as a person. 4.3. To identify as a Native American encourages me to keep things in perspective about who I am and the role I choose to play in life. It is like if someone said, “Hey, you’re wrong,” I can say, “No, you’re wrong. I am Native American. I have a place here at this school, in this state and throughout our life time. I am Native American!” 4.4. To be part of everyday life you have to be secure in the fact that there are a lot of aspects of life, like different cultures, that help define one’s role. 4.5. [Ethnicity] is an everyday element of my personality and really provides a foundation for being a person with a purpose. 4.6. To accept myself as a Native American enables me to explain myself in this world and in life by forming a sense of self-identity. Thus my self-identity becomes a foundation for existence and . . . having a particular allegiance to a particular community of people that is an extension of my family.

Appendix E: Exemplars Showing That Ethnicity Provides the Individual with a Sense of Pride and Security 5.1. It gives me confidence and something that I can fall back on; to be proud of when things are not going so well. It is a boost for me.

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5.2. I am proud of being Navajo. If you do not have that pride then one can often feel inferior, underrated, and not a part of everyday life. 5.3. It helps me be aware of who I am because some things get mixed up and at times I don’t feel who I am unless I have that feeling of being Native American and what I can become to be representative of my tribe as something good and that society will see that. 5.4. Well, a strong sense of my heritage and background helps me feel good about myself and that [it] is good to be part of a special group of people and in time will become a dominant force in the world. 5.5. It just makes me feel good, feel proud. My parents, it’s a very deep feeling. 5.6. [Ethnicity] builds a sense of confidence that makes you more secure in who you are and where you are from. If you don’t feel proud about your culture and try to be somebody you’re not, then it creates all kinds of psychological problems.

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5 Transculturation Theory

Overview of Transculturation Theory Transculturation theory is a recent addition to American Indian education studies. Only since the late 1980s has transculturation theory begun to take form as a distinct theoretical perspective. It is not widely known but nevertheless is growing in application (Larimore & McClellan, 2005; White Shield, 2004). Transculturation theory is different from the other theoretical perspectives treated in this book in several respects. Transculturation theory is unique to the American Indian educational experience. That is, transculturation theory did not emerge as a way to explain the educational experiences of other minority groups and was then subsequently applied to American Indians. Rather, transculturation theory evolved as an attempt to specifically explain the way in which Native students encounter, engage, and ultimately persist in mainstream education. There is an additional distinction between transculturation theory and the other theoretical perspectives. This theory attempts to understand how Native students, especially culturally traditional individuals, persist and succeed in school rather than why they fail. While this theory has been applied almost exclusively to American Indian higher education, its usefulness as an explanation for other levels of education is tremendous. Indeed, 163

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transculturation theory will likely prove to be a highly useful explanation for the educational experiences of other minority groups as well (Huffman, 2005; Larimore & McClellan, 2005).

Intellectual History of Transculturation Theory In 1879, Richard Pratt, a career army officer, founded the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. It was the first off-reservation residential school exclusively for American Indians in the United States. The Carlisle Indian School soon became the model for similar schools throughout the nation. It achieved college status early in the twentieth century but closed soon after in 1918 (Adams, 1997). The Carlisle Indian School and similar institutions left an indelible legacy in the history of American Indian education. The school represents an historical symbol of the mission for much of the educational efforts directed at Native peoples. That purpose was to assimilate Native children into the mainstream of American society as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. It was not a subtle form of assimilation. The effort was aggressive and often brutal. The prevailing sentiment can be found in the very motto of the Carlisle Indian School’s founder and the institution itself, one must “kill the Indian to save the man” (Carney, 1999). The notion that cultural assimilation of Native peoples would bring social rewards was central to American Indian federal policy following the Indian Wars of the late 1800s. Likewise, the educational efforts of the nineteenth and much of twentieth centuries reflected this deep-seated belief. Moreover, the belief that cultural assimilation would serve as a social panacea for Native peoples did not end with politicians and educational policy makers. A significant number of academics also accepted the idea that cultural assimilation could only be beneficial for American Indians. Indeed, a great deal of the scholarship in American Indian education right up until the end of the twentieth century was either blatantly or subtly grounded in the uncritically examined assumption that some type of cultural assimilation was the solution to the educational difficulties besetting Native peoples (Deloria & Wildcat, 2001; Swisher & Tippeconnic, 1999).

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This notion appears pervasively in the scholarly literature from the very first published research on American Indian education. In 1962, Kenneth Deissler, a South Dakota high school teacher at the time, published the results of his master’s thesis. The article, titled “A Study of South Dakota Indian Achievement Problems,” compared tests scores of American Indian students with South Dakota state norms. Not surprisingly, the scores of Native students lagged behind the state norms in every academic area. Echoing the sentiment of the time, Deissler (1962) concluded: The weakness in vocabulary and quantitative thinking suggests the effects of cultural lag. The Indian was traditionally unattentive to quantitative measure. This unattentiveness has apparently carried over to the students who were measured. Vocabulary was another weakness. The Indian has lived in an environment that would probably limit vocabulary development . . . The effect of cultural assimilation would indicate great possibilities for the future educational growth of the Indian students. With further acculturation and good instruction, there is good reason to assume that the Indian student will eventually attain an educational achievement level comparable to that of the white student. (pp. 19–21)

This article and its conclusions are otherwise unremarkable for the scholarship of that era. The curiosity lies in the fact that this article appeared in the first volume of the newly created Journal of American Indian Education. A journal, it might be added, established to advance scholarship on Indigenous educational issues. Certainly the appearance of such conclusions contained in the Deissler article can be justified on the grounds of academic freedom. Explanations of research findings, even those many may find unappealing, need to be presented and discussed in open forum. Nevertheless, the presentation of these findings in the first volume of the Journal of American Indian Education suggests something else. A scholarly outlet specifically designed to increase understanding on Native educational issues reflected the assimilationist thought firmly entrenched in academic circles during that time.

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The Difficult Situation: Attachment to Cultural Traditions The influence of assimilationist thinking in American Indian scholarship persisted into the 1980s and 1990s. Many scholars continued to be adamant that the lack of educational success among Native students was largely due to a stubborn resistance to cultural acculturation and an insistence on retaining traditional cultural ways. An example of this conceptual orientation can be found in the notion of the “difficult situation” (Miller, 1971). According to the difficult situation concept, Native people are caught in a sort of dualism. On the one hand, reservations or designated tribal areas are “regions of refuge” where traditional cultures are preserved and maintained (Scott, 1986, p. 382). In these cloistered areas American Indians live and interact according to the unique cultural values and beliefs of their tribes. In other words, they form a relatively strong attachment to their Native traditions within the cultural security of the reservation. However, the attachment to traditional culture creates significant problems for Native people attempting to function in mainstream society off the reservation. Much like Oscar Lewis’s notion of the culture of poverty, the attachment to traditional Native culture is a form of cultural deprivation, as it does not equip individuals for the demands of social life in postindustrial America (Miller, 1971). Some version of the difficult situation idea, whether called by this specific name or not, became especially prominent in scholarly work during the 1970s and 1980s (Scott, 1986). Likely this was a product of the social and political circumstances of the time. As a result of the twin federal policies of termination and relocation of the 1950s and 1960s, large numbers of American Indians were removed from reservation areas and relocated in urban centers. For the first time the dilemmas facing Native people came under the notice of large numbers of urban social scientists (Wilkinson, 2005). These scholars attempted to explain the problems in the American Indian community the way they knew best. As cultural deprivation theory was already firmly established in scholarship, it was a small step for them to conceive of Native people as culturally deficient and in need of greater acculturation with the mainstream of American society. As a result, the belief that cultural attachment interferes with educational attainment became conventional in much of traditional

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scholarship. Many scholars, who were otherwise sympathetic and supportive of Native civil rights and cultural integrity, embraced the assumption that greater acculturation would enhance educational attainment: The minority status of being Indian revolves around attachment to Indian culture . . . to go to college, Indian students typically leave small towns or reservations in which Indian ways still are meaningful and enter environments devoid of these ways. Those fully comfortable with and committed to white ways are better able to cope with the college experience than are Indian students steeped in and attached to the heritage of their tribes. (Scott, 1986, p. 383)

For many of those involved in American Indian education the key issue was the role of cultural attachment in the educational experience. Moreover, the problem was simple enough. Strong attachment to American Indian cultural traditionalism was considered a barrier to educational success. Thus, such an attachment constituted a “difficult situation” for Native peoples in general and American Indian students in particular. However, this was not a universally held assumption. By the 1980s a visible and growing number of scholars and educational practitioners openly rejected such acculturation-based assertions like those found in cultural deprivation theory. As a response to cultural deprivation theory, many scholars moved toward cultural discontinuity theory while others found structural inequality theory appealing. Yet, other efforts resulted in a unique theoretical direction. The basic premise and associated assumptions of this new theoretical approach are diametrically opposed to the difficult situation concept of acculturation thinking. This alternative theory is referred to in this book as transculturation theory. Foundation of Transculturation Theory Transculturation theory borrows from two important scholarly traditions. First is its reliance on the seminal work of social psychologist Kurt Lewin, and second is the influence of the theoretical perspective of symbolic interactionism from the discipline of sociology. In many respects the basic premise of

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transculturation theory derives from Lewin’s work on ethnic identity formation, while its general assumptions emerge from symbolic interactionism. Published a year following his death, in Resolving Social Conflicts (1948) Kurt Lewin presented, what was for its time, a novel notion on ethnic identity in the lives of America’s minority members. Lewin argued individuals need to celebrate and embrace their ethnic identity. In so doing, minority individuals gain a strong sense of personal self-identity and group belonging. In essence, Lewin contended a strong ethnic identity is not only functional but is also in fact essential for productive membership in the larger majority society. For him, a strong sense of ethnic identity was associated with emotional stability and selfassuredness. In other words, for minorities, attachment to one’s culture would hardly present a difficult situation. Rather, strong ethnic identity is instrumental in overcoming difficult situations produced by racial and ethnic hostilities. Lewin’s contention would become fundamental to transculturation theory. Additionally, transculturation theory draws heavily from symbolic interactionist theory, one of the three major theoretical perspectives found in sociology. While a rather complex and abstract theory, the basic premise of symbolic interactionism can be simplified. Symbolic interactionism holds that individuals are rational, reflective beings who continually interpret the meaning of social interaction with others (Charon, 2001). Symbolic interactionist theorists are interested in understanding how people create meaning during their interactions with others, how they present themselves in social interaction, and how they define social situations. Fundamental to symbolic interactionism is the assumption that individuals are reflective beings endowed with the ability to freely interpret the meaning of social interaction and situations as well as deliberately construct social presentations to others (Goffman, 1959). One of the most important concepts in symbolic interactionism is the notion of the self. Essentially, the “self” is the collected notions an individual holds about his/her attitudes, values, and identity. The self is who we believe we are and determines how we choose to present ourselves to others. The self develops initially during the early years of socialization but continues to

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evolve throughout the lifetime. It is basically created and modified by the interaction we have with other people. The familiar idea of “self-concept” derives from the symbolic interactionism’s notion of the self (Charon, 2001). An extremely important dimension of the self is one’s ethnic (or cultural) identity. The sense of a person’s own ethnicity can be an enormously powerful component of his/her self-concept. This is especially so among racial/ethnic minorities (Isajiw, 1990). Indeed, ethnic identity often serves as a “social location” (Stone, 1962, p. 93). That is, ethnic identity is so powerful it frequently operates in such a way as to establish the nature of social relations between individuals (Lyman & Douglass, 1973). Introduction of Transculturation: Fernando Ortíz In a speech to the Club Atenas in Havana during the winter of 1942, Cuban writer and ethnographer Fernando Ortíz introduced the concept of transculturation (Ortíz, 1995). To Ortíz, transculturation consists of a process by which cultural differences could be resolved (Allatson, 2007). Of immediate concern to him were the racial/cultural conflicts common to Cuban society at the time. In an attempt to understand the racial and cultural resolutions he believed possible, Ortíz suggested a three-stage transculturation process whereby racial minorities eventually gained status in society: rebellion, compromise, and adjustment. In so doing, Ortíz introduced the key concept in transculturation theory. The notion of transculturation would be fundamentally altered by American social scientists Alfred Irving Hallowell, Maurice Sill, and Terry Huffman in the coming decades. However, Ortíz’s basic conception that a transculturational process would lead to positive cultural gains has remained unaltered and represents a critical cornerstone of the transculturation theoretical perspective.

The Premise of Transculturation Theory Anthropologist Alfred Irving Hallowell (1972) conceptualizes transculturation as “. . . the process whereby individuals under a

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variety of circumstances are temporarily or permanently detached from one group, enter the web of social relations that constitute another society, and come under the influence of its customs, ideas, and values to a greater or lesser degree” (p. 206). Over thirty years later, Terry Huffman offered a similar definition but with an important extension to Hallowell’s conceptualization. He defines the concept of transculturation as “. . . the process by which an individual can enter and interact in the milieu of another culture without loss of the person’s native cultural identity and ways” (2008, p. 147). These definitions established two important features of transculturation. First, transculturation is a type of socialization. It is a cultural process in which an individual learns to function in a new cultural setting. That is, this socialization process occurs when a person must enter into another culture and is required to interact and function within that setting. Second, the process of learning a new culture does not involve the loss of a person’s cultural heritage. As Hallowell observes, there are degrees to transculturation. Some individuals will be deeply impacted by placement in a different cultural setting, while others will be affected only marginally. Thus, transculturation can be either profound or relatively superficial. The point is it involves learning, to some degree or another, a different culture. However, because individuals are reflective and rational, the placement in a new culture does not necessarily require that a person abandon former cultural socialization. As Huffman implies, people are fully capable of expanding upon their native socialization and include novel views and behaviors into their existing cultural repertoire. Therefore, the basic premise of transculturation theory can be identified. Transculturation theory asserts that American Indian students engage in the process of learning the cultural nuances found in mainstream education while retaining and relying upon their cultural heritage to forge a strong identity and sense of purpose. Like cultural discontinuity and interactionalist theories, transculturation theory, too, is a microlevel theoretical perspective. It focuses on the manner in which a person experiences the transition to new cultural arrangements and situations. Moreover, like these theoretical perspectives, transculturation theory generally has little to say about larger social structural phenomena.

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Transculturation Theoretical Assumptions on American Indian Education There are three important assumptions central to transculturation theory. The first assumption is that a strong cultural identity is essential to proceed through the transculturation process. Second, transculturation regards cultural exchanges as an enhanced learning process rather than the emergence of a cultural hybrid product. Third, transculturation involves a complex process of cultural learning that results in the ability to effectively participate in more than one cultural setting.

Transculturation and Strong Cultural Identity Transculturation theory rejects the notion that American Indian students must undergo some form of assimilation in order to succeed academically. Rather, many Native individuals successfully navigate the rigors of an academic endeavor in a nonNative cultural setting. However, the crucial question is, how is this possible? Taking from the work of Kurt Lewin (1948), an important assumption in transculturation theory is that a strong cultural identity plays a critical role in successfully achieving the process of transculturation. A strong cultural identity serves as an emotional and cultural anchor. Individuals gain self-assuredness, self-worth, even a sense of purpose from their ethnicity. By forging a strong cultural identity, individuals develop the confidence to explore a new culture and not be intimated. They do not have to fear cultural loss through assimilation. They know who they are and why they are engaged in mainstream education. As Huffman (2001) has noted, transculturated individuals do not academically succeed in spite of being American Indian, it is because they are American Indian. Indeed, there has been a revealing surge in cultural identity pride among many young American Indians (Horse, 2005). Moreover, there is great potential for educational success resulting from the celebration of Native identity and heritage. Reflecting on the growth of American Indian consciousness, Perry Horse (2005) states:

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Ultimately, identity as an American Indian is highly personal. It is a particular way one feels about oneself and one’s experiences as an American Indian or tribal person. The principles or moral values that guide an individual’s actions is that person’s consciousness, and groups of people sharing common ethics can also be understood to have a collective consciousness. (p. 65)

Horse (2005) also contends that five important influences shape the cultural identity for American Indian people. First is the degree of an individual’s grounding in Native language and culture. Second is the validity of the person’s American Indian genealogy. Third is the extent a person adheres to traditional Native general philosophy and worldview, most specifically those values emphasizing balance and spirituality. Fourth is an individual’s self-concept as an American Indian. The final influence is the enrollment in a tribe. Research investigations during the past twenty years provide evidence on the importance of a strong cultural identity among Native students. Les Whitbeck et al. (2001) explored a variety of factors associated with educational success among nearly two hundred American Indian children from three reservations located in the Upper Plains. These researchers found identification with traditional culture is positively related to success in school. Similarly, Robert Vadas (1995) reported that the identification with Native language, culture, and traditions is connected to a number of positive educational outcomes among a sample of Navajo middle and high school students. In fact, Vadas concludes a strong cultural identity likely enhances selfesteem and a sense of personal purpose. Similar to these studies, using survey research with 240 urban American Indian students, Kristin Powers (2006) too found an important link between positive educational outcomes and cultural identity. She examined the relationship between culturally based educational practices that include efforts to affirm the cultural identity and heritage of Native students and educational outcomes. Among Powers’s findings is that culture-based educational programs are associated with the perception of a safe, secure school environment, greater parental involvement, and the perception of instructional quality. Summarizing her findings, Powers (2006) notes:

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The results of this study suggest that culture-based programs influence urban American Indian students’ educational outcomes by enhancing those educational conditions that promote school success for all students . . . some American Indian students may benefit more than others from educational practices grounded in Native culture. Cultural programming was found to be more strongly associated with the school outcomes of students who most strongly identified with their Native culture. (pp. 42–43)

However, the more compelling evidence on the importance of a strong cultural identity comes from research on the higher educational experiences of American Indians. Terry Huffman, Maurice Sill, and Martin Brokenleg (1986) found that strong identification with Native culture was associated with academic success among a sample of South Dakota American Indian college students. These researchers report: Success in college for Sioux students . . . seems to be related more to their cultural identity. The crucial contributing factor for the likelihood of college achievement for the Sioux students in this study is the retention of their traditional cultural identity and heritage. Indeed, it is likely that this factor is instrumental in facilitating a strong sense of personal self-identity and confidence in these students. Thus, traditional Sioux students seem to have a better chance for achievement in college than their non-traditional counterparts. (Huffman et al., 1986, p. 37)

Judith Davis (1992) conducted in-depth personal interviews with ten Montana American Indian college graduates. Her findings provide support for the transculturation premise and general assumptions. In particular Davis found, after difficult transitions to college, the participants were able to use their ethnicity to adequately engage in the college mainstream setting. She relates, “These graduates were able to retain their Indian culture, to be Indian, and to be a successful student in the middle class system” (p. 29). Schiller and Gaseoma (1993) too found the attachment to Native culture assists in achieving greater educational success among a sample of American Indian college students. Significantly, the majority of individuals in their study reported serious cultural

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conflict while in college. However, the personal confidence and purpose derived from strong cultural identification served to provide effective strategies to remain in school and engage the collegiate setting. Lynn Okagaki, Mary Kay Helling, and Gary Bingham (2009) examined transculturation theory’s assertion that strong ethnic identity is associated with academic achievement. In their quantitative study, the researchers engaged in a comparative study of sixty-seven American Indian and ninety-five white college students on a variety of variables. The centerpiece of this study is the relationship between attitudes toward their ethnic identity and perceptions about education among the American Indian participants. Notable is the finding that strong American Indian ethnic identity is associated with the view of the instrumental importance of education. Moreover, they connect the results and theoretical implications of their study to the transculturation theoretical perspective. In so doing, these authors supply quantitative research support for the theory of transculturation: [O]ur results appear to corroborate Huffman’s (2001) findings that students who have a strong identification for their American Indian culture and an openness (but not assimilationist view) to the majority culture appear to have positive education related beliefs and experiences. Huffman (2001) termed such students transculturated as a result of their ability to interact simultaneously with two cultures and found this to be important to college persistence. The findings from our study appear to support Huffman’s (2001) findings and suggest that students who believe that they can be true to their ethnic identity and draw strength from it while facing the challenges of campus life may be more likely to succeed in their academic pursuits than students who do not have a strong sense of bicultural efficacy. (Okagaki et al., 2009, p. 172)

Huffman (2001; 2008) also documented the process of transculturation and the crucial role played by a strong cultural identity in the experiences of twenty-one American Indian college students (see reading 4). While virtually all the students initially encountered extremely problematic situations, most of them successfully proceeded through college. The transculturation

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process proved to be difficult but rewarding in the end. Huffman relates, “For the transculturated students, educational perseverance was the reward while retention and use of their cultural identity were the mechanism for success” (2008, p. 188). In her assessment of transculturation theory, Rosemary White Shield (2004) concludes: Huffman provides evidence that it is the “Indianness” within Native college students which gives rise to inner strength and security, and thus, enables them to retain their Indigenous identities, values, and ways of being in the world as American Indians without assimilating into the majority culture as they complete their higher educational experiences. Huffman’s work [on transculturation] is vitally important for educators to examine as contributing to innovative and culturally meaningful efforts to increase retention among the least represented group in higher education in the United States today, American Indians. (p. 120)

Transculturation Results in a Cultural Process Rather Than a Cultural Product Transculturation is a form of socialization. It is the process of learning a new culture. Thus, to be successful in mainstream educational settings, many American Indian students are required to learn and understand its cultural context and meanings. Significantly, transculturation includes the exchanges between cultures whereby an individual continually learns and expands cultural understanding and skills. In essence, the notion of transculturation emphasizes the capacity for individuals to build on preexisting cultural knowledge. Transculturation is similar to the more commonly used concept of biculturation. However, it is important to make a distinction between transculturation and biculturation. The notion of biculturation is typically conceptualized as the process by which a person retains some elements of his/her cultural heritage while adopting some elements of the mainstream culture. The result of biculturation is the development of a dual cultural identity, one oriented to Native cultural ways and another oriented toward the mainstream society (Garrett, 1996).

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A close consideration of this definition reveals that biculturation is a form of acculturation. Acculturation is conceptualized as the exchange of cultural elements between two distinct ethnic groups (Abramson, 1980). However, acculturation itself is a softer, less harsh version of assimilation (the notion that one group culturally dominates another group and requires that the less powerful group adopt its culture). Seth Schwartz and his associates (2007) put the matter in blunt terms. They explain that “assimilation refers to adopting the receiving culture while discarding the heritage culture” (Schwartz, Zamboanga, Rodriguez, & Wang, 2007, p. 160). There is good reason why acculturation is considered a form of assimilation. In its typical usage in the scholarly literature, acculturation is rarely conceived as an equal process (CheungBlunden & Juang, 2008; O’Sullivan, 2007). Minority group members typically hold less power and status in society. As a result, minority individuals generally experience greater pressure to assume the culture of the dominant society compared to majority individuals who likely experience little compulsion to acculturate with the minority culture (Berry, 2003). As a form of acculturation, the concept of biculturation generally leads us to conceptualize a dynamic in which minority members ultimately experience some degree of cultural loss. Ultimately the notion of biculturalism logically leads to an assumed acculturated end product. In its typical conceptualization, biculturation is conceived as a mathematical equation. An individual adds some elements from the majority culture while relinquishing aspects of his/her native culture. Eventually the adding and subtracting process results in a cultural hybrid. In such a conception the person has acquired the necessary skills to operate in two cultural worlds (Garrett, 1996). However, this is not the conception of transculturation. Transculturation does not accept the notion that cultural exchanges necessarily lead to cultural hybridization with some degree of cultural loss. On the contrary, the reflective and rational individual is capable of retaining intact Native cultural ways, views, and beliefs while learning the ways, views, and beliefs of a new culture. The point is that the transculturation process has not required the relinquishing of former cultural ways to make room for new ones, as implied in the notion of biculturation.

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Transculturation Results in Effective Participation in Differing Cultural Settings As part of the socialization process, transculturation never ceases during a person’s lifetime. It results in an ongoing process of cultural encounters that leads to greater cultural awareness and understanding. Ultimately, transculturation leads to enhanced cross-cultural experiences. In many respects, transculturation is analogous to an international journey. As a person travels to new lands and is greeted with novel social behavior, he/she feels disoriented and may struggle with the lack of cultural familiarity. However, with time the traveler learns to relate to the new circumstances and comes to terms with its cultural nuances. In so doing, the traveler begins to appropriate the necessary cultural skills to engage and operate within the cultural setting. An important dimension of this exchange, however, is that the traveler has not surrendered his/her native cultural identity, heritage, or skills. Indeed, the traveler has assumed greater cultural abilities and awareness. The person is still a cultural product of his/her original society. Nevertheless, the transculturation socialization process has resulted in a more culturally proficient individual. Over forty years ago, sociologist Maurice Sill (1967) applied the concept of transculturation as an explanation of the crosscultural processes and experiences of Peace Corps workers. Sill found that middle-class Americans engaged in village-level volunteer service experience dramatic cross-cultural transformations. Namely, individuals proceed through a process of severe cultural shock to acceptance/understanding of local cultural ways and eventually to cultural participation. Sill referred to this transition as a transculturation process whereby individuals learn to be culturally proficient in their local setting. A critical element of Sill’s transculturation conceptualization is that individuals do not surrender former cultural abilities. The Peace Corps workers did not return to the United States as less American by assuming a bicultural, hybrid identity. These individuals emerged with an expanded cultural repertoire. In so doing, the Peace Corp worker was equipped to learn how to learn both an old and new culture. However, the transculturation process is not easy. Indeed, research has provided evidence on the extreme complexity and

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difficulty associated with the process of transculturation (Davis, 1992; Glatzmaier, Myers, & Bordogna, 2000). Huffman (2001; 2008) applied Sill’s conceptual process to the experiences of American Indian college students. Over a five-year period, Huffman engaged sixty-nine American Indian college students in an ethnographic study on their higher educational experiences. He explored the nature of their introduction to higher education and the cultural journeys they experienced. Most of the culturally traditional students, particularly those from reservations, left the university well before graduation. Indeed, many within weeks of entering college. However, a significant number persisted and ultimately were academically successful. They found a way to participate in the cultural mainstream of the university. Significantly, these same individuals also continued to embrace traditional Native ways and beliefs. Biculturation does not adequately explain their experiences. After seriously difficult personal, social, academic, and cultural struggles, these students persisted. The key, however, was that they drew strength and purpose from their Native identity and heritage. These individuals did not become less American Indian in their cultural orientation. Rather, many of them actually became more closely aligned to the cultural traditions, history, and language of their people. In so doing they discovered ways to effectively function in differing cultural situations. Regarding the implications of the concept of transculturation, Huffman (2008) concludes: The difference in the use of transculturation and biculturalism is more than a mere matter of semantics. It is a matter of important theoretical and practical implications. The use of transculturation reduces the subtlety of assimilation disguised in the concept of biculturalism. (p.150)

Further, the use of transculturation attempts to give recognition to the resilience, integrity, and strength of minority cultures. If middle-class Peace Corps workers can become transculturated (and by implication retain their native heritage while enriching their cultural repertoire), then there is no reason to assume that the same phenomenon should not occur among those who possess a unique culture as they learn the mainstream culture of the United States.

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Implications of Transculturation Theory According to transculturation theory, educators need to encourage, if not create, educational situations that facilitate the transculturation process for Native students. Specifically, educational professionals must be mindful of ways to enhance the development of strong cultural identities and opportunities for cultural learning among American Indian students. The following are a number of implications related to the potential opportunities to encourage transculturation experiences for Native students. Need to Celebrate American Indian Ethnicity and Heritage An important way to enhance a feeling of connection to the school is to celebrate American Indian ethnicity and heritage (Freng, Freng, & Moore, 2007). The celebration of American Indian ethnicity is related both to feelings of belonging to the school and to the self-esteem necessary for academic success. On the need to celebrate American Indian ethnicity and heritage in school, Linda Miller Cleary and Thomas Peacock (1998) state: Children’s feelings of competence can connect to the feelings of pride that they have in their culture. We all know that selfesteem positively affects learning. Having pride in culture can lead to feelings of self-respect and self-esteem and, hence, heightened feelings of competence. Activities that enhance students’ pride in their culture can increase students’ feelings of competence in other areas . . . Pride in cultural identity can raise self-esteem needed for success in other areas. (p. 238)

The need to celebrate Native identity and heritage is important at all levels of education whether it be elementary schools or universities. Addressing this need at college campuses, Kirkness and Barnhardt (1991) argue, “If we cannot create an environment in which First Nation students begin to ‘feel at home’ at the university, all the special programs and support services we can dream up will be of little value in attracting and holding them in significant numbers” (pp. 4–5). Feelings of isolation and estrangement from the education institution serve to create frustrating problems for Native students.

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Research has in fact documented the pervasive experiences with cultural alienation among American Indian students at all levels of schooling in mainstream institutions (Lin et al., 1988; Van Hamme, 1996; Dauphinais, LaFromboise, & Rowe, 1980). Moreover, feelings of cultural alienation from schools are an example of what John Ogbu refers to as primary discontinuities. Primary discontinuities exist simply because groups are culturally different from one another. However, compared to secondary discontinuities, primary discontinuities are relatively easy to remedy. Educational institutions can take a number of steps to celebrate Native ethnicity and heritage. For instance, schools could adorn their facilities with Native art and displays of important accomplishments of Native peoples and/or alumni, host Native cultural and educational events, and establish special orientation programs for entering American Indian students. It has been suggested that measures such as these convey an important message of cultural appreciation to Native students (Allen, Christal, Perrot, Wilson, Grote, & Earely, 1999; Huffman, 2008). In a qualitative study, Freng, Freng, and Moore (2007) examined the importance of cultural inclusion in the educational experiences of sixteen American Indians who had left high school before graduation. All their participants indicated little significant efforts to include Native culture into the schools they attended. Interestingly, there was no difference in the perceptions of those who had attended nonreservation schools and those who attended reservation schools. One of the few types of cultural inclusion identified by the participants was what the authors refer to as “general Indian pride.” That is, attempts to foster Native history and heritage without specific tribal association. Unfortunately, these efforts were not highly regarded by the participants, who generally agreed that the lack of cultural inclusion was a facilitating factor in their decision to leave school. Need for Culturally Affirming Counseling Transculturation can be enhanced through the design and delivery of culturally affirming counseling services for American Indian students. There is considerable evidence that culturally affirming counseling is an important dimension in the

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persistence of American Indian students (Herring, 1996; Laughlin, 2001). However, there is also a continuing debate over the nature and meaning of culturally appropriate counseling. Haviland and associates report that American Indian college students strongly prefer a racially and culturally similar counselor (Haviland, Horswill, O’Connor, & Dynneson, 1983). These similarities are perceived to be associated with counselor efficiency. Not surprisingly, these researchers found that American Indian students use counseling services more frequently when staffed by American Indian personnel. Deborah Wetsit (1999) argues that differences in the value orientation between non-Indian counselors and Native clients influence the vitality of the counseling situation. Thus, counselors need to be especially mindful of distinct and important values and beliefs. In related fashion, Johnson and Lashley (1989) report there is a connection between the level of integration into American Indian cultural traditionalism and the preference for and expectations about counseling situations. Johnson and Lashley contend that “participants with a strong commitment to Native American culture place a greater importance on the ethnically similar counselor than do participants with a weaker commitment” (1989, p. 120). They also suggest American Indian students who express stronger connections to Native traditionalism are more likely to expect nurturance, trustworthiness, and expertise from counselors than less culturally traditional Native students. Essentially, the more culturally traditional American Indian college students preferred a culturally similar counselor and generally held rather high expectations about the counseling experience. These findings reveal an important implication regarding counseling with Native students. Namely, a culturally similar counselor could make a significant difference in the manner in which students deal with difficulties posed by cultural barriers. Others argue counselor ethnicity is not as important as perceived cultural sensitivity and affirmation (Dixon Rayle, Chee, & Sand, 2006; Herring, 1999). Garrett and Garrett (1996) found the most important attribute in counseling American Indians is not the ethnicity of the counselor. Rather, they contend counselors must exercise cultural sensitivity and cultural affirmation

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and that American Indian students perceive them as genuinely trustworthy. Obviously, culturally affirming counseling is greatly needed. The ideal situation would include highly trained, culturally sensitive American Indian professionals. However, there is a shortage of competently trained American Indian counseling professionals (Herring, 1999; Portman & Garrett, 2005). Thus, cultural sensitivity is likely the most immediate key to effective school counseling with Native students. Need for Supportive Teachers Fostering a climate in which students are capable of maximizing their cultural identity in order to gain confidence to learn a new cultural setting requires the support of others. Within primary and secondary schools as well as universities, none are more strategically situated for this support function than faculty. Indeed, assisting students in direct ways is at the core of teacher education training. Simply put, the need for supportive teachers to assist students to engage in a journey of cultural learning is important at all levels of education. Freng et al. (2007) report that while the participants in their research with Native high school leavers generally did not indicate significant cultural inclusion efforts in the schools they attended, they did indicate teachers were important in influencing cultural inclusion. Notably, the role teachers were perceived to play typically involved cultural sensitivity and support for Native students. The researchers relate: . . . non-Indian teachers were sometimes seen as role models if they demonstrated respect for Native students, attempted to understand “Indian ways,” had pride in American Indian students, or were open-minded toward cultural inclusion . . . participants saw having American Indian teachers as extremely important . . . participants saw a direct connection between American Indian cultural inclusion and the presence or absence of an American Indian teacher. (Freng et al., 2007, p. 50)

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Falk and Aitken (1984) found one of the most salient factors associated with the decision to leave college among a sample of American Indians was the lack of support from and contact with others. Interestingly, Falk and Aitken also asked a sample of faculty members why they believed American Indians drop out of college. From their perspective a lack of academic preparation was the major factor for American Indian higher education attrition. Indeed, faculty members were seemingly unaware of the personal isolation that hastened the exit of many American Indian college students. Using a survey to examine the academic experiences of eighty-four American Indian undergraduate and graduate social work students, Tate and Schwartz (1993) discovered that about 22 percent of their sample felt that their social work faculty did not understand the educational needs of Native students, while approximately 32 percent related faculty in general did not understand their family responsibilities. Tate and Schwartz conclude that a lack of faculty support is a significant barrier to the successful matriculation of Native students through social work programs. Analyzing data derived from a survey with 240 urban American Indian students, Kristin Powers (2005) examined the issue of the “crossover effect.” The crossover effect refers to the pattern in which younger, elementary-age American Indian students perform at academic levels comparable to white children. However, by the tenth grade, Native students as a group lag about three years behind white students in academic performance. One of the variables included in her investigation was student perceptions on teacher supportiveness. Interestingly, Powers found a negative correlation between student age and perceptions of positive teacher supportiveness. This finding indicates that older Native students do not see their teachers as available and supportive as do younger American Indian students. Reflecting on the implication of the findings of her research, Powers concludes: “A lack of interpersonal relationships with school personnel puts American Indian students at a disadvantage, because those social bonds are critical to fostering a sense of belonging to school that leads to students’ confidence in their own abilities” (2005, p. 340).

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Criticisms of Transculturation Theory There is tremendous promise for transculturation theory to provide valuable insight and understanding on how American Indian students may succeed in mainstream educational institutions while simultaneously retaining their cultural identity and heritage (White Shield, 2004). Nevertheless, as is the case for any scholarly theory, this theoretical perspective contains a number of flaws that open it up to criticism. Basic among these criticisms is that transculturation theory does not adequately appreciate the fact that the opportunity to engage the cultural setting of the educational institution is often severely limited. Another criticism is transculturation theory does not explain why some American Indian students possessing a strong cultural identity do not become transculturated. Finally, transculturation theory has been criticized for suggesting Native students rather than educational institutions need to undergo cultural transformation. Limited Opportunities for Cultural Engagement The premise of transculturation theory asserts individuals can learn to understand, interact, and function in a different cultural setting without loss to their native cultural identity and heritage. Certainly, as research has demonstrated, this is true for many American Indian students. Nevertheless, this theoretical perspective fails to consider that some Native individuals face limited opportunities for participation in the mainstream culture (Pidgeon, 2008). There are a variety of reasons why a transculturation process may be restricted for Native students. For instance, the internal conflicts associated with attempting to bridge two cultural worlds may be prohibitive (Henze & Vanett, 1993). Moreover, the complexity of personal lives, such as attending to the immediate needs of impoverished family conditions, deflect from concern with cultural transition at school (Garcia & Goldenstein-Ahler, 1992; McAfee, 1997). Indeed, even given the best intentions of teachers to use the inherent strengths of Native students’ culture, those efforts are frequently frustrated in the face of crushing poverty. As Garcia and Goldenstein-Ahler (1992)

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explain, “These problems—poverty, hunger, ignorance, and disease—are powerful enemies of Indian children that can discourage even the most optimistic teachers; teacher turnover in Indian reservation schools is quite high primarily because these problems, especially those caused by poverty, may overshadow the more positive and viable aspects of Indian culture” (p. 30). Additionally, the mainstream cultural setting of the educational institution itself may prove to be restrictive if not blatantly unwelcoming to American Indian individuals (Deyhle & Swisher, 1997). A combination of racism and low expectations often frustrate the educational efforts of American Indians at all levels of the educational experience and serve to discourage even the desire to explore and learn more about the cultural mainstream institution (Huffman, 1991; Miller Cleary & Peacock, 1998; Peterson, 1989). Regarding these limitations facing Native students, Donna Deyhle and Karen Swisher (1997) state, “The assumptions that Indian youth can merge these worlds . . . also ignores that the world of the ‘Anglos’ is only marginally available to these young people as a choice because of poverty, racism, discrimination, and lowered teacher expectations of their potential for success” (p. 165). Absence of Transculturation Experience Transculturation theory has also been challenged because it does not explain why some American Indian students possessing a strong cultural identity and facing appropriate opportunities for cultural engagement do not become transcultured (Pidgeon, 2008). Research evidence indicates that some Native students use a strong sense of cultural self-identity in a completely different manner as suggested by transculturation theory (Deyhle, 1994; Huffman, 2001; 2008). Specifically, these individuals hold their cultural identity so dear that they resist any perceived attempts at cultural assimilation projected by the educational institution. Typically, these students experience highly problematic educational encounters that frequently end with leaving the school altogether (Freng et al., 2007; Huffman, 2008). Rather than becoming transculturated and using their cultural identity and heritage as an anchor to explore and ultimately succeed in the educational mainstream, these students often exit school as a

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means to preserve their cultural identity and heritage (Erickson, 1987; Huffman, 2008). Thus, transculturation theory does not adequately explain their educational experiences. Exclusive Emphasis on Cultural Transformation of American Indian Students Some have criticized transculturation theory for its suggestion that American Indian students must undergo a cultural transformation. While this transformation is not conceived as a cultural loss to Native students, nevertheless, the theory does not make a similar claim about the need for educational institutions to make dramatic cultural transformations. In other words, this theoretical perspective places the burden of adaption on the students rather than mainstream educational systems. Regarding transculturation theory, Michelle Pidgeon (2008) argues, “Although . . . Huffman’s (2001) work [on transculturation theory] provide[s] a cultural lens for understanding Aboriginal student departure . . . [it is] still based on the premise that the students develop ‘strategies’ to succeed within mainstream institutions” (p. 347). Ultimately, she claims, because transculturation theory only conceives of educational success in terms of mainstream standards, it fails to recognize Native conceptions of educational success. That is, a decision to resist learning the “cultural nuances” (i.e., the knowledge base and evaluation standards typical of mainstream education) is a form of cultural achievement for Native students.

Discussion on the Reading Over a five-year period Terry Huffman engaged sixty-nine American Indian college students in a qualitative study on their experiences at a predominately non-Indian university. Ultimately, Huffman identified four types of American Indian college students based on the construction and projection of their ethnic identity: assimilated students, marginal students, estranged students, and transculturated students. The original article from which this reading is excerpted reported the findings related to

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the experiences of the two more culturally traditional American Indian students. However, reading 4, “Transculturation Theory as an Explanation for College Persistence among Culturally Traditional American Indian Students,” reports the general findings associated with only one group of the more culturally traditional Native students and in so doing establishes the basic elements of transculturation theory. Thus, the reader should be aware that this reading offers a condensed version of the original article. Ethnic identity is a powerful force in the lives of the students in Huffman’s study. According to the author of this reading, a strong ethnic identity operated to sustain most of these individuals through academia and supplied them with not only a sense of identity but also of purpose. They became transculturated.

Suggested Reading Davis, J. (1992). Factors contributing to post-secondary achievement of American Indians. Tribal College Journal, 4(2), 24–30. Hallowell, A. I. (1972). American Indians, white, and black: The phenomenon of transculturation. In H. M. Bahr, B. A. Chadwick, and R. C. Day (Eds.), Native Americans today: Sociological perspectives (pp. 200–225). New York: Harper and Row. Huffman, T. (2008). American Indian higher educational experiences: Cultural visions and personal journeys. New York: Peter Lang. Huffman, T., Sill, M., & Brokenleg, M. (1986). College achievement among Sioux and white South Dakota students. Journal of American Indian Education, 25(2), 32–38. Okagaki, L., Helling, M. K., & Bingham, G. E. (2009). American Indian college students’ ethnic identity and beliefs about education. Journal of College Student Development, 50(2), 157–176. White Shield, R. (2004). The retention of indigenous students in higher education: Historical issues, federal policy, and Indigenous resilience. Journal of College Student Retention, 6(1), 111–127.

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Reading 4 Transculturation Theory as an Explanation for College Persistence among Culturally Traditional American Indian Students Terry Huffman Terry Huffman is professor of education in the Department of Educational Foundations and Leadership at George Fox University. This reading was originally published in 2001 as “Resistance Theory and the Transculturation Hypothesis as Explanations of College Attrition and Persistence among Culturally Traditional American Indian Students” by Terry Huffman in Journal of American Indian Education, 40(3), 1–23. The reading is adapted from the original article and used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.

Introduction It has long been recognized that many American Indians encounter difficulties while attending institutions of higher learning (Astin, Tsui, & Avalos, 1996; Pavel, Swisher, & Ward, 1994). A catalog of barriers inhibiting greater American Indian educational achievement has been cited in the literature. Common among these include poor academic preparation, low achievement motivation, irrelevant educational practices, insufficient parental support, social-psychological frustrations with low selfesteem, and inadequate financial support (Falk & Aitken, 1984; Lin, 1985; and West, 1988). 189

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Although these difficulties are serious barriers for American Indians to overcome, perhaps none are more problematic for some students than the potential for cultural conflict (Huffman, 1993). Indeed, no other single factor has been more frequently identified as a contributing reason for poor academic achievement among American Indians than cultural conflict (Carroll, 1978; Hornett, 1989; Huffman, 1995; Lin, LaCounte, & Eder, 1988; Scott, 1986; and Swisher &Deyhle, 1989). Unfortunately, even a cursory review of the literature reveals a myriad of ways cultural conflict has been conceptualized. For instance, sometimes cultural conflict refers to a disparity between specific cultural nuances, such as time orientation (Sando, 1973) or cooperation/competition orientation (Duda, 1980) or even cognitive domains (Davis & Pyatskowit, 1976). Other usages of the concept refer to more sweeping and broad phenomenon, such as social and historical forces that serve to mold cultural incongruities (Ogbu, 1978; 1987). Despite the variation, the major theme included in the conceptual development of cultural conflict is a notion of some discrepancy among the values, behaviors, or political/economic power of those of the dominant status and those of the minority status. While past research has clearly demonstrated a link between cultural conflict and poor persistence in higher education, the barriers posed by cultural conflict are not necessarily experienced similarly by all culturally traditional American Indian college students (Davis, 1992). For instance, Huffman, Sill, and Brokenleg (1986) found that although cultural conflict was part of the academic experience for a sample of Lakota students, nevertheless, cultural traditionalism was actually related to college achievement. Likewise, Schiller and Gaseoma (1993) also reported that, despite acute cultural conflict, the retention of cultural traditionalism could serve to enhance the potential for American Indian academic achievement. Thus, it appears that for some culturally traditional American Indians the difficulties presented by cultural conflict are simply too great to overcome, and an early exit from college is the unfortunate result. However, while the cultural incongruities they encounter are certainly serious, other culturally traditional American Indian students manage to resist these barriers and persevere.

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Method This paper results from a five-year research project involving in-depth interviews with sixty-nine American Indian (predominantly Lakota) college students. The major purpose of the research was to explore the personal perspectives of American Indian students on their academic experiences. The research process consisted of four steps: 1) contacting informants, 2) the initial interview, 3) follow-up interviews, and 4) data analysis. Contacting Informants Each semester for the duration of the research project, a list of all American Indian students attending a small Midwestern university was obtained from that institution’s counseling office and its office of minority persistence. During this period a total of 232 American Indian students enrolled in the university. Each student received a letter informing him/her of the research and was requested to consider participating in the study. From the population of 232 students, sixty-nine (30 percent) eventually volunteered to grant in-depth interviews. The Interview A base instrument of twenty-five questions served as a guide for each interview. However, the sessions ran rather informally (much like a conversation), which allowed the researcher flexibility to pursue other relevant issues as they arose. The interviews averaged about one-and-a-half hours for each session. With the permission of the student, each interview was audio-recorded. Additionally, the researcher recorded notes of each interview session in a journal. The transcriptions of the interviews along with the field journal notes served as the primary data sources for this research. Follow-up Interviews After initial interviews, participants were invited to assist with follow-up interviews. The purpose of these interview

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sessions was to track students as they processed further with their educational experiences. Additionally, in some cases the follow-up sessions allowed the researcher to clarify ambiguous responses given in the initial interview. Data Analysis The analysis of qualitative data is an extremely time-consuming and difficult endeavor and, as such, it necessarily involves a series of steps (Strauss, 1987). The first step in the analysis of data consisted of the creation of an initial coding scheme. However, adding and collapsing categories and refining the coding categories ultimately modified this scheme. After the coding was complete, the researcher analyzed the data in an effort to examine patterns of responses, behaviors, attitudes, and general experiences/perceptions.

Cultural Masks The author identified four “cultural masks” assumed by the American Indian college students involved in this study (table R4.1). A cultural mask is the process by which a person comes to construct a personal ethnic identity. Moreover, a cultural mask also includes the manner in which an individual uses and ultimately projects that ethnic identity. Specifically, the cultural masks included that of assimilated students, marginal students, estranged students, and transculturated students. Largely due to their cultural background before coming to college, assimilated students typically identified with the college “mainstream” culture and encountered few cultural difficulties while in college. Among the sixty-nine students involved in the research, twenty-six were considered to be assimilated students. Marginal students held some assimilationist orientation yet desired some identification and affiliation with more traditional American Indian culture. Unfortunately, marginal students often felt pressure resulting from two cultural mandates that complicated their academic experiences. Fifteen students were identified as projecting a marginal cultural mask.

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2.50

Average GPA

% 0.17 0.21 0.38 25 years

N 12 14 26

Reservation Background Yes No Total

% 0.13 0.23 0.38

Average Age

N 9 17 26

Assimilated Students

Gender Male Female Total

Cultural Mask

Table R4.1. Cultural Masks

N 8 7 15

N 7 8 15

2.77

27 years

% 0.11 0.10 0.21

% 0.10 0.11 0.21

Marginal Students

N 5 2 7

N 4 3 7

2.17

26 years

% 0.07 0.03 0.10

% 0.06 0.04 0.10

Estranged Students

N 20 1 21

N 6 15 21

2.81

32 years

% 0.29 0.02 0.31

% 0.09 0.22 0.31

Transculturated Students

N 45 24 69

N 26 43 69

% 0.65 0.35 1.00

% 0.38 0.62 1.00

2.62

28 years

Total

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Estranged students had strong identification with traditional American Indian culture and displayed an aggressive rejection of assimilation. These students viewed the mainstream as a threat to their ethnic identity and generally revealed a distrust of the college setting. The seven estranged students of this study encountered extremely difficult college experiences. Transculturated students also had a strong identification with traditional American Indian culture and did not aspire for assimilation. However, unlike estranged students, these students used their ethnic identity as a firm social psychological anchor and derived strength and confidence from that cultural mask. Generally, these students displayed confidence and a sense of security that emerged from their American Indian ethnicity. As a result, the transculturated students generally had successful academic experiences. Twenty-one of the sixty-nine students were identified as transculturated students.

Transculturated Students and the Process of Transculturation The challenge for culturally traditional American Indian students is to interact on two cultural levels simultaneously (Garrett, 1996; Schiller & Gaseoma, 1993). That is, successful performance in college requires dual operation at an American Indian cultural level and a college mainstream level (Huffman, 1995). The transculturated students of this study displayed the unique ability to interact within and between cultures as demanded by the situation. However, the process leading through this social psychological maze was extremely complex. Through interviews with students, four stages of the American Indian transculturational process were identified: initial alienation, selfdiscovery, realignment, and participation. Stage One: Initial Alienation Virtually all of the transculturated students began as estranged students. Therefore, like estranged students, generally transculturated students also began as cultural “outsiders” to the campus en-

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vironment. As a result, typically transculturated students too were greeted by an initial alienation from the institutional setting. This first stage was an extremely painful period in the experiences of most culturally traditional students. Students reported perplexing feelings of loneliness, isolation, and even depression. Yet, despite these difficulties, many culturally traditional American Indian students muddled through. They struggled with the feeling of being detached from the everyday life of the campus, and many reported an overwhelming sense of intimidation. Every day of the first few months (in some cases even years) was a test to their commitment and endurance. A Standing Rock (North Dakota) reservation student, who was nearing the end of his academic career, reflected: I felt like this was the last place on earth I wanted to be because there was nothing that I could relate to. It was all just really different . . . I had a bunch of walls around me. It was hard for me to be here. I look at it as being afraid; being out of place, feeling like I was different and a lot of people treated me different . . . I just had to take it one step at a time.

A young woman from Lower Brule (South Dakota) recalled her first encounter with college: I would say that it was kind of like cultural shock for me because of this discipline and study habits and the pace and everything like that . . . like I said culture shock. I just didn’t fit in, I felt like I didn’t fit.

Persistence for these American Indian students was extremely difficult. When recounting these initial experiences, some students seemed surprised at their own perseverance. One student from the Cheyenne River (South Dakota) reservation exclaimed: It amazes me. I’m amazed I was able to hang on. I almost didn’t . . . I almost left, you know, went back home . . . It was hard, boy!

However, this endurance was crucial. It appears that one of the critical factors in the experiences of transculturated students

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is that they remained on campus for a longer period of time compared to the estranged students. That is, enough time for a transformation to occur—a self-discovery. Stage Two: Self-Discovery If culturally traditional American Indian students could endure the pangs of initial alienation, they arrived at a transculturation threshold. At this point most began to realize that they had not been snared in a web of assimilation, that they could compete academically, and that they could interact with American Indians and non-Indians alike, all without loss to their cultural self-identity. In short, they came to realize that they had not lost their “Indianness” and yet they had survived academically. Thus, many of these students began introspection and made a most curious discovery. Namely, the transcultured students came to realize they had succeeded because they were American Indian and had not attempted to be anything else. Most of the transculturated students could relate a specific time in their academic career when they made a deliberate decision to push forward while using their cultural heritage as a personal anchor. Reaching this transculturation threshold was often an extremely difficult journey. However, the rewards at the end were enormous. A Turtle Mountain (North Dakota) reservation student recalled reaching his threshold: I really had to do some searching and really some finding out; am I going to accept the way I am or am I going to try to conform or am I just going to leave it alone? Finally I had to accept what I was and that there are some things that are more to being an Indian than just the “Indian.” There was [sic] feelings and family and culture, there was [sic] ways of doing things. When I learned to separate the two and learn that this is the way you do it at work, this is the way you do it at home, and you conduct your family affairs this way, then that’s good. I think the turning point came when I decided to separate the two . . . Then I resolved my “Indianness” and the way the system works.

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A Standing Rock student, who was president of his college’s honor program and the president of the campus American Indian student organization, put it this way: The first thing I found out when I came to college is how much Indian I was . . . I’d say my strongest identification with my own “Indianness” has been since I’ve been here . . . It’s a real source of strength because I guess it sort of gives me a reason for being here.

An enhanced and secure sense of ethnic identity tended to produce a more clear sense of purpose for these students. A student from Cheyenne River reflected: I don’t feel I have to lose anything anymore. I think I have gained. That what I have is already there. I can’t lose it. I’m an Indian person and that’s not going to change. But I’ve learned. I’ve learned how to grow, you know? I’ve learned how to see things differently than maybe before. But I’m still Indian. That hasn’t changed. I came to the point where I decided to be me and let everyone else, just accept everyone else. No more of “well this is Indian,” and “that’s not Indian.” It was just if I can relate to you that’s good enough.

The changes that corresponded with this phase of self-discovery were provocative. Students generally reported they became more relaxed and comfortable in college. Moreover, this self-discovery allowed transculturated students the ability to move into the third stage of their educational, cultural process, that of realignment. Stage Three: Realignment With the strength and confidence they found in their cultural identity, transculturated students began a realignment process. At this stage, students made necessary (and practical) adjustments in their personal, social, and academic worlds. They generally began to learn how to relate at both cultural levels as demanded by the situation.

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Further, at this third stage students reassessed themselves and their situation. As a general pattern they evaluated their repertoire of values, attitudes, and goals and measured them against those institutionalized in the higher educational system. They then began to align themselves with the nature of academia and used the appropriate norms and behavior as needed. In short, most of these students learned to cross cultural boundaries when necessary. At this stage, they were well into the process of transculturation. A middle-aged woman from the Pine Ridge (South Dakota) reservation, by any standards a culturally traditional American Indian person (whose late father was a well-known Lakota spiritual leader), described the realignment process this way: When we go to school we live a non-Indian way but we still keep our values . . . I could put my Indian values aside just long enough to learn what it is I want to learn but that doesn’t mean I’m going to forget them. I think that is how strong they are with me.

Another woman, also from the Pine Ridge reservation, stated: My mom told us, “This is the white man’s world, you grow to learn and to live in it and at the same time try to keep your culture.” It’s kinda hard to be back and forth like this. I think the way I’ve taken things is to take things that you think are going to benefit you and the rest you don’t bother with.

It is important to note that for these students realignment did not mean assimilation. It was the practical matter of operating within the college environment. Stage Four: Participation At the fourth stage of the transculturation process most of the students settled into the routine of college. They had largely overcome the alienation of their early college experience and discovered that it is possible to be an “Indian” in the heart of the non-Indian world. They learned that they could interact with both American Indians and non-Indians alike. As one student from the Lower Brule reservation explained:

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I have my inner strength; I have my culture, my background, my traditions to fall back on to help me through. Yet I’m taking from, I would say, the white culture through education. But I’m trying to give something back too, by teaching them [non-Indians]. And in every class I’ve been in I try to teach them about our culture, about our plants, herbs, and told them about sweat lodges and told them, you know, about things like that and teach them that you can give and then you receive back . . . I feel that I have a special advantage because I have two cultures that I can draw on. I can learn from here too. And I am learning.

At this stage, transculturated students appeared to be positioned to fulfill the goal of completing their education. Importantly, to accomplish this objective they seemed to make maximum use of their American Indian heritage as a source of strength, confidence, and identity. The middle-aged Pine Ridge student cited above observed: I think that the time we spend away from our people, we appreciate our ways and our people even more. People that have left the reservation to go away to school, I have never seen them participate in things like powwows or sweats or sun dances. I’ve never seen them do that. Yet they go away for four or five years and then they come back and they are really strong into spirituality; they’re really different. And I was thinking that they appreciate things more when they are away like that. They must think about it or something happens while they are away.

The four stages of the transculturation process were not easy, but they were rewarding. The insights offered by these students are evidence of the daunting task involved in overcoming the initial alienation of their college experience. The Transculturation Hypothesis Kurt Lewin (1948) argued that minority members often employ their ethnicity to their advantage. Lewin’s contention is particularly useful when applied to the experiences of transculturated American Indian college students. The author refers to

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the theoretical model emerging from the analysis of these students as the transculturational hypothesis. The major dimensions of this theoretical framework are outlined below. 1. American Indian Ethnic Identity as Emotional Anchor: The idea that American Indians must undergo a radical form of assimilation in order to achieve in higher education can be utterly dismissed by the findings of this study. The transculturated students demonstrate that cultural traditionalism need not be a “difficult situation” standing in the way of academic achievement (Scott, 1986). These individuals forged a strong self-identity and, in the doing, acquired the necessary tools to interact and achieve. The confidence, self-worth, and sense of purpose displayed by the transculturated students were not in spite of being an American Indian, it was because they were American Indian. 2. The Importance of the Transculturation Threshold: To arrive full of confidence in one’s identity and ability is a hazardous journey. As the estranged students demonstrate, having a strong sense of one’s ethnic identity and an absolute determination to retain that identity were not enough to survive social psychological alienation. It is not an overstatement that all of the culturally traditional American Indians in this study arrived on campus as cultural outsiders. Their first experience was that of isolation, loneliness, and even despair. One of the most significant findings in this study is the identification of a transculturation threshold. The transculturation threshold is a more or less specific point in which some students decided to retain their cultural identity and use that identity and the self-discovery that emerged as a result. A good illustration of this phenomenon is the case of a very successful student from Standing Rock reservation. His life and college experience were particularly eventful with many personal triumphs and tragedies. He related how he ventured into the realization that his ethnic heritage and identity were his real strengths and source of courage. After a tumultuous beginning, this student eventually graduated among the top in his class, was a talented

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writer, a highly effective campus activist for American Indian and minority rights, and had been offered a graduate fellowship at one of the nation’s leading universities. Yet, his college endeavor almost ended in failure. His first years in college were filled with bouts with alcoholism and depression. He was intimidated by his fellow non-Indian classmates and suffered from overwhelming timidity in interactions with his professors. He struggled daily with the temptation to leave school. With time he began to appropriate traditional American Indian healing approaches into his recovery efforts. Amid his recovery from alcoholism he soon discovered that he was an equal academic competitor with non-Indian students. He recalled coming to the conclusion that he wished to fully embrace his traditional roots. This was a dramatic and defining moment not only in his academic career but also in his personal life. Describing that period of assessment he related: I decided that I was Indian. There were all these walls around me, but they weren’t going to shrink any less if I were less “Indian” . . . I guess being here [in college] taught me how much strength there is in being Indian. When I finally accepted that, I was on my way . . .

Eventually this student was academically successful. But this success did not come until after a difficult period of personal, emotional, and cultural assessment. If his was the only case of such cultural accounting, it could be dismissed as an isolated case of the intimate, personal journey of one man. It was not the only case. Other students related experiences of some type of reconciliation. Few were as dramatic as the case described above. However, virtually all described some period of sorting through their situation and arriving at the conclusion to use their ethnic identity as personal strength. Therefore, such moments, this transculturation threshold, appears to be a critical moment in the formation and projection of the transculturated cultural mask. It was during this time that the culturally traditional American Indian college

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students in this study moved from the estranged cultural mask to a transculturated one. 3. Ability to Engage Two Cultural Settings: A little recognized and understood component of the transculturated experience is the ability for an American Indian to effectively engage the cultural setting of non-Indians without assimilation. The concept of transculturation incorporates the idea that American Indian college students need not necessarily relinquish their Native ways in order to be successful. Rather, the transculturation hypothesis assumes that American Indian students simply increase their cultural repertoire, adding the skills needed while keeping their Native heritage intact. As such, the individual is conceptualized as fully capable of interaction with two different cultures without cultural loss. The transculturated students of this study clearly demonstrated this ability. They evidenced a capacity for cultural learning and relearning that positioned them to traverse cultures. 4. The Process of Cultural Learning: Just as important as cultural retention, transculturation is a process of cultural learning. To successfully engage a cultural setting requires that the individual understand that milieu. As such, the transculturation student must be able, willing, and provided the opportunity to undertake this learning process. Therefore, it is assumed that transculturation is as much a socialization process as it is the preservation of one’s former cultural heritage and identity. However, because cultural learning can be a very disorienting and intimidating experience, a crucial factor facilitating this learning process is that the individual needs to be secure in his/her own ethnic identity. Thus, once again we must consider the importance of the first dimension of the transculturation hypothesis. The link is an important one. The absence of emotional security in their ethnic identity appears to be a major reason many of the estranged students experienced great difficulty navigating through collegiate problems. Clearly these students highly valued their culturally traditional ethnic identity and they

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did not wish to risk losing that identity to assimilation. However, compared to transculturated students, the estranged students did not possess the social psychological means to explore the trappings of unfamiliar cultural surroundings. Their ability to actively engage in new cultural learning was seriously compromised by the concern of losing (or diluting) their cultural identity. The strength of ethnic identity has a major, but easily missed, implication for transculturated students. Ethnic confidence and security provide the opportunity to explore and learn the cultural setting of the mainstream. Without the opportunity for exploration and subsequent discovery and learning, it is very likely that many culturally traditional American Indian students will find it difficult to be successful in a predominantly non-Indian higher educational institution.

Conclusion Persistence of American Indians continues to be a major concern in higher education. Yet, the best alternative toward realizing educational success among culturally traditional American Indians is to strive for achievement through cultural autonomy (Van Hamme, 1996). The transculturated students of this study provide evidence that culturally traditional American Indians can achieve academically while retaining their cultural integrity. If more favorable graduation and persistence rates are to be realized, a situation in which American Indian college students perceive the freedom to express any ethnic identity they chose (whether it be traditional or assimilated) should be encouraged. Such a situation would not solve all the problems besetting American Indian higher education persistence. Nevertheless, it would make a positive difference.

References Astin, A. W., Tsui, L., & Avalos, J. (1996). Degree attainment rates at American colleges and universities. Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA.

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Carroll, R. E. (1978). Academic performance and cultural marginality. Journal of American Indian Education, 18(1), 11–16. Davis, J. (1992). Factors contributing to post-secondary achievement of American Indians. Tribal College Journal, 4(2), 24–30. Davis, T. & Pyatskowit, A. (1976). Bicognitive education: A new future for the Indian child? Journal of American Indian Education, 15(3), 14–21. Duda, J. L. (1980). Achievement motivation among Navajo students. Ethnos, 8(4), 316–331. Falk, D. R. & Aitken, L. P. (1984). Promoting retention among American Indian college students. Journal of American Indian Education, 23(2), 24–31. Garrett, M. T. (1996). “Two people”: An American Indian narrative of bicultural identity. Journal of American Indian Education, 36(1), 1–21. Hornett, D. (1989). The role of faculty in cultural awareness and retention of American Indian college students. Journal of American Indian Education, 29(1), 12–18. Huffman, T. E. (1993). A typology of Native American college students. In T. E. Schirer and S. M. Branstner (Eds.), Native American values: Survival and renewal (pp. 67–80). Sault Ste. Marie, MI: Lake Superior State University Press. Huffman, T. E. (1995). The transculturation of Native American college students. In J. J. Macionis and N. V. Benokraitis (Eds.), Seeing ourselves: Classic, contemporary, and cross-cultural readings in sociology (pp. 200–208). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Huffman, T., Sill, M., & Brokenleg, M. (1986). College achievement among Sioux and white South Dakota students. Journal of American Indian Education, 25(2), 32–38. Lewin, K. (1948). Resolving social conflicts. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers. Lin, R. L. (1985). The promise and the problems of the Native American student. Journal of American Indian Education, 25(1), 6–16. Lin, R. L., LaCounte, D., & Eder, J. (1988). A study of Native American students in a predominately white college. Journal of American Indian Education, 27(3), 8–15. Ogbu, J. U. (1978). Minority education and caste: The American system in cross-cultural perspective. New York: Academic Press. Ogbu, J. U. (1987). Variability in minority school performance: A problem in search of an explanation. Anthropology and Education, 18(4), 312–334. Pavel, M., Swisher, K., & Ward, M. (1994). Special focus: American Indian and Alaska Native demographic and educational trends. In D. J. Carter and R. Wilson (Eds.), Minorities in higher education (pp. 33–60). Washington, DC: American Council on Education. Sando, J. (1973). Educating the Native American: Conflict in values. In L. A. Bransford, L. Baca, and K. Lane (Eds.), Cultural diversity and the exceptional child (pp. 53–65). Restin, VA: Council for Exceptional Children.

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Schiller, P. & Gaseoma, L. (1993). Analysis of self-reported strategies for successful adjustment to higher education by bicultural Native American students. In Y. Song and E. Kim (Eds.), American mosaic: Selected readings on America’s multicultural heritage (pp. 44–54). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall. Scott, W. J. (1986). Attachment to Indian culture and the “difficult situation.” Youth and Society, 17(4), 381–395. Strauss, A. (1987). Qualitative analysis for social scientists. New York: Cambridge University Press. Swisher, K. & Deyhle, D. (1989). The styles of learning are different, but the teaching is just the same: Suggestions for teachers of American Indian youth. Journal of American Indian Education, 28(Special Edition), 1–14. Van Hamme, L. (1996). American Indian cultures and the classroom. Journal of American Indian Education, 35(2), 21–36. West, D. (1988). Comparisons of career maturity and its relationship with academic performance. Journal of American Indian Education, 27(3), 1–7.

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6 Continuing the Tradition

New Directions/Old Issues in American Indian Education The celebrated philosopher of science Karl Popper famously proclaimed, “Theories are nets cast to catch what we call ‘the world’; to rationalize, to explain, and to master it. We endeavor to make the mesh ever finer and finer” (1959, p. 59). As noted at the beginning of this book, the unifying and prevailing theme in American Indian education scholarship is the lack of educational success among Native students. The established theories on American Indian education have, in one form or another, attempted to provide explanations for lagging academic achievement. Yet, there are significant gaps in the mesh of the theories on American Indian education. All the theoretical perspectives presented in the preceding chapters offer partial explanations on the complexities of the educational experiences among America’s Indigenous peoples. But none of them can possibly account for all phenomena. Thus, scholars will continue to mend the netting of their theories. While scholars work to refine existing theoretical perspectives, new explanative efforts are appearing in Native education studies. Indeed, a number of promising emerging theoretical perspectives and novel research methodologies in American Indian education can be found in the literature. Of particular 207

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significance are Indigenous-generated theories and methods. That is, theoretical efforts created by and for Native peoples. Among these emerging American Indian education perspectives are decolonization theories and methodologies (most notably tribal critical race theory), the family education model, and the medicine wheel culturally intrinsic research paradigm model. One of the interesting features of these approaches is that they tend to involve not only explanative frameworks in the form of theoretical perspectives but also they advocate unique methods on how data are collected and analyzed.

Indigenous-Generated Perspectives The Indigenous-generated perspectives presented here were not treated as separate chapters because they are emerging efforts in the field of American Indian education studies. Their basic premise, fundamental assumptions, even their associated criticisms, are evolving in rather dramatic fashion and in most cases cannot be definitively identified. The rapidity of the emergence of these perspectives is evidence of their tremendous vitality and potential. Unfortunately, that dynamic makes the systematic treatment of these perspectives in the same manner as the other theoretical perspectives presented in this book difficult. Yet, it is essential to present and discuss these emerging intellectual efforts as they represent significant contributions of Native scholars.

Decolonization Theories and Methods If, as suggested by Jonathan Turner (1998), theories are stories told about how and why things occur, then the issue for decolonization theorists is which story will be told and who gets to tell it. Many decolonization theorists challenge existing scholarly perspectives and methodologies as little more than extensions of dominant society’s worldview and ethos. That is, the knowledge generated by conventional methods and explained by prevailing theories is destined to reflect the dominant society’s interpretation of the world (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001; Smith, 1999).

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Thus, what are necessary are unique research methodological approaches that capture and articulate the experiences and perceptions of and by Native peoples. Many find decolonization theories and methods compelling intellectual approaches to issues of race and subjugation. These perspectives certainly represent a powerful thrust in current scholarship on minority education in general and American Indian education in particular (Grande, 2004; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). However, decolonization as a general scholarly approach is also rather controversial. Regardless of the position one takes on their merits, it is undeniable that decolonization theoretical and methodological approaches are dramatically impacting virtually all fields of scholarship. While American Indian education scholars have only recently begun to apply decolonization perspectives in their work, these efforts show potential to emerge as major theoretical frameworks in American Indian education studies (Grande, 2004; Brayboy, 2005a). Decolonization theories and methods include a variety of perspectives from a number of academic backgrounds. Yet, there are commonalities that serve to identify them as an intellectual approach. First, decolonization as the primary concept is regarded as the concerted efforts to resist the continued subjugation of Native peoples in all its various forms. The notion of decolonization is best understood in relation to the concept of colonization. Wilson and Yellow Bird (2005) explain, “Colonization refers to both the formal and informal methods (behaviors, ideologies, institutions, policies, and economies) that maintain the subjugation or exploitation of Indigenous Peoples, land, and resources . . . The first step toward decolonization, then is to question the legitimacy of colonization” (p. 2). Thus, decolonization theories and methods attempt to recognize, understand, and ultimately prevail over the processes and forces of colonization. Second, decolonization theories and methods attempt to establish Indigenous views and ways of understanding into scholarly discourse. As such, these perspectives are shared among Indigenous peoples around the world and provide a unifying scholarly purpose and identity. Third, as an intellectual effort, decolonization challenges prevailing Eurocentric theories and methods. New Zealand scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999)

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states, “Decolonization is about centering our concerns and world views and then coming to know and understand theory and research from our own perspectives and for our own purposes” (p. 39). Decolonization theories and methods include a wide variety of theoretical and methodological forms and are identified by a collection of labels. Perhaps one of the most recognizable of these approaches is critical race theory. More specific to American Indian educational studies is the emergence of a particular version of critical race theory—tribal critical race theory. Critical Race Theory In the early 1960s a young African American attorney working for the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund was assigned to help litigate civil rights cases in Mississippi. The young man extensively traveled the dusty and dangerous roads of the Magnolia State to meet with victims of social injustice and boldly confronted virulent racism in its hostile courtrooms. Later, he would just as aggressively fight a variety of academic battles over faculty diversity in the halls of some of the United States’ most vaunted universities, including the University of Oregon, Stanford University, and Harvard University (Pyatt, 1998). That man was Derrick Bell, and his name has become synonymous with critical race theory. Critical race theory is related to critical theory, which grew out of the Frankfurt School of social and philosophical thought and is associated with the works of such individuals as Max Horkheimer and Jürgen Habermas. While influenced by the general tenets of critical theory, Derrick Bell helped found a unique intellectual movement within legal studies that challenges conventional liberal and conservative views of the law. This movement is generally known as critical legal studies (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001; Gordon, 1990). At the heart of critical legal studies is the notion that racism pervades all of society and is egregiously evidenced in its legal system. Ultimately, the racism endemic within society and its legal structures work to maintain the existing racial hegemony of the dominant group and the continued subjugation of minorities. As such, the task of

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critical legal studies is to expose the contradictions inherent in the interpretation and application of the law. In short order, the general tenets of critical legal studies spread to other disciplines of the social sciences and humanities with the result of the emergence of a rather diverse scholarly approach commonly known as critical race theory. In many respects critical race theory has much in common with structural inequality theory. Both perspectives concentrate on the social inequality resulting from an imbalance in power relationships. Further, both theoretical frameworks regard social inequality as connected to the way society has been historically structured. Structural inequality theory and critical race theory also attempt to explain how social inequality is maintained in contemporary society. Moreover, these perspectives frequently share the same literature, many of the same concepts, and a number of scholars, who have contributed to the structural inequality theoretical literature and have also made significant contributions to the literature on critical race theory. Educational anthropologist Donna Deyhle stands out as an example of such dual contribution in American Indian education scholarship. However, there is an important difference in the two frameworks. While structural inequality theorists examine a variety of sources and forms of social inequality, critical race theorists concentrate virtually solely on the issue of race. Springing from its critical legal studies heritage, critical race theory regards racism as endemic in society and the ultimate source of oppression and subjugation (Matsuda, Lawrence, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993; Solorzano & Yosso, 2002). Thus, critical race theorists concentrate their efforts on unraveling the nature and consequences of racism. Over time, critical race scholars have articulated five general themes of the perspective. First, critical race theory asserts that race is a socially constructed concept and racial definitions and meanings are established by members of the dominant society in order to serve their interests (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001; Matsuda et al., 1993). While physical differences exist among humans, the meanings and attributes associated with these characteristics are socially created and maintained. Traits such as intelligence, morality, and personality have nothing to do with superficial physical attributes. Because race and

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its consequences are socially created, potentially the meanings and injustices deriving from racism can be deconstructed and corrected (Parker, Deyhle, & Villenas, 1999). Second, critical race theory considers racism as an ordinary rather than a social aberration (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). In contemporary society racism may not take the dramatic, overt forms as those expressed in the past. Nevertheless, more subtle expressions of racism are an everyday part of the lives for racial minorities. Individuals of color routinely encounter racism expressed in automatic and frequently unconscious ways by white Americans. Indeed, many, if not most, white Americans are surprised (and frequently deny) that their behaviors and attitudes are regarded as racist (Solomon, Portelli, Daniel, & Campbell, 2005; Vaught & Castagno, 2008). Yet these “normal” forms of racism have a tremendously negative impact on minority individuals (Lynn & Parker, 2006). Third, critical race theory challenges the liberal contention that color-blind objectivity will lead to a more racially just society (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). For instance, political liberals frequently insist on a racially neutral interpretation and application of the law. By so doing, they contend, eventually the constitutional system of laws will operate to move the United States toward greater racial justice. Critical race theorists, however, reject the insistence that race should not matter in the interpretation of the law. Such a position is far too cautious if not dangerous. Claims on the neutrality of the interpretation and application of the law are illusionary and miss the fact that racism is normalized in society (including its legal system). Instead, racism in all its expressions must be aggressively and openly identified and challenged. As a fourth theme critical race theory rejects the convention that the experiences of white Americans represent the cultural norm and, thereby, the cultural standard for all society. The normalization of white experience, however, is ubiquitous. It is found everywhere from the way schools function to commercial advertising to political debate. Ultimately the uncritically accepted imposition of a white cultural standard helps to perpetuate racism and contributes to the continued subjugation of racial minorities. Gloria Ladson-Billings (2000) argues,“[T]he

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hegemony of the dominant paradigm makes it more than just another way to view the world—it claims to be the only legitimate way to view the world” (p. 257). The acceptance of a white perspective and experience is especially evidenced in traditional academia. Prevailing scholarship functions according to an essentially Eurocentric framework. This framework generally emphasizes, at least in the natural and social sciences, a supposed objective, positivistic approach to knowledge and inquiry. Critical race theory, however, is a form of oppositional scholarship and, as such, challenges the social tradition in which the experiences, worldview, and values of white Americans are taken to be the cultural standard. Moreover, this challenge must be expressed both within and outside academia (Lynn & Parker, 2006). The assertion that the experiences and views of white America represent the cultural norm is akin to the notion of white privilege (a prominent concept, it might be noted, critical race theorists share with structural inequality theorists). White privilege consists of opportunities and benefits enjoyed by individuals simply because they are white. Peggy McIntosh describes white privilege as “an invisible package of unearned assets” (1990, p. 31) that assists to make life comfortable. McIntosh elaborates with a list of twenty-six examples of white privilege she argues most white Americans are oblivious to but which racial minorities generally do not enjoy. Some of these examples are highly significant in and of themselves while others are less so. McIntosh identifies as examples of white privilege the expectation that most people will be neutral or friendly in social relations; individuals can take a job without fear of being suspected of earning it only through affirmative action; personal financial reliability is generally assumed rather than treated with suspicion; individuals can go shopping without fear of being followed or harassed; and whites can typically expect positive representations of their race in all forms of the media. The cumulative effect of white privilege is more than personal comfort; it serves to maintain dominant hegemony. As Lorinda Lindley (2009) suggests, “Racist ideology is sustained by the normalization of White privilege through which oppression of groups constructed as racial Others is considered natural” (p. 41).

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The fifth theme of critical race theory recognizes the importance and validity of the experiential knowledge of peoples of color rather than the reliance on the interpretations of reality derived from a dominant group perspective. Critical race theorists advocate the use of counternarratives (frequently referred to as counterstorytelling) that not only reflect the views and experiences of minority members but also challenge and contradict prevailing dominant group interpretations of reality. Delgado and Stefancic (2001) describe couternarratives as “writing that aims to cast doubt on the validity of accepted premises or myths, especially ones held by the majority” (p. 144). The advocacy of counternarratives as a legitimate form of data collection and analysis has generated considerable debate and controversy (Brayboy, 2005a). Generally the use of counternarratives requires the researcher to use the literary device of a story complete with plot, setting, and dialogue. The manner in which data are presented is quite unconventional and resembles a short story in its final version. Obviously, to create the counternarrative, the writer is required to fictionalize much of the specific settings and dialogue. However, this practice is not regarded as inappropriate because the notion of an objective reality is rejected and the fictionalizing of elements of the story serves to dramatize the humanity of individuals (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). Moreover, the elements of the story must be based on the lived experiences of the participants and, thereby, reflect their perceptions. The counternarrative is designed to serve two important purposes. First, it is intended to articulate the experiences and views of participants whose perspective is regarded as muted in American discourse. Critical race theorists insist that these voices be heard, respected, and understood. Second, counternarratives serve to reveal the contradictions in conventional beliefs and, thereby, expose the normalization of racism in social life. Delgado and Stefancic (2001) describe the importance of counternarratives to critical race theorists: Society constructs the social world through a series of tacit agreements mediated by images, pictures, tales, and scripts. Much of what we believe is ridiculous, self-serving, or cruel,

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but not perceived to be so at the time . . . Critical writers use counterstories to challenge, displace, or mock these pernicious narratives and beliefs . . . Stories also serve a powerful psychic function for minority communities. Many victims of racial discrimination suffer in silence, or blame themselves for their predicament. Stories can give them voice and reveal that others have similar experiences. Stories can name a type of discrimination; once named, it can be combated. If race is not real or objective, but constructed, racism and prejudice should be capable of deconstruction, the pernicious beliefs and categories are, after all, our own. Powerfully written stories and narratives may begin a process of adjustment in our system of beliefs and categories by calling attention to neglected evidence and reminding readers of our common humanity. (pp. 42–43)

Tribal Critical Race Theory Critical race theory has splintered into multiple variations, each oriented toward a specific group. For instance, there is now Asian critical race theory, Latino critical race theory, and critical race feminism (Brayboy, 2005a; Wing, 2003). Indeed, Bryan Brayboy (2005a) argues such an evolution is necessary because as it originated critical race theory is “oriented toward an articulation of race issues along a ‘black-white’ binary (much the way Brown v. Board is), and, until recently, other ethnic/racial groups have not been included in the conversation” (p. 429). Brayboy (2005a) has presented the outline for a tribal critical race theory (which he refers to as “TribalCrit”) as a means to articulate the perspectives and experiences of Native peoples. Foundational to tribal critical race theory is the assertion that colonization is endemic to society. As its central concept, colonialism is to tribal critical race theorists what racism is to critical race theorists: The primary tenet of TribalCrit is the notion that colonization is endemic to society. By colonization, I mean that European American thought, knowledge, and power structures dominate present-day society in the United States . . . In this way the goal sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit, of interactions between the dominant U.S. society and American Indians has been to change (“colonize” or “civilize”) us to be more like

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those who hold power in the dominant society . . . This process of colonization and its debilitating influences are at the heart of TribalCrit; all other ideas are offshoots of this vital concept. (Brayboy, 2005a, pp. 430–431)

Brayboy contends the serious issues facing Native peoples and communities can be best understood and addressed through the theoretical lens provided by tribal critical race theory. The complicated problems of language loss, control over natural resources, and tensions between tribal governments and state and federal governments are reflections of the continued process of colonization of American Indians. Beyond the basic premise that the process of colonization is endemic in society (which Brayboy considers the first tenet of tribal critical race theory), he outlines eight additional tenets. The second tenet of tribal critical race theory is that governmental policies regarding Native peoples are designed to promote white imperialism and material gain. Third, Native peoples can be characterized as occupying a status of liminality that helps to explain why their identities are highly politicized and racialized. Fourth, central concerns for Native peoples are the extension of tribal sovereignty, autonomy, and self-identification. Fifth, an Indigenous perspective is essential in order to gain new understanding on the nature of culture, knowledge, and power. Sixth, assimilationist goals continue to be associated with governmental and educational policies. Seventh, it is crucial that the experiences and perspectives of Native peoples be understood in context with tribal philosophies, belief systems, traditions, and visions of the future along with an appreciation of tribal and personal differences. Eighth, personal and tribal stories represent important sources of knowing and, therefore, represent legitimate types of data. Ninth, scholars can and must initiate social change by linking theory with practice. It is Brayboy’s sixth tenet that tribal critical race theory most directly connects to American Indian education. Brayboy argues that educational policies have traditionally and, in many respects, still reflect the assimilationist designs aimed at American Indians. Maintaining cultural integrity while engaging in academic pursuits has represented an enormous challenge for generations of Native students at all levels of education. However, Brayboy

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(2005a) also suggests tribal critical race theory can be used to reveal insights on academic success gained through cultural autonomy: Today, TribalCrit would argue, education for American Indians is not always rooted in the goal of assimilation, although some assimilation seems to be an inevitable outcome of education that occurs through the formal structures of western schooling. Education, according to TribalCrit, might also teach American Indian students how to combine Indigenous notions of culture, knowledge, and power with western/European conceptions in order to actively engage in survivance, selfdetermination, and tribal autonomy. (p. 437)

Tribal critical race theorists are charged with presenting the stories that account for how Native students successfully combine traditional wisdom and Western knowledge in order to achieve both personal and tribal self-determination. In this sense, tribal critical race theory holds potential to demonstrate how theory and practice can intersect in order to affect the social change necessary to address the serious issue of colonization. Critical Race Theory and American Indian Education Scholarship There is a small but growing cadre of critical race theorists working in the field of American Indian education. While critical race theory acknowledges wider forms of scholarly inquiry than typically represented in traditional social science research methodology, the use of counternarratives has not been frequently employed by American Indian education scholars. Legal studies scholar Matthew Fletcher (2008) engages in one of the few applications of the counternarrative method in the American Indian education literature. Using the fictional Lake Matchimanitou Band of Ottawa (loosely based on the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa) and a number of characters (also loosely based on friends and family), Fletcher outlines and critiques misguided educational policy and personal racism against a number of important issues facing Native people. Moreover, as a basis for the plot and some of the dialogue

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created for the counternarrative, he uses “the transcript of a legal or quasi-legal proceeding involving the disposition of a legal dispute arising out of the educational environment” (Fletcher, 2008, p. 8). By weaving together the various narratives, Fletcher attempts to demonstrate the complicated educational issues facing American Indians and the way in which federal and state policies are designed to promote cultural assimilation that works to destroy Native culture and language. More typical of the manner in which critical race theory is used by American Indian education scholars is the work of Lorinda Lindley (2009). Lindley uses the basic tenets of critical race theory to guide her research on sixteen Arapaho women who pursued degrees at the University of Wyoming. She employs essentially traditional qualitative research methods to gather and analyze her data. Interestingly, Lindley found elements of transculturation theory as beneficial in explaining the higher educational experience of these women. As such, her findings suggest that there may be some room to incorporate elements of transculturation theory into the work of tribal critical race theorists. As Bryan Brayboy (2005a) suggests, tribal critical race theory holds that individuals may combine traditional knowledge with Western, formal education as a means to achieve self-determination and cultural autonomy. Such a contention is consistent with transculturation theory. In an interesting combination of critical race theory methods and traditional ethnographic research methods, Bryan Brayboy (2005b) uses a modified narrative approach to achieve an indepth examination of the educational experiences and subsequent careers of two American Indian students who attended Ivy League universities. Brayboy delicately balances narrative prose to describe the characters, setting, and issues at hand while also injecting research techniques commonly used by ethnographers. Brayboy reports a revealingly human account on how these individuals were able to acquire what he terms “transformational resistance.” That is, behaviors and perspectives that allowed them to critique the oppression they personally felt while pursuing social justice.

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Family Education Model Compared to other theoretical perspectives, the family education model is novel on a number of levels. It represents an intriguing merger of social science scholarship and social work practice as a means to approach the long-standing problem of American Indian higher education attrition. The family education model is a theoretical approach specifically designed to understand the nature of higher educational attrition among Native students. Yet, it also offers practical intervention strategies as well. Perhaps most important of all, this theoretical framework is founded on traditional Native cultural values and, as such, offers a unique perspective on the barriers and potential opportunities for academic advancement. The family education model is one of the newest entries to the field of American Indian education having only been introduced in the last ten years. Due to its recent introduction into the literature, this theoretical perspective is not widely known among American Indian education scholars. However, the family education model is a promising approach to Native higher education and will likely attract considerable attention (Larimore & McClellan, 2005; Martin, 2005). In particular, many scholars will find appealing the fact that the family education model incorporates a fundamental Native worldview into its essential premise. Simply put, the family education model counts as its uniqueness that it is a theoretical framework about, for, and by Native peoples. Development of the Family Education Model Provided by funding from the Kellogg and Ford foundations, a group of educational professionals and social work specialists from four tribal colleges and the University of Montana convened in 1997 to develop a means to answer the challenge of Native American higher education attrition (HeavyRunner & DeCelles, 2002). Basic to their efforts was the mandate that any approach would be grounded upon Native values. The result of

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their collaboration is the development of the family education model. It was first introduced as an educational approach to be used in tribal colleges. However, since its inception the model has also been employed in a number of mainstream institutions (Selden, 2002). Primary to the development of the family education model is the effort of Iris HeavyRunner. While others have made important contributions to the evolution of this framework, HeavyRunner’s work is especially crucial in forming the theoretical foundation and establishing the practical application of the model (Selden, 2002). A professional social worker and academic, Iris HeavyRunner skillfully combines a number of important influences into the family education model. Namely, she borrows elements of traditional family intervention models familiar to social work practice and merges these with scholarly theories on personal resilience. As the critical last component HeavyRunner incorporates essential Native values on family, cultural integrity, and healing into the framework. The result is an intervention approach and theoretical framework integrated into a distinctly Native perspective (Guillory & Wolverton, 2008; HeavyRunner & DeCelles, 2002; HeavyRunner & Marshall, 2003; HeavyRunner & Morris, 1997; Mainor, 2001; Martin, 2005). Nature of the Family Education Model The family education model begins by acknowledging that the extended family is of absolute importance in the lives of most Native peoples. The extended family is the primary social unit in Native life and provides the fundamental needs for individuals. One of the most damaging aspects of the higher education experience for American Indian students is the separation of the individual from the extended family (Guillory & Wolverton, 2008). Thus, the basic premise of the family education model is that colleges need to replicate many of the functions of the extended family while at the same time integrating the extended family into its operation. Through a combination of duplicating the way the extended family operates and incorporation of the extended family, colleges are poised to serve Native students in a more holistic fashion. Indeed, the family education model

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emerged out of three needs common among Native students. HeavyRunner and DeCelles (2002) explain those needs along with the role tribal colleges may perform: Three assumptions predicated the development of the FEM (family education model): (a) many students and their families need the college to act as their liaison with existing social and health services during times of crisis; (b) tribal colleges must seek to enlist, develop, and structure the ability of family members to support student efforts; and (c) tribal colleges must engage family members in the life of the college community by enlisting them as partners and involving them in cultural and social activities. Together, these assumptions have functioned to create an environment that honors and includes the extended family and nurtures appropriate partnerships . . . Establishing and maintaining a sense of “family,” both at home and at college, fortifies American Indian students’ academic persistence. (p. 30)

There are four fundamental assertions implied in the family education model. First, the family education model asserts the academic activities of college cannot be compartmentalized from the cultural life of Native students. The cultural worldview, experiences, and goals of American Indian students are tied to the way they encounter college. A failure to recognize the unique cultural background of Native students will inevitably lead to ineffective educational efforts. Second, Native culture is inextricably connected to the extended family. The extended family is the cultural centerpiece for virtually all American Indian peoples. It is largely in the context of the extended family (working in unison with the community) that cultural and spiritual activities occur. Further, the aspirations of the individual in actuality reflect the desires, needs, and goals of the extended family. Achievements, such as educational success, are thus collectively owned. Third, the extended family is traditionally charged with meeting the needs of Native individuals in a holistic fashion. The reliance on the network of extended family members is critically important in Native communities. Social, cultural, personal, and spiritual requirements are served through family members. The

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disruption of this vital support network can have devastating effects for American Indian students. Fourth, the separation of the Native student from the traditional supports provided by the extended family creates complications that are generally not addressed by conventional institutional student services. Typically, the support services supplied by colleges and universities are academic in nature. However, Native students frequently encounter a complex set of financial, cultural, personal, and social circumstances that are not normally attended by existing institutional support programs. In order to enhance persistence of American Indian students in college, these services must be rearranged to replicate some of the functions traditionally performed by the extended family. The family education model actually has two dimensions. First and foremost, it was originally conceived as an intervention approach designed to offer practical assistance to facilitate persistence for Native students attending tribal colleges. Additionally, the family education model has evolved into an emerging scholarly theoretical perspective through which researchers can 1) examine the model’s effectiveness as an intervention strategy, and 2) test its fundamental premise and assertions (Guillory & Wolverton, 2008). The Family Education Model as an Intervention Approach According to Peggy Mainor (2001) the typical tribal college student is a single mother attempting to manage the demands of academic pursuit while raising two or three children. Certainly, tribal colleges enroll a high proportion of single mothers who frequently face pressing family, social, and personal needs (Hernandez, 2006). Whether single parent or not, Native students also encounter unique cultural needs, almost all of which connect in one way or another to the extended family (HeavyRunner & DeCelles, 2002). Moreover, a number of American Indian college students encounter resistance from family for their educational endeavors (Mainor, 2001). In light of these concerns, the family education model emerged as an intervention program designed to promote and strengthen the involvement of families in the educational efforts of Native individuals. Specifically, this

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approach contains three foci: 1) it attempts to meet the needs of the student and his/her family in ways institutional student services have not traditionally operated; 2) it attempts to integrate the extended family into support efforts for the student; and 3) it attempts to address the lack of family support for education experienced by some American Indian students (Mainor, 2001). The family education model contains five essential components as an intervention approach: assessment, commitment, collaboration, communication, and evaluation (HeavyRunner & DeCelles, 2002). These elements are unremarkable in and of themselves and are not particularly distinct from other intervention approaches. However, the family education model also includes the concept of Native cultural resilience. As such, intervention efforts are guided by traditional knowledge and philosophies and attempt to build on the cultural strengths of the individual and family (Ortiz & HeavyRunner, 2003). Reports suggest that the family education model as an intervention strategy has met with great success at tribal colleges (Hernandez, 2006; Mainor, 2001). Indeed, the model has been so successful that it is expanding beyond tribal colleges to mainstream colleges as well (Martin, 2005; Selden, 2002). Greater research will reveal the effectiveness of the family education model as an intervention method in settings outside tribal colleges (Woodcock & Alawiye, 2001). The Family Education Model as a Theoretical Perspective While the family education model was originally developed as an applied student intervention approach, scholars have also used this perspective to guide scholarly research. Admittedly, these scholarly efforts are few and in their infancy. However, they do indicate the potential for the family education model to evolve into a scholarly theoretical framework (much as other social work and educational theories have done). Regarding the family education model as a scholarly theoretical perspective, Raphael Guillory and Mimi Wolverton (2008) relate, “Although the FEM model was not originally used as conceptual framework, we believe that its explanatory power provides insights into study findings that might otherwise be missed” (p. 64).

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When treated as a theoretical perspective, scholars have tended to use the family education model in three general ways. First, they have examined the outcomes of the intervention itself. In this regard, their work basically involves program evaluation research. Second, the notion of the centrality of the extended family as an essential feature of the American Indian higher education experiences is explored. Third, the notion of cultural resilience prominently found in the framework is systematically analyzed. It is natural enough for scholars to engage in program evaluation research as this perspective was designed specifically as an intervention approach. Systematic research has revealed that the family education model is an effective strategy for enhancing persistence at tribal colleges. According to Anna Ortiz and Iris HeavyRunner (2003), schools using the family education model have evidenced a marked decline in their rates of student attrition. This is especially the case among students in which serious family and personal circumstances would have made college persistence difficult. Other researchers have explored the specific reasons why tribal colleges using these strategies are successful. An ethnographic study of a tribal college by Rousey and Longie (2001) revealed three reasons why family support enhances retention at tribal colleges. First is the creation and maintenance of a coordinated system of social services designed to address a myriad of personal/family needs. Most notable in this regard is the provision of child care services. Second is the integration of cultural values and traditions in the delivery of services. Third is the very fact that the education and associated services are located on the reservation. These scholars point out that the history of education among reservation populations is one of separation from family. Educational success drops off at the point of departure from one’s family. This is true for all levels of education. Thus, they argue that the cultivation of undergraduate and graduate degree programs available on reservations combined with services designed to address the full range of family needs will do much to enhance educational success among reservation populations. A second theme among family education model scholars is examination of the importance of the extended family to the edu-

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cational efforts of Native students. Guillory and Wolverton (2008) engaged in a comparative study on the perceptions of factors associated with higher education persistence among thirty American Indian students and fifteen representatives of three state universities (including three university presidents, three state board of education representatives, and nine faculty members). They found sharp differences between the two groups on their respective perceptions. Institutional representatives held the view that stronger financial support and academic preparation would enhance persistence for American Indian students. Curiously, however, the researchers found that the American Indian students identified their family as the most dominant factor promoting persistence as well as the most serious barrier to persistence. Regarding the apparent contradiction, Guillory and Wolverton (2008) reflect: Families acted as both a persistence factor and a barrier. This paradox was a source of great frustration to the students. On the one hand, students persisted through college to make their families proud; on the other hand, they felt the “pull” from their families to come home, especially in situations where family members were dependent upon them for financial and emotional support. In certain cases, the pull from home was so strong that students “stopped out” or “took breaks” from school just to help out back home. (p. 77)

The institutional representatives were apparently unaware of the paradox facing Native students. For the American Indians in the Guillory and Wolverton study, families are at once and the same time a source of strength as well as object of accountability. Unfortunately, this potent cultural dynamic was outside the perception of the institutional representatives. The authors conclude that it is not surprising, therefore, that the recommendations provided by institutional representatives did not include any mention of addressing family associated factors. Moreover, the authors relate that the family education model is useful not only as an intervention approach but also as a theoretical guide to account for their findings: The research findings in this study support the strategies offered within the Family Education Model . . . The essence

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of the FEM is to create a familylike environment for Native American students by making family and tribal members an integral component of the educational process of these students. This way, the family and tribal community can put their “fingerprint” on the educational experience, using Indigenous-based knowledge, values, and beliefs and thus giving students an education that is relevant and appropriate to their cultural background . . . HeavyRunner and DeCelles indicated that “institutions fail to recognize the disconnect between the institutional values and [Indian] student family values; hence the real reasons for high attrition rates among disadvantaged student are never addressed” (2008, p. 8). This study helps substantiate the validity of such a statement . . . For Native American people, it’s all about family. Institutions that serve Native American students cannot continue to operate using traditional approaches to student retention, if they want to truly serve and help our country’s Indigenous peoples (Guillory & Wolverton, 2008, pp. 83–84).

The third theme in the scholarly work associated with the family education model regards the importance of cultural resilience in American Indian college persistence. Indeed, the concept of cultural resilience plays heavily in the family education model. In this framework, cultural resilience is viewed from a Native perspective and includes the reciprocal responsibilities among family, community, and the individual (HeavyRunner & Morris, 1997). Cultural resilience does not involve the stark individualism characteristic of postmodern society but rather mutual responsibilities and benefits. Thus, from this framework, ways in which the extended family can work to facilitate college advancement and, conversely, the manner in which the collegeeducated individual may serve his/her community are of fundamental interest (HeavyRunner & Marshall, 2003). To date scholars have engaged in the conceptual development on cultural resilience but have offered few studies on the issue (LaFromboise, Hoyt, Oliver, & Whitbeck, 2006). In one of the few such studies, LaFromboise, Hoyt, Oliver, & Whitbeck (2006) found that adolescents who perceived greater community support were more likely to display resilience characteristics. Although these researchers conceptualized resilience in terms of reactions to personal stress, their general findings suggest

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the promise of pursuing research on cultural resilience in the manner suggested by the family education model. Of particular interest is their finding on a cultural dimension of resilience. They explain: The finding that living either on a reservation or in an urban setting appears to have no influence on the development of resilience in American Indian adolescents attests to the salience of cultural involvement among American Indians, as well as their tenacity to maintain cultural affiliation despite continuous pressures for acculturation. This finding confirms the current trend toward American Indian cultural revitalization because it suggests that cultural involvement and community linkages still occur regardless of where a Native person lives. (LaFromboise et al., 2006, p. 204)

Medicine Wheel Culturally Intrinsic Research Paradigm Model In what is less a theoretical perspective and more of a methodological technique, Rosemary White Shield (2009) presents a distinctly Native approach to how research scholarship is performed and how data are interpreted. In her article “Identifying and Understanding Indigenous Cultural and Spiritual Strengths in the Higher Educational Experiences of Indigenous Women” published in Wicazo Sa Review, White Shield reports the findings of her research with eight Native undergraduate and graduate women from the north central United States. The most distinctive feature of her research method is the use of what she describes as the “Medicine Wheel Culturally Intrinsic Research Paradigm Model.” This approach calls for the researcher to consult with tribal elders on the appropriate recruitment of participants into the study. Additionally, the model requires the researcher integrate the reflections and perceptions of the study participants with the wisdom and guidance of tribal elders. Thus, White Shield took the general information provided by her participants and inquired on their meaning from respected elders. This was done in order to achieve a truer understanding of the

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significance of the thoughts and experiences of the participants. White Shield further argues the researcher must engage in quiet reflection on the deep significance of the words and thoughts of the participants and elders. In so doing, the researcher offers the respect deserving of those involved in the research effort as well as the research activity itself. Integration of the Medicine Wheel Culturally Intrinsic Research Paradigm Model and Transculturation Theory The transculturation theoretical perspective is an essential part of White Shield’s approach. She uses transculturation theory in two ways. First, she uses transculturation as the conceptual framework to guide the research and her working hypotheses. Second, she uses the premise and assumptions of transculturation theory to account for the findings of her investigation. Indeed, White Shield (2009) explains that this theoretical perspective is consistent with the assumptions contained in the Medicine Wheel Culturally Intrinsic Research Paradigm Model: The assumption of this study is that internal resilient resources existing within Native women enable them to overcome the staggering “odds” confronting them in the higher educational system of the majority culture. These cultural and spiritual strengths have enabled Native peoples to survive genocide in its spiritual, cultural, social, emotional, mental, and physical manifestations. With these inherent cultural and spiritual strengths fostering resiliency, fortitude, and courage among Indian peoples in general, Native women in their quest for higher educational degrees have the ability to prevail when encountering cultural discontinuity, socioeconomic barriers, and other forms of adversity . . . Terry Huffman’s transculturation theory describes how some Native students in higher education succeed in achieving their goals of obtaining a degree within the dominant culture’s educational system (Huffman, 2001) . . . Some Native students in Huffman’s study terminated their pursuit of higher education (i.e., they dropped out), while others opted to “reach back” and draw upon their spiritual and cultural strengths to cope with the cultural difficulty, continuing their education, and eventually graduating. In other words, these Native students found that using the

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spiritual and cultural strengths that have sustained Native Nations through genocide, psychological colonization, erosion of Native identity, and cultural invalidation are what sustained them in their higher education experience in the dominant culture. Drawing upon the conceptual framework from Huffman’s work, the purpose of this study is to understand and describe the truths about cultural and spiritual strengths that provide the foundation and resiliency factors necessary for American Indian women to enroll in a college or university and complete a higher education experience. (pp. 48–49)

White Shield outlines four “clusters of internally related themes” reported by the participants as instrumental in their successful navigation through higher education. The first was that spirituality served as a major source of strength as they completed a higher educational experience. In fact, all the participants identified spirituality as essential in sustaining them through the challenges they faced not only in their higher educational endeavors but also life in general. Second, the respondents perceived the higher educational experience through traditional cultural stories, images, and metaphors. That is, they used tribally specific images and understandings as a source of strength of inspiration and guidance. White Shield explains that “these metaphors served as an anchor or ‘grounding point’ that enabled them to access inner spiritual resources to retain identification with traditional Native ways of being” (2009, p. 53). The third theme was that the respondents reported finding cultural strength in the traditional Native roles for women. Although these roles varied by tribal group, most of the participants related they gained a great sense of identity associated with their sense of Native womanhood. Ultimately this identity helped to crystallize their commitment to their communities and gave them greater purpose in their higher educational efforts. The fourth theme, family loyalty, was foundational to the sense of purpose for the participants in White Shield’s study. The participants were emphatic that the desire to achieve in higher education was for the benefit of their family. She explains, “Unlike some majority culture perspectives in which family devotion needs to be reduced in order for one to complete

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a college degree, the participants viewed their family devotion as a source of strength” (White Shield, 2009, p. 58). The participants in White Shield’s study held traditional Native views and beliefs. Her work documents the importance of their cultural strengths while engaging the ultimate of mainstream knowledge and worldview—higher education. However, White Shield does more than this; she also provides evidence that a strong ethnic identity enables even the most culturally traditional American Indian person to successfully engage mainstream education. Her participants were both highly traditional but also transculturated. Indeed, she contends they were capable of transculturation because of the cultural and spiritual strengths they possessed. She summarizes her research by concluding: [T]he results of this study showed that the cultural and spiritual strengths of Native women completing a higher education experience were grounded in their sense of reliance on a power or powers greater than themselves. These strengths manifested themselves in forms that were tribally congruent with Native value systems and definitions of reality. Utilization of these strengths was the core and primary means whereby the participants achieved their goals. Congruent with Huffman’s transculturation theory, this sense of “Indianness” was not transferred into them by external sources, but was a result of self-discovery within a Native cultural context. Throughout the process of completing a higher education experience, the participant’s sense of purpose was a commitment to their Nations, their people, and their families. This sense of love for their people and for their families enabled them to move beyond the “odds” and make the impossible possible. (White Shield, 2009, p. 62)

The Need for Theory in American Indian Education Clara Sue Kidwell (2009) observes: In the academy theory becomes the coin of the realm: What is the truth that underlies diverse opinions? Theory becomes the

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arbiter of knowledge and asserting an intellectual position that remains open to ongoing debate. It is a way of organizing ideas and presenting them clearly. In the social sciences theory can never be proven conclusively. It is always an approximation of the complexity of human behavior. (p. 5)

As stated at the beginning of this book, theories are explanations. Their importance lies in the fact that theories are the devices scholars use to intellectually engage one another with ideas. And ideas are powerful. They have the capacity to move us both intellectually as well as emotionally. Yet, as suggested by Kidwell, theories are inherently imperfect and incomplete. Nevertheless, they reflect temporary notions of reality. As imperfect and incomplete though they may be theories help to organize notions of the world and the issues deemed significant to us. They offer a picture of the world that allows us to understand and ultimately to act. The enduring issues of the past will constitute the pressing concerns of the present and future for Native peoples. Sovereignty, community revitalization, language preservation, rights of identity and self-definition, land use and management, the list can go on, are among the most compelling issues. The complexity of concerns reflects the ever-increasing intricacy of the world in which we inhabit. American Indian leaders face daunting challenges. The demands confronting Native peoples are all tied in one way or another to educational issues. Certainly grounding in Native wisdom is essential to answer these challenges. So, too, preparation to meet the demands of postmodern society is needed. The theories presented in this book and the ones emerging on the horizon are attempts to comprehend and identify ways to improve the educational opportunities for Native peoples. By so doing, the hope and vision is that scholarly theories will contribute to our collective understanding and, thereby, to the lives of Indigenous peoples. Theories are important to American Indian education studies for the simple reason that there is much intellectual and emotional inspiration that can be derived from theoretical perspectives. Understanding, even temporary understanding, is crucial because they have the potential to move us. There is much to be explained. There is much to act upon. Ideas are powerful.

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Suggested Reading Brayboy, B. (2005). Toward a tribal critical race theory in education. Urban Review, 37(5), 425–446. Fletcher, M. (2008). American Indian education: Counternarratives in racism, struggle, and the law. New York: Routledge. Grande, S. (2004). Red pedagogy: Native American social and political thought. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. HeavyRunner, I. & DeCelles (2002). Family education model: Meeting the student retention challenge. Journal of American Indian Education, 41(2), 29–37. Kidwell, C. S. (2009). American Indian studies: Intellectual navel gazing or academic discipline? American Indian Quarterly, 33(1), 1–17. White Shield, R. (2009). Identifying and understanding Indigenous cultural and spiritual strengths in the higher education experiences of Indigenous women. Wicazo Sa Review, 24(1), 47–63. Wilson, W. A. & Yellow Bird, M. (2005). For Indigenous eyes only: A decolonization handbook. Santa Fe, MN: SAR Press.

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Index

Aberle, David F., 115 Abramson, Harold, 176 academic/educational achievement, 17, 21, 23, 34, 40, 69, 79, 92, 103, 174, 190, 200; gap in achievement, 16, 88; lack of success, 22, 28 30, 32, 41, 70, 84, 88, 92, 117, 207 achievement motivation, 11, 26, 28, 79, 189 ACT, 92 acting white, 84 Adams, David W., 164 Adams, Gordon, 74, 75 African Americans, 17, 70, 77, 210. See also black Americans Agar, Michael, 152 Ainsworth-Darnell, James W., 63, 70 Aitken, Larry, 11, 183, 189 Alaska, 87 Alaskan Natives, 16, 70 Alawiye, Osman, 223 alienation, 8, 54, 180, 194–96, 198– 200. See also isolation Allatson, Paul, 169 Allen, Isabel, 143 Allen, Nancy, 180 Ambler, Marjane, 82

American Indian educational studies, xii, xiv, 1, 2, 6, 9, 10, 12–14, 19, 27, 63, 64, 163, 207–10, 231 American Indian Magnet School, 36 Amerman, Steve, 28 Amish, 69 anomie, 127–29, 131 anthropology, 4, 19, 22, 40, 41, 68, 123, 211 anti-Semitism, 126, 127 Apache, 47, 48, 50–53 Apple, Michael, 6 Appleton, Nicolas, 47 Appleton, Valerie, 17 Arapaho, 218 Arizona State University, 1 Arnold, Karen, 128 Ashley, David, 65, 125 Asian critical race theory, 215 assimilation, xii, 40, 75, 86, 87, 103, 104, 118, 122, 140, 147–49, 164, 165, 171, 176, 178, 185, 192, 194, 196, 198, 200, 203, 216–18 Astin, Alexander W., 189 Attinasi, L. C., 157 attrition, educational, 16, 17, 28, 30, 39, 54, 84, 86, 93, 97, 98, 117, 121,

251

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122, 128, 139, 142, 152, 183, 219, 224, 226 Au, Kathryn, 19, 23, 63, 72 autonomous minorities, 69 Avalos, Juan, 189 Bacon, Jan, 83 Baeza, Rosalinda, 35, 42, 45 Banfield, Edward, 22 Bannon, T. K., 46, 54 Barnhart, Carol, 11 Barnhart, Ray, 179 Begishe, K., 47 Belgarde, Mary Jiron, 141, 150 Bell, David, 9 Bell, Derrick, 210 Bellon-Harn, Monica, 39 Belmont, Nicole, 123 Benally, Ancita, 30 Benally, Joe, 47, 48, 52 Benjamin, Don-Paul, 17, 121 Berger, Peter, 7 Berliner, David C., 5 Berry, B., 54 Berry, John W., 176 Biber, Barbara, 21 biculturation, 175–78; biculturalism, 32, 33, 178; definition of, 175 Bingham, Gary, 174, 187 Biolsi, Thomas, 75 Black, Alice B., 54 black Americans, 152. See also African Americans Blackfoot, 48 Blauner, Robert, 74 Bloom, Benjamin, 21 Boas, Franz, 20 Boloz, Sigmund, 81 Bordogna, M., 178 Bowker, Ardy, 84 Boyer, Paul, 81, 88, 89 Brady, James, 83 Brady, Patrick, 39 Brantmeier, Edward, 81 Braxton, John, 122, 134

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Brayboy, Bryan, 1, 209, 214–16, 218, 232 Brendtro, Larry, 48–50 Brewer, A., 47 Bridges, David, 4, 17 Brokenleg, Martin, 40, 48–50, 173, 187, 190 Brown, A. D., 26, 48 Bryde, John, 11 Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), 75–76, 81, 86 Burr, Wesley R., 9 Bush, George W., 82 Butterfield, Robin, 48 Byers, Steven, 142 Cabrera, Alberto, 149 Cahalan, Margaret, 11 Cajete, Gregory, 11, 48 Campbell, Arlene, 212 Carlisle Indian School, 164 Carlisle, Pennsylvania, 164 Carney, Cary M., 164 Carrol, Richard E., 190 Castagno, Angelina, 212 Castaneda, Maria, 149 Cazden, Courtney, 23 Center for Indian Education, 1 Chafel, Judith A., 21 Chambers, Stephen, 17 Champagne, Duane, 1, 2, 17 Charon, Joel, 7, 168, 169 Chavers, Dean, 16 Chee, Christine, 181 Cherokee, 48 Cheung-Blunden, Violet L., 176 Cheyenne River reservation, 195, 197 Chicano, 146. See also Hispanic Americans Chinese, 69 CHiXapkaid (Pavel, Michael), 11, 12, 16, 28, 121, 146, 149–51, 189 Christal, Mark, 180 Christmas, 30

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Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), 104, 105, 107 Cintron, Rosa, 146 Clay, W. Charles, 72, 79, 95 Club Atenas, 169 Coladarci, Theodore, 28, 30, 83, 86, 99 Cole, James S., 16 Collins, Randall, 4, 7 colonization, 209, 215–17 Common, R., 80 communication process theory, 19 conflict theory, 9, 65–67, 72, 74 Congress, 76 Coser, Lewis, 126 counternarratives, 214, 215, 217, 218 counterstorytelling. See counternarratives Creamer, D. G., 152 Creedon, Carol F., 122 Crenshaw, Kimberle, 211 critical legal studies, 210, 211 critical race feminism, 215 critical race theory, 210–15, 217, 218 critical theory, 210 Cross, Christopher, 46 crossover effect, 183 Crow, Lester, 21 cultural conflict, 8, 12, 24, 29–36, 41, 45, 63, 133, 145, 174, 190 cultural deprivation theory, xiii, xiv, 21–23, 64, 166, 167 cultural difference theory, 19 cultural discontinuity, 8, 13, 23, 24, 29, 31, 33, 35, 36, 39–42, 70, 79, 190, 228; types of, 71, 72 cultural discontinuity theory, xi, xiv, 12–15, 19, 20, 22–23, 42, 63, 64, 70, 73 77, 79, 94, 167, 170; assumptions of, 24–33; criticisms of, 39–41; definition of, 23; implications of, 33–39 cultural dissonance theory, 19 cultural-ecological theory, 63, 64, 68–70, 72, 84, 85; types of

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discontinuities, 70–72; types of minorities, 69, 70 cultural identity, 12, 13, 15, 16, 40, 84, 86, 89, 91, 93, 94, 97, 98, 100, 116–18, 132, 137, 157, 168, 169, 171–75, 177, 179, 182, 184–87, 192, 194, 196, 197, 200–203, 230, cultural incongruence. See cultural discontinuity cultural incongruence theory, 19 cultural inversion, 85, 86 culturally appropriate teaching. See culturally responsive teaching culturally based standards, 88 culturally relevant teaching. See culturally responsive teaching culturally responsive teaching, 34–37, 41 42, 46, 50, 54, 71 cultural traditionalism, 12, 29, 40, 67, 54, 55, 111, 117, 134, 135, 140, 163, 166, 167, 172–74, 181, 190, 194, 196, 198, 200, 201, 203, 219, 229, 230 culture of poverty, 20, 21, 166 Cummins, Jim, 46, 100, 117, 118 Daniel, Beverly Jean, 212 Darder, Antonia, 78, 80 Dauphinais, Paul, 180 Davis, Allison, 21 Davis, Judith, 144, 173, 178, 187, 190 Davis, Thomas, 190 DeBray, Elizabeth H., 6 DeCelles, Richard, 219–23, 226, 232 decolonization, 75, 209, 210 decolonization theories, 208–10 Deissler, Kenneth, 165 Delgado, Richard, 208, 210–12, 214 Deloria, Vine, 1, 6, 12, 18, 80, 84, 164 Demmert, William, 17 Denzine, Gypsy M., 16 Deyhle, Donna, 1, 12, 25, 28, 40, 47, 86, 93, 94, 97, 185, 190, 211, 212 difficult situation, 166, 167, 200 Dingman, Sherry, 83

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254 / Index

discrimination, 67, 97, 100, 106, 116, 117, 185, 215; institutional, 67, 69, 84. See also racism Dixon Rayle, Andrea, 181 Dodd, John, 144 dominant culture/society. See mainstream culture/society Donovan, Suzanne, 46 Douglass, William, 169 Downey, Douglas B., 63, 70 drop out/dropping out. See attrition Duchene, Marlys, 80 Duda, L. Joan, 26, 190 Dumont, R. V., 48, 49 Dupoux, Errol, 35, 42, 45 Durkheim, Emile, 123, 125–29, 131, 132 Dykeman, Cass, 17 Dynneson, Veria, 181 Earely, Mary, 180 Eberhard, David R., 27 Ecole Normale Supérieure, 125 Eder, Jeanne, 19, 75, 190 Ehle, Maryann, 26 Emmer, T. E., 52 Enemy Way, 115 England, 65 Engstrom, Cathy, 122, 142, 143, 149 Erickson, Frederick, 19, 22, 23, 25, 28, 43, 186 Estrada, L. J., 78 ethnic identity. See cultural identity Etzioni, Amitai, 21 Falk, Dennis, 11, 183, 189 family education model, 208, 219–27 Farris, Elizabeth, 11 federal Indian policy, 6, 164, 166, 218; assimilation, 6, 218; relocation, 166; self-determination, 6, 87; termination, 166 Fenelon, James, 75 Fenton, Beverly, 142 Feuer, Michael J., 4

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First Nation, 179 Fisher, Philip, 83 Fletcher, Matthew, 217, 218, 232 Forbes, Jack, 1, 78, 80, 81, 84, 87, 94 Ford, Donna, 83 Ford Foundation, 219 Fordham, Signithia, 84 Foster, Kevin M., 68, 70 Fox, Sandra, 81, 82 France, 123, 125 Frankfurt School, 210 Freng, Adrienne, 179, 180 Freng, Scott, 179, 180, 182 Frey, Christopher, 81 Frost, L., 80 Gans, Herbert, 21, 22 Garcia, David, 81 Garcia, Ricardo, 80, 81, 184 Garcia-Coll, Cynthia, 17 Garrett, J. T., 39, 181 Garrett, Michael, 24, 25, 28, 30, 38, 39, 46, 54, 175, 176, 181, 182, 194 Garrick-Duhaney, Laurel, M., 46 Gaseoma, Lee, 173, 190, 194 Gay, Geneva, 35 Giddens, Anthony, 7, 8 Ginsberg, Margery B., 49, 52 Glaser, Barney, 152–54 Glatzmaier, L., 178 Goffman, Erving, 7, 22, 66, 168 Goldenstein-Ahler, Janet, 80, 81, 184 Goodstriker, Joyce, 82 Gordon, R., 210 Grande, Sandy, 75, 209, 232 Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa, 217 Grantham, Tarek, 83 Great Britain. See England Grote, Barbara, 180 Guba, Egon, 152 Guild, Pat, 25 Guillory, Raphael, 90, 220, 222, 223, 225, 226 Guilment, G. M., 52

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Index / 255

Habermas, Jürgen, 210 Hallowell, Alfred Irving, 169, 170, 187 Halpin, Gerald, 11 Halpin, Glennelle, 11 Hammond, Helen, 35, 42, 45 Harmon, Maryellen, 77 Harris, Angel, 70 Harvard University, 210 Havana, 169 Haviland, Mark, 181 Heath, Shirely B., 46 HeavyRunner, Iris, 219–24, 226, 232 Heelan, Cynthia, 143 Helling, Mary Kay, 174, 187 Hengstler, Dennis, 149 Henig, Jeffrey, 6 Henze, Rosemary C., 184 Hernandez, Juan, 222, 223 Herring, Roger, 11, 181, 182 Hess, Robert D., 21 Hewett, Edgar Lee, 20 Hilberg, R. Soleste, 47 Hill, Curtis L., 34, 133 Hispanic Americans, 17, 150, 152–54 Horkheimer, Max, 210 Hornett, Danielle, 190 Horse, Perry, 171, 172 Horswill, Richard, 181 Hoyt, Dan, 40, 226 Huberman, Michael, 152 Huffman, Terry, 10, 12, 17, 40, 73, 86, 90, 92, 132–34, 136, 137, 145, 150, 164, 169–71, 173–75, 178, 180, 185–87, 189, 190, 194, 228–30 Hurtado, Sylvia, 121 Hymes, Dell, 22, 23

institutional commitment, 139, 140, 148, 149 institutional departure theory, 121, 151, 153 integration: academic, 13, 15, 128–30, 137, 138, 141–45, 148, 149, 152, 153, 158; social, 13, 15, 126–30, 137, 138, 140–42, 145–50, 152–54, 157, 158 interactionalist theory, xi, 12–15, 121–24, 126, 128, 129, 134–38, 150, 170; assumptions of, 130–42; criticisms of, 147–49; definition of, 129; implications of, 142–47 internal colonialism, 74, 75 invisible culture, 22 involuntary minorities, 69, 70, 85, 90, 100 Isajiw, Wsevolod, W., 169 isolation, 31, 52, 124, 142, 145, 179, 183, 195, 200. See also alienation Ivy League, 218

Indigenous-generated theories, xii, 208 Industrial Revolution, 65 inequality, social, 13, 15, 39, 66, 67, 71, 72, 74, 93, 211 Ingalls, Lawrence, 35, 42, 45, 83

Katz, Michael B., 21 Kellogg Foundation, 219 Kerbo, Harold, 140, 150 Kerivan-Marks, Amy, 17 Kidwell, Clara Sue, 230–32 Kinaaldá, 115

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Jacob, Evelyn, 19 Jacobs, Don T., 48, 49 Jackson, Aaron P., 34, 133, 134, 144, 146 Jalomo, Romero, 147 Japanese, 69 Jencks, Christopher, 21 Jester, Timothy E., 81 Jews, 69, 126, 127 John, Vera, 23, 47 Johnson administration, 21 Jordon, Cathie, 19 Journal of American Indian Education, 1, 165 Juang, Linda P., 176

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256 / Index

King, Joyce E., 27 Kirkness, Verna, 179 Kluckhohn, Clyde, 111, 112 Knipe, Sally, 5 Kosciulek, John F., 46 Kwakuit, 47 LaCounte, Deborah, 19, 190 Lacy, Lyn E., 26 Ladson-Billings, Gloria, 19, 35, 46, 64, 209, 212 LaFromboise, Teresa, 40, 180, 226, 227 Lakota, 190, 191, 198. See also Sioux Lamphere, Louise, 111, 115 Larimore, James, 163, 164, 219 Larson, Dorothy, 88 Larson, Calvin J., 4 Latino Americans. See Hispanic Americans Latino critical race theory, 215 Lauglin, Whitney, 181 Lawrence, Adrea, 81 Lawrence, Charles, 211 learning communities, 142–44 learning styles, 25, 37, 46–48, 51–53 Leaving College (Tinto), 138 LeCompte, Margaret, 28, 99 Ledlow, Susan, 19, 23, 24, 39, 41, 63, 71, 77, 78, 94 Leighton, Dorothea, 111, 112 level of analysis. See theory/theories Levine, Daniel U., 46 Lewin, Kurt, 167, 168, 171, 199 Lewis, Oscar, 20, 166 Lin, Ruey, 19, 142, 180, 189, 190 Lincoln, Yvonna, 152 Lindley, Lorinda, 213, 218 Lintz, Angela, 35 Little Soldier, Lee, 25, 26 Locust, Carol, 81, 82 Lomawaima, K. Tsianina, 84, 87, 95 Lomax, Richard, 77 Lomotey, Kofi, 78 London, 65

10_378_13_Idx.indd 256

Longie, Erich, 224 Longstreet, E., 47 Loré, Richard, 141, 150 Lorraine, France, 125 Lovelace, Sherri, 35, 37 Lower Brule reservation, 195 low teacher expectations, 78, 82–84, 185 Luckmann, Thomas, 7 Luftig, Richard, 17, 52 Lujan, Carol, 74, 75 Lyman, Sanford, 169 Lynch, Regina, 30 Lynn, Marvin, 212, 213 Mackenzie, Noella, 5 Madaus, George, 77 Mainor, Peggy, 220, 222, 223 mainstream: culture/society, 15, 21, 23, 25, 29, 67, 72–74, 77, 78, 80, 81, 85, 100, 116, 132, 133, 136, 140 148, 164, 166, 175, 176, 178, 184, 192, 208, 211, 215, 216, 228, 229; education/ schools, 23–26, 29, 31–33, 35, 45, 46, 52, 53, 67–71, 77, 86, 90, 132, 133, 137, 138, 140, 163, 173, 175, 178, 180, 184–86, 203, 220, 223, 230 Majel-Dixon, Juanita, 86 Malinowski, Bronislaw, 20 Marshall, Kathy, 220, 226 Martin, Robert, 219, 220, 223 Marx, Karl, 65 Maslow’s hierarchy, 93 Matsuda, Mari, 211 McAfee, Mary E., 11, 84, 184 McCarthy, Jane, 47, 48, 52 McCarty, Teresa, 30, 84, 87, 95 McClellan, George, 163, 164, 219 McDermont, Ray P., 33 McGrath, G. D., 1 McIntosh, Peggy, 213 McKenna, Francis, 74, 75, 80, 84 medicine wheel culturally intrinsic research paradigm model, 208, 227, 228

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Index / 257

Mehan, Hugh, 35 Melchior-Walsh, S., 84, 142 Mellow, Gail, 143 Michaels, Sarah, 46 Miles, Matthew B., 152 Miller, A. G., 48 Miller, F., 166 Miller Cleary, Linda, 26, 36, 76, 81, 89–92, 179, 185 Mississippi, 210 Mitchell, Christina M., 11 Mitchum, N. T., 17 Mohatt, Gerald, 22, 25, 43 Montana, 30, 33, 83, 86, 87, 99, 173 Montgomery, Winifred, 46 Moore, Helen, 179, 180 Mormons. See Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Morris, Joann, 220, 226 Mroczka, Mary, 83 multiple communities, 145, 146 Murguía, Edward, 146, 149–51 Murray, Walter, 21 Myers, M., 178 NAACP, 210 Nafstad, Hilde E., 4 Nagel, Joane, 75 National American Indian Education Association, 1 National Enquirer, 107 National Science Foundation, 87, 88 Native American church, 115 Native Canadians. See First Nation Native Hawaiians, 70 Navajo, 37, 38, 47, 48, 86, 93, 97–119, 141, 172 Nel, J., 46, 54 Nelson, J. Ron, 17 New Mexico, 92 New Zealand, 209 No Child Left Behind, 82, 88 Nora, Amaury, 121, 122, 147–49 North Dakota, 195, 196 Northern Cheyenne, 33

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Northern Cheyenne Education Commission, 33 Northern Cheyenne reservation, 33 Nuby, Jackie, 26 O’Connor, John, 181 Ogbu, John, 20, 31, 40, 41, 46, 63–65, 67–72, 74, 77, 78, 84, 85, 90, 94, 100, 116, 180, 190 Okagaki, Lynn, 174, 187 Okamoto, Dina, 35 Oklahoma, 140 Oliver, Lisa, 226 Oosahwe, E. Star L., 146 oppositional culture theory, 63, 64, 70, 85 Oregon, 27 Orenstein, David M., 65, 125 Ortiz, Anna, 223, 224 Oritz, Fernando, 169 Ornstein, Allan C., 46 O’Sullivan, Dominic, 176 Pace, Deborah, 82 Padilla, Raymond, 12, 121, 146, 149–51 Pantages, Timothy J., 122 Paris, 125 Parker, Laurence, 212, 213 Parkin, Frank, 126 Pascarella, Ernie T., 152 Patterson-Lorenzetti, J., 143 Pavel, Michael. See CHiXapkaid Peace Corps, 177, 178 Peacock, Thomas, 26, 36, 48, 49, 76, 81, 89–92, 179, 185 Pepper, Floy, 48 Perrot, Don, 180 persistence, in education, 11, 28, 39, 128, 130, 131, 136–39, 142, 143, 181, 190, 203, 221, 222, 224–26 Pertusati, Linda, 46, 54 Peskin, Alan, 92 Peterson, Dan, 185 Pewewardy, Cornel, 25, 26, 35, 36, 52

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258 / Index

Philips, Susan, 22, 24, 27, 43, 47, 48 phrenology, 5 Pichette, Eugene F., 46, 48, 54 Pidgeon, Michelle, 134, 148, 184–86 Pine Ridge reservation, 198, 199 Plank, Gary, 37, 38, 47, 48, 52, 82 Plunkett, Mark, 11 Popper, Karl, 207 Porteli, John, 212 Portman, Tarrell A., 182 Pottinger, Richard, 84, 95 Powers, Kristin M., 82, 172, 183 Pratt, Richard, 164 primary discontinuities, 71, 180 Princeton Theological Seminary, 67 Protestants, 126, 127 psychology, 11, 126 public administration, 4 Pueblo, 92, 141 Purpel, David E., 6 Pyatskowit, Alfred, 190 Pyatt, Richard, 210 racism, 27, 31, 32, 88, 98, 103–5, 149, 185, 210–12, 214, 215, 217; institutional, 76, 103, 118, 149. See also discrimination Rafter, Nicole H., 5 Rayner, Stephen, 47 Reiterman, Gary, 17 Rendon, Laura, 147 Renn, Kristen, 128 Resolving Social Conflicts (Lewin), 168 Reyhner, Jon, 1, 29, 30, 34, 49, 75, 83, 144 Rider, Richard, 47 rite of passage, 124, 129–131 The Rites of Passage (van Gennep), 124 Ritzer, George, 6, 7 Robert, Lisen, 39 Robinson-Zanartu, Carol, 86 Rodriquez, Liliana, 176 Rohner, R. P., 47 Rosenthal, David A., 46 Rothenberg, Paula, 72

10_378_13_Idx.indd 258

Rousey, Annmarie, 224 Rowe, Wayne, 180 Rural Systematic Initiative, 87–89 Ryan, William, 22 Sacks, Peter, 81 Sadongei, M., 46, 54 Safran, Joan S., 28 Safran, Stephen P., 28 Saint Paul, Minnesota, 36 Salend, J. Spencer, 46 Sand, J., 181 Sanders, Danielle, 11, 12, 33, 35, 43, 84 Sando, J., 190 Schiller, Phyllis, 173, 190, 194 Schwartz, Charles, 183 Schwartz, Seth, 176 Scot, Irving W., 1 Scott, Wilbur, 140, 150, 166, 167, 190, 200 Seaman, Jeff, 143 secondary discontinuities, 71, 72, 180 Selden, Ron, 220, 223 Senese, Guy, 75, 80, 87, 95 Shapiro, H. Svi, 6 Shavelson, Richard J., 4 Shepherd, Jeffrey, 1, 18 Shirely, Valerie J., 46 Shotton, Heather, J., 146 Sill, Maurice, 40, 169, 173, 177, 178, 187, 190 Simons, Herbert, 63 Sioux, 47, 173. See also Lakota Skinner, Rebecca, 11 Sleeter, Christine E., 26 Smith, Linda Tuhiwai, 208, 209 Smith, Steven A., 34, 133 Smythe, Hugh, 21 social cognitive theory, 11 social work, 4, 219, 220, 223 sociology, 4, 9, 65, 72, 74, 123, 125, 126, 167 Solomon, R. Patrick, 212 Solorzano, Daniel, 211

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Index / 259

Sorbonne, 125 South Dakota, 165, 173, 195, 198 special education, 42, 46, 49, 50, 52, 54, 82 Spindler, George, 23 Spindler, Louise, 23 Spradley, James P., 152 St. Germaine, Richard , 2, 17, 19, 24, 33 Stairs, Arlene, 29 standardized testing, 77, 78, 80–82, 84 Standing Rock reservation, 195, 197, 200 Stanford University, 210 Stefanic, Jean, 208, 210–12, 214 Stein, Wayne, 11 Stockton, California, 68 Stoecker, John, 152 Stone, G. P., 169 Storck, Michael, 83 Stough, M., 52 Strand, Joyce A., 48, 49 Strauss, Anselm, 152–54, 192 structural-functionalist theory, 9, 65, 66 structural inequality theory, xi, 12–15, 31, 32, 63–65, 72, 74, 79, 84, 87, 89, 91, 92, 94, 167, 211, 213; assumptions of, 73–86; criticisms of, 91–93; definition of, 73; implications of, 87–91 Stubben, Jerry, 40 student integration theory, 121 suicide: study of, 126–29, 132; types of, 127 Sullivan, Thomas J., 4 Swisher, Karen, 1, 18, 25, 26, 47, 164, 185, 189, 190 Switzerland, 123 symbolic interactionist theory, 65, 66, 167–69 Szasz, Margaret, 75 Tafoya, Terry, 25 Tate, Donald, 183

10_378_13_Idx.indd 259

Tate, William, 19, 209 Taylor, Franci Lynn, 12, 135–37, 144 Taylor, Janis, 142 Taylor, Lorraine S., 36 Tewell, W., 19 Thanksgiving, 30 Tharp, Roland G., 47 theory/theories: competing theories, 9; levels of analysis, 13; macrolevel, 7, 13, 14, 24, 73; microlevel, 7, 13, 14, 24, 85, 170; theoretical perspective, definition of, 3 Thomas, Dorothy S., 66 Thomas, R., 48 Thomas, W. I., 66 Thomas theorem, 66 Thrower, Elizabeth, 26 Thyer, Bruce A., 4 Tierney, William, 122, 129, 134, 140, 147–50 Tinto, Vincent, 121–25, 128–35, 137– 46, 148, 149, 151–54, 157, 158 Tinto’s theory, 121 Tippeconnic, John, 11, 16, 18, 164 Torres-Rivera, Edil, 39 Towne, Lisa, 4 transculturation, 8, 169–71, 173, 175– 80, 202, 230; process of, 174–79, 184, 194, 198, 199, 202 transculturation theory, xi, xiv, 12– 15, 33, 163, 167–69, 187, 189 218, 228, 230; assumptions of, 171–78; criticisms of, 184–86; definition of, 170; hypothesis, 200, 202; implications of, 179–83 transculturation threshold, 196, 200, 201 tribal colleges, 88, 89, 219–24 tribal critical race theory, 208, 210, 215–18 tribal schools, 34, 75, 86, 92 Trubowitz, Sidney, 19 Truijillo, Octaviana, 1, 18 Tsui, Lisa, 189

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260 / Index

Turner, Jonathan H., 4, 7, 8, 208 Turtle Mountain reservation, 196 United States, 46, 67, 69, 70, 72, 74, 177, 178, 210, 212, 215, 227 universal discontinuities, 71 University of Bordeaux, 125 University of California at Berkeley, 68 University of Montana, 219 University of Neuschatel, 123 University of New Mexico, 141 University of Oklahoma, 140 University of Oregon, 210 University of Wyoming, 218 U.S. Department of Education, 46 Ute, 86, 93, 97–100, 102, 104–8, 110, 113, 114, 116–19 Vadas, Robert, 172 van Gennep, Arnold, 123–25, 129–32 Vanett, Laruen, 184 Van Hamme, Linda, 12, 25, 29, 35, 78, 81, 180, 203 Varranti, Richard, 81 Vasquez, J. A., 47 Vasquez, Melba, 78 Vaught, Sabina, 212 Viator, Katherine, 77 Villenas, Sofia, 212 voluntary minorities, 69 voluntary student departure theory, 121 Wald, J., 46 Wallace, Stephen, 30 Wang, Sherry, 176 Ward, Carol, 16, 28, 33, 34, 75, 76 Ward, M., 189 Warm Springs, 27, 28, 47, 48 Warm Springs reservation, 27 War on Poverty, 21 Weitzman, Don, 82

10_378_13_Idx.indd 260

Welner, Kevin, 82 Werner, O., 47 West, Dennis, 189 West Maxwell, Mary, 77 Wetsit, Deborah, 181 Wheeler, Tiffany R., 35, 37 Whiddon, Thomas, 11 Whitbeck, Les, 40, 172, 226 white privilege, 72, 213 White Shield, Rosemary, 12, 163, 175, 184, 187, 227–30, 232 Whitfield, Patricia, 43 Whiting, Gilman, 83 Whittaker, Catharine R., 36 Wicazo Sa Review, 227 Wildcat, Daniel, 6, 12, 18, 84, 164 Wilkinson, Charles, 6, 12, 75, 166 Williamson, D. R., 152 Willis, John, 35 Wilson, Cynthia, 180 Wilson, Janet, 54 Wilson, Peggy, 30–33, 43 Wilson, Waziyatawia A., 75, 209, 232 Winstead, Teresa, 81 Wlodkowski, Raymond J., 49, 52 Wolfe, L. M., 152 Wolverton, Mimi, 90, 220, 222, 223, 225, 226 Wood, Peter, 72, 79, 95 Woodcock, Don, 223 World War I, 123, 125 World War II, 121 Wundt, Wilhelm, 126 Yang, Raymond, 142 Yaqui, 47 Yellow Bird, Michael, 75, 209, 232 Yosso, Tara, 211 Youngman, G., 46, 54 Zamboanga, Byron, 176 Zumwalt, Rosemary, 123

8/23/10 8:29 AM

About the Author

Terry Huffman was born and raised in West Virginia. He attended Marshall University for most of his undergraduate work. At the encouragement of professors Maurice Sill (Marshall University) and Martin Brokenleg (Augusta College) he transferred to the University of South Dakota as a means to make comparisons between Lakota and southern Appalachian culture. After receiving his B.S. in sociology from the University of South Dakota, Huffman returned to Marshall University for his M.A. in sociology. His first scholarly article “College Achievement among Sioux and White Students” published in the Journal of American Indian Education coauthored with Maurice Sill and Martin Brokenleg resulted from his masters’ thesis research. Upon completion of his Ph.D. in sociology from Iowa State University, Huffman held a number of academic positions including Northern State University and the University of North Dakota. His work in American Indian education studies has resulted in over forty scholarly publications and presentations and was recognized by the South Dakota Council for Reconciliation for its contribution toward improved race relations. He is also a former member of the South Dakota Indian Studies

261

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262 / About the Author

Council. Currently Huffman is a professor of education in the Department of Educational Foundations and Leadership where he teaches research methodology in the Doctor of Education program at George Fox University, Newberg, Oregon.

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