Factors Influencing Young American Indian / Alaska Native ’ s Academic Achievement : A Preliminary Indigenous Sociological Analysis (original) (raw)
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American Journal of Education, 2011
There have been numerous calls to increase quantitative studies examining the role of culturally responsive schooling (CRS) on American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) achievement. The National Indian Education Study (NIES) is the only large-scale study focused on (AIAN) students’ cultural experiences within the context of schools. Given that NIES also includes achievement on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), it has the potential to inform and guide policy directed specifically toward AIAN students. To examine ways NIES might potentially inform policy, the present study examined the degree to which AIAN student experiences as reflected in NIES are associated with achievement on NAEP. We then examined NIES against a CRS framework and found that NIES could inform policy to the detriment of AIAN students.
Traditional Culture and Academic Success among American Indian Children in the Upper Midwest
This research examines factors affecting school success for a sample of 196 fifth-eighth grade American Indian children from three reservations in the upper Midwest. The regression model included age, gender, family structure, parent occupation and income, maternal warmth, extracurricular activities, enculturation, and self-esteem. The results indicate that traditional culture positively affects the academic performance of fifth-eighth grade children. The bivariate correlation between enculturation and self-esteem was nonsignificant and there was no significant interaction between enculturation and self-esteem indicating that enculturation was directly associated with school success. The findings are discussed in terms of resiliency effects of enculturation for American Indian children.
2020
Dr. Huffman recounts what he has learned researching American Indian education for more than three decades. He discusses cultural discontinuity theory, structural inequality theory, and critical race theory that have proved useful analytical tools for achieving understanding on the complexities of Native American education and describes. He then gives evidence for tranculturation theory, which refers to the process by which Native student can journey through mainstream-dominant educational institution while building on his/her tribal identity and heritage and simultaneously learning the cultural nuances necessary to thrive and succeed. During the transculturation process students come to rely on and expand upon a strong tribal identity to anchor their personal values, direction, and goals.
American Indians and Alaska Natives in Higher Education: Promoting Access and Achievement
1998
This chapter draws on an extensive literature review to examine factors that influence the access and achievement of American Indians and Alaska Natives in higher education. American Indians are less likely to attend college than other U.S. ethnic groups. This underrepresentation is partly due to precollege attributes: low scores on college admissions tests, relatively low completion of high school core curriculum requirements, and failure to meet other college admissions criteria. Other, perhaps more important, influences on American Indian postsecondary access are school and environmental attributes: lack of qualified Native educators, lack of culturally relevant curriculum, poverty, and family problems. Once in college, American Indians are more likely than other students to attend a 2-year college and are underrepresented among those who have completed a bachelor's degree. Native graduation and persistence rates are also consistently lower than those of the general student population. To promote satisfactory transition from high school to college, governments and colleges must promote K-16 partnerships with tribal communities to elevate the overall level of precollege academic preparation and postsecondary aspirations of American Indian students. Culturally-specific academic and student support services, mentoring programs, and sufficient financial aid are needed once the student gets into college. Tribal colleges are exemplary in developing recruitment, retention, and supportive campus environments, and many non-Indian institutions have also strived to meet the needs of Native students and communities. Contains tables, and endnotes and 71 references.
School Psychology International, 2013
We examined the role of cultural representations of self (i.e., interdependence and independence) and positive relationships (i.e., trust for teachers) in academic performance (i.e., self-reported grades) for Native American ( N = 41) and European American ( N = 49) high school students. The Native American students endorsed marginally more interdependent representation of self and marginally less trust for teachers than did the European American students. While interdependent representations of self and trust for teachers were positively related for the Native American students, neither cultural representations of self were related to trust for teachers for the European American students. However, with respect to academic performance, interdependent representations of self and trust for teachers were positively related to academic performance for the Native American students. Conversely, independent and interdependent representations of self were positively related to academic perf...
Daedalus, 2018
American Indian/Alaska Native education – the training for life of children, adolescents, and adults – has been locked in battle for centuries with colonial schooling, which continues to the present day. Settler societies have used schools to “civilize” Indigenous peoples and to train Native peoples in subservience while dispossessing them of land. Schools are the battlegrounds of American Indian education in which epistemologies, ontologies, axiologies, pedagogies, and curricula clash. In the last century, Native nations, communities, parents, and students have fought tenaciously to maintain heritage languages and cultures – their ways of being in the world – through Indigenous education and have demanded radical changes in schools. Contemporary models of how educators are braiding together Indigenous education and Indigenous schooling to better serve Native peoples provide dynamic, productive possibilities for the future.
Dissertation, 2006
Multiple regression was performed to examine how well need satisfaction predicted the G.P.A. and well being scores of American Indian college students. In addition, open ended questions asked students about perceived contributions and barriers to academic success. Participants were 76 American Indian college students who were currently attending or had recently graduated from college in Oklahoma. Results indicated that need satisfaction was not a good predictor of G.P.A. or well being, but the results of paired samples t tests and qualitative questions revealed that relatedness played a central role in high school and college success, and both relatedness and competence played key roles in college success. Furthermore, the results of qualitative data indicated that relatedness and competence played major roles in perceived barriers to academic success.