American Indian Education

Self-determination, a crucial concept in American Indian social and educational policy and the force behind Indian policy programs, is assessed here and found wanting. The volume contends that many aspects of this policy impulse are contradictory. Senese, looking at an area largely neglected by scholars of American educational policy, explores the discrepancy between the rhetoric of self-determination and its reality in Native American social settings. This study is rigorous in its analysis of the development, implementation, and language of this policy and unique in its critical perspective.

This revised edition provides an overview of American Indian/Alaska Native education from 1928 to 1998.

A Place To Be Navajo is the only book-length ethnographic account of a revolutionary Indigenous self-determination movement that began in 1966 with the Rough Rock Demonstration School. Called Dine Bi'olta', The People's School, in recognition of its status as the first American Indian community-controlled school, Rough Rock was the first to teach in the Native language and to produce a body of quality children's literature by and about Navajo people. These innovations have positioned the school as a leader in American Indian and bilingual/bicultural education and have enabled school participants to wield considerable influence on national policy. This book is a critical life history of this singular school and community.

Drawn from Native American autobiographical accounts, a study revealing white society's program of civilizing Indian schoolchildren.

'The author's detailed analysis of two centuries of federal policy makes The Great Father indispensable reading for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of American Indian policy.' - Journal of American History.

The Native American Higher Education Initiative (NAHEI), a W.W. Kellogg Foundation project, has supported the development and growth of centers of excellence at Tribal Colleges and Universities across the United States. These are centers of new thinking about learning and teaching, modeling alternative forms of educational leadership, and constructing new systems of post-secondary learning at Tribal Colleges and Universities. This book translates the knowledge gained through the NAHEI programs into a form that can be adapted by a broad audience, including practitioners in pre-K through postsecondary education, educational administrators, educational policymakers, scholars, and philanthropic foundations, to improve the learning and life experience of native (and non-native) learners.

As the first ethnohistory of modern urban Indians, this perceptive study looks at Indians from many tribes living in cities throughout the United States. Fixico has had unparalleled access to Native Americans, particularly their contemporary oral tradition. Through first-hand observations, interviews, and conventional historical sources, he has been able to assess the major impact urbanisation has had on Indians and see how they have come to terms with both the negative and enriching aspects of living in cities. The result is an insightful and empathetic account of how Indian identity is sustained in cities. Fixico offers a new view of urban Indians, one centred on questions of how their modern identity emerges and perseveres. He shows how the corrosive effects of cultural alienation, alcoholism, poor health services, unemployment, and ghetto housing are slowly being overcome, particularly since the 1970s. After fifty years of urban experiences, Native Americans living in cities are better able today than at any other time to balance tradition and modernity.