Native American Studies

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/51

The Department of Native American Studies was established to provide and advance quality education for and about American Indians of Montana, the region, and the nation. In fulfilling this mission, the Department is committed to meet the changing needs of Montana's Indian tribes and all Montana citizens through excellence in teaching, research, and service. In its academic program, the department provides concentrated study through an undergraduate minor, the first online graduate certificate in Native American Studies offered, and a Master of Arts degree in Native American Studies. Students in any major can also gain a multicultural perspective through NAS offerings in the University's core curriculum. The Department, through its research and other creative efforts, actively pursues interdisciplinary scholarship in the field of Native American Studies.

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Author: search.filters.author.Stanton, Christine RogersStart date: 1960

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Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Educational Manifest Destiny: Exclusion, Role Allocation, and Functionalization in Reservation Bordertown District Admission Policies
    (2019-02) Stanton, Christine Rogers
    Towns that border American Indian reservations provide important contexts for studying relationships between educational institutions and marginalized communities. This study applies critical discourse methodologies to evaluate policies from districts bordering reservations, districts geographically distant from reservations, and districts located on reservations. Broadly, the study addresses the question, How do school admission policies perpetuate settler-colonialism? Findings reveal bordertown discourse that excludes Indigenous epistemologies, restricts self-determination, and defines the function of knowledge and peoples to reinforce Eurocentric power structures. The study offers implications for policy makers, district leaders, and community members working to enhance equity, particularly given increased pressure for school choice expansion.
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    The Digital Storywork Partnership: Community-centered social studies to revitalize Indigenous histories and cultural knowledges
    (2018-09) Stanton, Christine Rogers; Hall, Brad; Carjuzaa, Jioanna
    Indigenous communities have always cultivated social studies learning that is interactive, dynamic, and integrated with traditional knowledges. To confront the assimilative and deculturalizing education that accompanied European settlement of the Americas, Montana has adopted Indian Education for All (IEFA). This case study evaluates the Digital Storywork Partnership (DSP), which strives to advance the goals of IEFA within and beyond the social studies classroom through community-centered research and filmmaking. Results demonstrate the potential for DSP projects to advance culturally revitalizing education, community connectedness, and identity-development. The DSP offers a model for social studies education that is not only culturally affirming and revitalizing for Indigenous communities, but also holds potential for use in all communities. We conclude with recommendations for educators, scholars, and community members engaged in similar efforts.
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    Let His Voice Be Heard: A Community's Response to Inclusion of an Indigenous Counter-Narrative in the District Curriculum
    (2017-10) McCarthy, Glenda A.; Stanton, Christine Rogers
    Curricular counter-narratives can affirm the experiences of marginalized youth, but, given their complexity and unfamiliarity, they can also generate discord between community members. This case study analyzes documents, observations, and interviews to explore ways an Indigenous counter-narrative can create space for multicultural education within a Montana school district. The findings demonstrate both positive and negative community responses to the focus novel, the importance of teaching about context and multiple perspectives, and the potential for student agency and social action. The results also provide cautionary notes about the complexity of critical pedagogy and the importance of community consultation.
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    Beyond the Margins: Evaluating the Support for Multicultural Education within Teachers' Editions of U.S. History Textbooks
    (2015-11) Stanton, Christine Rogers
    Although previous research has described analysis of history textbooks in terms of multicultural education, limited attention has been given to teacher only resources, such as the “wraparound features” of teachers' editions. The study highlighted in this article applies critical discourse analysis to explore the potential for teachers' editions to support multicultural education. Teachers' editions of five U.S. history textbooks demonstrate the tendency for textbook authors to position Native peoples as invisible, as the savage Other, and as actors of the past. Additionally, teachers' editions privilege White settler and economically-motivated narratives, which suggests that conflict between Native peoples and settlers was a matter of destiny. Less frequently, wraparound features encourage critical thinking about dominant culture narratives and actors. The results demonstrate that today's teachers' editions frequently marginalize Indigenous peoples, experiences, and histories both spatially and literally through uncritical acceptance of the dominant culture narrative (i.e., “business as usual”) or assimilationist orientations (i.e., “teaching the culturally different” or “human relations”). The article concludes with implications for scholarly practice and classroom pedagogy.
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    Listening to the community: Guidance from Native community members for emerging culturally responsive educators
    (2010-05) Stanton, Christine Rogers; Jaime, Angela M.
    Critical race theory (CRT) emphasizes the importance of listening to the counter-narratives of people from marginalized groups. However, the applicability of CRT in practical settings often remains unclear for educators and scholars. This project offers not only a place for Native community members to share their experiences and ideas, it also provides practical guidance for emerging culturally responsive educators and ways to use themes from narratives to guide future scholarship. As a result of interviews with five Native community members, three themes emerged for non-Native educators working in Native communities: (a) learning from the community, (b) transforming thinking through discomfort, and (c) gaining awareness of positive values. These themes can be used to guide future projects, including reservation-based field experiences and research projects exploring educator thinking in reservation communities.
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    Hearing the Story: Critical Indigenous Curriculum Inquiry and Primary Source Representation in Social Studies Education
    (2012-10) Stanton, Christine Rogers
    Although primary source accounts provide students with direct access to the experiences of historical participants, they can reinforce the dominant culture historical narrative if misrepresented by teachers, curriculum publishers, or scholars. The author demonstrates the importance of adhering to guidelines presented by critical Indigenous scholars when evaluating resources that incorporate primary accounts attributed to Native Americans. To illustrate the potential for critical Indigenous theory to inform curricular decision making, the author analyzed three resources that incorporate Chief Joseph's surrender speech according to: (a) their respect of Native peoples, (b) their recognition of discursive positionality, and (c) their honoring of the complexity of Native knowledge systems. Results demonstrate the potential for social studies resources, even those that include accounts from historically marginalized peoples, to reinforce the hidden curriculum, to position peoples using discourse, and to perpetuate the myth of objectivity in historical inquiry. Implications for scholarship and teaching practice are included.
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    Crossing Methodological Borders: Decolonizing Community-Based Participatory Research
    (2013-10) Stanton, Christine Rogers
    To advance socially just research, scholars—including those who utilize qualitative methodologies—must confront the colonizing reputation that frames such work in Indigenous communities. This article explores the potential for Community-Based Participatory Research to guide the re-envisioning of mainstream conceptions of scholarly control to cross epistemological borders between theory and practice. A project that endeavored to engage Native participants throughout the research process provides context for the discussion of ongoing challenges and emerging possibilities. This work holds implications for participatory research design and implementation in cross-cultural contexts, especially as connected to shifting decolonizing theory to practice.
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    The Curricular Indian Agent: Discursive Colonization and Indigenous (Dys)Agency in U.S. HistoryTextbooks
    (2014-12) Stanton, Christine Rogers
    In the 1800s and early 1900s, the United States assigned Indian Agents—non-Native employees of the federal government—to coordinate intergovernmental efforts, to encourage the assimilation of Native peoples into European-American society, and to serve as advocates for individual tribes. Although Indian Agents no longer exist in an official capacity in the United States, the potentially contradictory expectations that informed their work continue to influence communities across the country. Instead of decolonizing education, today's curricular agents typically misrepresent the historical and future agency of Native peoples while reinforcing the patronizing, normative, dominant-culture narrative. This article outlines the critical discourse analysis of five widely adopted U.S. history textbooks, as situated within the broader scope of textbook research and emerging educational movements. Findings show that textbook authors and other curricular agents use strategies of exclusion and passivation to control the historical and curricular agency of Indigenous peoples. Given the influence of educational reform efforts such as those related to the Common Core Standards, now is the critical time to retheorize curriculum design and inquiry as dialogic, dynamic, transformational, and agentive processes. The project's conclusions demonstrate the need to confront the biases of curricular agents in order to guide the decolonization of curriculum materials.
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