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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Community-based prevention education on abusive head trauma in a Montana Native American community
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Nursing, 2019) Schmitt, Emily Marie; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Sandra Kuntz
This scholarly project cultivated a partnership with a Montana Native American community to develop an implementation method of an evidence-based, abusive-head-trauma-prevention education program. The partnering community felt that more could be done to prevent abusive head trauma. Utilizing the framework of Community-Based Participatory Research and the Rural Nursing Theory, this project identified the best available evidence and then developed multiple methods to implement this prevention material. Multiple lessons were learned and important reflections developed from the project process. These lessons can be utilized to guide future projects. A model for program implementation was developed for future use and implementation of the evidence-based, abusive-head-trauma-prevention program.
Piikani School leadership
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Education, Health & Human Development, 2018) Hall, Omaksaakoomapi Bradford Roy; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: William Ruff
This dissertation focuses on Piikani school leadership as shared through the narratives and experiences of a retired school leader. Noonaki's experiences chronicle her longevity in school leadership and steadfast commitment to integrating the Piikani culture and language into the schools she led on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Noonaki's stories provide a realistic view of school leadership challenges she faced and offer her thought provoking knowledge to inspire current and aspiring school leaders to accept the Piikani values into their practices. School leaders are key to advancing Piikani values, culture, and language into the schools they serve on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Therefore, school leaders when developing relevant leadership practices, are called upon to commit themselves to practice ai-sii-moki' (guidance, teaching, and discipline), as they encounter and mitigate challenges among community stakeholders, specifically focusing on how they each can support student success. Through Noonaki's transfer of knowledge from her to the researcher, this exchange encapsulates her experiences into stories, told in the places where she practiced school leadership. Community Centered Digital Storywork (CCDS), is an integrated Piikani knowledge dissemination framework, that leverages cultural protocols to capture Piikani ways of knowing. Noonaki inspires current and aspiring school leaders to build their skills and practices around the Piikani values of okamotsitapiyiisin (honesty), ainnakowe (respect), aahsitapiitsin (generosity), waattosin (spirituality), matsisskii or iiyiikittahpii (courage), maanistapaisspipii (humility), and kimmapiiyipitsinni (compassion).
The current state of Diné bizaad
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2016) Pearson, Fox Chancellor; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Matthew Herman
Diné Bizaad, also known as the Navajo language, is the most common Native American language in the United States. In his research for this thesis, Fox Chancellor Pearson seeks to ascertain for himself the current state of Diné Bizaad. Pearson combines his own observations, living and working both on and bordering the Navajo Nation, with input gathered during interviews with Diné people from diverse walks-of-life. Pearson concludes that Diné Bizaad is still alive and well among Diné elders, but it is in rapid decline among the younger generation.
Protective factors that enhance the resilience of American Indian students in graduating from urban high schools
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Education, Health & Human Development, 2017) McCarthy, Glenda Anne; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Christine Rogers Stanton
The purpose of this research was to explore protective factors that strengthen the innate resilience of American Indian students who seek to graduate from urban high schools. A collective case study using Community Based Participatory Research and decolonizing methodologies was conducted with three co-researchers who graduated from a Montana urban high school in 2014 or 2015. Data sources included a series of three in depth interviews with each co-researcher and scrapbooks they created to document their high school years and protective factors. One family focus group provided an additional data source. Analysis reveals the importance of family and cultural protective factors, including the knowledge of tribal histories. Another protective factor is Montana's multicultural mandate, Indian Education for All, when implemented with culturally responsive pedagogy. Co-researchers benefitted from caring teachers who maintained high standards. Further protective factors were school and district based programs that supported student achievement, connected Native families with schools and celebrated, sustained or revitalized Native culture in urban high schools.
Developing an Alaska studies resource library : a pilot project designed to enhance future native leadership in rural Alaska
(Montana State University - Bozeman, 1987) Crangle, Charles Linter; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Richard L. Haines
The Urban Indian community of Minneapolis, Minnesota : an analysis of educational achievements, housing conditions, and health care from the relocation of 1952 to today
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2004) Zimmerman, Leslie Ann; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Alexandra New Holy
This thesis critically evaluates the improvements in educational achievements, housing conditions, and health care needs for the urban Indian population of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I specifically focus on the Relocation Policy and how that Policy, instead of assimilating American Indians into mainstream society, became a vehicle for elevating the population of American Indians in Minneapolis to a level of “visibility.” As well, I discuss how this once “invisible” urban community formed an urban coalition, the American Indian Movement (AIM), to actively seek social justices in education, housing, and health care for the urban Indian population of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The intent of the research is to determine whether the extensive funding and programs directed toward the urban Indian population of Minneapolis throughout the last four decades have brought about significant improvements; to determine the degree of, and changes in educational achievements, housing conditions, and health needs of the urban Indian population of Minneapolis, Minnesota. This project is the first evaluation of whether conditions within the urban Indian community of Minneapolis have improved since Relocation. I think this project was needed to critically evaluate a metro area like Minneapolis that has such an extensive history of programs and funding for the urban Indian population.
Tribal education : a case study of Northern Cheyenne elders
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Education, Health & Human Development, 1994) Rowland, Franklin Clay
Perceptions of Native American women in college of the impact of the teachers' attitudes and the classroom environment on their K-12 learning
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Education, Health & Human Development, 1999) Parker, Koleen
Tribal education : a case study of Blackfeet elders
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Education, Health & Human Development, 1997) Still Smoking, Dorothy M.
Piety, politics, and profit : American Indian missions in the colonial colleges
(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Education, Health & Human Development, 1985) Wright, Bobby
The royal charters which sanctioned the settlement of the American colonies invariably expressed as their primary purpose the propagation of Christianity among the American Indians. Throughout the colonial period, the English viewed education as a primary means to accomplish this pious mission. The purpose of this study was to examine critically the educational Indian missions in the colonial colleges. In doing so, this investigation employed ethnohistorical perspectives and methodology in examining the institutional experiments at Henrico, Virginia, Harvard College, the College of William and Mary, and Dartmouth College, spanning a period from the early seventeenth to the late eighteenth centuries. The study found that, while the colonial educators professed their own piety as if this were their singular motivation, they capitalized on the charitable impulses of the pious English and on the opportunities which the charity presented in furthering other political and economic interests. This investigation also established that mixed motives led to diversions from the purposes for which money had been collected and further that this was a primary cause of the ultimate failure of these/ educational experiments. In revealing that missions in the colonial colleges were not expressions of unblemished piety, this study has confronted the declarations espoused in the early records and much of the later historical literature, thus enhancing the growing body of ethnohistorical scholarship on Indian-white relations during the colonial period, while simultaneously offering a fresh insight into the origins of higher education in America.

Native American Studies

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