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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Item Educating for Sustainability in Remote Locations(National Rural Education Association, 2019-07) Reading, Chris; Khupe, Constance; Redford, Morag; Wallin, Dawn; Versland, Tena; Taylor, Neil; Hampton, PatrickAt a time when social, economic and political decisions, along with environmental events, challenge the viability of remote communities, educators need to better prepare young people in these communities to work towards sustainability. Remote locations can be defined by their inaccessibility rather than just distance from the nearest services, while the sustainability construct encapsulates a range of community needs: environmental, social, cultural and economic. This paper describes experiences that involve innovative approaches towards educating for sustainability in remote locations in six diverse countries: South Africa, Scotland, Canada, United States of America, Pacific Island Nations, and Australia. For each, the nature of what constitutes a “remote” location, as well as the detail and challenges of the innovation are presented. Readers should consider how they might more suitably educate the next generation to protect, showcase and learn from/with the local knowledges and capacities of the people and environments in remote locations.Item Educational Manifest Destiny: Exclusion, Role Allocation, and Functionalization in Reservation Bordertown District Admission Policies(2019-02) Stanton, Christine RogersTowns 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.Item The Digital Storywork Partnership: Community-centered social studies to revitalize Indigenous histories and cultural knowledges(2018-09) Stanton, Christine Rogers; Hall, Brad; Carjuzaa, JioannaIndigenous 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.Item Measuring work conditions for teachers of American Indian students(2008) Erickson, Joanne L.; Terhune, M. Neil; Ruff, William G.The purpose of this study was to re-validate the Quality of Teacher Work Life Survey (QTWLS) with a population of 404 teachers in Montana schools with predominant American Indian student enrollments; and to describe the job-related stress and satisfaction of those teachers. Factor analysis showed nine satisfaction and eight stress factors with this population compared to eleven satisfaction and 10 stress factors in Pelsma, Richard, and Harrington’s (1989) original study with primarily Caucasian teachers and students. Knowledge of these results on the QTWLS could lead to interventions that contribute to an improved work life for teachers of American Indian students and increased learning among the students.Item Identity, heritage and achievement: Comparative case study of effective education in Indian country(2014) Ruff, William G.A comparative case study design sought to determine how effective schools on Indian Reservations infuse local epistemologies into leadership practices. The converging themes fit a Social Identity Theory model. The leader identity was deeply rooted in the community and the values of the school were beginning to reshape community norms.Item Social justice leadership for American Indian sovereignty: A model for principal preparation(2015-12) Henderson, David; Ruff, William G.; Carjuzaa, JioannaThe Indian Leadership Education and Development project (ILEAD) at Little Bighorn Tribal College and Montana State University did not begin with an intentional focus on social justice; this article tracks the evolution of the program to becoming a model for indigenously sensitive/culturally responsive preparation for K-12 school leaders. Beginning with a U.S. Department of Education grant in 2006 and after three iterations, the program has trained over 70 American Indian school administrators serving Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota and Wyoming. Despite the program's success in preparing school leaders for historically underserved reservations and other schools across Indian country, the program has not achieved success without significant transformation from a dominant society, western academy, typical educational leadership program to becoming a program sensitive to Indigenous ways of being/ knowing but actually honoring and recognizing how these American Indian ontologies/epistemologies made the program stronger for all students - Indian and non-Indian.Item Redefining and decolonizing philanthropy in American Indian communities(2016) Carjuzaa, Jioanna; Ruff, William G.; Henderson, DavidThis review article critically analyzed patterns of American Indian philanthropy that persist in Montana to determine the meaning of doing with people as opposed to doing to or doing for people. We contextualized successful and innovative educational philanthropic efforts in Montana, a rural state in northwestern United States, by describing both the challenges and successes when American Indians and non-Natives collaborate. The basis of this review comes from a content analysis of information distributed by philanthropic foundations and organizations that serve American Indian communities in Montana and is framed by existing literature on philanthropy which includes writings by American Indian educators and social justice activists as well as social science research. Regarding author positionality, we are non-Native academics who have more than 50 years combined experience working with and learning from American Indian community members. The review explored how American Indian and non-Native philanthropic organizations have worked with American Indian communities to support decolonizing projects that facilitate Indigenous nation-building. Our recommendations highlight an acceptance that Westernized definitions of philanthropy are not universal and cultural humility is essential to the success of projects that enhance American Indian sovereignty.Item American Indian English Language Learners: Misunderstood and under-served(2016-09) Carjuzaa, Jioanna; Ruff, William G.English Language Learners (ELLs) represent the fastest growing segment of pre-K-12 students in the United States. Currently, Montana has the highest percentage of ELLs who are American Indian/Alaska Native. Although there is tremendous linguistic diversity among students, more than 80% of ELLs in the US speak Spanish as their first language. This is not the case in Montana, where 80% of ELLs are American Indians who do not necessarily speak their heritage languages; yet, their academic English skills are inadequate to support content mastery. Students whose first language is an American Indian language and who are learning English as a second language (ESL) are easier to identify as ELLs. Students who do not speak a heritage language but have not acquired academic English proficiency are harder to identify. This unique group of ELLs had their English acquisition framed by parents/grandparents or guardians themselves who were ELLs who did not fully acquire Standard English and currently speak and model a non-standard or non-academically proficient variety of English. Recommendations for how to broaden policy perspectives to facilitate comprehensive educational support for the full range of culturally and linguistically diverse American Indians in all classrooms are highlighted.Item When western epistemology and an indigenous worldview meet: Culturally responsive assessment in practice(2010) Carjuzaa, Jioanna; Ruff, William G.There exists a natural tension between standards-based assessment and a multicultural perspective of assessment. The purpose of this paper was to examine issues of culturally-sensitive assessment, specifically within the context of preparing a female American Indian doctoral candidate in Educational Leadership. How does an instructor with a Western worldview fairly evaluate a research topic proposal written from an Indigenous paradigm? A case study design bounded by a single assignment and the instructor’s reflections of that assignment provided the context for examination. When the instructor and the student operate from different worldviews, there is a mismatch in expectations. Criteria for evaluating a student’s understanding from an alternative perspective need to be explored.Item Beyond the Margins: Evaluating the Support for Multicultural Education within Teachers' Editions of U.S. History Textbooks(2015-11) Stanton, Christine RogersAlthough 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.