Standardizing Indigenous erasure: A TribalCrit and QuantCrit analysis of K–12 U.S. civics and government standards

ABSTRACT

This article details a national study of U.S. K–12 civics and government state-mandated standards, drawing specific attention to how Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty are represented. Utilizing QuantCrit methodologies informed by Tribal Critical Race Theory, this study makes visible colonial logics embedded within state civics and government standards that normalize the erasure of Indigenous nationhood, or that subtly and discursively erase Indigenous nationhood in other ways. Additional attention is also given to states that explicitly affirm contemporary Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty within the standards. By examining the ways state standards erase and/or affirm Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty, our hope is to support Indigenous and allied educators in their collective efforts to transform standards in their respective states to more responsibly reflect and support Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty.

KEYWORDS:

• Civics education
• Indigenous studies
• QuantCrit
• social studies education
• state standards
• TribalCrit

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Ashley Cordes, Rebecca Feller, Michelle Jacob, Meredith McCoy, and Shianne Walker for their encouragement and support of this manuscript.

Notes

1. In this article, we use the terms Native nation, Indigenous nation, and tribal nation interchangeably and intentionally to acknowledge the nationhood of Indigenous peoples. Though the term “tribe” may be imposed and rooted in Eurocentric understandings of Indigenous nationhood, we also recognize that tribe and tribal nation remain important referents for many nations (e.g., The Klamath Tribes, Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation), in part, because “Indian tribes” are named in Article one, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, and many treaties were negotiated with “tribes.” For the purpose of this article and the points we are trying to make with respect to nationhood, we intentionally draw on the discursive power of the term “nation,” using tribe as a standalone referent when used by Native nations or scholars themselves, or when citing specific civics standards.

2. We recognize that some Native students may be descendants, rather than enrolled citizens, of their nations and that not all Native nations are recognized by the U.S. federal government. We also recognize the fraught and complex terrain of identity, belonging, and rights that those who are not enrolled as citizens of their nation or those who belong to unrecognized nations must navigate. The decision of who or who is not a citizen is ultimately up to Native nations, but the landscape of citizenship is constantly changing, and many Native nations are crafting more inclusive definitions and criteria of belonging (i.e., Vizenor & Doerfler, 2012). Moreover, unrecognized nations continue to be successful in their struggles for federal recognition and the restoration of their rightful status as nations. For the purpose of this article, we intentionally foreground the terms citizen and nation to draw attention to the political identities of Native peoples and the political relationship between tribal governments and state and federal governments.

3. We use the term anticolonial, following Patel (2016), to “draw into relief the ways in which settler coloniality must be known to be countered,” a contrast and complement to the term decolonial which “should always address material changes” (p. 7).

4. Following the scholarship of Crenshaw (1991), we do not capitalize white, given that “‘white’ … is not a proper noun, since whites do not constitute a specific cultural group” (p. 1244). See also Hawkman and Shear (2020) whose edited volume also takes an ethical and political stance in refusing the capitalization of white.

5. One pitfall of the triad, according to la paperson (2017), is how it leads to “misconstrued question[s]” such as, “are Black people settlers?” (p. 8). This question elides the “impossibility of settlement” for many Black people, who are routinely positioned through antiblackness as “‘out of place’ on land” (p. 8). la paperson urged us to move beyond simple, binary questions of whether Black people (or other people of color) are settlers, and instead, ask more specific questions, such as “when and where have Black communities [and other communities of color] been settlers? When and where do they cease to be settlers?” (pp. 8–9).

6. Other conceptions of sovereignty beyond political sovereignty (Wilkins & Stark, 2018) include intellectual sovereignty (Warrior, 1992), rhetorical sovereignty (Lyons, 2000), visual sovereignty (Raheja, 2010), and food sovereignty (Whyte, 2016), among others. For more on sovereignty, including Native feminist theories that challenge gendered discourses of sovereignty, see Barker (2005) and Teves et al. (2015).

7. For more on Indigenous legal and political traditions, see Borrows (2000, 2017), L. B. Simpson (2017), Vizenor and Doerfler (2012), and Williams (1997).

8. States varied in how they organize elementary, middle, and high school grade bands. For the purpose of this study, we categorized K-5 as elementary and 6–12 as secondary. For the purpose of this study, and to align our research with Shear et al.’s (2015) prior study, we counted standards as historical if they featured people, nations, events, laws, policies, etc. prior to 1900.

9. These six states were California, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Washington (State), and Wyoming.

10. Each of the standards in Alabama was historical; however, one standard mentioned World War I and, thus, did not meet the pre-1900 cut off. Similarly, both standards addressing Indigenous nationhood in Texas were historical; however, one of the standards addressed the American Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 and so did not meet the pre-1900 cut off.

11. The framing of Native nations primarily as “cultural groups” echoes language used by national organizations, such as the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), which overtly refers to Native nations as groups (i.e., NCSS (2012), which encourages students to study an “American Indian cultural group” (p. 90)), or which more subtly discusses Native peoples/nations within the theme of “culture” (i.e., NCSS, 2010, p. 69), but not the themes of “power, authority, and governance,” or “civic ideals and practices.”

12. Terminology varies, including “Enduring Understandings” in Wisconsin and Oceti Sakowin Essential Understandings in South Dakota, among others.

13. For details on how the report determined “Native American Opportunity States” and assigned ranking scores, see the “Methodology” section (NCAI, 2019, pp. 11–15). In general, levels of implementation and support were determined through a literature review, informant interviews, and a survey, which asked about state policies and resources, levels of collaboration with tribal governments, and curriculum implementation efforts, which were then compiled into a ranking system and to determine “Native American Opportunity States.” “States were then ranked on a scale of 0–4 based on their answers to questions in each of the three areas, with a higher score meaning more substantial Native American education resources or efforts are in place” (NCAI, 2019, p. 13).

14. NCSL (2020) offered the following explanation for how they determine which state/federally recognized tribal nations to count: The following state-by-state listing of Indian tribes or groups are federally recognized and eligible for funding and services from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), there are currently 574 federally recognized tribes. For more information on federally recognized tribes, click here. The list also includes Indian tribes or groups that are recognized by the states, when the state has established such authority. This acknowledges their status within the state but does not guarantee funding from the state or the federal government. State-recognized Indian tribes are not federally recognized; however, federally recognized tribes may also be state-recognized. (para. 1).

15. One could argue that sovereignty, as a Western concept strategically appropriated by Indigenous peoples to further their own struggles for land and rights, is an enclosure of Indigenous epistemologies, or that advocacy for Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty within states civics standards is an enclosure given “how it proceeds within this prestructured and thus enclosing structure of education” (Richardson, 2011, p. 337). This study values Indigenous advocacy for civics standards that reflect Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty while recognizing that Indigenous theories and practices of civics exceed these concepts.