Self‐determination through self‐education: culturally responsive schooling for Indigenous students in the USA

Abstract

In this article, we outline culturally responsive schooling (CRS) for Indigenous youth and situate this concept within a larger history of US federal and community‐based efforts to educate Indigenous youth in the USA. We examine what we know from the research literature about the impacts of CRS among US Indigenous youth. In exploring the research, we rely on national datasets of Indigenous youth's achievement on standardized tests, qualitative approaches to examining CRS in schools serving Indigenous youth in the USA, and case studies of successful efforts at CRS. We pay special, though not exclusive, attention to the evidence regarding Indigenous students' reading and literacy skills since this is an area that is particularly revealing of what happens when CRS is not engaged. We will argue throughout this paper that a growing body of literature points to the fact that community‐ and culture‐based education best meets the educational needs of Indigenous children.

Keywords:

• Indigenous education
• culturally responsive schooling
• culture
• self‐determination

Notes

1. We intentionally capitalize Indigenous in this article, although APA suggests that indigenous is “correct”. Our intent here is to note the political nature of this word and the role of human rights where Indigenous peoples across the world are concerned. Although we limit our discussion in this article to Indigenous peoples of the USA, we stand in solidarity with Indigenous peoples globally.

2. Throughout this article, we will use American Indian, Alaska Native, American Indian/Alaska Native, Native or Native American, and Indigenous interchangeably. We are fully aware of the wide range and variation among the 500 tribal nation groups in the USA. The purpose of this article, however, is to offer an overview of the literature that addresses these groups broadly.

3. Although most of the literature references the goal of students becoming “bicultural” and able to “walk in two worlds”, we are cautious in our use of this language because of the way it obscures the complexity and multiplicity of the actual experiences and goals of many Indigenous youth and tribal communities.

4. DIBELS and SAT‐10 are two different assessments used to measure students' reading proficiency. DIBELS was initially developed to be used with “non‐readers” before formal reading instruction occurred in school to identify which students might be at‐risk for reading failure. However, it is now widely used in the early elementary grades to assess students' proficiency in reading‐related tasks, and it allows educators to compare students' performance against benchmarks. It measures specific, discrete skills that are correlated to reading proficiency such as sounding out words (both real words and nonsense words) and letter identification. The SAT‐10 is the Stanford Achievement Test series and includes a number of subtests that measure students' proficiency in similar skills related to reading.