A HISTORICAL CASE STUDY OF THE ARIKARA, HIDATSA, AND MANDAN INDIANS AT HAMPTON NORMAL AND AGRICULTURAL INSTITUTE, VIRGINIA, 1878-1911 By Nancy E. Jones-Oltjenbruns, Ph.D. A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2012 Director: Maike I. Philipsen, PhD Professor, School of Education Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute played a role in the education of American Indians. This facet of American Indians education was examined through the lives of Arikara, Hidatsa, and Mandan students from the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. The Three Affiliated Tribes’ students attended Hampton between 1878 and 1911. The federal government generally viewed American Indians as a problem so efforts were made to assimilate them into the majority culture. Education was a component of that process. The lack of knowledge about the Plains Indians contributed to their selection for this study. Lesser known tribes do not have a prominent place in the scholarship on 19th century Indian education. This study contributes to the literature by providing historical evidence related to the Fort Berthold Reservation students. The majority of teachers who instructed Indian students were non-Indian, but it was important for them to understand the specifics of Indian culture. Early staff at Hampton thought of themselves as civilizers, missionaries, and teachers. When the doors of Hampton opened, it was the role of staff to instruct the African American students in those skills that would allow them to advance in the White world. This was the same mandate regarding American Indians. The staff was instrumental in every aspect of American Indian education. Although Indian students including the Fort Berthold students never gained equal standing with African Americans or Whites on campus, they acquired a level of acceptance by staff and students. Views of Indian students toward staff, their education, school, and fellow students varied. There were members of the Fort Berthold Reservation who appreciated their education at Hampton, while some students did not complete their educational endeavors. Generally, Fort Berthold students learned skills that would be useful upon their return home. The Indian students felt they had an obligation to their people and that education was more than groundwork for their own prosperity. While education could provide a respectable living, the Fort Berthold Reservation students had a responsibility to teach those back on the reservation.

In recent years, increasing numbers of Indigenous communities in the United States have embraced charter schools as an alternative to traditional federal, district and parochial schools. Often this has been part of an effort begun to further such goals as language and cultural preservation, improved educational programs, and community control of schooling. This study presents, through a single qualitative, ethnographic case study, a detailed portrait of one urban, Indigenous-serving charter school with primary focus on graduates' educational experiences and an exploration of its meaning for them. A portrait of the school is presented, including: the school's history; its mission, goals, objectives; its organizational framework; its curriculum and instructional practices; and its structure and support services. Demographic information about the school's graduates is included. Next the alumni experience is explored in depth. Findings include alumni perceptions of their relationships with staff, alumni perceptions of the curriculum and instruction at the school, and alumni perceptions of school climate. Finally, the characteristics of the schooling occurring at the case site are described in light of the theoretical framework of the study which is based on Jim Cummins' (1989, 1992, 2000) theory concerning empowerment of minority students and the concept of subtractive and additive schooling as described by Angela Valenzuela (1999). Lessons from the case site are also considered more broadly in terms of the challenges and possibilities of Indigenous-serving charter schools in the current educational context.

Research has noted the persistence of hostile campus environments for underrepresented college students. However, Native and Indigenous students continue to be one of the most understudied populations within higher education, particularly as it relates to their campus experience and ways in which they navigate institutional climates. In addition to illuminating the campus climates Native students face at predominantly White institutions, this dissertation examines the impact that Indigenous cultural centers have on their overall campus experience and persistence. As the primary method, it draws on 12 semi-structured interviews with Indigenous students at a predominately White institution within the Southeast United States. Findings from this study demonstrate the systemic colonization which exists in higher education through the analysis of microaggressions students regularly face. Unique to Native students, these were most often laden with narratives of erasure. However, in the face of less-than-ideal climates, participants in the study also derived a sense of community, affirmation, and support from the existence of a Native student center. Though participants derived many benefits from having such a space, they also indicated that the Native center was not always immune to the climate issues faced within the larger campus. These accounts contrast existing research on cultural centers. Findings from this study suggests that the narrow understanding of Indigenous identity as an exclusively racialized one, functions as a powerful tool in advancing erasure narratives within the space itself. / Doctor of Philosophy / Research has noted the persistence of hostile campus environments for underrepresented college students. However, Native and Indigenous students continue to be one of the most understudied populations within higher education, particularly as it relates to their campus experience and ways in which they navigate institutional climates. In addition to illuminating the campus climates Native students face at predominantly White institutions, this dissertation examines the impact that Indigenous cultural centers have on their overall campus experience and persistence. As the primary method, it draws on 12 semi-structured interviews with Indigenous students at a predominately White institution within the Southeast United States. Findings from this study demonstrate the ways in which colonization manifests in the higher education setting through the analysis of participant encounters in and out of the classroom. For Native students, these were most often laden with narratives of erasure or the idea that Native peoples have all but ceased to exist. However, in the face of less-than-ideal climates, participants in the study also derived a sense of community, affirmation, and support from the existence of a Native student center. Though participants derived many benefits from having such a space, they also indicated that the Native center was not always immune to the climate issues faced within the larger campus. These accounts contrast existing research on cultural centers. Findings from this study suggests that the narrow understanding of Indigenous identity as an exclusively racialized one, functions as a powerful tool in advancing erasure narratives within the space itself.

This dissertation examines the potential congruencies and complementarities of Waldorf education, Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP), Culturally Responsive Schooling (CRS), Critical Pedagogy and Native American and Indigenous education. Waldorf education, a German education reform developed in the early 1920s, is a little researched schooling system, and previous research on this reform has examined its impacts within its traditional contexts, namely, private schools. At the same time, significant literature exists which addresses the importance and efficacy of reforms for students of color such as those in CRP, CRS and Critical Pedagogy. There is also a body of work which points to key pedagogical components which support Native American/Indigenous students in school. This dissertation examines the interplay between all three of these complex systems by examining attempts to integrate them in the classroom. By examining Waldorf education initiatives in three distinct contexts, I demonstrate that these reforms can work in concert without diminishing the efficacy of any of them. I explore three distinct contexts of Waldorf education. The first examined the impacts of Waldorf education on students who participated in the reform in a private Waldorf school, who transitioned to more traditional, mainstream classes. I conducted participant-observation of a local Waldorf school and in-depth interviews with 14 alumni to explore the impact of this reform. In the second context, I examined how students responded to the use of Waldorf-inspired methods in a community college course I taught, and I investigated their experiences of the reform. Seven students who participated were interviewed in order to investigate the impact of these reforms on their experience as college students. These interviews were complemented by teacher-research I conducted while teaching this Waldorf-inspired course. Finally, I explored the potential of Waldorf education as a reform for Native American students, examining my own incorporation of this reform with other pedagogical tools, such as CRP, CRS, and other forms of critical pedagogy. Included in this section of research are my reflections on a course I instructed with Waldorf-inspired reforms. I also explored various accounts of Waldorf-education reforms by tribal communities, like the Lakota Waldorf School in South Dakota. Several findings from the research conducted here are encouraging. Students from Waldorf school environments demonstrate critical skills and critique schooling environments, invoking stances familiar to critical pedagogues. Students from a Waldorf-inspired community college course were also critical of the typical schooling experiences they had encountered, and spoke of the enriching feeling in their Waldorf-inspired course. Investigation into the philosophical tenets of Waldorf education and Native American/Indigenous epistemologies shows several examples of overlap and similarity, the most striking being elements of spiritual belief and practice as foundational to Native American/Indigenous well-being, and the ability of Waldorf education to address this. While these fields may appear unrelated, this study explores the praxis of these seemingly disparate bodies of work, by examining their similarities and differences. Ultimately, I argue that these reforms can work in concert to support the academic success of culturally and linguistically diverse students and Native American/Indigenous students in particular. The research in these three contexts demonstrates need for further investigation into Waldorf education and its potential to support students of all backgrounds.

The purpose of this research study was to explore how the significance of place serves as a part of Indigenous—specifically Diné (Navajo)—education cultural responsiveness in the art classroom. Further, objectives of the study included learning how North American art teacher educators can more effectively weave Indigenous understandings of place into pre-service art teacher education to benefit Indigenous learners' needs. I employed a qualitative approach to this study using multiple methodologies: ethnography, phenomenology, an Indigenous research methodology, and arts-based research. Through personal interviews with six participants—two Diné artists, two art teacher educators, and two unfamiliar art teachers new to reservation-serving schools—I sought to locate culturally situated perspectives and values. The goal of the interviews was to gather ideas about the significance of place, about relationships between place and art, and about art teacher preparation for teaching in Diné-serving schools. The design of the study also included new unfamiliar non-Diné art teacher preconceptions and in-situ learning experiences of teaching on the reservation. Beyond the participant interviews, I engaged an arts-based exploration of my experiences with Diné people as an outsider/insider member of the Diné community. The artwork I created also helped weave together data from participant interviews. Findings from the Diné artist participants suggested that places hold significance in Diné culture, art making, and the display or use of art. According to Diné epistemological perspective, place is more than just a physical location, and different from some mainstream ideas about place. For Diné interviewees, place is a container of aspects of life such as energies, nature, spirits, people, and a multitude of other significances, some tangible and some intangible. Findings from interviews with art teacher educators of other Indigenous groups also indicated that place is significant to many Native American peoples, and the idea of that significance is difficult to transmit to Euro-American pre-service teachers. Interviews also indicate that focusing teaching education on social justice theories and employing Native American art and artists can assist in the preparation of pre-service art teachers to teach in reservation or pueblo communities. However, there are deeply rooted cultural concepts that come into play once the new teacher reaches her/his teaching assignment community. Lastly, findings revealed that new unfamiliar art teachers experience a number of obstacles upon entering Diné communities when their prior understandings about the place is limited. Challenges include understanding acceptable cultural observances, student proclivities, and art making practices. Understanding significance of place, stereotyping concerns, and positionality challenges are among the themes that arose as a result of cross-participant analyses. The implications of this research study advocate for: a) building further knowledge about educating pre-service teachers about cultural relevance, stereotyping, and positionality in Native American-serving art classrooms; b) the need for continued cultural learning and mentoring in-situ; and c) the need for unfamiliar art teachers to develop culturally relevant teaching practices with the help of people in the community.

abstract: This study examines the multiple and complicated ways that Native American students engage, accept, and/or reject the teachings of a Native American literature course, as they navigate complex cultural landscapes in a state that has banned the teaching of ethnic studies. This is the only classroom of its kind in this major metropolitan area, despite a large Native American population. Like many other marginalized youth, these students move through "borderlands" on a daily basis from reservation to city and back again; from classrooms that validate their knowledges to those that deny, invalidate and silence their knowledges, histories and identities. I am examining how their knowledges are shared or denied in these spaces. Using ethnographic, participatory action and grounded research methods, and drawing from Safety Zone Theory (Lomawaima and McCarty, 2006) and Bakhtin's (1981) dialogism, I focus on students' counter-storytelling to discover how they are generating meanings from a curriculum that focuses on the comprehension of their complicated and often times contradicting realities. This study discusses the need for schools to draw upon students' cultural knowledges and offers implications for developing and implementing a socio-culturally sustaining curriculum. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction 2013

The focus of this study was on how to help narrow the achievement gap between Native American students and their non-Native peers in an urban Oklahoma school district. A qualitative case study approach was used to answer the questions of how parents of Native American students perceive their children's academic success in reading and mathematics in Grade 1- Grade 12 and why they believe their children have consistently (or historically) performed below district, state, and national expectations in these subjects in an attempt to better understand the achievement gap. Progress reports, institutional reports, and standards-based test scores were indicative of the widening achievement gap between Native American students and their non-Native peers. Bourdieu's cultural capital theory supported by Epstein's model of parental involvement were used as the conceptual framework for this study. Six parents of Native American students in Grade 1– Grade 12 were selected as participants and were interviewed using open-ended, semistructured questions to gain insight and help to answer the research questions. The coding of collected data, an analysis of emergent themes and triangulation, peer debriefing, and member checks were all utilized as analytical procedures to ensure accuracy and credibility. Results from the study revealed that parents of Native American students perceive their students' academic success as a struggle and identify parental involvement, curriculum relatability, class size and communication among some of the barriers to their students' success. Implications for positive social change for this study included the potential to inform more effective teaching strategies for teachers who teach Native American students, inform their curriculum development, and foster the empowerment of Native American families.

Qualitative interviews with 12 Native American high school junior and senior students who grew up on reservations identified the following themes related to their persistence in college: (a) faculty support, (b) structured social support, (c) family support or the lack thereof, (d) motivation to be better, and (e) encountering racism. The results indicated a need for clear academic expectations between the school district and the tribal liaisons, multicultural training to foster positive relationships from the primary to secondary level, and structured college preparatory instruction designed for Native American students. Results also indicated a need for further research into the educational experiences of multiethnic students.

abstract: This dissertation examines a long-term activist effort by American Indian educators and intellectual leaders to work for greater Native access to and control of American higher education. Specifically, the leaders of this effort built a powerful critique of how American systems of higher education served Native individuals and reservation communities throughout much of the twentieth century. They argued for new forms of higher education and leadership training that appropriated some mainstream educational models but that also adapted those models to endorse Native expressions of culture and identity. They sought to move beyond the failures of existing educational programs and to exercise Native control, encouraging intellectual leadership and empowerment on local and national levels. The dissertation begins with Henry Roe Cloud (Winnebago) and his American Indian Institute, a preparatory school founded in 1915 and dedicated to these principles. From there, the words and actions of key leaders such as Elizabeth Roe Cloud (Ojibwe), D’Arcy McNickle (Salish Kootenai), Jack Forbes (Powhatan-Renapé, Delaware-Lenape), and Robert and Ruth Roessel (Navajo), are also examined to reveal a decades-long thread of Native intellectual activism that contributed to the development of American Indian self-determination and directly impacted the philosophical and practical founding of tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) in the 1960s and 1970s. These schools continue to operate in dozens of Native communities. These individuals also contributed to and influenced national organizations such as the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) and the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC), while maintaining connections to grassroots efforts at Native educational empowerment. The period covered in this history witnessed many forms of Native activism, including groups from the Society of American Indians (SAI) to the American Indian Movement (AIM) and beyond. The focus on “intellectual activism,” however, emphasizes that this particular vein of activism was and is still oriented toward the growth of Native intellectualism and its practical influence in modern American Indian lives. It involves action that is political but also specifically educational, and thus rests on the input of prominent Native intellectuals but also on local educators, administrators, government officials, and students themselves. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation History 2017

Qualitative interviews with 12 Native American high school junior and senior students who grew up on reservations identified the following themes related to their persistence in college: (a) faculty support, (b) structured social support, (c) family support or the lack thereof, (d) motivation to be better, and (e) encountering racism. The results indicated a need for clear academic expectations between the school district and the tribal liaisons, multicultural training to foster positive relationships from the primary to secondary level, and structured college preparatory instruction designed for Native American students. Results also indicated a need for further research into the educational experiences of multiethnic students.