abstract: Ultimately, the examples and foundation provided at home will impact the child as a student and lifelong learner. In Navajo society, there are some families who continue to instill the importance of heritage language and culture. And then there are those who choose not to, or who are not capable of doing so due to the lack of knowledge to share such teachings. Diné language and culture are vital elements of who we are as Diné. They are what identify us as a people. Our language and culture separate us from the western society. As parents and educators, our attitudes affect our homes, schools, and children. Our way of thinking may inhibit or perpetuate cultural teachings. However, no one knows how parents' attitudes affect cultural integration at an immersion school. This quantitative study examined parents' attitudes toward cultural integration in a Navajo language immersion school (Ts4hootsoo7 Diné Bi')lta' with the Window Rock Unified School District #8 in Fort Defiance, Arizona). Surveys were used to examine parents' attitudes about language and cultural integration. The survey asked about Navajo language and culture, about the extent to which it was practiced at home, and their opinions about how Navajo language and culture was being taught at school. The data were reported in basic descriptive statistics for the total group of respondents and then disaggregated by age, place of birth (on the reservation or off), gender, marital status, and highest grade completed in school. The data has shown that overall parents are supportive of Navajo language and culture. Their attitudes may vary based on age, place of birth, gender, marital status, and education. In spite of this, Navajo language and culture are in the home. However, the degree to which it is spoken or practiced is not measured. Parents are supportive of the school teaching Navajo language and culture. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Educational Administration and Supervision 2012

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Approximately 35% of the population of the Navajo Nation does not have direct access to the electric grid and public water supply. Tribal members haul their potable and livestock water from public water systems that are located great distances from their homes. The Navajo Nation Solar Desalination Research Pilot Demonstration Project is designed to provide residents affordable livestock water. The same technology can later be adopted to provide potable water. The project has deployed an off-grid, prototype water purification unit at a demonstration site north of Leupp, AZ utilizing membrane distillation (MD) technology. A second prototype for the same purposes utilizing nanofiltration (NF) membrane technology has been designed, built, and operated at The University of Arizona. Through experimentation I confirmed information provided the manufacturer of the NF membrane, calculated the production rate to be 636 gallons per day, and calculated the cost of desalinated water to be $0.003 per gallon. Both systems use solar energy to desalinate brackish ground water and the second prototype will later be deployed at the same site for side-by-side comparison. A critical part of the project is the development of technology transfer methods that will help the community take ownership of the project. To accomplish this goal I have written a comprehensive manual that will be given to the Navajo Department of Water Resources. The demonstration site will act as an applied research site for investigation, demonstration, and training related to sustainable water and energy systems designed to address the needs of remote, rural communities in arid and semi-arid regions. The aim is to inform a regional plan for Southwestern Navajo Nation Chapters to address chronic water and energy shortages, demonstrate renewable energy application for water treatment of brackish ground water, evaluate trade-offs in energy and water supplies, and foster community development. The research and demonstration site has been developed by an interdisciplinary and collaborative effort between the Bureau of Reclamation, Apex Applied Technology, Inc., and The University of Arizona.

The development of and changes in human social organization have been a concern of anthropological research since the inception of the discipline. A perspective that focuses on the interaction between exogenous (ecological and historical) variables and social organization is argued for herein. This study tests the idea that inheritance patterns reflect both land use and sociohistorical factors. Further, it is suggested that after their move into the American Southwest, the inheritance of agricultural land was influential in the development, although not necessarily the origins, of matrilineality among the Navajo. Data were obtained on land tenure practices in Canyon de Chelly and its major tributary, Canyon del Muerto, historically important centers of Navajo agriculture. Detailed interviews with 93% of the Navajo families owning land in the canyons provided information on land use and inheritance patterns since the 1880s. Data from over 400 cases of land transfers were analyzed. Historical documents and archaeological studies also provided information on Navajo settlement patterns, changes in farming practices and environmental fluctuations since the mid-1700s. Within the past fifty years, and probably longer, topographic and physiographic differences between Canyon de Chelly and Canyon del Muerto have contributed to variations in land use within the canyon system. Ditch irrigated feed crops are now only grown in Canyon del Muerto, and they are commonly used by families involved in market oriented cattle ranching. Further, as a result of erosion problems, the production potential of some canyon areas, as well as the quantity of arable land, is declining. Not all families are able to meet the increasing need for labor and capital intensive practices that could maximize agricultural production on their canyon land, but it remains a highly valued resource. This research indicates that since the 1880s agricultural land in Canyon de Chelly has been transferred more frequently along matrilineal lines, and the explanations for the differences in land tenure patterns between the canyons over time relate both to ecological and socio-historical variables. In conclusion, it is argued that the complexity found within this canyon system reflects a heterogeneity common to any culture, but which anthropologists tend to overlook.

In 1968, a 54,000 acre coal mine commenced operations on Black Mesa, Arizona, an arid and semi-arid region inhabited by the Hopi Tribe and Dine Nation. The coal mine fuels the power plant that generates electricity for the Central Arizona Project, which pumps renewable Colorado River water to Phoenix and Tucson. Water for mine-operations is pumped from a non-renewable groundwater aquifer upon which the Hopi and Dine depend. After forty years of development, conflict characterizes industrial groundwater exploitation on Black Mesa; there continues to be little understanding of the relationship between industrial withdrawals and its impacts upon hydrological and social-ecological systems of the region.Large-scale natural resource development is predicated upon deterministic studies required to disclose all potentially adverse impacts. This study performs a postaudit of groundwater model predictions used to determine the significance of these impacts. It demonstrates that drawdown caused by the mine was underestimated; drawdown caused by communities was overestimated; the models failed to capture the linear relationship between water level decline and spring discharge; and water levels predicted to recover by 2007 continue to decline in 2010.The Regulatory Authority developed four criteria for determining if damage to the aquifer had occurred in response to mining; over time, two damage thresholds were crossed and two had never been evaluated. A new model was implemented for regulatory purposes; simulations showed that a distant spring 60 miles from the mine is unaffected by the mine's withdrawals. The postaudit demonstrates how declining discharge from this spring has a strong relationship with industrial withdrawals (r = -0.84; R2 = 0.71; p < 0.0001); local pumping and precipitation have no statistically significant relationship with discharge from this spring.In 2008, the Regulatory Authority revised the four threshold criteria; all negative trends were removed from regulatory purview (including spring discharge) and remaining criteria assumed insurmountable damage thresholds; their condition will be determined by model simulations rather than actual observations.The Black Mesa case study reinforces the argument that the legislatively required process for predetermining environmental impacts is an elaborate ritual in which a manifestly political decision is disguised as unbiased scientific fact.

The Navajo Nation comprises 110 local communities spread over 16 million acres and linked under a highly centralized system of tribal government. Since the creation of the Navajo chapter system, which facilitates local governance for the Navajo Nation, there have been growing tensions between some of these local communities and the central government in Window Rock. In the 1990s and early 2000s, several of these communities moved to claim greater decision-making authority as an assertion of local empowerment. This dissertation examines three such communities and their empowerment strategies: a grassroots secession movement at Tohajiilee, Shonto's use of the Navajo Nation's Local Governance Act (LGA), and the establishment of the Kayenta Township. This comparative study examines these strategies and considers their significance for the future of Navajo leadership and self-government.

This report describes the results of an ethnographic study performed by Cultural Systems Research, Incorporated (CSRI) for US Ecology, Inc. The study was part of US Ecology's efforts to select a site for the disposal of Low Level Radioactive Waste (LLRW) for the State of California. Dr. Stoffle and his research team were responsible for conducting the Mohave, Navajo, and Southern Paiute portions of the study.

This report describes the results of an ethnographic study performed by Cultural Systems Research, Incorporated (CSRI) for US Ecology, Inc. The study was part of US Ecology's efforts to select a site for the disposal of Low Level Radioactive Waste (LLRW) for the State of California. Dr. Stoffle and his research team were responsible for conducting the Mohave, Navajo, and Southern Paiute portions of the study. This draft report includes information that was not included in the final report such as hand drawn maps produced during interviews with tribal representatives. This project marked the first time that Richard Stoffle and his team used mapping as a means to document places and areas of cultural significance.

This ethnographic overview documents the contemporary values of American Indians regarding Fajada Butte. The study defines which Indian tribes have traditional or historic cultural ties to Fajada Butte and Chaco Culture National Historical Park (NHP). The study was funded by the National Park Service on September 15, 1992, and was managed by the New Mexico State Historic Preservation Office. The ethnographic overview is focussed on two broad issues: (1) Fajada Butte and its significance to American Indian people and (2) the traditional use of plants and their cultural significance to American Indian people. An additional goal of this study is to contribute information about to the process of general tribal -park consultation including Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. This study documented that 11 tribes and pueblos have cultural relationships with Fajada Butte and Chaco Culture NHP. American Indians feel a contemporary identification with the Fajada Butte and Chaco Culture NHP. There are three main ways for expressing this identification (1) direct descent ties, (2) tribal ties, and (3) ethnic ties. No tribal or pueblo representatives expressed knowledge of living families who are direct descendants from the people of Chaco; however, many of them stated that Chaco people were their direct ancestors. All tribes and pueblo representatives who participated in the on -site visit claimed tribal or pueblo ties to the people of Chaco. The research also was concerned with the plant life of the area both on and around Fajada Butte. This study documented the American Indian traditional use placess around Fajada Butte and elsewhere in Chaco Canyon. All Indian representatives expressed the desire that the park continues to protect these plants from disturbance and emphasized the need to have a park-wide ethnobotanical study.