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In his 1978 biography of Grace Carpenter Hudson, Searles R. Boynton refers to the artist as "the best in California," praising her life-long dedication to depicting the Pomo children of Northern California. During her lifetime (1865-1937), Hudson's work traveled to museums, world fairs, and expositions across the United States. The purpose of this research is to assert that Hudson's work is evidence of, and a response to, turn-of-the-twentieth-century Euro-Americans' hopes that the American Indian child could be "redeemed," or "saved," from their "savage" or "undomesticated" past. Additionally, this paper aims to convince the reader of the significance of Hudson’s art as it marks an implicant, although paramount, shift in the history of representation of the American Indian child. To accomplish these tasks, it will be necessary to investigate artwork featuring the American Indian child produced before and after Hudson, the artist’s early influences, along with the artist's own work and words. Based on these sources, this thesis attempts to identify how viewers can understand the popularity of Hudson's work as a point of transference that existed between representation and reality during a period of the simultaneous rejection and resurrection of the American Indian. Through a process of perpetuating ideologies, the manipulation of the studio, subject, and space, and modernist influences regarding Indigenous peoples, the work that Hudson produced is emblematic of a time in which the larger American public was more interested in the proliferation of Euro-centric ideals than the preservation of American Indian life and culture.

American Indian or Alaska Native children are diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder at later ages than Non-Hispanic White children. Other than being included in prevalence studies, in the last thirty years, there has been less than a handful of studies that have looked specifically at Autism Spectrum Disorder within the AI/AN community. No studies looked at the assessment experience of parents. This exploratory study used Indigenous Storytelling Methodology to hear an AI/AN parent’s initial developmental concerns about their child and their experience with the Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis process. The system of assessment created a frustrating experience, and the parent believed the child made eye contact, but found out later that there was really a lack of sustained eye contact. This research creates a base to start looking at Autism Spectrum Disorder symptoms to use for better outreach in the community and informs Tribal Health Clinics and Early Childhood Programs to better help guide parents through the Autism Spectrum Disorder assessment process.

College preparatory programs like Pitzer College/WesternU's Native Youth to College Program provide a unique experience for Native high school youth - weaving tether academics and culture for student success. However, there exists a gap in the literature on curriculum development of Native-serving programs as Mack et al, (2012), Tierney and Hagedorn (2002) and others have noticed. Using Brayboy's TribalCrit (2005) as the guiding theory, qualitative interviews of program staff and analysis of internal program documents are conducted. Nine core curricular elements-academics, culture, media studies, college preparation, health careers, intergenerational mentorship, STEM, life skills & telling your story - are found to have developed within the program, providing a blueprint which Native educators and others can use in developing curriculum for their own college preparatory programs.

One method by which student success or failure is measured is whether or not students graduate or dropout. The current educational policy, No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, aims to close the achievement gap among different ethnic groups. Despite these goals, American Indian students have the highest dropout rate and lowest graduation rate in the country. For well over a century, federal educational policy has failed to meet the educational needs of American Indian students. This research project shows the need for perspectives to change in terms of "dropping out" and "graduating" in order to address and improve the success rates for Native American students in K-12 public schools. This thesis focuses on urban Native American student schooling experiences, calling for a need to avoid labeling students and for schools to place a greater emphasis on building positive interpersonal relationships with students and families.

Few activities have the power to bring people together as sports; victory is contagious, defeat unifies, and the concept of a team can create common goals and unbreakable bonds among teammates, communities, and even an entire nation. In a sense, sport has the power to change lives. The lessons that athletics can teach--preparation, competitiveness, overcoming obstacles, persistence, mental and physical health, problem solving, and setting life goals--seem particularly apt for American Indian youth today. Athletics can serve as a pathway to college for American Indian students who participate in individual or team sports. Access to higher education, in turn, offers the opportunity for larger income and greater economic opportunities. The American Indian students' college experience, including statistics on enrollment, retention and drop-out rates, is prevalent in both quantitative and qualitative research. Moreover, research concerning the roles athletes and athletics have within higher education institutions is historically rich. The intersection of these two topics however, has received little to no attention. This dissertation will explore the impact of sports on American Indian collegiate athletes to determine the factors that both inspired and inhibited them from the pursuit of athletics in college. It will provide the first in-depth look at several American Indian collegiate athletes who can document how sports helped or failed to help them reach their educational aspirations.

This research is the result of a long-standing interest in the work of one individual, George Sword who composed two hundred and forty-five pages of text in the Lakota language using the English alphabet in the period 1896 through 1910. In the past scholars have studied Lakota narratives and songs and with each study new insights are gained. However, the focus generally in oral literary research has been in the study of content and not process in Lakota oral traditions. In order to better understand the characteristics of Lakota oral style this study shows how it is composed and structured in the work of George Sword. The research focus is from a qualitative perspective concerned with exploring, describing, and explaining a culturally specific Lakota oral narrative more commonly found in history and ethnographic disciplines, where it is a special type of case study research. The primary method used is an analysis of historic documents and original text in Lakota to address the issues raised in the general research problem: How do you define Lakota literature? In the end this study shows the way in which Lakota oral narrative is composed, how its practice produced a distinct form. During the course of this study, what became apparent in George Sword's Lakota narratives were the formulaic patterns inherent in the Lakota language used to tell the narratives as well as the recurring themes and story patterns. The primary conclusion is that these patterns originate from a Lakota oral tradition. This analysis can be used to determine whether any given written narrative in Lakota oral tradition is oral or not; and leads the way for further research

An investigation was conducted to show the number of American Indians in the field of conservation, through a quantitative and qualitative analysis. The research investigated the primary question, why are there so few American Indian conservators. In addition, the following secondary questions were examined: 1) How many conservators of American Indian ethnicity are there? 2) What factors influence the number of American Indian conservators? 3) How will American Indians qualified to practice conservation benefit museums? The findings for this study were collected through an online survey, personal interviews, and observations. The results showed that there was a significant relationship between education, conservation, and being American Indian. The study proved the hypothesis that there were not a lot of American Indian conservators. An earlier report investigating the status of American Indians in professional positions in museums nationwide revealed similar results (Rios-Bustamante, 1996). Other publications mentioned Indigenous people as collaborators and participants in various museum practices such as curatorial work, preservation, conservation, and exhibits; but did not specifically name an American Indian as a professional conservator (Bloomfield, 2013; Clavir, 2002; Erickson, 2002; Lonetree, 2012; Odegaard and Sadongei, 2005).A total of eleven participants were interviewed. Of the eleven participants interviewed, nine identified as American Indian from the United States, one identified as Maori from New Zealand working temporarily in the United States, and one as Italian-American (Table 13). Of the eleven interviewed, three identified as trained conservators qualified to practice conservation as a professional conservator. Of the three identifying at trained conservators, two were American Indian, Navajo/Assiniboine and Navajo. A total of ninety-three participants responded to the online survey. Univariate analysis using the standard t-test was used to compare each variable to the dependent, binomial variable (variable of interest=American Indian Conservator, yes or no) to determine its initial significance (Table 12). Significant variables were then added into the model and logistic regression analysis was performed to capture any effect a variable might have on the dependent variable. As a result, the data showed that a conservator was 8.6 times more likely not to be American Indian than conservators who were not American Indian in this study. This analysis and interpretation of the data was used as a preliminary study for future research.

This dissertation examines eight 21ˢᵗ century high school U.S. history textbooks for content and omission concerning American Indians. The focus of the inquiry is on the Marshall Trilogy cases and other federal Indian law cases. The Marshall Trilogy cases are three cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court over 180 years ago that remain the foundational legal principles that guide governmental relations with Native peoples. The treatment afforded these cases is evaluated in light of a master national narrative for the United States. The Marshall Trilogy cases and the master national narrative have had and continue to have global consequences. The way federal Indian law is presented in textbooks impacts the way citizens treat American Indian peoples and their support for various foreign policy options. In addition, the content of high school history curriculum can affect the way students perceive history, Native America, and schooling. By examining history curriculum critically and establishing a truly inclusive narrative, the hope is that schooling and history become legitimate for all students. The primary approach is to use both a quantitative and qualitative critical content analysis using an indigenized critical discourse approach. Generally, the analysis will move from the focused text within each textbook, to other text within each textbook, to text across the textbooks, and finally to larger socio-cultural phenomena. The APPRAISAL analysis (Coffin, 2006) allows a discerning of linguistic attributes that allows for the exposition of the narrative of the specific text concerning the Marshall Trilogy. The general content analysis is given a critical lens by Brayboy's Tribal Critical Theory (2005) and Grande's Red Pedagogy (2004). The curriculum work of Apple (2004) and Hall's (1986) exposition of Gramsci's hegemony add to our understanding of the nature of textbooks and the knowledge that counts for society. Fairclough's (1995) Dialectic-Relational Approach guides the study to determining whether there is a social wrong, and if so, what it is. The wrong is then examined to determine what obstacles are in the way of addressing the wrong and whether the society needs the wrong. Finally, various ways of correcting the social wrong are addressed.

This study examines whether Tribal Colleges and Universities impact hope and pride within their surrounding communities. As part of the investigation, data was gathered through the distribution of a ten question survey to three participants at both Diné College and Comanche Nation College: the president, a student, and a community member. Further data was collected through testimonials gathered from articles within the Tribal College Journal from the past six years (2008-2013). The goal of the study is to broaden the understanding of Tribal College and University impacts within their communities, and to provide valuable information for the college-community relationship throughout Indian Country.