The 4-H Yukon River Fisheries Education and Youth Development
Program is a federally funded youth-at-risk program created to help youth
escape from the social ills of substance abuse, teen pregnancy, low
academic achievement, and suicide that plague rural Alaskan villages. By
providing youth the opportunity to learn the skills needed to protect and
improve the salmon fishery of the Yukon River drainage and offering them
hope for their future, the program is developing the human resources
needed to manage the natural resources of the region. The program also
provides youth with the education to make choices for their careers and
lifestyle. Given the strong cultural influence of the Athabascan people in
the area, the program also strives to balance cultural traditions with the
technology for development.
The purpose of this study was to describe and analyze the process
used in planning, implementing and evaluating a nonformal education
program in a rural Athabascan village in terms of its effectiveness and
cultural appropriateness. The study focused on the program in the village
of Kaltag, Alaska. Using ethnographic methods guided by Coombs and
Ahmed's (1974) "Guidelines for Preparing Case Studies of Nonformal
Education in Rural Areas" and Nelson's (1982) "Descriptive Profile of
Culturally Appropriate Instructional Resources", the study sought to
provide a rich description of the program so that other villages of the
region and state can determine whether or not a similar program would
benefit the youth in their community. Respondents in this study indicated
the program was both effective and culturally appropriate.
Three themes related to cultural appropriateness emerged during
this study: 1) community support, 2) relevance to community needs, and 3)
program integration with the school. These themes are interrelated and
interdependent and are related to the program's effectiveness and cultural
appropriateness. In addition, the program's transferability to other
communities may be determined by these three themes.
Recommendations for further study include a comparative study to
determine if these same themes or others have the same importance in
villages implementing the program elsewhere. / Graduation date: 1993
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/36366 |
| Date | 04 November 1992 |
| Creators | Marcey, Jean L. |
| Contributors | Acker, David G. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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