Prior to this study, it was not known it was not known if and to what extent the adoption of the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) predicts fifth-grade academic achievement in math and reading when controlling for baseline achievement in the previous grade for Native American students in rural elementary schools in Northeastern…

Background: Despite overall declines in risky teen sexual activity, racial and ethnic disparities persist. This study compared abstinence-only and comprehensive teen pregnancy prevention (TPP) programs to explore the effects of the programs on teen sexual activity-related outcomes that may differ by race/ethnicity. Methods: Program evaluation data…

Indigenous-language immersion (ILI) is a form of schooling where all, or nearly all, classroom instruction in every subject area is conducted in an Indigenous language. This dissertation comprises three case study comparisons of neighboring pairs of ILI and English-medium school programs. The first case study examines two elementary schools in the…

This community-based participatory research case study demonstrates how Dakota Wico?a? utilized Indigenous and feminist epistemologies to create, implement, and evaluate a cultural intervention, the Mni Sota Makoce: Dakota Homelands Curriculum, to increase Native 6th- and 10th-grade social studies students' peoplehood sense of belonging (Tachine…

Disease ecology classes were conducted at two residential middle school summer camps held at a university--a camp for local youth who paid tuition and a free camp for youth from statewide underserved communities including Native, low-income, and rural. Disease ecology is defined as the ecological study of host-pathogen interactions within the…

Academic letter grades may potentially encourage or discourage Cherokee students from doing well in school and seeking advanced degrees beyond secondary school. Cherokee Nation has just over 100 public school districts located inside the reservation boundaries, in which more than 200,000 students are being served daily, with nearly 32,000 being…

Dominant discourses in U.S. History are typically engaged through a settler-colonial framework. Informed by the ubiquity of commercial presentations, cultural tropes, and caricatures--movies, consumer products, and names--the "presentation" of Native Americans tend to focus on incomplete representations that are cast in the past. This…

This study examined the process to identify required competencies for an entry-level position in the Nez Perce Tribe Department of Fisheries Resource Management located in the Pacific Northwest. The overall goal was to provide content for a pedagogical framework to support Nez Perce students in the development of their STEM identity and to…

We collected data on parental involvement from 101 American Indian parents in the Southeastern United States with children enrolled in kindergarten-12th grade. We analyzed the data using Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients and multiple regression modeling. Findings suggested that parental involvement is related to student achievement.…

Youth development researchers have focused on persistent challenges facing youth in diverse urban settings; thus, we know less about youth in rural communities. Using multilevel modeling, we explored contextual factors associated with school grades and educational aspirations. We find that, on average relative to students from urban schools,…

This essay examines writing partnerships in 2016 and 2017 that invited community nonprofit volunteers and employees into seqacib, which is a Seattle youth (middle school and high school) Native cultural literacy classroom community. As a white settler employed by the nonprofit during the events described, I emphasize the wisdom of seqacib students…

School belonging and parent educational level are independently associated with student academic performance. However, few studies explore the simultaneous association between the three variables. This study examines this association among 215 Native American 9th through 12th graders. Overall, students reported an average school belonging score of…

Social determinants of health (SDOH)--conditions in which children live, learn, and play--affect child health and well-being. Publicly funded services in education and child welfare systems are important resources to support child well-being, but cross-system coordination is rare. Leveraging integrated administrative data from 60,287 6th graders…

Goal setting, in combination with evidence-based interventions, may be a viable intervention component to improve oral reading fluency for struggling readers. The present study examined the efficacy of individualized goal setting on the oral reading fluency rates of upper elementary students who were reading below grade level. Visual analysis of a…

Indigenous communities demonstrate immense cultural strengths despite being impacted by mental health and academic disparities due to ongoing systemic racism and historical trauma. Given that schools are a context in which indigenous youths' needs have potential to be met through preventive intervention, this scoping review explores and summarizes…