Administrators are challenged to support the academic achievement of Navajo high school students. Research concerning public school campus administrators' perceptions of these challenges is scarce. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to examine school administrators' perceptions concerning challenges they face when supporting the…

The Navajo Nation has been historically underserved, as evidenced by the prevalence of education inequity, inadequacies in healthcare facilities and personnel, and limited capacity of telecommunications and electrical infrastructure. These vulnerabilities of the Navajo Nation were further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This qualitative…

This phenomenological study examines the experiences of Navajo students with intellectual disabilities as they transition from high school into life as an adult. Cultural perspectives, disability, and family expectations are factors that affect transitional outcomes. The current literature around transition programming holds a limited view of…

This brief provides contextual information and descriptions of select programs and practices serving Native students, regarding state identification and support, representation of Native student interest, and locally created examples. The National Comprehensive Center's American Indian and Alaska Native Education Project developed this brief to…

Programs that support Latino students while they earn a high school diploma and make the transition to college are key to increasing Latinos' degree attainment. More Latino students are going to college than ever before, but graduation rates are not rising at the same pace. Pathway programs align academic and student support services through…

Kayenta is a rural community located in northeastern Arizona on a Navajo reservation. On the reservation, many families rely on their livestock for income, and as a result, many reservation high school students show a great interest in agricultural education. Having livestock on the reservation is not just a source of income, but also part of a…

The authors examined the relations between two socially oriented dimensions of student motivation and academic achievement of Native (Navajo) American and Anglo American students. Using confirmatory factor analysis, a multidimensional and hierarchical model was found to explain the relations between performance and social goals. Four first-order…

The purpose of this bibliography is to examine factors that may help prevent Native American students from dropping out of school. This document draws from the literature that describes best and promising practices that may address the needs of this vulnerable population. The 30 articles whose abstracts are included in this publication represent a…

The purpose of this article is to describe a group counseling model that is based on the indigenous medicine wheel as well as Navajo philosophy by which to help troubled adolescents restore harmony and balance in their lives, through establishing goals and sequential steps to accomplish these goals. The authors call this model the Goal Wheel. A…

Low graduation rates of high school students are a problem for the Native American community. One possible solution for low graduation rates is a credit recovery program that may assist Native American students to recover credit not earned in their early high school years. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a credit…

Collapsing the Fear of Mathematics: A Study of the Effects of Navajo Culture on Navajo Student Performance in Mathematics by Henry H Fowler Abstract American schools are in a state of "mediocrity" because of the low expectations in math (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983; No Child Left Behind Act of 2001; Duncan,…

This paper draws on the stereotype threat hypothesis and social identity theory to examine the influence of positive and negative ability beliefs on Navajo students' achievement goals. Data were collected on 829 Navajo students in two reservation high schools. The results support the notion that Navajo students hold both positive and negative…

Over 500 Navajo high school students completed the Inventory of School Motivation, based on the personal investment model of motivation. Results suggest that the model's most salient elements for this group were sense-of-self components and one task component, striving for excellence. Combinations of variables were useful in predicting student…

Describes the 1995-97 student exchange program between the Navajo Nation in San Juan School District, Utah, and the Khanty-Mansisk region of Siberia. Similarities were found in language, string games, folk tales, sweat lodges, clan traditions, traditional arts and crafts, and stories of ancient meetings between the two peoples and use of the…

One reason proposed for the persistent school underachievement of Navajo students is that school culture is based largely on individualism, interpersonal competition, and other Western norms and values that may be an anathema to Native Americans. Hence, school culture may predispose them to failure. Drawing on Western concepts of achievement…