This article explores the affordances and risks of practicing friendship and mentorship as methodological approaches in two qualitative studies: (a) the mentor's study in a diverse 9th grade classroom and (b) the protege's subsequent study of teacher professional development in the same school. Friendship methodology, as theorized by Tillmann and…

Standard, even "new Indian history" narratives of relocation and removal have generally avoided critical discussions of colonialism, memory, and space. Choosing instead to emphasize the important political, economic, social, and even cultural implications of such dislocations, much of what passes as "Indian" history fails to…

How do American Indian students, parents, and teachers conceptualize leadership in New Mexico public schools? How do they negotiate power dynamics within this context? The objective of this study was to investigate how leadership and accountability in American Indian schools and communities in New Mexico is recognized, characterized, contested,…

Recognizing that educational change in Nunavut has not been extensively documented, this article provides an entry point for considering how Nunavut can be better understood and situated with scholarship on Indigenous education in Canada. Comparing the history of education in Nunavut with key turning points in First Nations education, the article…

Jefferson's republicanism--a people-first, mostly bottom-up political vision with a moral underpinning--was critically dependent on general education for the citizenry and higher education for those who would govern. This paper contains an analysis of Jefferson's general philosophy of education by enumerating some of its most fundamental…

Student academic performance, persistence, and graduation among American Indian/Alaska Native students in higher education are very low compared to other racial groups. Studies have shown that American Indian students enter higher education with a lack of academic preparedness, financial challenges, lack of social skills development, and lack of…

This study examines the Wakonse Conference on Teaching and Learning through an organizational development lens. It explores why the conference was created and why it has continued for 24 years. Using this phenomenological case study provides insight into both the organizational elements involved in this conference, but also how the roles of…

This research is an exploration of students' meaning making around physical concepts through connections to students' funds of knowledge. This qualitative case study, influenced by Indigenous methodologies, focused on two Native students in a tribal college introductory physics course, exploring the personal, cultural, and philosophical…

This study is aimed at analyzing how contemporary urban Aymara youth hip hoppers and bloggers are creating their identities and are producing discourses in texts and lyrics to contest racist and colonial discourses. The research is situated in Bolivia, which is currently engaged in a cultural and political revolution supported by Indigenous…

Since the mid-twentieth century, sustained contact between Inuit and newcomers has led to profound changes in education in the Eastern Arctic, including the experience of colonization and progress toward the re-establishment of traditional education in schools. The milestone of the establishment of Nunavut Territory in 1999 was followed by the…

American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) adolescents have high rates of pregnancy, as well as alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and, increasingly, methamphetamine (meth) use. The progression of adolescent drug use to meth use could have devastating impacts on AI communities, particularly when youth are simultaneously at risk for teen childbearing. In…

The purpose of this study was to examine the lived educational experiences of American Indians who grew up during the 1950s and 1960s, known as the termination period in American history. The research for this phenomenological study consisted of interviews with eight participants who were willing to share their personal experiences from this…

This article examines research on the impacts of high-stakes accountability policies in the USA--in particular, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001--on Native American learners. NCLB's goals are laudable: close the achievement gap by making schools accountable for learning among all student groups, and by ensuring that all students are…

This exploratory study investigated the social and affective concerns of 280 high-ability students in Grades 5 through 12 who participated in a summer residential program. Content analysis of responses from an open-ended survey indicated that high-ability adolescents expressed concerns regarding feelings and emotions, future aspirations, and…

For 20 years, the American Indian College Fund (the Fund) has been helping students to afford a higher education. In addition to providing more than 4,000 scholarships for American Indian students last year, it also provides tribal colleges with funding and programmatic support. The Fund was created in 1989 by the tribal colleges and universities…