A participatory research project on adolescent well-being and related community factors was conducted under contract with a Manitoba tribal council organization representing nine Ojibwa communities. The project used the nominal group process and focus groups and was based on four principles of culturally appropriate research: elder input, use of…

Several Native American engineers discuss the current state of their profession and the very competitive nature of today's engineering workplace. Native engineering students need to take advantage of mentors and internships. Graduate school, job training, and networking are critical to keeping Native American engineers caught up with the latest…

Tourism in Indian Country is a valuable economic development strategy, but must be sustainable. Issues of community impact, cultural appropriateness, and environmental impact are best blended with economic feasibility by educated tribal employees and Indian entrepreneurs. Better institutional tribal support of Indian entrepreneurs is needed. Four…

This study assesses the degree to which culturally specific interventions enhance substance abuse prevention effectiveness for targeted cultural groups. A large and diverse (African American, Hispanic, American Indian, and Asian) sample of 10,500 youth across 48 programs was obtained. Youth participating in culturally specific programming showed…

Mary-Anne Stoutsenberger has been the NASA Tribal College and University Program Manager at NASA Headquarters, Washington DC, since 2000. As NASA's liaison to the tribal colleges, she has seen firsthand how Native American students can flourish and succeed when they are surrounded with people who recognize and nurture their potential. She has…

Attempts to build intercultural understanding inevitably uncover tensions and involve negotiating issues of identity, power, and resistance. Using a self-study approach, I describe the development and early implementation phase of Aboriginal language programs in one school district. I consider the collaborative process involving representatives…

Most languages of the world have not been the focus of a speech recognition development effort, and the choice of technical approaches best suited to a language can be substantially impacted by the cultural context surrounding it. As the technologist and the teacher of or expert in a non-mainstream language and its culture are typically not the…

English as spoken as a second language in India has developed distinct sound patterns in terms of both segmental and prosodic characteristics. We investigate the differences between two groups varying in native language (Gujarati, Tamil) to evaluate to what extent Indian English (IE) accents are based on a single target phonological-phonetic…

Student service programs act as key resources to help students persist in school until graduation. However, some critics question whether service programs aimed at specific ethnic populations contribute sufficiently toward their persistence. Tinto (1975) argues that the stronger one is integrated into the institution, the more likely he/she will…

Immigrants from India are a growing population in the United States. According to Census Bureau data, nearly 1.7 million Asian Indians live in the United States, making them the third largest Asian population in the country (Reeves & Bennett 2004). Most Asian Indians who live in the United States hold a unique set of ideologies with respect to…

Alcohol use is cited as a risk factor for exposure to HIV infection through risky sexual behavior, especially among adolescents. From Social Cognitive Theory, positive outcome expectancies about the use of alcohol have often been presented as a critical aspect of alcohol use. Yet little is known about how they might be related to different aspects…

This article corrects the assumption that "indigenous women and feminist issues remain undertheorized," by demonstrating that they do theorize their lives, but that they theorize differently, meaning, indigenous women do not rely solely on Western tools, worldviews, or epistemologies as methods of interpretation. One tool indigenous…

Community-based participatory research directly involves community members and community-based service providers as partners in the research process. It is especially important in Native American communities, where egregious research practices have led some communities and individuals to be wary of researchers. Messengers for Health uses a lay…

The intent of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 is to hold schools accountable for ensuring that all their students achieve mastery in reading and math, with a particular focus on groups that have traditionally been left behind. Under NCLB, states submit accountability plans to the U.S. Department of Education detailing the rules and…

The intent of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 is to hold schools accountable for ensuring that all their students achieve mastery in reading and math, with a particular focus on groups that have traditionally been left behind. Under NCLB, states submit accountability plans to the U.S. Department of Education detailing the rules and…