This bibliography is reformatted and customized by the Center for Positive Practices for the Positive Universe: Earth Protection Team website. Some of the authors featured on this page include Sheryl L. Lindsley, Charles A. Braithwaite, Elaine Zinngrabe, Mindi Wisman, Valerie J. Shirley, Kate Morris, Kimberly Roppolo, Kim Raine, Kenneth J. Cooper, and Barbara Perry.
(2011). Staging a Christopher Columbus Play in a Culture of Illusion: Public Pedagogy in a Theatre of Genocide, Policy Futures in Education. In the foreword to "The Politics of Genocide", political theorist Noam Chomsky writes that denial of the American Indian holocaust is a potent force in the United States. He argues that "the most unambiguous cases of genocide" are often "acknowledged by the perpetrators, and passed over as insignificant or even denied in retrospect by the beneficiaries, right to the present". That is very true in the United States, where the author of this article discovers that few of his college students know much, if anything, about the capacious genocide of North American Indians. In this article, Brian McKenna explores the power of aesthetic theory and praxis to help overcome the rigid psychological defenses of besieged students. He carefully informs students about the genocide spawned by Columbus and the Spanish, and then draws connections between that history and the history of US Indian genocide and imperialism, up to the present day in Iraq and around the globe. The article presents a five-part exercise, refined over seven years, that shows how McKenna lets the "truth" dazzle gradually and then thunder mightily in revealing students to themselves. He requires students to imagine themselves as high school teachers where they must produce the written outlines of a play that is based, in part, on the truths of the Spanish genocide as depicted by America's first de facto cultural anthropologist, Father Bartolome de las Casas. The ultimate aims of the exercise are threefold: (1) Will students, in the politically charged setting of a high school, construct a Theatre of Genocide about the Arawak Indians and the Spanish? (2) Will students draw the educational links between the Spanish and the theatres of war and genocide associated with the United States? And (3) How will students grapple with the pedagogical relationships between knowledge and power; censorship and self-censorship; truth and art? The article also asks, "Who controls the play curriculum? How can critical public pedagogues challenge the ubiquity of high school productions such as "Oklahoma!" and "Hello, Dolly!" to create forms of drama that speak directly to the issues of the day? [More] Descriptors: Teaching Methods, Power Structure, War, High Schools
(2011). Running the "Medicine Line": Images of the Border in Contemporary Native American Art, American Indian Quarterly. In this article the author is concerned with the intersection of two congruent phenomena: (1) an increasing number of references to borders in contemporary Native American art; and (2) an increasing occurrence of border-rights conflicts between Native nations and the governments of the United States and Canada. Focusing on the period roughly 1990 to the present, she acknowledges the shifts in both art and politics after September 11, 2001; however, she does not suggest that tension or even outright conflict around borders is new to Indian Country–indeed, the right to free passage is a basic tenet of American Indian and First Nations sovereignty. She argues that as border-zone frictions "intensified" post-9/11, the visual and philosophical complexity of artworks situated within these zones also increased. The evolving situation at Kawehno:ke and the installation of Alan Michelson's artwork at Massena provide an ideal entry point into this discourse. [More] Descriptors: American Indians, Foreign Countries, Art, Conflict
(2002). Mending the Sacred Hoop: Identity Enactment and the Occupation of Wounded Knee, Great Plains Quarterly. The occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1973 by the leaders of the American Indian Movement (AIM) represented a culmination of frustration felt by Native Americans. The news media mocked the occupation and minimized the seriousness of the event. However, the historical significance of the Native American occupation of Wounded Knee, as well as the ensuing trail, which was viewed as a major civil rights case for Native Americans, justifies their rhetorical analysis and augments understanding of the American Indian protest movement. [More] Descriptors: Civil Rights, American Indians, American Indian Education, Rhetorical Criticism
(2001). We're Not There Yet, Kemo Sabe: Positing a Future for American Indian Literary Studies, American Indian Quarterly. The mechanisms by which the scholarly integrity of American Indian studies is pressured to conform to the colonialist, Euro-American ideals of the academy are examined. The future of American Indian studies depends on increased visibility and tribal advocacy by American Indians and recognition by non-Indians that Indians have the right and responsibility to represent themselves. Descriptors: American Indian Literature, American Indian Studies, American Indians, Culturally Relevant Education
(2005). Putting Anti-Indian Violence in Context. The Case of the Great Lakes Chippewas of Wisconsin, American Indian Quarterly. The Chippewas of Northern Wisconsin continue to experience a peculiarly American form of apartheid, characterized by segregation, discrimination, cultural imperialism, and everyday violence. While the blatant stigmatization, disempowerment, and violence reached its modern day zenith in the spear fishing conflict of the 1980s and 1990s, ongoing patterns of racism and violence remain embedded in the culture. The purpose of this paper, then, is to explore the ways in which contemporary patterns of oppression continue to shape the climate in which anti-American Indian violence occurs in this particular region. Native Americans across the country continue to experience myriad and interrelated forms of economic, political, and social oppression. This is evident in practices ranging from negative cultural imaging, treaty abrogations, and even violence. Recent years have seen extensive resistance on the part of American Indians, as they reassert their remaining treaty rights around land, resources, and self-governance. That American society at large is not ready for this relatively novel activism has been apparent in episodes of retaliatory violence intended to reassert Western control of American Indians and their resources. In what follows the authors examine recent experiences of Wisconsin Chippewas as an illustration of this cycle. In particular, this article provides an overview of the oppressive conditions in this part of the nation, followed by consideration of recent American Indian activism and resistance in the region. Finally, the authors trace the patterns of reactionary violence that have met such efforts at self-assertion. [More] Descriptors: Academic Achievement, American Indians, Violence, Racial Discrimination
(2007). Farewell to the Chief, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. The battle over the use of American Indian names and mascots among college and professional athletic teams has a seldom-told economic backstory. It is more than simple alumni sentimentality. Money, influence and power often play a significant role in decisions regarding the use of these symbols. Paraphernalia bearing the images bring in millions of dollars each year to the institutions. But the names and images have been decried as disrespectful and insensitive to American Indians. And it is the tribes, along with philanthropic, education, professional and civil rights organizations, that are leading the movement to retire the symbols. The National Congress of American Indians, the National Education Association, the NCAA and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights have all voiced their opposition to the mascots. Last year, the NCAA ruled that teams featuring offensive mascots would no longer be able to host postseason tournaments and would be subject to other penalties and restrictions. That rule, combined with the waves of negative publicity the mascots have generated, has led many colleges and universities to shelve the mascots permanently. The most recent and possibly most visible mascot retirement came in February when University of Illinois trustees chose to discontinue the use of the school's mascot, Chief Illiniwek. The circumstances of the Chief's demise shed a glimmer of light on the powerful economic forces at play behind these struggles. To date, four schools have negotiated agreements with local tribal leadership eliciting support for their American Indian-nicknamed teams and mascots: The Catawba College Indians, the Central Michigan University Chippewas, the University of Utah Utes and the Florida State Seminoles. Of the four, FSU is the only one that still maintains a mascot. [More] Descriptors: American Indians, College Athletics, Ethnic Stereotypes, Court Litigation
(2009). Complex Personhood as the Context for Intimate Partner Victimization: One American Indian Woman's Story, American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research: The Journal of the National Center. This qualitative case study explores one American Indian (AI) woman's experience of intimate partner violence and the subsequent murder of her abusive partner. The lens of complex personhood (Gordon, 1997) has been applied as a method for understanding "Annie's" multiple identities of AI woman, victim of intimate partner violence, mother, and convicted felon. The aim of the current case study was to uncover implicit and explicit meanings embedded in the experiences of moving from a victim of IPV to an offender by applying a framework of hermeneutic phenomenology as the methodology. Three relational themes emerged from the interview data: "Getting out of Hand," "They're in my Footstep all the Way Now," and "What's a Miranda Right"? Lastly, this article begins an exploration into the complex link between victimization and offending as it applies to one battered woman. [More] Descriptors: Family Violence, American Indians, Phenomenology, American Indian Culture
(2007). Vision, Voice, and Intertribal Metanarrative: The American Indian Visual-Rhetorical Tradition and Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead, American Indian Quarterly. American Indian cultures tend to be right hemispheric because of the ways in which they acquire knowledge. Over the thousands of years that American Indian peoples have lived in this hemisphere, strong visual rhetorics were developed, because of this tendency to engage in visual thinking and the socioeconomic need to communicate with others who might not speak the same language or who share situations in which speech was either inappropriate or dangerous. Because of the unique cultural developments in Native America and because of the relationship of that heritage to their contemporary literature, the author deems it important to examine how image has acted and continues to act "as" and "with" text in their cultures. In this article, the author provides a few examples of how some visual rhetorics have evolved over the years and shows their continuing importance in Native American life and literature. In addition, the author examines the visual rhetoric of Leslie Marmon Silko's "Almanac of the Dead" by focusing briefly on one image: the snake. The author chose the snake, along with Silko's "Almanac of the Dead," because she saw it as being metonymic for the intertribal metanarrative with much slipping between signifiers. [More] Descriptors: Rhetoric, American Indians, Visualization, American Indian Culture
(2011). Engaging the Whole Mind: Transmediation between Pictures and Print Construction of Reading/Writing Understanding by Ten African American Second Grade Students in Response to Art, Read-Alouds, and Small Group Experiences, ProQuest LLC. The purpose of this study was to investigate the ways second grade children signaled the meanings they made from pictures and print and to identify ways they signaled new meanings when transmediations between these two semiotic systems took place. The study was a mixed methods study using qualitative methods in a case study format for the first three questions, supported by a quantitative component for the fourth question. The researcher was also the teacher, teaching and collecting data from ten second grade, African American students in an after-school bookmaking program. The ten participants were selected because they all made very low reading scores on standardized tests. Observations, video and audio recordings, memos, artifacts, interviews, surveys and standardized test scores served as data collection vehicles. American public schools were founded on Western European written rhetoric. Because of the importance of reading, writing, math and science, a verbal mode of teaching dominates, placing great value on left-brained thinking. Unfortunately, verbocentric pedagogy is not meeting the needs of our constantly changing culture. Oral rhetoric from indigenous cultures such as American Indians, or minorities such as African Americans are based in the arts; dance, music, storytelling, and visual art of all kinds. These are right-brained functions. They are also the natural and preferred methods of communication for young children of all cultures. This study will enable the reader to reflect on their beliefs about engaging the whole mind, placing verbal and visual semiotics on an equal, parallel and complimentary plane. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.%5D [More] Descriptors: African American Students, Standardized Tests, Rhetoric, Video Technology
(2010). Contemporary Hurdles in the Application of the Indian Child Welfare Act, American Indian Culture and Research Journal. In 1978 Congress passed an astonishing piece of legislation that gave Native American tribes a considerable amount of jurisdiction over matters of child custody and the adoption of their children. In 1976, the Association of American Indian Affairs gathered statistics relevant to the adoption of Indian children that Congress found "shocking [and that] cries out for sweeping reform at all levels of government." The statistics revealed that Indian children were roughly 20 percent more likely than non-Indian children to be taken from their Native homes, and the vast majority of these children were placed with non-Indian families. The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) sought to remedy this situation by vesting jurisdiction with tribal courts when one of their children was in danger of leaving the tribal community through state or private efforts to terminate an Indian parent's parental rights. In this commentary, the author outlines the procedures set out in the ICWA, explores jurisdictional issues that arise when an Indian child custody case evoking the ICWA is brought to court, investigates successful attempts of the state courts in diminishing the strength of the act through judicially created exceptions–namely the "existing Indian family exception" and the "good cause" exception, and analyzes the tribes' equally successful attempts to use tribal custom as a tool in formulating their own unique rule of law in governing the affairs of their children. [More] Descriptors: Parent Rights, American Indians, State Courts, Child Welfare
(2004). On the Right Path: Over the Past 20 Years, Colleges and Universities Continue to Experience an Increase in the Number of American Indian-Alaska Native Students Receiving Degrees, Black Issues in Higher Education. Accounting for only 1 percent of the total U.S. population, American Indians have a 60 percent to 70 percent high school dropout rate, the highest among all minority groups. At the same time, however, more American Indian students than ever are graduating from high school and leaving their home communities behind in pursuit of a higher education. Leaving their communities behind also means trying to maintain a balance between their indigenous values and beliefs and that of the dominant culture's. And despite their high dropout rates and the fact that 30 percent of the American Indian population lives below the poverty line, they recognize that education is the key to a better future. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (1999-2000), there has been tremendous growth in the number of earned degrees in postsecondary institutions serving American Indian and Alaska Native students. Descriptors: Enrollment Trends, Postsecondary Education, College Bound Students, Poverty
(2007). A Painful Remembrance, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. Many in Indian country have expressed that the trauma from the boarding school experience continues to terrorize the hearts of American Indians. Although much has been written about this history that looms so large in the North American indigenous experience, it remains an obscure topic in mainstream America. Dr. Eulynda J. Toledo, a member of the Dine tribe and project director of a grant from the National Institute for Disability Research and Rehabilitation, is working to bring attention to the "intergenerational trauma" of the boarding school era through the recently founded Boarding School Healing Project. Toledo and her colleagues maintain that many of the social ills plaguing current generations of American Indians, including sexual abuse, child abuse, violence towards women and substance abuse can be traced to the generations of abuse experienced at Indian boarding schools. Toledo describes intergenerational trauma as posttraumatic stress disorder that has been passed down through generations. The project's goals are four-fold: healing, education, documentation and accountability. According to their mission statement, "the project is a starting point to address child sexual abuse. By framing abuse as the continuing effects of human rights abuses perpetrated by government policy, they hope to take the shame away from talking about these issues and provide space for communities to address the problems and heal." [More] Descriptors: Substance Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Child Abuse, Boarding Schools
(2005). A Report on the Status of American Indians and Alaska Natives in Education: Historical Legacy to Cultural Empowerment, National Education Association. On October 27, 2004, the National Education Association (NEA) joined with the National Indian Education Association (NIEA) to host "Moving from Research to Practice: A Summit on Indian Students." Over 100 American Indian and Alaska Native education practitioners and researchers from Alaska to Mississippi gathered to share their knowledge of effective educational strategies for American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) students. Presentations focused on four themes: Using Native Language and Culture to Promote Success in Indian Students; Preparing Educators to Be Effective Supports for Student Achievement; Reaching Out to the Community to Create Success; and Promoting Policies that Benefit Indian Students. This report draws, in part, on the presentations and discussions held at the Summit, and explores several aspects of the American Indian/Alaska Native historical, social, and cultural experiences as they relate to the development of Indian education. Using these experiences as a context, the report suggests a few broad strategies for improving the status of AI/AN education and provides recommendations for action. Multiple resources round out the text to encourage further investigation into how to make a positive impact on the education of American Indian and Alaska Native students. Contains the following: (1) Endnotes; (2) History Timeline: Selected Dates in Indian History and Indian Education; and (3) Resources. [This report was written with the assistance of Douglas Martin.] [More] Descriptors: American Indians, Alaska Natives, Empowerment, American Indian Education
(2009). Diabetes Awareness and Body Size Perceptions of Cree Schoolchildren, Health Education Research. Native American Indians and First Nations are predisposed to obesity and diabetes. A study was done to understand Cree schoolchildren's diabetes awareness and body size perceptions in two communities that had diabetes awareness-raising activities in the Province of Quebec, Canada. Children (N = 203) in grades 4-6 were classified into weight categories using measured heights and weights and grouped on diabetes awareness based on dichotomous responses to the question "Do you know what diabetes is?" Children selected a drawing of an American Indian child whom they felt most likely to get diabetes and described their body size perception using a closed response question. Although 64.5% of children were overweight or obese, most (60.1%) children considered their body size to be "just right", with 29.6% considering it "too big" and 10.3% considering it "too small". A minority (27.6%) of children had diabetes awareness. These children were more likely than children without diabetes awareness to consider their body size too big (42.9 versus 24.5%) and to choose an obese drawing as at risk for diabetes (85.7 versus 63.3%, odds ratio 3.48 and 95% confidence interval 1.53-7.91). Culturally appropriate health education programs to increase schoolchildren's diabetes awareness and possibility to have a healthy body weight are important. [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Obesity, Health Education, American Indians
(2007). Media Matters, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. This article presents five vignettes, written by veteran journalists, that focus on the current and future state of journalism. Despite almost daily reports of media consolidation and newspaper layoffs, the journalists sound a cautionary but optimistic tone about the industry. They weigh in on everything from the threats to diversity to the future of how the news is delivered. These vignettes are: (1) "The Many Sides of Media Consolidation," by Kenneth J. Cooper; (2) "Coverage of American Indians Is Usually Wrong," by Rita Pyrillis; (3) "From Watchdog to Lapdog," by Ruben Rosario; (4) "Job Prospects Limited, But There With Right Skills," by Reginald Stuart; and (5) "Reinventing and Sustaining Journalism With New Media," by Elaine Zinngrabe. Graphics show (A) Minority Representation in the Newsroom by Race/Ethnicity and Job Category, 2007; and (B) Regional Comparison of Minority Newsroom Employment, 2007. [More] Descriptors: Journalism Education, American Indians, Journalism, Job Layoff