Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The term “American Indian education” has referred to the education of Indian people by Indian people. The term has also referred to the education designed for Indian people by colonizing nations. For the last five centuries, education by Indians and education for Indians have stood at loggerheads. The former has been dedicated, as in all human societies, to perpetuating family values, language, religion, politics, economies, skills, sciences, and technologies. Colonial education for Indians has been dedicated to eradicating Native knowledge and values, and substituting values and knowledge judged to be “civilized.”In the “American” era (from 1776 through the present), “civilized” education has usually meant instruction in English and the suppression of Native languages; conversion to Christianity and the criminalization of Native religions; and emphasis on manual labor, and on “industrial” or “vocational” rather than academic training; strict regimentation of dress, emotional expression, and physical activity through military discipline; and physical disruption of family/community by removing Indian children into boarding schools, tuberculosis sanatoria, orphanages, and non-Indian foster homes (see Qoyawayma, 1964; Giago, 1978; St. Pierre, 1991; Skolnick and Skolnick, 1997). Despite generations of efforts to “civilize” them, Native people have vigorously defended education by Indians, ... log in or subscribe to read full text