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We see three problems with this approach: (1) It reifies the status quo because
innovations will likely be buried in the noise after large-scale predictors are
regressed out, (2) The large-scale factors are likely to be variables such as family
income, parent formal education, and number of topics in the home, variables that
are difficult to turn into interventions, except for the implicit, pernicious sugges-
tion that everyone should be white and middle class, and (3) The units of analysis
(e.g. Native Americans) are often too broad to reveal the relevant dynamics (see
Chandler & LaLonde, 1998 for a compelling example involving suicide rates among
First Nations peoples of British Columbia).
A second barrier to constructive engagement of science education research with
Native communities is the physical, social, historical, and power distance between
major research universities and tribal institutions. Universities tend to be in urban
areas and though more Native Americans live off reservations than on them, Indian
children are usually scattered throughout urban schools and an Indian child is often
the only Native American in the classroom. Although the more recent development
of tribal colleges and universities is a positive development, the primary mission of
these tribal institutions has been education, not (educational) research.
A third barrier (or perhaps an amplification of the second) is the status of both
education and research in tribal communities. We will not rehearse the boarding
school era and the enduring historical trauma associated with it and other assimila-
tionist efforts that have been integral to schools and schooling. Perhaps it suffices
to say that the history of formal education in American Indian communities docu-
ments the consistent attempts to undermine the sovereignty, as well as cultural and
intellectual vitality of Indigenous peoples. Control over the education of Indigenous
children and even the parenting of Indigenous children was systematically and
intentionally manipulated as a way to “solve the Indian problem.”
Although the most pernicious aspects of the boarding school era have been
confronted and displaced, they have been replaced by more subtle, but ultimately
equally damaging, power structures that organize learning in terms of the values and
practices of the dominant culture. The everyday practices of teaching and learning
have not been in the control of or in many cases even implemented by Indian people.
For many community members, memories of school are very unpleasant. Although
they wish for their own children to have better experiences, it is hard for them not
to conceptualize schools as a “necessary evil,” let alone as a positive resource for
community values.
There is a corresponding history of exploitation in research conducted in Indian
communities. The polite expression of this attitude is the belief that “we have
been studied too much.” More analytic responses point to the unequal benefits of
research—the Indian informants get coffee and donuts and the graduate student
researcher gets a Ph.D. or the Professor gets a book published. And with annoy-
ing frequency, the research report is disparaging of the community being studied.
Who needs that?
In summary, there are very significant barriers to efforts to address under-
representation in science and science education in Native American communities.
Pretty clearly significant changes in orientations and innovations are needed to
