Wearing Two Hats: Northern Cheyenne Talk about Education in their Community

• In Event: Roundtable Session 3
  In Roundtable Session: Decolonizing Education in Settler Colonial Nation-States

Abstract

This research explores the complex meanings of education for this community, and looks at how community members articulate tensions and pressures in balancing two ways of knowing and being within the reservation community. This study presents data from in-depth interviews with a selection of community members across the reservation and draws data from informal conversations and participatory observation over the course of several months on the Northern Cheyenne reservation. The Northern Cheyenne respondents see their negotiation of multiple identities as powerful and desirable as long as they can manage to remain fully competent in both of their worlds by balancing the ‘outside’ education with that of more traditional education rooted in the community.

Authors

• Erin Feinauer Whiting, Brigham Young University

• Erika Feinauer, Brigham Young University