“College Pride, Native Pride” and Education for Native Nation Building: Portraits of Native Students Navigating Freshman Year

• In Event: Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

This research examines the experiences of a group of Native (American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian) college freshmen, all of whom are alumni of a pre-college access program for Native students called College Horizons (CH). Using Portraiture (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis 1997), a qualitative methodology that “seeks to combine systematic, empirical description with aesthetic expression, blending art and science” (3), I utilize data from longitudinal interviews conducted throughout the first year, participant observation, Facebook and other social media data, and document analysis to construct a series of portraits that document the ways these Native students navigate their experiences in the freshman year of college, especially in relation to their varying and complex Native identities. Given the motto of CH—“college pride, Native pride—I examine the questions: How do four CH alums balance and navigate their “college pride” and “Native pride”? And what are the issues they face, if any, in creating a space where both can exist simultaneously? My goal in this research is to increase our understanding of Native students in higher education, and complicate and expand research on how these students are negotiating their college experiences by offering an intensive examination of these students within their college contexts.
My research uses a framework of Native nation building, a movement in Indian Country of building capacity within tribal communities to move towards goals of sovereignty and self-determination (HPAIED, 2007; Kalt & Cornell, 1999). In these frames, education is seen as a capacity-building endeavor, realizing that the strength of nations is dependant on the education of its citizens (Brayboy et al, 2012). CH uses explicit messaging of Nation Building, and the responsibilities of Native students to “give back” and build up their tribal nations.
The four students represent a diverse set of experiences in Indian Country, two reservation students and two urban/suburban students, from four different tribes and communities. Within the group, one student attends a large state flagship school, two attend elite private colleges, and one attended a music school, and has now transferred to a small liberal arts campus. Emergent themes include the role of identity as a fluid, changing, and developing concept; the role of structured systems of support on campus (bridge programs, STEM support, etc); the power and importance of “home”; tensions and power of family as support; the role of interactions outside the classroom in shaping student experience; and the personal costs of social justice oriented goals and work.

Author

• Adrienne Keene, Brown University