"Safe" Versus "Dangerous" Policy Processes in Urban Schooling: The Case of Arizona's Native American Education

• In Event: 61.067 - Leveraging Anthropology of Education Policy in a World Turned Upside Down

Abstract

“Safe” versus “Dangerous” Policy Processes in Urban Schooling: The Case of Arizona’s Native American Education
This paper derives from a larger interpretive policy analysis that focused on the two mandates on Native American (NA) history instruction in all Arizona K–12 schools. Aligned with an ethnographic perspective on policy analysis (e.g., Shore & Wright, 1997; Shore, Wright, & Peró, 2011), interpretive policy analysis seeks to identify policies meanings made by specific “communities of meaning,” which include legislators, intended policy beneficiaries and implementers, and the public (Yanow, pp. vii, 2000). I use Lomawaima and McCarty’s (2006) safety zone theory (SZT). The safety zone constricts when Indian education policies interpret Native ways, or current practices and experiences of self-determination and sovereignty, as so “dangerous” as to be proscribed; however, the safety zone expands when selected traits of “safe” Indian-ness are promoted that do not threaten dominant society. I also utilize Lomawaima and McCarty’s (2014) Zone of Sovereignty (ZoS) to understand ways that Native peoples are accepting active roles to expand safety zones by “staking out, protecting, and nurturing expressions of Indigeneity, and to clarify the lived reality that being Indigenous can be dangerous” (p. 65). The larger study included three components: determining the intent for the mandates; examining the implementation in current school systems in urban areas; and exploring Native parents’ perspectives on their own and their children’s experiences with NA history instruction. I conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews (Seidman, 2006) with three policymakers, 11 school district personnel, and five Native parents. Drawing on McCarty’s (2004) notion of policy as a situated sociocultural process: “modes of human interaction, negotiation, and production mediated by relations of power” (p. 72), I present the insights of two of those parents. Artifacts such as state legislative documents, state social studies standards, and audio recordings of the legislative education committee meetings contributed to the study’s evidentiary foundation. The intent of the original bill that led to the mandates were to mandate NA government, sovereignty, culture, and history instruction; however, policymakers rejected all topics except history, as outside of “safe” curricular boundaries. Many of the district personnel lacked knowledge of the mandates, yet believed they were implementing them because they utilized the social studies standards. In an analysis of the standards, findings indicate incongruence between intent and praxis as dominant perceptions of history and history instruction marginalize Native peoples’ experiences and the importance of sovereignty. Native parents are creating ZoS for their children by disrupting the “safe” articulations of Native history advanced by state legislation. For the intent of the policies to be realized, implementation must be radically overhauled to ensure recognition of contemporary tribal governments, communities, and Indigenous sovereignties. The implications of this study are significant for policymakers, educators, and Native communities and parents as numerous states are enacting policies that mandate instruction of NA content. These policies are important and significant, but all stakeholders need to understand the intent and interpretations of such policies.

Author

• Cynthia Benally, University of Utah