Poster #42 - Undermining Self-Determination Through Mandated Educational Compliance

• In Event: 25.087 - MTCC Poster Session Four
  In Poster Session: 25.087-5 - Division A Graduate Student Poster Session

Abstract

For over 500 years American Indians have faced colonization and assimilation. As indigenous peoples to this land, American Indians maintain a cultural and political sovereign status to the lands in the United States. However, the complex web of education policy, and its varying structures, continues to complicate, and reify a system of indoctrination, divergence, and inequity for American Indian communities and threatens tribal sovereignty. This research paper seeks to understand the influence of federal accountability policies on Diné public education in Arizona as a means to threaten sovereignty guaranteed by federal law. The results suggest the Diné require much more educational agency than previous accountability structures have allowed, or that ESSA continues to reify, in order to assert their sovereignty.

Authors

• Victor Begay, Arizona State University

• David G. Martinez, University of South Carolina - Columbia

• Oscar Jimenez-Castellanos, Santa Clara University