Culturally Sustaining Policy Making in Indian Country: Promoting Change

• In Event: Centering Equity in State Policy-Making Processes

Abstract

Policymaking sociocultural process (Sutton & Levinson, 2001) and is implemented in all kinds of communities. According to Sandra Stein’s (2004) “policy culture” framework, the government often situates itself as a “corrective force” to remediate perceived deficits among individuals or groups (p. 19). This paper based on an ethnographically informed-case study explores stories of survivance in the context of a state’s oversight in rapid school improvement on the Santee Sioux reservation. It considers Indigenous voices in policy spaces, the possibility of culturally sustaining policy making as a creative expression of survivance, critical moments of policymaking and implementation that continue to colonize, and the possibilities and practicalities of policymaking and implementation that is culturally sustaining (McCarty & Lee, 2014).

Author

• Aprille J. Phillips, University of Nebraska - Kearney