A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

For comprehensive information on federal AIAN education research --- including ERIC documents/ERIC Digests, data sources, research funding, conferences and conference papers, bibliographies, and the Native Education Directory --- visit: www.indianeduresearch.net.

• American Indian and Alaska Native Education Research Grants
  The Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) and the Office of Indian Education (OIE) jointly support four grants funded under an American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) education research grant competition conducted in 2001. This competition was an outgrowth of interagency activity to respond to the mandate of Executive Order 13096, American Indian and Alaska Native Education.

  Applicants were required to address the following research question: To what extent and in what ways does incorporating Native language or culture (or both) in educational strategies affect either academic achievement or social development of American Indian and Alaska Native students (or both)?

  The four grants each commenced on November 1, 2001.

  • Seneca Nation of Indians, Irving, NY
    This three-year study will investigate the effects of a constructivist intervention in preschool (ages 3-5) classrooms and homes. The intention is to enable preschool children to actively construct knowledge of Seneca language and culture. Consistency will be created in the classroom and home availability of language and culture resources through training and ongoing support of teachers and parents: preschool teachers will be provided with materials and instructional strategies to enrich their classrooms and curriculum with reference to and integration of Seneca language and culture. Parents of preschoolers will receive parallel materials and strategy suggestions appropriate for home use. Elective groups will participate in an ongoing program of strategy instruction for encouraging and helping their child learn Seneca language and culture at home, and peer support. Prior to and following the program, children's language proficiency, cultural knowledge, social and developmental assets, and as appropriate, academic readiness, will be assessed. Parent and teacher perceptions will be surveyed. Additional descriptive data will be gathered through observations and interviews to supplement the quantitative analysis.
    OERI staff contact: Karen Suagee, Karen.Suagee@ed.gov, 202-219-2244

  • Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
    This three-year study will research a large cohort of American Indian/ Alaska Native (AIAN) candidates in teacher and leadership preparatory programs, in order to investigate how such programs contribute to the development of effective practices that integrate language and culture and that positively effect learning and social development. The project will provide a clearer understanding of the 'cultural competencies' of AIAN educational professionals, collect key information on preparatory program characteristics, enlist participating teachers in the collection of student achievement and other data from individual school sites, include case studies of selected exemplary schools and school partnerships, and analyze existing national databases that address the project's research questions. The cohort of teachers and administrators, drawn from a pool of approximately 400 teachers who have participated in the Office of Indian Education-funded professional development projects, will also be trained as co-researchers and data gatherers to support both immediate project research goals and continuing research on language and culture in the future.
    OERI staff contact: Karen Suagee, Karen.Suagee@ed.gov, 202-219-2244 and Stephanie Dalton, Stephanie.Dalton@ed.gov, 202-219-2497

  • Anishinaabe Wi Yung, Cass Lake, MN
    This one-year community research project will study two methods of teaching Ojibwe language and culture - elders roundtable and master/apprentice programs. The two methods will be implemented with Anishinaabe adult students who are expected to become language immersion teachers, with the group divided equally among the two methods in three locations on Anishinaabe reservations (Leech Lake and Mille Lacs in Minnesota and St. Croix, Wisconsin). The project will use ethnographic methods to describe the results of the teaching implementations, with the PI conducting four research writing workshops as part of this project.
    OERI staff contact: Karen Suagee, Karen.Suagee@ed.gov, 202-219-2244

  • University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK
    This three-year project will investigate the effects of a culturally-based math curriculum on Alaska Native students' math performance. Stemming from a long-term research collaboration with Yup'ik elders, teachers, schools and communities in four Alaskan school districts, the study will use random assignment of treatment and control classrooms, reaching an estimated 1200 students in 48 classrooms over the three-year period. The study will use qualitative methods to analyze in-classroom factors that may facilitate or inhibit learning, and videotapes of selected classrooms will be analyzed to describe processes that affect student performance.
    OERI staff contact: Beverly Coleman, Beverly.Coleman@ed.gov, 202-219-2280

• Field Initiated Studies Education Research Grant Program
  This three-year project, initiated on March 15, 2001, is studying the impact of Native language shift and retention on American Indian Students' English language learning and academic achievement. The purpose of the project is to document the nature of Native language loss and retention among a select number of American Indian school-community sites, and to determine the impact of these sociolinguistic and cultural processes on Native students' acquisition of academic content and English.
  OERI staff contact: Gil Garcia, Gil.Garcia@ed.gov, 202-219-2144

• AIAN Research Agenda
  A Federal agenda for AIAN education and related activities has been developed in response to Executive Order 13096. A number of activities are presently occurring in response to the Research Agenda. See IndianEduResearch.Net, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort, and BIA Schools and Staffing Survey.
  

• Links to Research and Scholarly Journals