American Indian Students Speak out: What's Good Citizenship?.

For much of our country’s history, citizenship has eluded American Indian people. With this in mind, the authors conducted a study to determine the perceptions of eighth and eleventh grade American Indian students regarding citizenship. We wanted to find out what American Indian students believe are the attributes of a good citizen; what activities they are currently participating in that are related to good citizenship; and what citizenship activities they see themselves performing ten years later in life. The results of the research study indicated that American Indian students’ views of citizenship were grounded in community service rather than in political engagement. For these students, volunteering in community and tribal activities seemed to be an alternative to political activity. Voting and running for political office and engaging in political activities were many times equated to participating in their local tribal organization. However, the fact that these students do not focus to a great extent on political engagement may not be cause for alarm. Their involvement in civic activities in the community and the tribal organization is providing a strong foundation for future civic and political engagement. For much of our country’s history, citizenship has eluded American Indian people. Even when slaves were gaining their freedom, native peoples were not legal citizens of the United States. The legal basis of limiting Indian citizenship was rooted in the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation of the 14 and 15 Amendments to the United States Constitution. The 14 Amendment states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside” and “representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. ” The 15 Amendment (section one) states that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. ” In 1884, when John Elk (American Indian) attempted to vote, his registration application was turned down. The Supreme Court rejected Elk’s constitutional claims, holding that Indians belonged to “alien nations. ” The court maintained that even if individual Indians met basic citizenship requirements, they still could not be enfranchised unless Congress passed a law authorizing such a change in their legal standing. Change was slow, but the Dawes Act of 1887 (also known as the General Allotment Act) was designed to assimilate American Indians by assigning each male head of household 160 acres of land, and American Indians who accepted the allotments became citizens of the United States. During the 20 century, with the United States participating in World War I, citizenship was granted to American Indian war veterans. The Indian Veterans of World War I Act and the Snyder Act of 1924 granted citizenship to all American Indians. While these acts granted American Indians U.S. citizenship, the United States Constitution permitted franchisement on the state level to be determined at the discretion of the states; consequently, it was possible for American Indians to be citizens on the national level but not at the state level. Enfranchisement of American Indians varied widely from state to state, and it was not until 1962 that all states recognized American Indians as citizens. Because of this history of repression of citizenship of American Indian people, we decided to conduct a study to find out how current American Indian students (8 and 11 grades) viewed good citizenship. These young adults will help shape our country’s future, and it is important as educators to understand their thoughts on this subject. As part of the No Child Left Behind Act, schools are required “to foster civic competence and responsibility. ” If we are to respond to the national agenda put forth by the federal government regarding citizenship education in the schools, we need to find out how our students view the concept of good citizenship. We, therefore, wanted to find out what American Indian students believe are the attributes of a good citizen; what activities they currently participate in that are related to good citizenship; and what citizenship activities they see themselves performing ten years later in life. Such information is important to us if we are to fulfill our responsibilities as teachers in educating knowledgeable, thoughtful, committed, and participatory citizens. We need to know how these students view good citizenship if we are to improve the civic education curriculum and the teaching strategies that go along with it in our schools. It should be noted here that we are approaching this research study from a perspective of citizenship that has been developed out of Western European culture. This concept may be different from the concept of citizenship that historically developed among the American Indian tribes within North America. It is also evident that some American Indian people see themselves as having a dual citizenship, tribal as well as U.S. citizenship. We have found limited research related to this topic and realize the limitations of our research. However, we feel that this research is at least a step towards trying to untangle a difficult concept that needs to be researched. Concept of Citizenship For the purposes of this study, we have defined citizenship as the social and legal link between individuals and their democratic political community. MacIntyre and Turner concluded that good citizenship involves the self-conscious performance of a collection of behaviors in an attempt to meet society’s standard of the “good citizen. ” This “self-conscious performance” is what Conover and Searing label as “practice. ” “The practice of citizenship involves the knowledge, thoughts, and commitment of citizens, which is translated into actions essential to sustain our representative government. ” Finally, Westheimer and Kahne reviewed the work of practitioners and scholars related to the concept of a good citizen and grouped the information under three headings. They were: (1) the personally responsible citizen – one who acts responsibly in his or her community; (2) the participatory citizen – one who actively participates in civic affairs; and (3) the justice-oriented citizen – one who critically assesses social, political, and economic structures and considers collective strategies for change that challenges injustice. To further our understanding of the concept of citizenship, it is also important to realize the dual nature of citizenship, civic and political engagement. The civic aspect of citizenship deals with how citizens interact with each other (i.e., civic engagement), while the political aspect involves how citizens interact with the state (i.e., political engagement). Both of these elements are essential for a citizen to participate in a democratic society. It is this dual nature of the concept of citizenship that this study will focus on in the interpretation of what students believe constitutes the practice of good citizenship. The civic and political perspectives incorporate the ideas of knowledge, thought, commitment, and participation into these two roles of citizenship. Method Studying citizenship as practice enabled us to focus more on explanations rather than causal relationships. It involved an account of students’ knowledge, beliefs, and actions that they were expressing. With this in mind, we designed a case study to interpret the data regarding American Indian students’ views of good citizenship. This case study was “bounded by time and place . through detailed, in-depth data collection involving multiple sources of information rich in context. ” A case study is well suited for locating the meanings people place on events, processes, and structures of their lives. These perceptions, assumptions, and presuppositions are useful for people to connect these meanings to the social world around them. Yin argues that a case study strategy is preferred when the inquirer seeks answers to how or why questions, when the inquirer has little control over events being studied, when the object of study is a contemporary phenomenon in a real-life context, when boundaries between the phenomenon an the context are not clear, and when it is desirable to use multiple sources of evidence. Stake emphasizes that the foremost concern of a case study is to generate knowledge of the particular. Both Stake and Yin argue that case studies can be used for theoretical elaboration or analytic generalization. Within our case of a rural school district, we have multiple cases of 8 and 11 grade students that provide us with our level of analysis. Miles and Huberman assert that multiple cases offer the researcher an even deeper understanding of processes and outcomes of cases, the chance to test hypotheses, and a good picture of locally grounded causality. Our prime interest in the study was conceptual. We had some notion of the community in which the students live and the schools they attend, and we want to find out how they express their concept of good citizenship within this environment. Data collection (interviews and surveys) took place over a one month period of time in a rural school district that was located in a southwestern state with a large number of American Indian students. The methods employed and the analysis of the data were similar to a study conducted by Chiodo and Martin. In this study, data from urban, suburban, and rural students were assessed regarding the concept of citizenship. Selection Of The Sample The school district was chosen because of the large number of American Indian students in attendance. It should be noted that the school was not par