Culturally Relevant Classroom Management Strategies for American Indian Students

ABSTRACT This study contrasted the perspectives of families of American Indian students on discipline issues to the typical classroom management practices of K-12 schools on two rural reservations. In general, school strategies used for behavior improvement focus on individual students and are micro-managed by teachers. Families were concerned that these practices may elicit resistance in children who were raised to evaluate their conduct and self-impose behaviors that meet the standards of the group. Results suggest that American Indian students respond to modeling in a context that supports independence and the practice of humility to facilitate group process. Teachers are highly concerned about the behaviors of their students (Brock & Grady, 1996; Latz, 1992). Usually, teachers spend a great deal of classroom time focusing on changing or molding students' behaviors to maximize time on-task in order to facilitate academic learning. As such, teachers' repertoire of effective classroom management strategies is an integral part of their daily practices as a means of limiting disruptions. Typically, most classroom management training for prospective teachers rely on behavioral outcomes based on generic characteristics believed to characterize traditional and non-traditional students, ignoring ethnic, cultural, or socioeconomic differences (Emmer & Stough, 2001; McCarthy & Banally, 2003; Wlodkowski, 1999). For example, many assume that instrumental conditioning, such as reinforcement, can provide rewards consistent with the needs of all students to gain compliance with classroom rules. Moreover, although reinforcement is described as a naturally occurring phenomenon of behavior change (Alberto & Troutman, 2003), in the classroom, the teacher arranges, controls, and monitors the environmental conditions of the change. In some cases, the behavioral-reduction management program (e.g., reinforcement) is paired with aversive stimuli (shouting, scolding, ridicule), as teachers unconsciously practice disciplines that they were exposed to as children (Alberto & Troutman, 2003). These approaches rarely provide student with the tools to self-evaluate, self-monitor, and self-regulate their actions. In addition, these methods may fail to account for differences related to self-regulation, as they are culture bound. Such is the case with the traditional American Indian culture in which children's or students' positive behavior patterns are expected to be internally regulated rather than manipulated by parents or teachers. Therefore, it is important to identify some of the critical values and cultural characteristics of traditional American Indian families as they relate to classroom management strategies typically used in schools. These values and cultural characteristics play a major role in influencing a child's learning styles. Traditional American Indian Values Viewed in the Educational Context Riding and Rayner (1998) described "learning style" as the way an individual uses strategies to help learn tasks and the way the individual organizes the information. American Indian children tend to have a more global cognitive style of organizing information and an emphasis on using visual strategies and mental representations for processing information (Hilberg & Tharp, 2002; Vasquez, 1990). An example of this style of learning would be a preference to hear an entire story all the way through before discussing events of the story and answering content questions (Woolfolk, 1995). This process would allow the student to understand the story from beginning to end, mentally visualize key events gradually throughout the story, and develop conclusions about the events from a holistic perspective. With the holistic perspective learning style of American Indians, McCarthy and Benally (2003) discussed the group process that is emphasized in their culture. Since collaboration and cooperation is highly valued, children are taught not to be opinionated or hasty in reaching conclusions. …