The major student outcome confronting people interested in Indian education is the low average academic achievement test scores of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) students [The "achievement gap" in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act]. Associated with that disappointing outcome is the highest school dropout rate of any ethnic minority group (National Center for Education Statistics, 1994), relatively high rates of alcohol abuse (Bowker, 1993), and even suicide (Lester, 1997). However, even though problems abound, there are also many AI/AN children that either because of their schooling or in spite of it are successful in life.

This paper examines research, especially recent research, on Indian education with a focus on the impact of community, family, and schools on the academic success of AI/AN students. It is organized into 12 parts. The first part briefly describes the most recent comprehensive research reviews, the second part examines briefly three general overviews of AI/AN education that attempt to synthesize the research on teaching AI/AN students. The third section examines research on the influence of traditional cultures on Native students' academic success. The fourth section looks at research on cultural differences and conflict between Native communities and schools in terms of how they affect students' educational success. The fifth section discusses how anti-school oppositional identities can be developed in students by some teachers and schools. The sixth section looks at ways that community control of schools and the "indiginization" of curriculum and instruction can mitigate the formation of oppositional identities and improve Native student success. The seventh section examines recent research on community attitudes towards schooling. The eighth section specifically looks at Native students and what type of curriculum and instruction for them is supported by research. The ninth section looks at what Native and non-Native teachers have learned from their experiences teaching Native students. The tenth section examines research on the role of AI/AN teachers in Native schools. The eleventh section looks at research on the effects of local control of schools on student success, and the final section summarizes the research presented and makes recommendations for more research.

1. Recent Research Reviews

The amount of research done over the years on AI/AN students attempting to determine why they either fail or succeed academically is extensive and is much more than can be adequately covered in a single paper, even when weaker studies are ignored. Anyone interested in the subject should start with the last two major literature reviews that were published by Donna Deyhle and Karen Swisher in 1997 and K. Tsianiana Lomawaima in 1995.

Deyhle and Swisher (1997) provided for the American Educational Research Association the most recent comprehensive review. They looked at 60 years of educational research on AI/AN education and pointed out the poor quality of much of the research. They found that research before the 1960s tended to measure AI/AN students using yardsticks, especially intelligence and achievement tests, largely designed for "white" mainstream Euro-Americans. The result was that Indian students were reported to be suffering from cultural and intellectual deficits, in other words they were considered less "civilized" and less intelligent than white Americans were. However, in the National Study of Indian Education, the Goodenough Draw-A-Man [IQ] Test was given to 867 Indian and Eskimo children ages 6 to 8.5 from 25 schools. Their scores were "well above the national average for Caucasians" (Fuchs & Havighurst, 1972, p. 120).

Deyhle and Swisher concluded that educational research has often followed a blame-the-victim approach that "has tended to buttress the assimilatory model by locating deficiencies in Indian students and families" (p. 116). They found that researchers generally ignored the effects of discrimination and echoed the then popular idea that cultural assimilation into mainstream White America was the solution to the "Indian problem" in general and low academic achievement of Indian students in particular. This approach was exemplified by the motto "Tradition is the Enemy of Progress" of a Southwestern boarding school that Wilcomb Washburn (1971, p. 218), director of the American Studies Program at the Smithsonian, recalled seeing in 1952.

Lomawaima (1995) in the Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education provides a second important article overviewing the literature on Indian education with a special regard to U.S. government Indian policy. She concluded that recent research has tended to be either over-generalized, ignoring the diversity among indigenous Americans, or too specific to one particular tribe. Her review echoed many of the same findings as Swisher and Deyhle.

2. General Research-Based Overviews of Indian Education

The relatively few books attempting a comprehensive overview of Indian education and that are currently being used as textbooks for Indian education classes are another source of reviews of research on AI/AN education. All three of the books discussed below document their recommended approaches to Native education with cited research. In Jon Reyhner's Teaching American Indian Students (1992a) the chapter authors generally concluded that Indian students can improve their academic performance through educational approaches that are less assimilationist and that use curriculum and teaching methodologies that build on what Native students learn in their homes and communities.

Robert W. Rhodes (1994) in Nurturing Learning in Native American Students looked at research on holistic and community-centered approaches to learning and concluded that Native students are most successful when they can be active learners and teachers act as facilitators and coaches. He urges educators to take a "bottom up" approach to education that begins with them studying their students and the homes and community from which they come. He begins with a very brief history of Indian education and then reviews research on how, why, what, and from whom American Indian students learn, including research on brain dominance, learning styles, whole language, testing, motivation, and discipline.

Hap Gilliland's (1999) Teaching the Native American is in its fourth edition. Gilliland and his contributing authors focus on culturally relevant education that recognizes students' background experiences and emphasizes among other things cooperative learning, promoting self esteem, and high expectations.

All three of the above books reflect an anti-assimilationist point of view, but they are either written by non-Natives or have many non-Native contributors and can appear targeted towards training non-Natives to teach Native students rather than directly at Native students seeking to become teachers. In contrast Karen Swisher and John Tippeconnic (1999) edited a collection of essays in Next Steps: Research and Practice to Advance Indian Education with all Native contributors. The Next Step essays also focus on changing the deficit and assimilationist mentality that the contributors see as having dominated and disadvantaged Indian education in the past.

3. Influence of American Indian and Alaska Native Traditional Cultures

One of the most important topics for research on AI/AN education, given the history of assimilationist past practice, is to look at the issue of whether traditional Native cultures have a negative affect on Native students academic performance as was the thinking throughout most, but not all, of the history of Indian/white contact (Reyhner & Eder, 1989). As indicated in the previously cited reviews by Deyhle and Swisher and Lomawaima and recent general books on Indian education, the dominant trend in recent research on Indian education does not support assimilationist practices.

One recent study that documents that the retention of traditional cultural traits does not hurt students' chances for academic success is by Angela Willeto (1999). She reviewed past research and presents findings drawn from a random sample of 451 Navajo high school students from 11 different Navajo Nation schools. She examined the effects of students' orientation towards traditional Navajo culture as measured by participation in Navajo ritual activities and cultural conventions as well as Navajo language use. She found that students who participated in Navajo traditional activities and spoke the Navajo language did as well academically in school as those who were more assimilated and participated less, and she found no support "for the argument that traditionalism had a negative effect on academic success of Navajo young people" (p. 13). Her findings confirmed previous studies with similar results, including Rindone (1988) and Platero et al. (1986) [see also Brandt (1992) for a summary of the Platero study].

A recent small scale study by Coggins, Williams, & Radin (1997) of 19 Ojibwa families measured traditional orientation by looking at eight characteristics that their literature review identified as core values of a majority of American Indians. These values were sharing, other-centered, harmony with nature, non-interference (in the lives of other people, including one's children), patience, circular time, non-confrontive, and broad view of family (extended families). Coggins et al. concluded, "the overall picture presented [by their research] is encouraging for those who have argued the importance of maintaining cultural identity among American Indians" (p. 13). Jim Cummins (1996, 2000), reviewing the literature on minority education, found that students with a strong sense of cultural and personal identity were more likely to have academic success.

Cleary and Peacock (1998) in a study that interviewed 60 teachers of Indian students found that these interviews largely confirmed the conclusion that traditional culture has a positive role, rather than a negative or no role, in developing academically successful Indian students. They summed up the view of one of the teachers they interviewed as, "The key to producing successful American Indian students in our modern educational system . . . is to first ground these students in their American Indian belief and value systems" (p. 101). Richard Littlebear (1999), president of Dull Knife Memorial College, argues,