TEDNA

Nicole R. Bowman-Farrell (Mohican/Munsee) did her PHD dissertation on Indigenous Educational Policy Development with Tribal Governments and specifically focused on the Stockbridge-Munsee.  The abstract from her dissertation is here.  The poster she used to present her research at NCAI’s mid-year conference is here.  Her actual PHD dissertation can be seen here.

From the abstract:

This study had three major findings:

1. Developing Tribal educational policy is a contextualized and multiple step process. The S-M educational policy system is a series of intra-Tribal interactions. Policy is created in multiple steps involving the Tribal government, Tribal Education Board, and Tribal Education Department. Each of these Tribal educational policy stakeholder groups has distinct roles in the policy process.

2. Multiple factors influence Tribal education policy development. These include “cross-cutting” influences as well as community, cultural/traditional and public/western education influences.

3. Tribal and public educational policy activities vary across educational agencies and affect the policy environment, inter-agency relations, and perceptions of educational stakeholders.

Findings from the study suggest that multi-jurisdictional policy structures and activities that explicitly foster intergovernmental relations across local, state, federal, and Tribal government agencies will best support public school education of American Indian students.

It is great to see some new scholarship on Tribal Education Policy, particularly scholarship that is well researched and written!