Examining the Educational Experiences of High-Achieving Lakota Youth by Adam Joseph Hengen ...

236 Pages·2015·1.33 MB·English

by  Adam Hengen

Examining the Educational Experiences of
High-Achieving Lakota Youth

by

Adam Joseph Hengen

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(Educational Studies)
in the University of Michigan
2015

Doctoral Committee:
Professor Carla O’Connor, Chair
Professor Tabbye M. Chavous
Professor Philip J. Deloria
Assistant Professor Enid M. Rosario-Ramos
© Adam Joseph Hengen
2015
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This project would not have been possible without the willingness of the students who let
me into their lives and shared their experiences with me. I am extremely thankful for their eager
participation in this project and for the tremendous amount of support I received from the staff
and students at all three of the schools in this study.
In addition to the schools and students who supported this project, there are so many
others who have helped me along the way. Throughout my time as a graduate student, my
advisor, Dr. Carla O’Connor, has always been incredibly supportive of my efforts and has
continued to push me, even when I began to doubt myself. She is the reason I applied to the
doctoral program at the University of Michigan and she has been a source of support every step
along the way. I am extremely grateful for all that she has done for me.
In addition to the support that Dr. O’Connor has offered, I am very grateful for the
support and feedback that each of my committee members have offered and their sincere desire
to help me produce a dissertation that I can be proud of. Their efforts brought out the best in me,
and I am very appreciative of that.
I am also extremely appreciative of the financial support I have received from the
University of Michigan during my time in the doctoral program. I want to particularly
acknowledge the support I received from the “Race and Educational Inequality” grants program,
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as well as the “Rackham Graduate Student Research Grant,” in funding the data collection for
this project.
Within the School of Education, there are so many faculty and staff who have shaped me
as both a scholar and a person. I am very grateful for all of the help, wisdom, and guidance they
have offered. I want to especially thank Angie Underdahl for all the help she has given me.
Despite the emails I have bombarded her with and the constant requests for help, Angie has
always been incredibly supportive, and it was always comforting to know that she was around to
help me navigate the process.
I am also incredibly thankful for all of my friends who have been supportive of my goals
and have believed in my abilities. While everyone’s support has affected me in important ways, I
especially want to thank Becky and Lily. It was only through their willingness to talk through my
ideas and hear about my successes and struggles that this project took off. Their unending
support and belief were one of the biggest reasons that I kept pushing ahead in graduate school,
even when times got tough. For this, I am eternally grateful.
Finally, I want to thank Audrey and my parents for the support that they have offered
throughout the dissertation process. Their unending love, support, and encouragement has helped
me in so many ways, and I really cannot imagine having accomplished this without them.
Thanks for always being my biggest fans!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ ii
LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. vi
LIST OF APPENDICES ................................................................................................... vii
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... viii

CHAPTER
I. Introduction ................................................................................................................1
II. Historical Perspectives .............................................................................................13
III. Theoretical Perspectives ..........................................................................................38
IV. Research Methods and Design ................................................................................51
V. Students’ Aspirations and Life Outside
of School ...................................................................................................................72
VI. Rockwood School ......................................................................................................97
VII. Bridgman School ....................................................................................................121
VIII. Aspen School...................................................................................................... 147
IX. Analysis and Conclusions ......................................................................................174

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APPENDICES .................................................................................................................203
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................208

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LIST OF TABLES
TABLE
1 Rockwood Student Demographics .........................................................................59
2 Bridgman Student Demographics ..........................................................................60
3 Aspen Student Demographics ................................................................................61
4 Students’ Educational Aspirations .........................................................................74

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LIST OF APPENDICES
APPENDIX
A. Interview Protocol ...........................................................................................203
B. Codebook ........................................................................................................205

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ABSTRACT
To date, the bulk of the scholarly research on Native American educational achievement
has focused on explaining the underachievement of Native American youth. While these studies
are valuable in identifying the barriers that students face, they are problematic in that they are
built upon theories that would suggest academic struggles for all students who encounter these
barriers. Thankfully, we know that there are Native American students who, in spite of these
barriers, achieve academic success. Given this fact, the purpose of this research was to examine
the academic resilience of high-achieving members of one specific tribe, the Lakota, and to make
sense of how these high-achieving Lakota students navigate potentials risk factors to their
success.
In order to understand the experiences of these academically resilient students, I
conducted interviews with 42 high-achieving juniors and seniors from high schools located
across one of the five Lakota Reservations in South Dakota. These interviews spanned a variety
of topics, including students’ perceptions of racism and discrimination, their connectedness to
their Lakota identity, their perceptions of culturally relevant pedagogy, their belief in the value of
education, and their aspirations for the future.
Through these interviews, I found that these academically resilient students were similar
in many ways outside of school. They all had strong support systems, believed in the value of
education, and were confident that racism and discrimination were not going to keep them from
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meeting their goals. However, their schooling experiences varied in important ways, with each
school possessing different risk and protective factors that worked to shape students’ resilience.
While each of these students successfully navigated the potential risk factors to their
academic success, their beliefs in their future opportunities differed based on the academic
expectations within their school and the post-secondary support that they received. As a result,
these students, who were similar in a number of ways outside of school, left school feeling very
differently about their preparation for college. These findings add important insights into the
dynamic nature of resilience and the role of schools in shaping the educational experiences and
aspirations of their students.

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