Native American students: blood quantum, identity, and educational success

Native American ancestors were fighting a war to maintain their relevance; today Natives are fighting another war, a war of self-existence. Studies of Native American identity and education are plentiful but studies of blood quantum and educational success are very scarce. This study explored whether Native American students fit in (if at all) the higher education system. In all 67 self-identified Native Americans from a U.S. university participated in the study. The analysis generated differences and correlations between blood quantum, student-identity, acculturation and place of residence and Grade Point Average (GPA) as the measure of their effects on college success. The findings suggest academic success supports Native American students who are acculturated, who do not strongly self-identify with their respective culture and were raised off the reservation. Those students who grew up on the reservation, who practice their culture and are not fully acculturated, do these students have to make a choice to maintain or put aside their identity in order to be successful in obtaining a higher education?

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Education

Grantor dc:publisher

Colorado State University. Libraries

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Authors dc:creator

• Wall, Goldlin H., author
• Kaminski, Karen, advisor
• Quick, Don, committee member
• Gloeckner, Gene, committee member
• Voss, Jacque, committee member

• American Indian
• success
• blood quantum
• acculturation

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.

Language dc:language.iso

eng, English

Identifier URI

https://doi.org/10.25675/3.018408

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:mountainscholar.org:10217/167079