School & Society: Chapter 7
Diversity and Equity:
Schooling and American Indians
Chapter Seven
Diversity and Equity:
Schooling and American Indians
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School & Society: Chapter 7
Diversity and Equity:
Schooling and American Indians
Pluralism vs. Assimilation
Pluralism
• Valuing and
maintaining
cultural
differences within
a society.
Assimilation
• The process by
which diverse
cultures and their
customs, habits and
languages are
absorbed into the
dominant culture.
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School & Society: Chapter 7
Diversity and Equity:
Schooling and American Indians
“Trust Relationship”
• Indians and whites in uneasy coexistence
• Federal government as trustee of Indian
rights
• Economic value of partnership with Indians
declines as nineteenth century progresses
• Values of whites and Indians increasingly
conflict
• Indians as obstacles to “manifest destiny”
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School & Society: Chapter 7
Diversity and Equity:
Schooling and American Indians
The Social Education of Native Americans
• Land allotment and boarding schools
 meant to directly force Indians into assimilation
through transfer of law and removal for schooling
• Scientific management and education
reform
 Merriam Report of 1928 documents failure of
assimilation attempts and recommends progressive
education incorporating Indian culture and values
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School & Society: Chapter 7
Diversity and Equity:
Schooling and American Indians
The Social Education of Native Americans
John Collier’s influence
 developed “cross-culture” approach to counter
Indian resistance
Willard Walcott Beatty
 emphasized need for Indians to accept their “role” as
laborers
 school as main vehicle of assimilation
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School & Society: Chapter 7
Diversity and Equity:
Schooling and American Indians
Concluding Remarks
• Ongoing tensions between liberal
democratic ideology and Native
American perspectives
• What is the role of the dominant
culture today in terms of responsibility
to Native Americans?
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School & Society: Chapter 7
Diversity and Equity:
Schooling and American Indians
Developing your Professional Vocabulary
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assimilation
boarding school
Bureau of Ethnology
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Cherokee Nation v.
Georgia
• John Collier
• community control
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•
cultural pluralism
Dawes Allotment Act
dominant culture
Merriam Report
scientific administration
tribal self-determination
Willard Walcott Beatty
Worcester v. Georgia
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