Accrediting Culture: An Analysis of Tribal and Historically Black College Curricula

Abstract

Using data gleaned from catalogs and bulletins for a sample of 28 tribal, 33 historically black, and 30 “mainstream” colleges, the author analyzes the number of courses that focus explicitly and exclusively on African American or American Indian cultural perspectives—“ethnocen-tric” content—in 1992 and 2002. Negative binomial regression analyses of course counts indicate that tribal colleges offer nearly 10 times as many “ethnocentric” courses as mainstream colleges, net of other institutional characteristics (e.g., minority enrollment, public or private control, two- or four-year college, and accreditation). This finding could be attributed to the quasi-sovereign legal status of Indian tribes, which, like other sovereigns, are invested with the authority to define what counts as legitimate knowledge. Compared with mainstream institutions, privately controlled black colleges offer approximately 15 percent more, and publicly controlled black colleges offer 73 percent fewer, Afrocentric courses.