Grassroots Suggestions for Linking Native-Language Learning, Native American Studies, and Mainstream Education in Reservation Schools with Mixed Indian and White Student Populations

Abstract

Indigenous-language education is critical in the rural and small-town communities with mixed native/non-native populations that constitute the headwaters of many dying tongues. Emerging from interviews conducted in 2002 and 2003 on the Flathead Indian Reservation with 89 study participants holding diverse perspectives is the need for a unifying reservation-wide preK-16 language curriculum that will bring about continuous and meaningful connections (1) across Indian-language-education programmes, (2) between Indian-language classrooms and mainstream classrooms, and (3) between native language education and Native American Studies. This paper considers the grassroots suggestions for building such a curriculum encountered among cultural and community leaders, educators and parents, historians and politicians, Indians and non-Indians, and advocates and sceptics of indigenous-language education. The study findings indicate that framing indigenous-language learning as part of place-based multicultural education is a promising approach. Prospects for indigenous-language survival can be enhanced by moving native-language education in a direction that is acceptable to and beneficial for most, if not all, members of mixed communities in a global age.