Manokotak: A Study of School Adaptation

Abstract

A study of the school in Manokotak, Alaska, a Yup'ik Eskimo community, addresses the question of the cultural gap between the school and the minority community. Adaptations in the school evolved over time, and the direction of change was toward integration of the process of schooling into the culture of the local community. EDUCATIONAL CHANGE, MINORITY GROUPS, EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH. In her Past President's Address to the Council on Anthropology and Education, Schensul discussed the anthropological notion of cultural gaps between the school and the minority community and the difficulties involved in attempting intervention strategies relating to those gaps (1985). The case of the Manokotak School demonstrates that the cultural gap between the school and the minority community can be lessened, but members of minority communities must play significant roles in the practice of the school and in policy making over extended periods of time if the perception of participants is to be one of success. Policy makers have been acknowledging the need for participation of minority members in the governance of schooling for the past 20 years or so, but few accounts of actual cases are documented in the research literature. Alaska's diverse cultural settings provide educational researchers with unique opportunities for the study of schooling in a variety of contexts. Schools in Alaska serve the children of 20 Alaska-native language groups in circumstances where each school is separated from others by the rugged arctic and subarctic environment. Although many studies have been conducted in these schools, only a few (Cline 1975; Madsen 1983) have attempted holistic descriptions of the school and the community. In the spring of 1984, a case study of the school in Manokotak, Alaska, a Yup'ik Eskimo community, was undertaken. In Manokotak, a high percentage of native adults in the community and certificated teachers in the school described their school as successful. The schoel had adapted to the local setting by altering teaching assignments, curricula, scheduling, communication patterns, and participation by Yup'ik community members in the practice of schooling and in the governance process. The adaptations began to develop in 1948, when the first school was established by the missionary's wife, and