Healthy Indigenous child development is grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Attachment theory has been influential in understanding the significance of parenting for infant development in Western science but has focused on child-caregiver bonds predominantly within the parent-child dyad. To bring forth Indigenous perspectives…

The 2023 Tribal Leaders qualitative study is an emergent perspective from twelve Tribal leaders on education, Tribal sovereignty, leadership, and change presented as a poster session at the 2023 NRMERA conference in Omaha, Nebraska. This conceptual paper presents a review of literature acknowledging a lack of research inclusive of the voice of…

This report was written in compliance with Senate Bill 5437 Section 6, to explore the development of a Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP) Tribal Pathway that meets the needs of Tribal Sovereign Nations in providing ECEAP in their communities and decreasing the opportunity gap…

This article details a national study of U.S. K-12 civics and government state-mandated standards, drawing specific attention to how Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty are represented. Utilizing QuantCrit methodologies informed by Tribal Critical Race Theory, this study makes visible colonial logics embedded within state civics and government…

For educators to more fully comprehend the issues surrounding the current state of affairs regarding tribal consultation and sovereignty in American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) education, it is necessary to provide a socio-historical context. This brief provides information on the evolution of Native education, from its precolonial roots to…

Eighty-six Cheyenne families followed Little Wolf to his self-imposed exile near Rosebud Creek. To most observers, this blind loyalty to a fallen leader required little explanation. After all, Little Wolf had recently led his people in a costly yet courageous escape from Indian Territory, fighting through the dead of winter back to the Northern…

The story, known as "The Theft of Fire," illustrates numerous meanings and teachings crucial to understanding Anishinaabe nationhood. This story contains two discernible points. First, it reveals how the Anishinaabe obtained fire. The second discernible feature within this story is the marking of the hare by his theft of fire. Stories…

In the spring of 2015, the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction brought together tribal Elders from across North Dakota to share stories, memories, songs, and wisdom in order to develop the North Dakota Native American Essential Understandings (NDNAEU) to guide the learning of both Native and non-Native students across the state. They…

The road of US Indian law and policy, like its companion to hell, is paved with good intentions. Critics of its generally diabolic outcomes have had little difficulty demonstrating the moral chasm between the appealing rhetoric in which a policy or judgment was framed and the oppressive consequences to which it practically conduced. With a nod to…

The Navajo Nation, comprising the largest land area allocated mainly to a Native American jurisdiction in the United States, offers a unique opportunity to enhance students' understandings of citizenship rights and sovereignty. For example, what does sovereignty mean on the reservation? What is the relationship between the Navajo Nation and the…

Nearly 100 school counselors and teachers convened in October 2015 at the picturesque Tsébii'nidzisgai Elementary School in Monument Valley, Utah, for a "Four Corners Counseling Connection" conference designed to enhance their knowledge and understanding of American Indian history and culture, help them develop skills to support and…

Wisconsin Act 31 was established for the purpose of addressing American Indian history, culture, and sovereignty within K-12 schools as a response to treaty rights issues in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Yet, in the 21 st century there remain issues with compliance throughout not only K-12 schools but also institutions of higher education. The…

This article examines the ways American Indian authors, particularly three contemporary Anishinaabeg writers, engaged with the question of Native American origins during the racially polarized project of "imagining" the nation of the United States throughout the 19th century. In this article, the author argues that American Indian…

Arming themselves with "manifest destiny" rhetoric, which claimed divine Anglo-Saxon superiority as justification for the conquest of Indigenous and Mexican peoples and the land they occupied, white settlers forcefully pushed into California territory. The two-year-long Mexican-American War resulted in the acquisition of the present-day…

This article seeks to explain the nature of the arguments the Iroquois presented to the US government in trying to prevent their removal. In the letters they wrote to the federal government from the 1830s to the 1850s they emphasized their own law as well as that of the United States. They drew on whatever perception of law they deemed was best…