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Indigenous Metaphysics: Challenging Western Knowledge Organization in Social

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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

Los Angeles

Indigenous Metaphysics: Challenging Western Knowledge Organization in Social

Studies Curriculum

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction

of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy

in Education

by

Dolores Calderon

2008
The dissertation of Dolores Calderon is approved.

_________________________________________
Duane Champagne

_________________________________________
Sandra Harding

_________________________________________
Peter McLaren

_________________________________________
Daniel G. Solórzano, Committee Chair

University of California, Los Angeles

2008

ii
 DEDICATION

For my mother and father, Yolanda Estrada Calderón and Raymundo Calderón. For

my siblings, Gerardo, Pat, Susy, and Cecy, and their children, April, Heather, Josh,

Martin, Denise, and Elena. For all my aunts, uncles, cousins, husband, and friends.

And for the Abuelos. I am of you.

iii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 MAPPING IDEOLOGY ALONG THE CURRICULUM PIPELINE ... 1

Introduction ……………………..……………………………………... 1
The Curriculum Pipeline ……………………………………………..... 3
Diagram 1 …………………………………………………………... 4
Diagram 2 …………………………………………………………... 5
Researcher’s Background & Interest ……...…………………………. 6
Statement of Problem ……….……………………..………................ 11
Research Questions ………………………………………………….. 16
Significance of the Study ………………………………..…………… 17

CHAPTER 2 INDIAN EDUCATION: HISTORICAL & CONTEMPORARY

TRENDS ……….………….………….……………….………….…… 22
Demographic Overview …………………………………..………........ 22
Federal Indian Policy & Education ………………………………….... 26
First Policy Period ………………………………………………….... 28
Second Policy Period ………………………………………………… 29
Third Policy Period …………………………………………………... 31
Fourth Policy Period …………………………………………………. 31
Fifth Policy Period ………………………………………………….... 32
Sixth Policy Period ………………………………………………….. 33
Seventh Policy Period ……………………………………………….. 35
Concepts …………………………………..……….......……………..... 45
White Settler State …………………………………………………… 47
Colonial Model of Education ………………………………………… 62

CHAPTER 3 LITERATURE REVIEW ……….………….………….……………… 67

Why Metaphysics? .................................................................................. 73
Western Metaphysics as a “Cultural Archive” (Smith, 2002) ………… 79
Greek & Christian Origins …….…………………………………… 84
Constructing Reality & Truth Claims …………...…………………. 90
Temporality …….…………………………………………………... 94
Indigenous Metaphysics .…………………...…...................................... 100
Geography & Indigenous Metaphysics …….………………………. 102
Indigenous Metaphysics & Being …….……………………………. 104
Indigenous Metaphysics and Relations …………………………….. 106
Indigenous Metaphysics and the Particular ………………………… 108
Indigenous Metaphysics and Education ……………………………. 110
Science Education ………………………………………………….. 114
Next Steps …………..………………..……………………………...... 121

CHAPTER 4 METHODOLOGY ……….………….………….…………………….. 123

Theoretical Framework & Methodologies …………………………….. 124

iv
 Decolonizing Methodologies ………………………………………. 126
Critical Interstitial Methodology …………………………………... 130
Grounded Theory ………………………………………………….. 132
Data Sources, Collection, & Analysis………………………………….. 134
Data Sources …………………………….………….………………. 134
Data Collection & Findings ………….………….………….……… 136
Data Analysis ………….………….………….………….…………. 144
Next Steps ………….………….………….………….………….…….. 149

CHAPTER 5 U.S. HISTORY TEXTBOOKS RESEARCH REVIEW ……………… 150

Role of Textbooks in Schooling & Society ….………………………… 152
Early Studies of Textbook Representation ………….……………… 155
Textbook Representation of American Indians ………….…………. 160
Current Examinations of Textbook Representation ………………... 168
Concepts ………………..………….….…..…………............................ 173

CHAPTER 6 U.S HISTORY TEXTBOOKS FINDINGS & ANALYSIS …………... 176

Findings ……………………………………………………………....... 177
Form Findings ………….………….………….………….………… 178
Content Findings ……….………….………….………….………… 181
Analysis ………………………………………………………………... 183
Pre-Contact ………….………….………….………….…………… 185
Westward Expansion ……….………….………….……………….. 197
Civil Rights ……….………….………….……………….………… 213

CHAPTER 7 CALIFORNIA HISTORY-SOCIAL SCIENCE FRAMEWORK …….. 227

Review of Literature …………………………………………………… 229
Concepts ………………………………..……………………………… 236
History-Social Science Framework for California Public Schools……. 238

CHAPTER 8 CALIFORNIA SOCIAL-SCIENCE FRAMEWORK FINDINGS &

ANALYSIS ……….………….………….…………………………….. 253
Content Standards ..………………..…………………………………… 254
Analysis ……………………….……………………………………….. 267
Pre-Contact ……….………….………….…………………………. 273
Westward Expansion ……….………….………….……………….. 277
Civil Rights ……….………….………….…………………………. 281

CHAPTER 9 INDIGENIZING CURRICULUM ……….………….………….…….. 286

Indigenized Curriculums …….………………………………………… 286
Indian Land Tenure Curriculum ……….………….………….…… 286
Montana Indian Education For All ……….………….………….…. 290
Other Considerations ……….………….………….……………….. 301

v
 Future Research …….………………………………………………….. 302

APPENDICES APPENDIX 1 ………………………………………………………….. 304

REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………………….. 308

vi
 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Diagram 1 The Curriculum Pipeline ………………………...

Diagram 2 From Textbooks to Ideology …………………....
Table 4.1 Textbook & Standards Categories ……………....
Table 4.2 Textbook and Standards Subcategories ………….
Table 6.1 Textbook Analysis Organization ………………...
Table 7.1 Learning Goal Outline …………………………...
Table 7.2 The Learning Goals with description ……………
Table 7.3 Curriculum Strands for each Learning Goal …….
Table 7.4 Knowledge & curriculum Understandings (KCU)
Essential Learnings ………………………………
Table 7.5 DUCV Essential Learnings ……………………...
Table 7.6 SASP Essential Learnings …………………….....

vii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are so many people who made this project possible. Without them, I

would not have been successful! First, I want to thank my husband Clay Pierce.

Without you this would not have been possible. You are my best friend and together,

we made the journey through graduate school. Thank you for all those nights I asked

you to make me café and you would, without question, make me a great cup of coffee.

We have a wonderful little family, and together this journey from LA and beyond has

made my success possible. I would be remiss not to thank the girls who were there for

both you and I, Josie and Luna.

I am so grateful for the close-knit family, the community, I come from, in the

Lower Valley in El Paso, Texas! I stand on the shoulders of the generations that span

time immemorial. For my mom and dad, Yolanda and Raymundo, gracias por su

apoyo. Les dedico este trabajo a ustedes en reconocimiento de su sacrificio y su amor

tan grande! My brother, Yayo, and my sisters, Pat, Susy, and Cecy, have made this

journey with me as well, along with their children. April, who is now in college,

Heather who is getting ready to go to college, and Josh and Martin, ready to make that

transition to high school, and Denise and Elena, the little ones, the heart of the family,

to all of you—the future! Thank you my crazy, crazy loved ones. Without your

support from home, I would not be where I am. To my aunts, uncles and cousins

throughout the North American continent and the greater world, from Mexico City, to

Coahuila and Chihuahua, and El Paso, all the way to Israel. You have seen me grow

viii
 through this process, especially Tia Lola and Tio Mason; I carry your love and

support with me! To my in-laws, Terry and Lynn, who supported me while I was in

Seattle writing the dissertation. Without your help, I would not be here! I am so lucky

to have such a huge and supportive family.

My dissertation committee, you have been invaluable in my intellectual and

personal growth as well, Daniel Solórzano, Duane Champagne, Sandra Harding, and

Peter McLaren! My intellectual father and my advisor, Daniel Solórzano, you made

my journey through graduate school possible. Your insight, guidance, and spiritual

strength, have provided me with the fortitude to meet the challenges laid before me. I

hope to follow in your footsteps bringing those that follow with me. I am inspired by

your simple elegance! Thank you also to Laura Telles. Your presence and support of

all of our work is recognized. Thank you Duane Champagne for pushing my thinking

and keeping me honest in my work, and reminding me that the needs of our

communities keep our work honest and humble. You too have been a role model for

me, and I only hope I can serve our communities as you have done. Thank you Sandra

Harding, for always challenging me to excellence. Your intellectual guidance has

been unparalleled. Finally, thank you Peter McLaren, your support of my work and

my development as a young scholar has been constant. From my first year in the

program to this last one, I always looked to you for guidance, gracias compañero!

Last but not least I want to thank all my friends who have made this journey

possible, both here in Los Angeles and all the way to El Paso. Daniel Liou, there are

ix
 not enough words that describe how thankful I am for your unwavering friendship.

You have graciously opened your home to me when I visited. You have set the

example with your generous spirit and commitment to social justice. I am excited

about the work we will do together in the future. Gracias, also to Maria Ledesma, your

friendship has also been invaluable. I have always looked to you as a model of what I

consider success. Your work and your person are what I aspire to! Thank you to

Martha Rivas-Castro, my partner in crime. We started this program together and end it

together. Dimpal Jain, Rebeca Burciaga, Tracy Buenavista, Tyson Lewis, and Richard

Kahn, thank you for your support. You inspire me! To the women, the mujeres, and

the men of Professor Solórzano’s RAC, adelante! Finally to my wonderful friends in

El Paso, Texas, Beatriz Lucero, Joyce Montemayor-Ruiz, Marivel Oropeza, Laura

Uribarri, Sylvia Peregrino, and Laura Ponce. I enjoy our morning brunches and I am

inspired by your commitment to the place we are from. You are incredible women,

indeed the leaders of El Paso. I hope I can one day offer to El Paso and to our

community what you offer. I love each and every person here. At the end of the day,

this is the best of what has made my journey through this pipeline possible, the love of

so, so many. I am humbled in love.

I would like to acknowledge the academic and financial support offered by

UCLA, especially through the Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship and the UC Diversity

Initiative for Graduate Study in the Social Sciences, and the Ford Foundation that

x
 made the writing of this dissertation possible. I want to thank Patrick Camangian

and Mike Alvarez for providing me the first textbooks that began my dissertation

journey.

To those who have come before me, to those that follow, and to those who have yet to

come!

xi
 VITA

Texas Tech School of Law, Lubbock, Texas

J.D. conferred, 8/1996 – 5/1999

Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

B.A. conferred, History and Latin American Studies, 8/1992 – 5/1996

UCLA Graduate School of Education

Graduate Student Researcher: Latina Equity in Education Project, 2002-2004

Teaching Fellow: “Chicano/a Studies 101- Theoretical Concepts in Chicana/Chicano

Studies”, Spring 2006. UCLA, Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies
Instructor: Eric Avila

Teaching Fellow: “Chicano/a Studies 10B- Introduction to Chicana/Chicano Studies:

Social Structure and Contemporary Conditions,” Winter 2006. UCLA, Department of
Chicana and Chicano Studies. Instructor: Otto Santa Ana

Teaching Associate: “Chicano/a Studies 10A-Introduction to Chicana/Chicano

Studies: History and Culture,” Fall 2005. UCLA, Department of Chicana and Chicano
Studies. Instructor: Alicia Gaspar de Alba

Teaching Assistant: “Chicano/a Studies 101-Theoretical Concepts in Chicana/Chicano

Studies,” Spring 2005. UCLA, Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies.
Instructor: Reynaldo F. Macias

Teaching Assistant: “Chicano/a Studies 10B-Introduction to Chicana/Chicano Studies:

Social Structure and Contemporary Conditions,” Winter 2005. UCLA, Department of
Chicana and Chicano Studies. Instructor: Maylei Blackwell

Teaching Assistant: “Chicano/a Studies 10A- Introduction to Chicana/Chicano

Studies: History and Culture Chicano/s Studies, Fall 2004. UCLA, Department of
Chicana and Chicano Studies. Instructor: Maria Cristina Pons

UCLA Academics in the Commons Student Retention Program

Teaching Associate: “Education 80-Understanding the Collegiate Experience,”
Summer 2005 Instructor: Bruce Barbee

xii
 PUBLICATIONS AND PRESENTATIONS

Calderón, D. (2008). “The White Settler-State and its Legal Devices: After all this
time why do “we” think the “master’s tools” will help?” at the Second
Annual Critical Race Theory in Education Conference, Chicago, Illinois

Calderón, D. (2007). Social Studies Curriculum, Multiculturalism, and Indigenous

Education” at American Educational Studies Association, Cleveland, Ohio

Calderón, D. (2007). “Indigenous Disruptions of ‘Colonial-Blind’ Discourses in

Multicultural Education” at the Native American Students in Advanced
Academia (NASAA) Symposium at the University of Washington, Seattle,
Washington

Calderón, D. (2007). “Multicultural Education as Colonial Education: Indigenous

Disruptions of ‘Colonial-Blind’ Discourses” at the Third International
Globalization, Diversity, and Education Conference, Spokane, Washington

Calderón, D. (2007). “Multicultural Education as Colonial Education: Indigenous

Disruptions of ‘Colonial-Blind’ Discourses” at the Eighth Annual
American Indian Studies Association Conference, Tempe, Arizona

Calderón, D. (2006). Developing critical interstitial methodology: Taking greater

control over our resistance. In B. Kozuh, R. Kahn, A. Kozlowska & P.
Krope (Eds.), Description and explanation in educational and social
research: Rodn "WOM" Publishers.

Calderón, D. (2006) One Dimensionality and Whiteness, Policy Futures in Education.

Vol. 4, No. 1, 2006, pp.73-82.

Calderón, D. (2006) Review: Red Pedagogy: Native American Social and Political
Thought. Interactions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information
Studies, Special Issue: Cultural Studies Matter, Vol. 2, No. 1, February
2006, pp. 1-7.

Calderón, D. (2004) Review: Pledging Allegiance: Learning Nationalism at the El

Paso-Juárez Border. Comparative Education Review, Vol. 48, No. 1,
February 2004, pp. 101-102.

xiii
 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

Indigenous Metaphysics: Challenging Western Knowledge Organization

in Social Studies Curriculum

by

Dolores Calderon

Doctor of Philosophy in Education

University of California, Los Angeles, 2007

Professor Daniel G. Solórzano, Chair

Researchers have found that the K-12 system is actively inculcating students

with Western metaphysical constructs that are antithetical to Native culture and

knowledge organization. Daniel Wildcat (2001) argues that education in the U.S.

“bears the largest imprint of Western metaphysics...” and that the “the hope for

American Indian education lies first in the explicit identification of features of the

Western tradition or worldview that produce many of the problems we are immersed

in today; and second, in the active reconstruction of indigenous metaphysical

systems...” (pp. 1,10). In my dissertation I identify the explicit features of the Western

xiv
 tradition in social studies curriculum. Specifically, my research examines how

curriculum transmits systems of knowledge that are antithetical to Native world-views.

Through a text analysis of history-social science content standards and U.S. History

textbooks, I analyze how these texts disseminate information that affirm western

world views, and in turn disaffirm Native world-views. I utilize a transdisciplinary

theoretical framework that draws from Smith’s (2002) decolonizing methodologies,

Calderon’s (2006a, 2006b) Critical Interstitial Methodology, and Strauss and Corbin’s

(1998) Grounded Theory to capture how Native themes are explicitly dealt with in the

texts in order to establish what types of learning students are explicitly intended to

receive; how these lessons reaffirm western knowledge organization and conflict with

Native world-views; analyze texts in order to recommend where Native issues should

be included, in order to make curriculum organization receptive to multiple knowledge

systems; and link up how current treatment of Native peoples in social studies

curriculum reproduce removal and termination period ideologies.

My findings demonstrate that curriculum standards and textbooks are not

neutral transmitters of information. Rather they export specific world-views that are

detrimental to the continuance of Native views and culture. Truly pluralistic

curriculums that incorporate multiple world-views benefit all as we find ourselves in a

historical moment where important paradigm shifts are needed if we are to survive

globally.

xv
 CHAPTER-ONE
MAPPING IDEOLOGY ALONG THE CURRICULUM PIPELINE

I. Introduction

Throughout this dissertation, I argue that in order to truly understand why

curriculum is produced the way it is, it is essential to understand the framework within

which it is produced. Curriculum, particularly social studies curriculum, is an important

component of what I name the Colonial Model of Education (CME).1 In the United

States, the CME represents a key pillar supporting the structure of a white settler-state.2

In turn, the structure of the white settler-state is firmly embedded in foundations that

need to be explored as well. I contend that situating social studies curriculum as a

product of the white settler-state illuminates why social studies curriculum is produced

the way it is. It also exposes deeper foundational issues that are otherwise left

unexplored. Vine Deloria (1979, 1992, 2006) identifies this foundation as western

metaphysics3 or worldviews. Therefore, in order to understand the types of curriculum

prominent in public schooling, including textbooks and the standards that shape them, I

1
I define the Colonial Model of Education as the education practices, discourses and policies prominent
in settler states that promote assimilatory curriculums and educational practices. I provide a more detailed
definition in chapter two.
2
I briefly define a white settler-state as a state founded by European immigrants as a result of colonial
expansion. The white settler state promotes a narrow brand of nationalism that is built upon a series of
mythologies and assumptions. I provide a more detailed definition in chapter two.

3
I briefly define western metaphysics as the set of Eurocentric assumptions and system of knowledge, or
western world-view. This concept is explored in greater length in chapter three but for now I am referring
to the concepts associated with Western Metaphysics such as dualism, linearity, and origins.

1
look to the metaphor of the structure described above, beginning with the notion of the

curriculum pipeline.

In this chapter, I introduce the concept of the curriculum pipeline in order to

situate my examination of social studies curriculum. In particular I examine social

studies curriculum because I offer it provides the clearest examples of the CME. In this

regard, I outline how my own background influences this project, including how I

utilize the notion of cultural intuition (Delgado-Bernal, 1998) to guide my study. I also

provide a detailed description of the issue I examine in this dissertation—namely the

manner in which educational discourses, in this case social studies curriculum, promote

western worldviews at the expense of indigenous worldviews. In order to do this, I ask a

series of questions that aid me in this investigation. I make the argument that this

dissertation is highly significant because it critically examines foundations often absent

or overlooked by other research, including research claiming to promote multicultural

perspectives.

In chapter two, I situate this project within the broader sweep of Indian

education in the United States, including a review of the changing nature of federal

Indian policy and the development of Indian education programs. By doing this, I offer

a series of concepts, informed by the history and development of Indian policy and

education, that aid in the investigation of social studies curriculum. These concepts

include the white settler state and the Colonial Model of Education (CME). In chapter

2
 three, I examine the idea of metaphysics, particularly Vine Deloria’s framework of

western metaphysics and the extensive literature on indigenous metaphysics. This

foundational work is necessary, I argue because it illuminates how education today,

indeed social studies curriculum, is a direct product of western metaphysics and its

structural purveyor—the settler state. Chapter four is a description of the

methodological and theoretical approaches used in this dissertation. In this fourth

chapter, I describe how I utilize indigenized perspectives that allow for the critique of

western metaphysics in curriculum.

In chapter five I examine previous research on representations of Indians in

history textbooks, finding that these representations affirm settler-state ideologies and

perpetuate western metaphysics. In chapter six, I outline my findings, which are based

upon the examination of high school history textbooks in current use. I also provide a

narrative analysis demonstrating how these textbooks maintain western metaphysical

approaches, reify settler state ideology, and thus maintain the CME. In the following

chapters seven and eight, I examine the accompanying content standards, in order to

trace how standards shape and influence what I found in the textbooks I examine.

Finally, in chapter nine, I provide an alternative curriculum that demonstrates useful

ways to introduce indigenous informed perspectives missing from the history textbooks

I examine, drawing from an indigenous informed curriculum pipeline.

II. The Curriculum Pipeline

3
 This dissertation represents an investigation of what I refer to as the

curriculum pipeline,4 which I conceptualize as the path ideology takes to become the

official knowledge (Apple, 2000b; Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991) used in the public
Case
classroom. As the illustration below represents, there are a variety of locations or
Law
processes within this curriculum pipeline. This curriculum pipeline is a simple

diagrammatic representation; it can be further divided to represent more detailed

locations and processes along this pipeline. However, I choose this simple

representation because it best captures my intent: to trace the genealogy and trajectory

of very specific ideas, ideologies, concepts, etc., as they are transformed into classroom

curriculum.

Diagram 1: The Curriculum Pipeline

In my dissertation, I examine this curriculum pipeline beginning in the classroom. In

this location, a variety of processes and artifacts are found, including teacher practices,

4
My definition of the curriculum pipeline represents an extension of the concept of the educational
pipeline. Huber, et al. describe the education pipeline: “Within educational research, the pipeline
metaphor is often used to describe how students move through the primary, secondary, and postsecondary
levels of education. The educational pipeline functions well for some groups of students, allowing them
to flow smoothly through the various levels of education and yielding a fairly proportionate number of
high school and postsecondary graduates”(Perez-Huber et al., 2006). I use the pipeline metaphor to
describe how ideas move through a variety of locations to become official curriculum. The curriculum
pipeline serves to funnel information in a selective manner, favoring particular ideas, and excluding
others.

4
 student learning, textbooks, testing, and so forth. I focus on one of the central and

most important artifacts for building knowledge found in classrooms—the textbook.

Utilizing the textbook as a source for locating, identifying, and analyzing ideologies, or

more precisely particular worldviews, contained in the textbooks, I retrace these

perspectives in reverse along the curriculum pipeline, moving back towards curriculum

standards.

Diagram 2 below represents the broader conceptual path I took, beginning with

textbooks, moving to standards, and tracing the ideological sources of what I found in

textbooks.

5
 Diagram 2: From Textbooks to Ideology

Diagram 2:

To restate, the curriculum pipeline is a key component of the CME prevalent in the

United States, and parallels the structural metaphor I identify earlier.

In particular, I am interested in examining the multicultural content of the

curriculum pipeline as it pertains to American Indians. Therefore, I examine what

textbooks have to say about American Indians and just as importantly what they are not

saying. Using these findings, I then look at standards to assess how the textbook

findings are framed within content standards. To this project I bring a variety of lenses

with which to explore this pathway. These lenses are informed by the projects of

indigeneity in research, policy, and most importantly culture. This project affirms

previous research and it builds on the important work of a variety of people,

communities, and institutions working from or towards indigenous education. Likewise,

6
 this project begins from my own experiences, which are shaped by community, place,

and ultimately indigeneity.

A. Researcher’s Background & Interest

…American Indian educators, in particular, unlike their non-Native counterparts,

are better prepared and well suited by experience to critically look at the deep
roots of Western-inspired institutions and practices. Because of their bi- and
often multicultural experience we can and should explore creative ideas and
ways of establishing healthier Indian communities and sovereign Indian nations
(Daniel Wildcat in Wildcat & Deloria, 2001; 19).

I began this project before I read Vine Deloria and Daniel R. Wildcat’s Power and

Place: Indian Education in America. However, Wildcat’s (2001) statement strongly

resonates with the reasons I undertook this project. In navigating my own schooling, I

utilized a variety of resistance strategies (Solórzano & Delgado-Bernal, 2001;

Solórzano & Villalpando, 1998) to negotiate this challenging terrain. One of the most

powerful strategies was simply going home, although in undergraduate this was

mitigated by distance and economics. 5 Place, or home, was therefore a part of this

strategy of both resistance and renewal. This strategy conflicts with the calendar

expectations of educational institutions that require above all, attendance. This conflict

created great anxiety and stress for me, as it was clear the institution and its agents did

not understand my need to go home during times not officially sanctioned by the

institution. Schooling has proved to be a one-way relationship, providing little room

5
Despite not being able to go home (El Paso, Texas) as desired during my undergraduate years at Vassar
College in New York, I had the fortune to have a number of students from my local community in the
same undergraduate institution. In a way, we recreated home, by gathering and cooking familiar foods,
telling stories about home; in essence maintaining our ties to our home despite being so far.

7
 for my own cultural needs to be fulfilled, and indeed for many indigenous students

(90 percent attend public schools), who are simply not retained because educational

institutions do not understand the pull of home, of place, of the diverse obligations

indigenous students have to community and place.6 It is this tension that I draw from in

order to examine public schooling and particularly curriculum.

A large part of this project has been guided by the notion of cultural intuition,

which Dolores Delgado-Bernal (1998) conceptualizes as the unique perspectives and

understandings of the world that, in her work, Chicana researchers bring to their

research. This cultural intuition is informed by four sources that Chicana researchers

utilize in educational research: personal experience, including collective experience

and community memory; the existing literature on the topic; professional experience;

and the analytical research process itself (Delgado Bernal, 1998). For me cultural

intuition is shaped by my subjectivities as a Pueblo/Mexican/Legal/Education

researcher. Looming large in my life, and centrally influencing this process of cultural

intuition is the notion of place. For my part the first aspect (personal experience) of

Delgado-Bernal’s (1998) cultural intuition is shaped by place and this in turn, informs

the other aspects of my own cultural intuition. For instance, I grew up navigating

multiple borders, including cultural, geographic, economic, and political. Existing

6
Duane Champagne (2003) describes a successful model: “At UCLA we work directly with Native
communities on a variety of issues such as health, Native theater, tribal court development, social welfare
concerns, student recruitment, as well as political issues such as campaigns concerned with Native rights
to engage in casino style gaming. Our strategy has been to develop a network of students, staff, tribal
community members, and faculty directed toward Native cultural and contemporary issues. We believe
this method has resulted in considerable student retention…” (p. xxiv).

8
 literature concerning, for example western metaphysics is central in this project, as is

my professional experience as a high school social studies teacher, outreach worker,

and public defender.

My personal experience, as stated draws not only from collective experience

and community memory, but from place as well. I was raised walking distance from

the border with Mexico and the Ysleta Pueblo del Sur reservation, immersed in my

father’s Tiwa/Piro culture as well as my mother’s Mexican culture. In a more recent

context, for example, through a specific geography and relationship to geography, I

have understood, from a very early age, the oscillating nature of the politics, policies

and practices of Nation-State, the legal landscapes (Delaney, 1998) of nation-states.7

This knowledge is not unique to me. Without a doubt, this knowledge is part of a larger

cultural knowledge. Vine Deloria’s (1991, 2001) notion of power and place ads a

different dimension to Delgado-Bernal’s (1998) cultural intuition, which I explore in

further detail in the following chapter.

Both my own personal experience and the collective experience and

“community memory” (Delgado-Bernal, 1998) reveal, for example, a history of

globalization that begins with European contact, challenging current notions of

globalization as a recent phenomenon. It also challenges the notion that indigenous

peoples have been passive actors in this relationship. For instance, Shepard’s (2008)

7
Delaney, in Clark & Powell (2008), concept of legal landscape refers to “the complex ensemble of lines
and spaces—territorial configurations—that give legal meaning to determinable segments of the physical
world or actual lived-in landscapes.” (p. 13).

9
 work with the Hualapai describes that for indigenous communities these more recent

narratives relating to colonization serve important purposes:

But these acts of commemoration and storytelling about racial violences and
conquests serve a purpose beyond reminding people about morality and
behavior: they stand as acts of defiance and decolonization. Stories told by the
elders about the Long Walk from La Paz and the contemporary retracing of that
moment of Indigenous resistance play a part in redefining and rescripting the
narrative of colonization in northwestern Arizona (p. 17).

While Shepard (2008) highlights indigenous narratives of colonization, he never the less

frames narratives within the western history. I argue, that instead of “rescripting and

redefining the narrative of colonization” indigenous peoples maintain their own

narratives of colonization that affirm their own perspectives, or worldviews. Better

stated indigenous resistance and narratives of colonization can compel westerners to

“rescript and redefine” their narratives of colonization.

For example, my own family and community’s narratives tell of the

relationships with Europeans that brought, for instance, the recessive trait of red hair;

they tell the story of how the Rio Grande has been a central figure in shaping our lives.

The river often changed course, creating islands that figure prominently in narratives.

They tell how the countries of Mexico and the United States impact peoples’ lives.

Following the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, the Mexican government feared

loosing more territory and gave away free land to folks now finding themselves in a

different nation, of which many families took advantage of, the result of which you

have relatives on the Mexican and American side. They tell the story of how the

economies, policies, and institutions of each country have at times devastated the

10
 communities along the river and also were used to maintain cultural continuity. From

the Pueblo Revolts of the late seventeenth century, the 1871 illegal incorporation of

Ysleta by Texas, to Gaming, and the Narco wars of contemporary times, a multitude of

actors and events have shaped my community. But more importantly they tell stories of

resistance, renewal, and adaptation.

In such a context, the experience of place leads me to understand very

intimately how the changing nature of the settler-state, its laws, economics, politics,

and cultural practices impact communities’ lives. It also reminds me that the

community memory and collective experience of my own community serves as a

witness to the recent history of the settler-state and thus has intimate knowledge and

understanding of its processes. However, because place informs the process of cultural

production and maintenance, these narratives do not focus solely on the material

consequences of this history (Shepard, 2008). Instead, as Shepard (2008) explains

regarding the Hualapai: “This Indigenous…line of vision rejects and critiques

Enlightenment assumptions about time and space, the colonizing goals of the

American nation-state, and the alleged separations between memory, place, and

history” (p. 19). As such, it does not figure prominently in the day-to-day activities of

community life, which are many times more concerned with familial and larger

communal obligations.

However, public education has played a primary role in accomplishing the

colonizing goals of the United States, and as a result formal education has consistently

11
 been at odds with indigenous cultural, educational needs and desires. Gregory Cajete

(1994) explains that educational processes in the United States “emphasize objective

content and experience detached from primary sources and community” and is a

“foundational element of the crisis of American education and the alienation of modern

man from his own being and the natural world” (p. 26). I name this educational

process, history, and practice as the Colonial Model of Education (CME). While public

education has been an alienating force in my life, the lessons and knowledge gained

from my community are also prominent. In this way, place serves as a powerful force

against the process of alienation produced by schooling. Understanding these tensions

between western and indigenous forms of education provides me a perspective “to

critically look at the deep roots of Western-inspired institutions and practices…” in

education, drawing on my multicultural experiences, in order to “…explore creative

ideas and ways of establishing healthier Indian communities and sovereign Indian

nations” (Wildcat, 2001; p. 19). In particular, these subjectivities allow me to critically

engage the discourse of multiculturalism within which the needs of American Indian

students are many times addressed. Like many other indigenous researchers before me,

I celebrate multicultural education practices, but also point out the limitations of

multicultural education in addressing particular Native educational needs as it

continues to operate within CME.

B. Statement of the Problem

12
 As Native peoples are becoming more prominent in different fields of social,
political, and economic life, their distinctive voices calling for the maintenance
of Native traditions, knowledge, and sovereignty must be recognized in the
broad field of education. Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2002)

Linda Smith (2002) challenges the field of education to listen to indigenous

voices. This challenge is imperative as indigenous educational issues are usually placed

in the same context as the challenges faced by Black, Asian-American, and Latino/a

communities. While this framing generates important insights, it is also blind to others.

This collapsing of “minority” educational issues into a standardized discourse ignores

Native self-determination, its accompanying nation-building projects, and it does not

take into account the importance of Native culture and knowledge in maintaining Native

sovereignty.8 In fact, I argue multiculturalism is an outgrowth of the settler-state, and as

such is poorly equipped to address needs of communities that challenge settler-state

legitimacy. Therefore, I situate this project within the discourses of multiculturalism

because it is a key discourse within which the educational needs of communities of

color, including American Indians, are discussed, developed and implemented

(McKenna, 1981). Because educational discourses, including multiculturalism, are

informed and shaped by western metaphysics, or worldviews, indigenous metaphysics

8
There is also literature that examines how the standardizing discourses of multiculturalism do little to
capture the complex identities and subjectivities of immigrant/transnational/diasporic communities
(Bhabha, 2004; Lukose, 2007). In addition Peter McLaren’s (1997; McLaren & Farahmandpur, 2005)
texts Revolutionary Multiculturalism: Pedagogies of Dissent for the New Millennium and Teaching
Against Global Capitalism and the New Imperialism: A Critical Pedagogy challenges normative
formations of multiculturalism, asserting that the dominant trope of multiculturalism seeks “…to
legitimize the social order through racial harmony, and a national identity based on the
“Americanization” of marginalized cultures” (2005; p. 147).

13
 are equally excluded. Therefore, I contend that a major issue facing educational

research in the United States in general, and multicultural education in particular, is a

lack of interrogation of the western metaphysics that both shape education and define

the parameters of how we conceive and talk about education, continuing the CME.

Duane Champagne (2007a) describes the reasons for this lack of awareness:

Many academic disciplines generate knowledge and techniques for solving

issues and problems confronted by complex, highly specialized, and
compartmentalized contemporary nation-states and communities. While there is
some emphasis on multicultural orientations and gaining understanding of other
cultures, most students are taught to confront issues and ideas within U.S.
society or Western civilization. Academic disciplines collect and interpret data
and generate theory with the idea of contributing to human knowledge, but
knowledge is generally understood within Western world views or
epistemological understandings (p. 355).

Extending Champagne’s (2007a) insight, I argue that the organization of educational

discourses and practices, as evidenced in social studies curriculum, in the U.S. preclude

inclusion of Native knowledge systems and instead reproduce colonial education goals

that seek to dismantle Native self-determination and ultimately assimilate Native

peoples. Champagne (2007a) also charges that because knowledge is generated within

the context of the nation-state this limits the scope of possible discourses. For this

reason the operationalization of the nation-state, more specifically the settler state is an

important analytic component in this dissertation.

For example, while racism and issues of access to education impact Native

peoples this problematic does not incorporate Native peoples’ desires to promote

educational models that instead build upon sovereignty and cultural autonomy.

14
 Furthermore, current educational practices promote integration into larger U.S.

society, do not encourage or promote Native self-determination. They are framed from

significantly different assumptions about the world that many times run counter to

Native metaphysics, or world views, maintaining the Colonial Model of Education

(CME). While many scholars recognize the Eurocentric nature of schooling (Ladson-

Billings, 1997; Swartz, 1992), the solutions or models many propose to challenge this

Eurocentrism, such as multicultural education, do not take into account Native issues of

sovereignty and culture. However, many proponents of multicultural education are also

aware of this conflict. Geneva Gay (2004) calls attention to the fact, “[m]ulticultural

education is essentially an affective, humanistic, and transformative enterprise situated

within the sociocultural, political, and historical contexts of the United States.” This

accurate description of multicultural education (MCE) provided by Gay (2004) deserves

further inquiry. I offer that understanding the United States as a settler-state clarifies the

limitations of MCE, specifically within the CME, in which it is produced.

MCE research argues that the unidirectional flow of education in the United

States brings antithetical and oppressive curriculum to indigenous and other

disenfranchised communities. Contemporary education’s implicit and explicit goals, in

line with its historical legacy,9 I add, are to assimilate communities into western

metaphysical norms (Foreman, 1987). Current educational practices and discourses are

9
Lomawaima (2001) defines this legacy: “Historically the goals of the colonial education of American
Indians have been to transform Indian people and societies and to eradicate Indian self-government, self-
determination, and self-education” (p. 5).

15
 shaped by western metaphysical understandings of the world. This content serves to

reproduce a master script10 of Eurocentric11 ideology that scholars identify as white

supremacy12 (Bonilla-Silva, 2001; Leonardo, 2004; Martinez, 1998; 341). Furthermore,

extending Derrick Bell’s (1994) interest convergence theory13 to education and coupling

his insights with Champagne’s (2005b) claim that the United States is ill-equipped to

deal with the political demands of Native nations is revealing. In other words, current

discourses of equity and access, multiculturalism, and other diversity initiatives cannot

fully address the specific needs of Native peoples because ultimately indigenous

peoples desires are incompatible with the underlying tenets of the nation building

project of the United States (Champagne, 2005b). In fact, multicultural discourses may

actually produce narratives and practices that are antithetical to native nation-building

(McKenna, 1981). While discourses of equity and multiculturalism are relevant and

10
Swartz (1992) defines the master script as follows: “In education, the master script refers to classroom
practices, pedagogy, and instructional materials—as well as to the theoretical paradigms from which
these aspects are constructed—that are grounded in Eurocentric and White supremacist ideologies.
Master scripting silences multiple voices and perspectives, primarily by legitimizing dominant, White,
upper-class, male voicings as the “standard” knowledge students need to know” (p. 341).
11
Swartz (1992) continues: “The term ‘Eurocentric’ refers to an ideology of body of myths, symbols,
ideas, and practices that exclusively or predominantly values the worldview and cultural manifestations
(e.g., history, politics, art, language, music, literature, technology, economics, etc.) of people of European
origin, and that denigrates and subordinates the cultural manifestations of people from all other lands of
origin” (Swartz, 1992; 342).
12
White supremacy, I argue, is the central and organizing ideological component of advanced industrial
society in the United States and is the concrete manifestation of western metaphysical structures. It is not
a static ideology, as it has shifted and been historically redefined to maintain the patriarchal, economic,
political, and cultural advantages that whiteness has provided in the United States and globally. See
Charles W. Mills for a provocative and on point analysis of white supremacy.
13
The efforts of communities of color to achieve equality are mitigated by whites’ interests and fears. In
other words only when the interests of whites converge with those of communities of color are people of
color’s interests addressed.

16
 necessary discourses, the assumptions and methods employed largely come from a

perspective founded in western metaphysical norms that ultimately embody and

perpetuate white supremacy. This echoes Derrick Bell’s (2004) provocative claim that

the fight for civil rights which took place within the courts served to legitimate a racial

hierarchy in the United States. This legitimation occurs, Bell (2004) contends because

the law functions as a tool to “induce both the dominant and dominated classes to

accept the hierarchy” (p.188). Therefore African-Americans’ marginalized status in

society is permanent, and that by acknowledging this reality, blacks can move towards

thinking and strategizing about how to shape their future as a community within these

confines (D. A. Bell, 1995). It is not a coincidence that Derrick Bell’s (1995, 2004)

claims and Duane Champagne’s (2005b) argument both touch upon underlying

contradictions and limitations of the United States as currently organized. I believe that

both Bell and Champagne expose the same contradictions because ultimately they

expose some of the foundational characteristics of the United States as a settler-state.

Thus, education as it is currently conceived, proposed and practiced, for the

most part does not serve the needs of Native peoples and their legitimate claims and

continuance of self-determination, cultural autonomy, and sovereignty. Public education

in the United States, I am arguing, must be understood as directly linked to a western

metaphysical view of the world. Western metaphysic represent what American Indian

philosopher Ann Waters (2004) describes as “the continued colonization of global

resources, including humans, by participating as a beneficiary of that colonial capitalist

17
 regime” (p. 169).14 On the other hand, Waters (2004) continues, Native peoples

metaphysics support “sustainability of land and culture” (p. 169). Considering the scope

of this dissertation, I believe the best way to demonstrate this is to examine social

studies curriculum. Thus I argue that indigenous metaphysics, or worldviews, have a

distinctive vantage point from which to begin, or continue, critical interrogations of

educational practices in the United States.15

C. Research Questions

Thus in order to explore this problematic, I pose the following questions:

 How does education (social studies curriculum) embody western

metaphysics?
 How does education (social studies curriculum) in the United States
reproduce a Colonial Model of Education (CME)?
 How is education (social studies curriculum) antithetical to indigenous
cultures and sovereignty?
 What are the sources of western metaphysics in education?

By attempting to answer these questions through an in depth analysis of social studies

curriculum I demonstrate that these current discourses leave little room for Native

informed educational projects that promote Native nation building.

In order to answer these questions I provide a review of the literature on

education and western metaphysics. From this review I generate concepts that I use in

14
See also (Apple, 2000b; Darder, 1991; Giroux, 2001; McLaren, 1997, 2003)
15
I am not arguing that other projects that challenge western dominance and capitalism be dismissed and
dismantled. Western peoples also have the duty to engage the system their forefathers created for them. I
do want this project to remind Western peoples that in their own revolutionary projects they become, or
continue to be colonizers, if they insist that their western methods should be taken up by all. In this way,
this project encourages a multiplicity of movements that can strive together towards community,
mutuality, and sustainability.

18
 my analysis of the data, demonstrating how public education in the United States has

been shaped by western metaphysics and continues to embody this paradigm. I also

review the literature on indigenous metaphysics and elaborate on how indigenous

metaphysics lead us to thinking about education differently than currently conceived

and practiced. Then I examine social studies texts adopted by the Los Angeles Unified

School District (LAUSD). Specifically, I examine how textbooks adopted for use

reproduce western metaphysical ideas. Next, I analyze curriculum standards that shape

and define textbook content in order to trace and map out how western metaphysical

concepts and narratives find their way into textbooks. Extending this examination of the

genealogy of western metaphysics in curriculum (textbooks and standards)

demonstrates how central western metaphysical constructs are in social studies

curriculum.

D. Significance of the Problem

Like the miner’s canary the Indian marks the shift from fresh air to poison gas
in our political atmosphere; and our treatment of Indians, even more than our
treatment of other minorities, reflects the rise and fall of our democratic faith
Felix S. Cohen (1953)16

Undeniably, the treatment of American Indians and Alaska Natives in the United

States reflects most vigorously upon the strength and viability of democracy in the

United States. Indian-U.S. relations expose a much deeper cultural conflict. This

16
From Lomawaima and McCarty (2002, 2006). Felix Cohen was Assistant Solicitor in the Department
of the Interior in F.D.R. administration

19
 cultural conflict I argue is one of worldviews, of metaphysics, or a people’s first

principles. Many times the more narrowly tailored needs of Indian education produces a

disconnect between larger schooling discourses and practices, including those that aim

at incorporating American Indian student needs. Yet as Felix S. Cohen’s statement

above demonstrates, this misunderstanding has larger implications. Unquestionably, as

Lomawaima and McCarty (2002) make the case, education cannot be “merely a

homogenizing and standardizing machine, unable to draw strength from diversity” (p.

281). Rather diversity, they insist, implies active engagement with the following

paradox: How the U.S. government and its non-indigenous citizens have treated

American Indians in the past and how they continue to wrestle with their relationship

with tribes lie at the core of “… whether social justice and democracy can coexist” (p.

281). Echoing Cohen (1953), Lomawaima and McCarty (2002) ask: “If our nation

cannot tolerate American Indians living as they might choose, both as Native people

and as U.S. citizens, what does that mean for the democratic ideals of equality and

freedom?” (p. 281). Correspondingly, if educational discourses such as social studies

curriculum aimed at addressing and investigating the needs of diverse students gloss

over or omit issues of Indian world-views and insistence to sovereignty, what does this

mean for those discourses that claim to be multicultural?

This type of omission also has larger implications for the nation-state, more

appropriately identified in the case of the U.S. as a white settler-state. Lomawaima and

McCarty (2002) highlight:

20
 If the nation-state cannot forge itself as a healthy, productive, and diverse
society in its relations with American Indians, what hope can other citizens
hold that their rights, beliefs, practices, and values will be respected and

protected?...American Indians are more than the miner's canary, whose full
utility is realized only in its death. Indian experience and survival point the way
toward the best possibilities inherent in the critical-democratic ideal: a
democracy not balancing precariously on the adversarial see-saw of
"majorities" versus "minorities" but rather flourishing from the roots of liberty,
equality, justice, and respect for all” (pp. 281-282).

Education, according to Lomawaima and McCarty (2002), is a key component in this

process. Therefore the dominant Colonial Model of Education (CME) in the United

States needs to be engaged and wrestled with, and the specter of western metaphysics

must be opened up to critical examination. This must be done in such a way that leads

to important and necessary paradigm shifts in the way that education is thought of and

how it is defined in the multicultural classroom. With the recent attention paid to the

human created phenomena of global warming, its accompanying climate change, mass

species extinction, and other catastrophic challenges to the maintenance of life systems,

the miner’s canary from the indigenous standpoint is the system of thought that has so

carelessly brought us to this point.

Duane Champagne (2005) argues, similar to Lomawaima and McCarty (2002),

that any “…state fully capable of recognizing the long-standing issues of indigenous

peoples will need to recognize their claims to land; their different understandings of

land, community and government; and their different cultures and values” (p. 4). He

continues, “[o]nly a state that can include and respect the Native rights to land, self-

21
 government, and culture without direct coercion can achieve the goal of an open

and democratic state” [emphasis mine] (p. 4-5). Departing from Lomawaima and

McCarty (2002, 2006) Champagne’s (2005) charges that the current form of the nation-

state is not equipped “to meet the democratic and consensual needs of indigenous

peoples for inclusion within the state” (p. 4). He argues, because “Nation-states and

multicultural nation-states do not extend their definitions of inclusion to bring in Native

communities in a voluntary manner,” the nation-state therefore denies “…the

foundation of consensual inclusion critical to the definition of a democratic state” (p. 4).

Champagne (2005) suggests, that instead a state equipped to deal with indigenous

realities

…must be defined as a multinational state, where indigenous rights are

recognized; their institutions, claims to territory, and cultures are respected; and
they are allowed a mutually agreed measure of self-government according to
their own understandings. Such a multination state would better achieve the
consensual basis of society of all groups—indigenous, immigrant, ethnic,
gender, and racial—and would better achieve the ideal of a democratic and
consensual-based state government (p. 4-5).

Champagne’s (2005) insightful argument, along with Lomawaima and McCarty’s

(2002, 2006) vision of critical democracy represent the larger types of paradigm shifts

that need to take place. In order to engage this shift, though, there needs to be serious

analytical inquiries that begin to conceptualize education in the United States within the

context of the settler-state, specifically the white settler-state. While this literature is

rich in countries such as Australia, Canada, Mozambique, and New Zealand (Anderson,

2000; Bishop, 2003; Errante, 2003; Moran, 2002) and not absent in the U.S. context

22
 (Champagne & Abu-Saad, 2005; Falcon, 1995) it has yet to seriously enter the

debates in education circles in the United States, and if it does, these investigations

normalize and leave western metaphysics unchallenged.

My dissertation represents a significant entry into researching education as a

function of the settler-state. Intimately related, this dissertation engages the notion of

western metaphysics, which, outside of Indian education circles, has not garnered the

serious attention this foundational issue requires. Education represents a site, which at

once, blindly produces western metaphysical assumptions, yet also represents a space in

which these specters can be met head on, as is evidenced in the curriculum pipeline.

Social studies curriculum, I argue represents an area in which these limitations are most

visible.

In order to properly frame social studies curriculum, the notion of the

curriculum pipeline, and the related ideas of the settler state and the Colonial Model of

Education, I provide a brief review of the history of Indian education and policy in the

following chapter. Indian education provides an eye-opening backdrop that clearly

illustrates education as a function of the white settler state.

23
 CHAPTER TWO:
INDIAN EDUCATION: HISTORICAL & CONTEMPORARY TRENDS

While I focus on specific aspects of the social studies curriculum pipeline in this

study, it is nevertheless important to situate this work in the broader context of Indian

Education within the historical sweep of U.S. practices. In this chapter I offer a brief

review of the history of Indian Education, demonstrating that education in the U.S. is a

key pillar of the settler-state. Similarly, I outline the key issues in contemporary Indian

education including schooling, policies, standardization & assessment. From this review

of Indian education I generate a series of concepts that help ground my analysis.

Significantly, the history of Indian Education provides a roadmap of how western

metaphysical structures have informed schooling. Situating this project in both the

historical and contemporary trends of education as it relates to indigenous peoples in the

United States, demonstrates that western metaphysics are indeed omnipresent.

Specifically, this type of survey provides ample evidence demonstrating how Colonial

Models of Education (CME) have evolved over time, responding to the needs of the

white settler state.

I. Demographic Overview

Approximately 90 percent of American Indian students in the United States

attend public schools controlled by the states and 7 percent attend Bureau of Indian

Affairs (BIA) administered schools (Freeman & Fox, 2005). In addition, the “federal

24
 government has major financial responsibility for the education of American Indians”

(Tippeconnic, 2001; 41). Most indigenous students in the United States are not enrolled

in schools in which tribes control and define the types of educational curriculum being

taught to students. As of 2002, only 1 percent, or 624,000, of public school students are

American Indians/Alaska Natives, which represents 93 percent of the total Indian

student population (Freeman & Fox, 2005).

Freeman and Fox (2005) explain that there are three different types of schools

affiliated or administered by the BIA. Those schools operated by the BIA are generally

called BIA-administered schools and are operated by the Office of Indian Education

Programs (OIEP) housed within the BIA. Schools funded by contracts made with the

BIA are referred to as contract schools and are tribally operated. Schools funded by BIA

grants are referred to as grant schools and are also tribally operated. According to the

Office of Indian Education Programs (OIEP), there are currently 185 BIA-funded

schools, of which, the BIA operates 63, and 122 schools are operated by tribes through

contracts or grants. These schools are located on 63 reservations in 23 states, and serve

approximately 60,000 students, and to date, 60 percent of these schools serve 250

students or less.

Although American Indians and Alaska Natives represent a small portion (1

percent) of the total number of students enrolled in public school, it is nevertheless

important that their needs are brought to the forefront of educational discourses and

practices (Freeman & Fox, 2005). Moreover, American Indian/Alaska Native

25
 populations are only expected to grow. As indicated in Freeman and Fox’s (2005)

report published by the National Center for Education Statistics the “Census Bureau

projects that by 2050 the non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Native alone

population will grow to 3.2 million” (p. 4). The American Indian/Alaska Native

population increase of 55 percent between the years 2000 and 2050 will exceed the

estimated population increase for Whites (9 percent), compared to the population

increase for Hispanics (178 percent), Asian/Pacific Islanders (233 percent), and Blacks

(56 percent) (Freeman and Fox, 2005). Despite this growth in indigenous populations,

they will continue to represent approximately 1 percent of the U.S. population (Freeman

& Fox, 2005). Interestingly, despite this rapid growth for people of color, whites in the

year 2050 will continue to be a majority, although a slim one at 53 percent.

While 71 percent of the American Indian/Alaska Native population has a high

school diploma or equivalent, the national graduation rate for American Indian/Alaska

Native students for the 2003-2004 year is 49.3 percent (44.6 percent males and 50

percent of females), which has remained largely unchanged in the last decade (National

Indian Education Association, 2007). The discrepancy between these two figures,

diploma/equivalency and graduation rates, has to do with the sources of the data. For

instance, the data for high school diploma or equivalent is taken from the U.S. Census

2005. This aspect of U.S. Census data does not account for “on-time” high school

completion (C. B. Swanson, 2004), and it reports both high school diplomas and GEDs

or equivalencies (Warren & Halpern-Manners, 2007). In addition this data reflects both

26
 private and public high school completion information (Warren & Halpern-Manners,

2007). The latter data reporting graduation rates is drawn from the Common Core of

Data (CCD) which is made up of enrollment and diploma data reported by school

districts to states (Mishel & Roy, 2006). The CCD relies only on public school data

(Warren & Halpern-Manners, 2007). Further characterizing educational attainment,

Snipp (2005), relying on U.S. Census 2000 data (18 to 24 years), describes that only

64.1 percent of the population that identifies as single race American Indian/Alaska

Native population has a high school diploma or equivalency, versus 71 percent of the

mixed race American Indian/Alaska Native. Because Snipp (2005) relies solely on U.S.

Census data he cannot provide disaggregated data on graduation rates.

Clearly, even demographic data fails to reveal the complex nature of schooling

and indigenous students. For instance, looking at only one aspect of data and/or looking

at only one data source may conceal important issues, including how and why

graduation rates for American Indian/Alaska Native students are so low? Additionally,

if significant numbers of American Indian/Alaska Natives are dropping out, or being

pushed out of high school as seems to be indicated by graduation rates, additional types

of information and research may help reveal why is this happening. And it may help

reveal the pathway these students take to receive their high school equivalency.

Moreover, there is evidence suggesting that high school equivalency does not provide

the same economic capital as a high school diploma (Cameron & Heckman, 1993). As

Snipp (2005) illuminates below, this demographic information also needs to

27
 differentiate single race American Indian/Alaska Native and multi-racial American

Indian/Alaska Native as this may provide important insights into the complex histories

and realities of American Indian/Alaska Native populations. Snipp (2005) explains:

About 2.5 million people were identified as nothing other than “American
Indian” or “Alaska Native” in the 2000 Census. But another 1.6 million people
were identified as American Indian or Alaska Native along with one or more
other races, making a total of 4.1 million people who claim some connection
with an American Indian or Alaska Native heritage. And clear differences
distinguish children who are identified as American Indian or Alaska Native
“alone” from those who are identified in connection with another race. In
particular, multiracial American Indian or Alaska Native children are more
likely to live with both parents, less likely to be in the care of grandparents, and
more likely to live in households with higher incomes than single-race
American Indian and Alaska Native children (p. 16).

To be sure, demographic data, while providing a snap shot of populations, can only

provide so much information. Nevertheless, conscientious use of this information can

provide important insights to state of education in the United States.

II. Federal Indian Policy & Indian Education

Indubitably, the history of Indian education is complex and unpredictable. From

the traditional educational practices of the diverse tribes that precede contact with

Europeans and the expansion of settler-states, to the more contemporary manifestations

of state-controlled schooling, indigenous peoples have millennia of experience, insight

and knowledge concerning teaching and learning. I concentrate here on the advent of

“Indian education” in the United States. Donna Dehyle and Karen Swisher (1997)

explain that Indian education in the United States is, in part, shaped by trust

responsibility established between the U.S. and individual tribes and tribal sovereignty.

28
 For these reasons, they point out that “…the history of Indian education is unique,

complex, and not clearly understood by the majority of mainstream America” (p. 114).

Part of this complexity has to do with the fact that, as Carol Ward (2005) reminds us,

education programs have been central tools for assimilation in the United States. As this

survey below demonstrates, both the historical and contemporary manifestations of

Indian education, have vacillated according to the political, economic, and social

currents of the settler-settler. In essence, Indian education is swept up in the interest

convergence dilemma (Bell, 2004), more aptly identified by Williams’ (2005)

singularity thesis. Williams (2005) singularity thesis maintains that the interests of

Indians in maintaining sovereignty are accommodated when these interests align with

those of whites. Similarly, Lomawaima and McCarty (2006) argue because the interests

of Indians are perceived in varying degrees of danger to whites, federal Indian policy

responds, maintaining a perceived safety zone for whites. American Indians and Alaska

Natives, in turn, have responded to the fickle nature of the CME in the United States

with resilience, fortitude, and tenacity.

The history of Indian education has been broadly categorized within three

periods:

1. Mission boarding school era, funded by settler governments (16th-19th

century);
2. Federal control (late 19th-mid 20th century); and the
3. Self-determination period (mid 20th century-present) (Grande, 2004;
Lomawaima, 2001; Szasz, 1974; Tippeconnic, 2001).

29
 However, I divide the third period into two, shortening the self-determination period

(mid 20th century- late 20th century), adding a fourth period: Period of standardization

(current). These four broad historical periods of Indian education developed under the

larger historical sweep of federal Indian policy, which I examine in further detail below.

I must address here that the history of Alaska Native education, follows somewhat

different trajectories, and I also address these difference below.

As described, federal Indian policy oscillates between conquest, assimilation,

termination and self-determination (Lomawaima & McCarty, 2006). During the first

historical period of Indian education, characterized by the mission boarding school,

federal Indian policy went through two major policy developments. These policy

developments are labeled as follows:

1. The formative years (1775-1820s) and

2. The Indian removal, relocation, and establishment of
reservations years (1830-1880s) (Wilkins, 2002).

Throughout the second historical period of Indian education (federal control), federal

Indian policy was influenced by three policy development periods. These were:

3. The period of allotment, assimilation, and Americanization

(1880-1920s)
4. Limited tribal self-rule (1920s-1940s), and
5. Termination and relocation (1940-1960s) (Wilkins, 2002).

The third historical period of Indian education (self-determination) is characterized by

one policy development:

6. The federal Indian policies of self-determination (1960s-1980s)

(Wilkins, 2002).

30
 The fourth and current period of Indian education (Standardization) is characterized

by what is the most current policy period:

7. Tribal self-governance in the era of new federalism (1980s-

current) (Wilkins, 2002).

Within these various periods of federal Indian policy, there are important legislative

acts and government reports that give voice to the policy of the time. Likewise,

education initiatives during these policy periods reflect the policy goals of the times.

First Policy Period: The Formative Years (1775-1820)

The seventeenth century witnessed the birth of mission schools, established by

competing colonial powers in the Americas—the French, British, and Spanish (Grande,

2004). The shared educational impetus centered on civilizing and Christianizing

indigenous peoples (Grande, 2004). As colonial American history describes, from the

competing interests arose the United States as a new nation-state, more aptly identified

as a white settler-state, intent on creating and asserting its own identity, apart from the

British metropole, and the education of the Indian was central in this project. The

formative years (1775-1820s) of federal Indian policy, as defined by David E. Wilkins

(2002), of U.S. Indian policy included a series of Supreme Court decisions, territorial

expansions, schooling models and policies. These include:

• Supreme Court case Johnson v. McIntosh that established the

Doctrine of Discovery17 within U.S. jurisprudence (Wilkins, 2002a).

17
Chief Justice Marshal (1823) wrote in the majority opinion, establishing the doctrine of discovery: “On
the discovery of this immense continent, the great nations of Europe were eager to appropriate to
themselves so much of it as could respectively acquire…and the character and religion of its inhabitants
afforded an apology for considering them as a people over whom the superior genius of Europe might

31
 • Territorial expansion west with the addition of the Louisiana
Purchase in 1803.
• In the Spanish territories, Indians were subjected to the Catholic
mission system
• In the Alaska territory the Russian-American Company and the
Russian Orthodox church were primarily responsible for Indian
education (Barnhardt, 2001).
• Two significant pieces of legislation during the formative years were
the Civilizing Acts of 1803 and 1819 (Senese, 1991).

Second Policy Period: Indian Removal, Relocation and Reservation (1830-

1880)

Following the formative years period, federal Indian policy focused on Indian

removal, relocation and the establishment of reservations. During this period U.S.

Indian policy included a series of Supreme Court decisions, federal Indian policies,

territorial expansions, schooling models and policies. These include:

• Important Supreme Court cases were Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and

Worcester v. Georgia.
• Key policies included the1830 Indian Removal Act, the Trail of
Tears, and the end of treaty making with the passage of the 1871
Indian Appropriation Act (Wilkins, 2002a).
• United States acquired the western territories through the annexation
of Texas territories in 1845; the acquisition of Oregon through a treaty
with Great Britain; the cession of western lands from Mexico in 1848;
the Gadsen purchase of land from Mexico in 1853; and the purchase
of Alaska from Russia in 1867.
• Indian education revolved around the early colonial model of
boarding schools, as exemplified by the 1819 Civilizing Fund Act.

Further detail of these early boarding schools is merited.

claim an ascendancy…But, as they were all in pursuit of nearly the same object, it was necessary…to
establish a principle which all should acknowledge as the law by which the right of acquisition, which
they all asserted, should be regulated as between themselves. This principle was that discovery gave title
to the government by whose subjects, or by whose authority, it was made, against all other European
governments…” ("Johnson v. M'intosh", 1823; 572-573).

32
 Educational practices encouraged and institutionalized by the United States

government towards tribes during this period was one founded upon the assumptions

that American Indians need to be civilized (Lomawaima, 2001). In 1819, the federal

government implemented the Civilizing Fund Act, which allowed the federal

government to contract with religious organizations to fund boarding schools

(Barnhardt, 2001). These schools appeared in the form of government-supported

missionary schools whose goal was to civilize Indians (Trujillo & Alston, 2005).

Trujillo and Alston (2005) explain that the creation of the Indian boarding school during

the early 19th century were the first phase of colonial education. In addition these

boarding schools were geographically removed from Native populations (Trujillo &

Alston, 2005). One of the first of these schools was Carlisle Indian School, built in 1879

(Rosenfelt, 1973). Government policy was motivated by the belief that this civilizing

could only be accomplished through Indian resettlement. As a result Indian children

were forcibly removed from their homes and families and taken to boarding schools far

from their communities, and subjected to harsh punishment (Hamme, 1995).

Third Policy Period: Allotment, Americanization, and Assimilation (1880-

1920)

This period of Indian policy in the United States is represented by the policies of

allotment, Americanization, and assimilation. These policies include:

• 1887 Allotment Act, or Dawes Act, divided up Indian land into

individual lots.
• The U.S. Government relocated students from diverse tribes to
particular boarding schools such as Carlisle (Rosenfelt, 1973).

33
 • In Alaska, the passage of the 1887 Organic Act “established the first
civil government in Alaska and provided the legal basis for federal
provision of education,” including Alaska Natives (Barnhardt, 2001;
p. 16).
• During the early 1900s the number of day-schools established locally
for tribes increased (Rosenfelt, 1973).
• During this time, the federal government was responsible for the
funding of Indian education, as Indians were not citizens of the
United States, and thus not eligible to enroll in public-state funded
schools (Rosenfelt, 1973).

As a result, in addition to boarding schools and day schools, the federal government

paid the states nonresident fees in order to enroll Indian pupils in state schools

(Rosenfelt, 1973). In Alaska, though it was not until 1905 that a distinction was made

between Alaska Natives and non-native residents for the purposes of education

(Barnhardt, 2001).

The Fourth Policy Period: Limited Tribal Self-Rule (1920-1940)

In the twentieth century, federal Indian policy underwent a revival of “limited

tribal self-rule” (1920s-1940s). This period was characterized by the report The

Problem of Indian Administration, key legislation, and important educational acts.

These include:

• The 1928 Meriam Report, surveyed the failing status of the education,
health, economic development, social life, and government programs
of Indians. It criticized boarding school education (Lomawaima &
McCarty, 2006).
• The 1934 Indian Reorganization Act, or Wheeler-Howard Act
reversed the Dawes act, restoring tribal self-governance (Wilkins,
2002)
• The 1936 Alaska Reorganization Act enacted similar reforms
(Barnhardt, 2001).
• The 1934 Johnson-O’Malley Act (JOM), a New Deal federal aid
program, subsidized states for the education and medical treatment of

34
 Indians, compelling the movement of Indian pupils from federal
schools into state schools (Rosenfelt, 1973).

Rosenfelt (1973) explains that JOM authorized the BIA to pursue contracts with states

for the funding Indian education at the state level. During this time period, there was

also a movement by boarding schools to add high school level grades, and some schools

did in fact add up to grades 12, but by 1934 the shifting goals for boarding schools

turned towards a “new” type of vocationalism that ended up bringing to a close the

recently gained high school accreditation (Lomawaima & McCarty, 2006).

The Fifth Policy Period: Limited Self-Government (1940-1960)

Following this period of limited self-government, federal Indian policy

vacillated back towards termination and relocation, of which the definitive policy

statement was the House Concurrent Resolution 108 (Wilkins, 2002).

• House Concurrent Resolution 108 adopted in 1953, authorized

government termination of tribes (Rosenfelt, 1973; Wilkins, 2002).
• The Bureau of Indian Affairs Relocation Program, started in 1948,
moved Indians from reservations and rural areas to cities, with the
intent to destroy “tribal communalism” (Wilkins, 2002).
• The federal government increasingly shifted its responsibility for
Indian education to the states. Federal schools operated by the BIA
were closed down in Idaho, Michigan, Washington, and Wisconsin in
1952 and the following year 19 boarding schools and day schools run
by the federal government were closed (Rosenfelt, 1973).

In fact, Rosenfelt (1973) points out, a majority of Indian communities were against this

forced transfer to state schools, and some communities actively resisted this compulsory

transfer. For instance, in 1956, the San Felipe and Santo Domingo Pueblos did not send

their children to public schools for an entire year. These communities were able to

35
 negotiate an agreement between the school districts, the BIA, and the Pueblos that

guaranteed their children access to equal education (Rosenfelt, 1973).

Sixth Policy Period-Indian: Self-determination (1960-1980)

Doing an about face, federal Indian policy shifted gears towards a period of self-

determination during the Nixon administration, in favor of tribal self-determination

(1960s-1980s), which was influenced by the activism of Indian peoples in the U.S.

(Wilkins, 1992). Several important policies were enacted during this period that enabled

self-determination, while some Supreme Court decisions limited it:

• 1968 Indian Civil Rights Act; the 1972 Indian Education Act, the
1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, and
1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act greatly increased tribal
self-determination (Wilkins, 1992).
• In 1978, the Supreme Court decided a number of cases, which
weakened tribal self-determination in the areas of law enforcement
(Oliphant v. Suquamish) and water rights (Nevada v. United States).
• Concerning Alaska Natives, the 1971 Alaska Native Claims
Settlement Act (ANCSA) was enacted.
• A major education initiative during this time period was the
development of the contract or grant school, that owes its formation to
the movements for community schools in the Navajo Nation
(Manuelito, 2005; McCarty, 2002).

It is worth spending some time on the historical development of contract and grant

schools.

Navajo scholar, Kathryn Manuelito (2005) describes that in 1965, the Navajo

Tribe in conjunction with the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity, the Bureau of

Indian Affairs, and Demonstration in Navajo Education (DIN´ E) Inc., created the first

community school in Lukachukai, Arizona. Despite the failure of this school, the

36
 collaborative effort of the Navajo Tribe and the aforementioned organizations

relocated the community school to Rough Rock, Arizona, founding the Rough Rock

Demonstration School in 1966. As such, Rough Rock School, Manuelito (2005)

indicates was “‘the first school to be overseen by a locally elected, all-Indian governing

board, and the first to incorporate systematic instruction in the native language and

culture’ [citation omitted]” (p. 75). Other community-controlled schools came into

existence during this time period in Indian Country, such as the Ramah Navajo high

school (Manuelito, 2005). Organizationally, the Coalition of Indian-Controlled Schools

was created in 1971 in order to provide information and help in organizing and

mobilizing community controlled school movements (Manuelito, 2005). These

community based movements were the foundations for 1975 Indian Self-Determination

and Educational Assistance Act (Manuelito, 2005).

The Indian Self Determination and Education Assistance Act, or Public Law 93-

638, was codified in 1975, making it possible for tribes to contract with the Bureau of

Indian Affairs (BIA) to run their own schools (Snyder-Joy, 1994). The community-

controlled school movement grew to include K-16 institutions (Snyder-joy, 1994). Yet,

as Senese (1991) argues, these community-controlled school movements were ironically

limited by the language of PL 93-638, which continued to frame policy from the

perspective of federal supremacy. Senese (1991) argues that despite the potential for

greater autonomy through contract and grant schools, there are possible shortcomings of

such funding because it continues to be tied to federal monies.

37
 In response to Senese’s (1991) criticisms, Snyder-Joy (1994), examined

whether contract and grant schools are better suited to achieve self-determination as

opposed to BIA-administered schools. Her study found that contract and grant schools

are better suited to achieve self-determination as opposed to BIA-administered schools

(Snyder-Joy, 1994). For instance Snyder-Joy (1994) reports:

Contract and grant school respondents reported greater self-determination in

designing and implementing education policies than did respondents from BIA-
administered schools. They reported fewer constraints on local initiatives than
did BIA school respondents. Contract and grant school personnel also reported
greater local control in administering existing policies to satisfy local needs

than was indicated by BIA school employees. In both the interviews and the
surveys, persons working at contract and grant schools indicate greater
similarities in experiences with one another in comparison to the staff at BIA-
administered schools (p. 12).

In addition contract and grant schools, or community schools as they are sometimes

referred to (Manuelito, 2005) are successful for particular tribes.

Seventh Policy Period: Tribal Self-Governance in an Era of New

Federalism (1980-Present)

The following decades of federal Indian policies, which Wilkins (2002) labels

the era of “tribal self-governance in an era of new federalism” (1980-present),

witnessed administrations that in name honored tribal self-determination, while cutting

funds for Indian programs (Wilkins, 2002). This period is represented by inconsistent

policies, Supreme Court decisions, along with important Indian education reports.

These include:

38
 • In California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians (1987) the Supreme
Court held if state law does not prohibit gaming then states cannot regulate
Indian gaming (modified by IGRA).
• In Brendale v. Confederated Tribes & Bands of the Yakima Indian Nations
the Court held tribes do not have the authority to zone or regulate fee lands
owned by nonmembers in reservation areas marked as open, or non-restricted
(Wilkins, 2002a; Williams, 2005).
• The 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) provided state governments
the tools to oversee Indian gaming, requiring tribes to negotiate with states to
allow certain types of gaming, narrowing the California v. Cabazon (1987)
Supreme Court decision.
• Indian Nations at Risk: An Educational Strategy for Action (1991) Report
released.

While gaming is protected, it nevertheless is subject to congressional legislation.

Similarly tribes’ management of their own lands is restricted to tribal members.

Paralleling the larger educational initiative addressing educational failure in the United

States, the Indian Nations at Risk report, like the 1928 Meriam Report outlined the

problems with Indian education in the U.S.

The report Indian Nations at Risk: An Educational Strategy for Action (1991)

found that during this period, American Indian and Alaska Native communities were at

risk educationally for a variety of reasons, including:

• Failing schools
• High dropout rates
• Lack of instruction in Native languages
• Culturally un-responsive curriculum
• Lack of qualified and appropriately trained teachers
• Impact of outside political and economic forces
• Changing relationships between federal and tribal governments due to
changing legislative intent and Federal Indian law.

Along with these challenges both current research and research from that period echo

the reports findings, adding important dimensions as well. These include:

39
 • Schools with increased diversity, particularly large numbers of
white students, perpetuate racist environments that push native
students out (Deyhle, 1992; Ward, 2005).
• Schools that are diverse do not have the resources to adapt schooling
for indigenous and are more likely to focus attention on white
students resulting in school being perceived as anti-native culture and
pro-white culture (Deyhle, 1992; Ward, 2005).

The Indian Nations at Risk (1991) report focuses on successful strategies and policies as

well. The report indicates success can be found:

• Where Native languages are promoted, a view supported by education

research (McCarty et al., 1991; Watahomigie & McCarty, 1994).
• Where local communities are involved in the schooling process, a
perspective also supported by education research (Dehyle, 1992;
McCarty, 2002; Ward, 2005).
• Where teachers are sensitive to specific Native cultural needs
(Yazzie-Mintz, 2007).
• There are teachers of the same Native background as the students
(Yazzie-Mintz, 2007).
• There is cultural continuity between school and home (Indian Nations
at Risk Task Force, 1991).

In addition research shows other keys to success, that in combination with the above

mentioned factors, create positive schooling environments for indigenous students:

• The more homogeneous the cultural community is the higher the pull
for school completion and the less likely negative ramifications of
racism found at heterogenous schools with larger numbers of whites
(Dehyle, 1992; Ward, 2005).
• Schools in which native culture is prominent provide culturally
relevant schooling (Ward, 2005)
• Students who are culturally secure are least likely to leave school
((Dehyle, 1992; Ward, 2005).

While these failures and successes focus on the relationships of communities with

schools, and the extent of community control in determining success with regards to

Indian self-determination, federal policies nevertheless play central roles in determining

40
 this success.

In this same fashion, Snyder Joy (1994) concludes that despite her findings,

research must follow that examines whether curriculum in schools can achieve self-

determination:

Future inquiry must examine the curriculum offered at locally controlled

schools. Does greater self-determination and local control translate into
effective instruction and positive experiences for the students-Given American
Indians' concerns about education, future research needs to address the
curriculum in locally controlled Indian schools and the students' academic
achievements (p. 12).

In order to understand the role of curriculum in school, it is important to understand

how curriculum is shaped by educational policy, and currently no other policy has

impacted curriculum in the way No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has. NCLB, like other

policies of the past is a reflection of the goals of the federal political, economic, and

social forces in the United States. Furthermore, the same challenges identified by the

1991 Indian Nations at Risk report remain today.

No Child Left Behind (NCLB)

The motivating force behind NCLB is not unlike its policy predecessors in both

education and Indian policy. As the review of policy has demonstrated here, policies

impacting indigenous peoples are volatile. This volatility in policy, I contend is actually

a consistent component of a settler-state. Undeniably, the United States is a settler-state

founded upon white supremacy and its education system, the CME, is equally volatile.

Lomawaima & McCarty (2006) describe this constraint as it relates to education:

41
 Public education in the United States was founded on the principle of local control,
but that right, like citizenship, was not immediately offered to all Americans.
For American Indians, African Americans, immigrants, and others, schooling
has been an engine of standardization, not of parental choice and control, as
powerful interests within the dominant society endeavored to fit diverse
Americans for their assigned places within established economic and social
hierarchies (p.5).

Schooling in the U.S., they continue, has been shaped by a vision of the multiple roles

and varying opportunities that are dependant on the complex intersection of race,

ethnicity, national origins and religion (Lomawaima & McCarty, 2006). They contend

that this diverse vision nevertheless maintains standardizing and homogenizing goals

(Lomawaima & McCarty, 2006). One of the mechanisms used to smuggle in these

homogenizing goals of standardization is the language of equal opportunity, which

instead results in the marginalization and segregation of indigenous peoples needs

(Lomawaima & McCarty, 2006).

The following testimony offered at a community forum organized by the

National Indian Education Association (NIEA) offers important insight into the impact

of NCLB in Indian Country:

The standards and practices are not sound for the teaching of Indian children.
Our children see and order their world very differently from most other

children, and, as a result, demonstrate their knowledge in deepening and unique

ways. The current push to meet the academic standards set out in the No Child
Left Behind law rejects the need to provide culturally competent instructions.
(Green Bay, WI) (Beaulieu et al., 2005; 17).

This testimony offers critical insights into the pernicious nature of standardization as it

regards Indian peoples and other communities. Because education policy occurs within

the narrow confines of U.S. policy, it responds to what Lomawaima and McCarty

42
 (2006) define as the “narrow zone of tolerable cultural difference” (p. 5), or what they

refer to as safety zone theory. Specifically, American Indian education policy—indeed

the history of American Indian education—responds to this “safety zone” of American

identity and politics. Whites judges certain Native beliefs and practices as “safe” and

“tolerable,” while others are perceived to be dangerous, challenging “mainstream

values” (Lomawaima & McCarty, 2006).

Currently, NCLB is being met with criticisms similar to those leveled at the

multiple manifestations of Indian education in the United States. Trujillo and Alston

(2005) in conjunction with the National Indian Education Association’s (NIEA)

Preliminary Report on NCLB in Indian Country (2005) point out that while NCLB is

spotlighting the issues of how Native students are failing and how schools, in turn, are

failing Native students, NCLB similarly fails to provide adequate funding to improve

both schools and student achievement (Beaulieu et al., 2005; Trujillo & Alston, 2005).

Additionally, NCLB’s punitive approach of de-funding and taking over management of

schools undermines the advances made by indigenous students, parent and indigenous

run schools (Beaulieu et al., 2005; Trujillo & Alston, 2005). Overall, research describes

multiple ways NCLB challenges positive steps taken in Indian education:

• NCLB rolls back indigenous control of education, allowing for

increased oversight by state and federal entities (Trujillo & Alston,
2005).
• NCLB promotes increased state control over teacher certification and
performance, which is discouraging teachers and potential teachers
from teaching (Trujillo & Alston, 2005).

43
 • NCLB promotes teaching credentialing that assume universal
standards instead of appreciating tribal specific cultural standards
(Reynolds, 2005)
• NCLB promotes increased state control over student achievement and
learning (Trujillo & Alston, 2005).
• NCLB discourages culturally responsive schooling by placing
increasing emphasis on national standards.

More specifically, NCLB fails indigenous students by doing away with localized

practices that emphasize Native culture in favor of national standards. For instance:

• NCLB’s primary focus on standardization in reading, math, and

science alienates indigenous students who have previously engaged
culturally responsive learning environments (Trujillo & Alston,
2005).
• NCLB’s use of language standards do not consider the distinctive
language and cultural requirements of indigenous students (Trujillo
and Alston , 2005).
• NCLB’s imposition of specific types of instructional approaches
destabilizes and undermines educators’ attempts to use culturally
responsive teaching methods that suit indigenous students distinctive
learning needs (Trujillo & Alston, 2005).
• NCLB imposes compartmentalized learning that emphasizes what
Starnes (2005) describes as “part to whole learning” as opposed to
“whole to part learning” (p. 1).
• NCLB imposes “abstract thought instead of hands-on experience”
(Starnes, 2005; p. 1), or experiential learning that many have
identified as key in educating indigenous students.

In addition, Trujillo and Alston (2005) assert that many tribes see NCLB encroaching

on their rights to sovereignty in the realm of education.

In providing the disparate approaches between NCLB and indigenous

educational learning, Lomawaima and McCarty (2006) provide an important caution:

We must unmask and overturn any an all myths that tell us all Indian students
are somehow one-dimensional learners, whether stoic, silent, visual,
cooperative, or non-analytical. We do not intend to deny the reality of diverse

44
 learning modes, but rather to deny the essentialism of myths that reduce Native
learners to dingle dimensions (p. 20).

They conclude, by pointing out that these myths last “because they are useful, not

because they are true” (p. 20). Keeping Lomawaima and McCarty’s (2006) caution in

mind, policies such as NCLB nevertheless shape the content of the curriculum pipeline

in a standardizing manner, promoting a one size fits all model. This is not a mistake.

Unquestionably, the intent of NCLB to increase student performance responds to the

need to create a workforce for the 21st century, and as such, Indian desires to maintain

local control are not within the perceived safety zone (Lomawaima & McCarty, 2006)

and do not converge (Bell, 1980; Williams, 2005) with the desires of indigenous

peoples to promote self-determination.

NCLB is firmly situated within the framework of CME, and as such protects and

promotes the white settler-state. Zeus Leonardo (2007) provides a useful example of

how NCLB functions within this context. He argues that policies such as NCLB

facilitate nation building. In the U.S. this nation building, Leonardo (2007) asserts is

intimately tied to white supremacy and therefore NCLB “represents a node in nation

creation that is intimate with the educational construction of a white polity” (p. 262). To

restate Leonardo’s (2007) insights, NCLB, like other educational policies, represents a

node in the maintenance of the white settler-state. It is no surprise, then that NCLB fails

indigenous students. The following testimony gathered in hearings held by the NIEA

concerning NCLB succinctly locates the foundations of western metaphysics on which

the structure of the settler state is firmly situated:

45
 The model of No Child Left Behind was created somewhere far away from Indian
reservations and where Indian children live so the whole model – the model
that they created is totally different than who we are. I think that's—that's a
western concept. I think sometimes Congress creates models that are totally
rigid. So No Child Left Behind is not flexible at all. It's totally rigid, and they
want us to fall in line. (Green Bay, WI)” (Beaulieu et al., 2005; 8-9).

This testimony is analogous to Deloria’s (1979) insights on the schizophrenic nature of

schooling for indigenous pupils. Specifically, NCLB marginalizes best practices for

indigenous learning, and instead promotes a totalitarian model of education that

maintains the Colonial Model of Education in the United States.

This systematic intent to assimilate indigenous peoples, whether under the guise

of Christian missionizing, boarding schools, or current models of educational

standardization is a result of the underlying western metaphysics that inform them and

the settler-state structure that contain them. Vine Deloria’s (1992) insightful critique of

this process locates the conflicts that many indigenous people in the United States face

in the context of public education: “Many people are trapped between tribal values

constituting their unconscious behavioral responses and the values that they have been

taught in schools and churches, which primarily demand conforming to seemly foreign

ideals” (p. 242). Trujillo and Alston (2005) agree with Deloria’s (1992) conclusions:

“Yet the 50+ years of the boarding school experience and the adaptation to a rapidly

changing nation has severely limited the transmission of traditional cultural practices

and the use of indigenous languages from one generation to the next” (p. 7). Trujillo

and Alston (2005) share Deloria’s insights, but also maintain that despite the onslaught

of western institutions and worldview, indigenous people maintain their cultures. This

46
 latter point is important. It reminds us that American Indian and Alaska Native

communities have developed a wealth of strategies and practices to maintain their

cultures.

This history of Indian education can also be described by the pipeline metaphor

(Huber, et al., 2006). In this case I use the pipeline metaphor to describe how Indian

education moves through the different historical moments of U.S. policy and politics.

Correspondingly, curriculum received by Indian students throughout this larger pipeline

reflects the inconsistent, fragmented and schizophrenic nature of U.S. beliefs and

policies reviewed above. Continuing with the pipeline metaphor, education is funneled

through a particular idea of what education is, which I identify as the Colonial Model of

Education. This pipeline responds accordingly to the changing nature of settler-state

policies and goals, accommodating whiteness. To be sure, Leonardo (2007) makes the

case that whiteness is not fixed. It yields to the social state of affairs and what Leonardo

(2007) labels “white hegemony” (p. 263). “In other words, whiteness is able to

accommodate, or make certain compromises, in order to maintain its ideological

hegemony” (Leonardo, 2007; p. 263). As a result this pipeline channels educational

practices that are many times incompatible with indigenous needs. All the same this is

the system most indigenous students interact with, commonly under the guise of

multiculturalism. Yet as Leonardo (2007) points out “[i]n education, the very presence

of multiculturalism is evidence of a reaction to a white normativity in school curricula,

administrative structures and classroom interactions” (p. 263). To explore how this

47
 white normativity frames indigenous issues, I focus on the curriculum pipeline,

specifically that of social studies curriculum.

The history of Indian education and policy reveals the volatile nature of the

settler state and its institutions. Particularly the CME as evidenced in its latest

representation of NCLB represent a shrinking in the perceived safety zone. The interests

of whites do not converge (Bell, 1980) with the singular interests (Williams, 2005) of

indigenous communities to promote and protect their sovereignty. For this reason,

conceptualizing the white settler-state and CME provide the type of background context

to understand why the curriculum pipeline functions in the manner it does. It allows for

a more nuanced understanding of the issues indigenous peoples face in the United

States. Moreover, this type of analysis situates the prominence of western metaphysics

in the United States, which ultimately gets to the origins of the indigenous-settler

conflicts identified by Vine Deloria (1979). Finally, no where are these tensions more

clear, I argue than in social studies curriculum.

In fact, indigenous scholar Daniel Wildcat (2001) argues that education in the

U.S. “bears the largest imprint of Western metaphysics” (p. 1) Therefore, Wildcat

(2001) claims, “the hope for American Indian education lies first in the explicit

identification of features of the Western tradition or worldview that produce many of

the problems we are immersed in today” (p. 10). In this dissertation I focus on the

curriculum pipeline, which as stated I conceptualize as the path curriculum takes to

become the official knowledge (Apple, 2000) in the classroom. In deconstructing social

48
 studies curriculum, and mapping the genealogy of ideas back to their origins

necessitates the explicit identification of western metaphysics and the organisms that

promote them. Therefore, heeding Wildcat’s (2001) appeal to identify the Western

features that figure so prominently in social studies curriculum, I now examine the

white settler-state and the Colonial Model of Education.

III. CONCEPTS

The history of Indian education necessitates the framing and naming of

processes and practices that have come to shape Indian education in the United States.

In this section I focus on the white settler-state and the Colonial Model of Education

(CME). More importantly, this glimpse into the history of Indian education reveals the

larger ideological and structural foundations of education. Thus, in this section, drawing

from the above review of Indian education history and policy, I generate concepts that I

use in my analysis of the curriculum pipeline, and social studies curriculum specifically.

In addition, these concepts help us understand the volatile nature of policy, and why

some scholars identify similar themes, such as interest convergence (Bell, 1980), safety

zone theory (Lomawaima & McCarthy 2006), and singularity thesis (Williams, 2005).18

18
Interest convergence refers to the fact that the efforts of communities of color to achieve equality are
mitigated by whites’ interests and fears. In other words whites’ and people of color’s interests have to
converge in order for whites to promote policies and practices in favor of people of color (Bell, 1980,
2004). Lomawaima & McCarty (2006) define safety zone theory in the context of policy making as the
perceived “narrow zone of tolerable cultural difference” (p. 5) or safety zone of white American identity
and politics, which judges certain Native beliefs and practices as ‘safe’ and ‘tolerable,’ while others are
“too dangerous, different, and subversive of mainstream values” (p. 5). Extending Bell’s interest-
convergence theory (1980), Williams (2005) argues that the interests of Indians in maintaining

49
 But as Lomawaima and McCarty (2006) caution, American Indians are not passive

recipients of this history. In fact, as Duane Champagne (1996) reminds us, the resiliency

and agency of indigenous peoples and the strategies they employ to maintain their

cultures are often overlooked by theories that center colonial dominance. Yet because

this project is situated within the discourse of multiculturalism and the larger framework

of the social studies curriculum pipeline, it must respond to the nature of these

discourses to emphasize and center colonial domination.

However, heeding Lomawaima and McCarty (2006) and Champagne’s (1996)

insights, I focus this analysis from a place and politics of indigeneity that reflects back

upon the colonial goliath, framing this work using concepts and ideas that build from

my own cultural background, or cultural intuition (Delgado-Bernal, 1998). As stated, I

draw from a deep understanding informed by the multitude of colonial powers that my

small community has interacted with, been shaped by, and in turn transformed.19

Without a doubt, strategy is central in these relationships, and I therefore choose to

strategically propose concepts that facilitate identifying the genealogy of western

metaphysics.

sovereignty are accommodated when these interests align with those of whites, resulting in what Williams
(2005) names the singularity thesis.

19
Duane Champagne (1996) provides: “Such a discussion of colonialism in the American Southwest
would concentrate on the features of Spanish, then Mexican, and after 1848 American colonial
administration, on features of market relations and incorporation, the internalization of Western religion,
and as any epidemics that may have had a significant impact on the demography of the Native peoples of
the Southwest [citation omitted]” (p. 4).

50
 To be sure, the structure of the white settler-state is built upon the western

metaphysics so accurately described by Vine Deloria. A key pillar of the white settler-

state is its education system, which I refer to as the Colonial Model of Education

(CME). In turn the curriculum pipeline, a formative aspect of CME, along with

education policies and practices, shore up the white settler-state. Yet before I explore

the social studies curriculum pipeline, I offer the following frameworks for white

settler-state and CME.

A. White Settler State

As demonstrated above, the patterns of federal Indian policy and Indian

education though inconsistent are nothing if not consistent in their tendency to promote

so-called pro-Indian or anti-Indian policy. The concept of the white settler-state I argue

is useful in explaining and situating this waxing and waning of policy. Moreover, it

properly situates particular discourses, such as social studies curriculum, within the

broader ideological structures they are born in. The concept of white settler-state also

provides a framework with which to locate the institutionalization and development of

western metaphysics in the United States evidenced in social studies curriculum. I turn

to the work of Ronald Weitzer (1990) who provides an initial definition of a settler

state:

Settler societies are founded by migrant groups who assume a superordinate

position vis-à-vis native inhabitants and build self-sustaining states that are de
jure or de facto independent from the mother country and organized around the
settlers' political domination over the indigenous population (p. 25).

51
 However, Weitzer (1990) argues that in the case of the United States, “original

divisions between settlers and natives no longer shape the sociopolitical order” (p. 26)

because the former settler colony displaced and eliminated indigenous peoples. For this

reason, he argues the United States is not a settler state, maintaining that societies that

displaced, eliminated or assimilated indigenous peoples are not settler states.

Quite the contrary, I assert the United States is a settler state. I strongly disagree

with Weitzer’s (1990) assertion that Indians in the U.S. no longer exist. Ironically, in

promoting this disqualifying component for settler categorization Weitzer (1990) falls

prey to what I argue is a key feature of settler societies and is missing from Weitzer’s

(1990) framework: erasure of indigenous populations. Weitzer’s (1990) narrative

instead represents the success of the United States in promoting this narrative myth. His

erasure of indigenous peoples in the United States speaks to the propensity of his

perspective to center colonial domination and reifies narratives that transform settler

society into natives.20 This erasure represents a key and central force driving ideology,

policy, and practice in the United States concerning Indians. At times, white settlers are

less threatened by indigenous presence, but during other times they feel increasingly

threatened by it (Lomawaima and McCarty, 2006).

20
In fact this transformation of the settler into the native results in a particular type of nativism. Perez-
Huber, Benavides-Lopez, Malagon,Velez, and Solorzano (2008) appropriately label this nativism as
“racist nativism.” They define it as: “the assigning of values to real or imagined differences, in order to
justify the superiority of the native, who is to be perceived white, over that of the non-native, who is
perceived to be People and Immigrants of Color, and thereby defend the right of whites, or the natives, to
dominance (p. 43).

52
 Instead, I argue this original division between settlers and Indians in the

United States continues to shape the sociopolitical order as evidenced not only in

national discourses concerning American identity, but in the textbooks I examine in the

following chapters. Yet while I disagree with Weitzer’s (1990) assessment of the United

States as a former settler society, I find certain aspects of his characterization of settler

society useful in my own characterization of the United States as a white settler-state.

Thus using Weitzer’s (1990) framework, I flesh out how the U.S. indeed satisfies this

framework, adding an extra characteristic I define below. To further provide context to

this working framework of the white settler-state I supplement it with a series of

ideological and structural functions that enable the white settler-state. These ideological

functions include mythologies, assumptions, and forms. The structural functions include

mechanisms and outcomes.

Weitzer’s (1990) framework, which I divide into four points, characterizes

settler states and settlers in the following way:

1. Settler states are “Founded by migrant groups”

2. Settlers “Assume a superior position vis-à-vis native inhabitants”
3. Settlers “Build Self-sustaining states that are dejure or defacto
independent of the mother country”
4. Settler states are “Organized around settler political domination
over indigenous populations.”

In other words the key components of a white settler state, in this case the United States

have to do with its origin, the establishment and perpetuation of white supremacy, the

creation of the new America(n), and the implementation of legal apparatus justifying

53
 domination. I add one more characteristic to white settler-state that is missing from

Weitzer’s (1990) framework:

5. Indigenous relationships with the settler-state.

As stated this five-point framework is enabled by a series of ideological and structural

functions. I now move to a more detailed discussion of this five-point framework,

coupled with the ideological and structural functions I identify.

1. Founded by Immigrant Groups: Origins

Weitzer’s (1990) first characteristic of the settler-state, which I refer to as

origins, contains the formative aspects that figure prominently in the other

characteristics of the white settler-state. In the United States, as with other settler states

such as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, a key feature of settlerism or settler state

creation is the claim that European immigrants founded the U.S.. To explore this

primary characteristic of the white settler state, I examine how a series of ideological

functions, including mythologies, assumptions, and forms have informed these origins.

In the United States, the mythological ideological function represents the most

important component of this first characteristic. The mythological ideological function

represents the progression of myths, or fictions, that inform narratives concerning settler

states. Thus, a main component of a settler-state is the enabling mythologies that allow

the settler state to create new origin stories histories. Mythologies therefore lead to the

creation of other ideological functions including assumptions and forms.

54
 Specifically in the United States a key origin myth is the narrative of the

English founding of the United States, which produces the assumption that European

immigrants and their culture(s) represent the foundations of the United States.

Ideological assumptions represent beliefs, founded in mythologies, taken as true, which

in turn inform settler institutions. In the United States, the myth of English and

European forefathers, informs the assumption that only those settlers descended from

Europeans can legitimately claim white settler status. For instance, because the

founding mythologies and assumptions center on European origins, this constructs a

particular form of nationalism identified as settler nationalism (Wolf, 1999), indeed

white settler nationalism (WSN). WSN, in turn leads to the creation and implementation

of specific structural features, including mechanisms and outcomes. The structural

mechanisms of the settler states are those apparatus, or mechanisms, that enable the

institutionalization of the settler state. For instance, a key mechanism is the law. A

related structural feature is the outcomes or policies and practices produced by settler

ideologies.

Returning to founding mythologies, because the brand of settlerism in the

United States promotes myths regarding origins as fact, it is prone to instability.

Furthermore, WSN functions to define nationalism within very narrow parameters, from

which many groups are excluded (Calderón, 2006b; Gomez, 2005; Leonardo, 2007;

Perez-Huber et al., 2008). Another essential element of this first characteristic is the

interrelated ideological functions of settler forms and the structural functions of settler

55
 outcomes. Examples of this are the forms and outcomes of settler expansion. Settler

expansion, the literal expansion of European settlers in the Western hemisphere, took

many forms. However, in the context the United States, this settler expansion focused

not necessarily on the exploitation of indigenous peoples as was the case in much of

Latin America, but on the replacement of indigenous peoples (Moran, 2002; Wolfe,

1999) physically and metaphorically. This type of settler expansion created a particular

type of nationalism (Moran, 2002; Wolf, 1999), namely a WSN that excludes non-

whites (Leonardo, 2007; Perez-Huber et. al, 2008) as it relies on the myth of European

origins. To maintain white settler dominance, a characteristic explored subsequently in

point three, WSN must establish its superiority, a characteristic I further explore in

point two below. Moreover WSN in the United States claims indigeneity or nativism

(Perez-Huber et al., 2008) resulting in a series of mechanisms to protect this new

nativism.

Earlier, I criticize Weitzer’s (1990) claim that the United States is not a settler

state because indigenous peoples no longer exist or have been assimilated. I argue that

quite the contrary, indigenous peoples in the United States continue to exist and thrive.

This challenges white settlers claims to new nativism. Thus in the United States,

settlerism has to account, or more appropriately, discount indigenous existence.

Similarly, in the case of Australia, Anthony Moran (2002) explains that because of

settler expansion and dislocation of indigenous peoples, “the discourses of settler

nationalism must continue to engage with histories of indigenous dispossession in order

56
 to explain the nature and quality of their national existence” (p. 1016). In this sense,

returning to the enabling mythologies of the settler-state, mythologies are constructed in

order to promote a nationalism that enables this dispossession, and promotes a fictive

WSN that transforms itself into the ‘new native’ (Leonardo, 2007; Perez-Huber et. al.,

2008). To do this WSN relies on myths of superiority.

2. “Assume a superior position vis-à-vis native inhabitants”: White

Supremacy

Weitzer’s (1990) second characteristic, which I characterize as the establishment

of white supremacy,21 focuses on setter position vis-à-vis indigenous peoples. Certain

aspects of this characteristic of white settler society in the United States developed

through a series of interactions with Mexican communities (Perez-Huber et. al., 2008)

and African slaves in the United States. However, I contend that settler ascendancy over

indigenous peoples represents both the formative and foundational components of this

characteristic. In this regard, both the ideological and structural functions are informed

by white supremacy.

21
Perez-Huber et. al., (2008) definition of white supremacy provides important components to this
second characteristic of a white settler society. They place white supremacy within the operationalization
of racial hierarchies in the United States: “Racial hierarchies are legitimized through an ideology that
positions one race as superordinate to all others (Solórzano, 1998; Solórzano & Yosso, 2002b). Racial
hierarchies operate on the basis of white supremacy – that is to say, on the basis of a system of racial
domination and exploitation whereby power and resources are unequally distributed to privilege whites
and oppress People of Color (Bonilla-Silva, 2001; Dubois, 1999; Roediger, 1999). This right to white
dominance is masked by notions of individualism, meritocracy, and color-blindness (Bonilla-Silva,
2003). White supremacy not only positions whites as the entitled beneficiaries of unearned societal
privilege and status, it also normalizes white values, beliefs, and experiences as those dominant and
therefore legitimate in US society [citation omitted]” (pp. 40-41).

57
 This second characteristic of a settler-society generates an entire series of

assumptions built upon the myths described in the first characteristic of origins. To be

sure, mythologies and assumptions figure prominently in all four of Weitzer’s

characteristics of the settler state. Regarding the founding, or origins of the settler state

are the interrelated assumptions that the white settler society is superior to the

indigenous groups settlers replace. WSN promotes the narrative that settler societies are

superior to the ‘old societies’ they left behind in Europe (Moran, 2002; Wolf, 1999).

This sense of settler superiority or supremacy led to the ideological assumption that

settler expansion was thus inevitable and indeed necessary (Moran, 2002). This sense of

inevitability in the rise of settler states is concretely expressed in settler structural

functions.

A key structural mechanism of the settler state is the legal framework that

provides the foundations and justifications for settler expansionism. For instance, in the

United States the legal doctrine of discovery is wielded by courts to justify the taking of

Indian lands based on arguments asserting the superiority of whites and their laws over

Indians. Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in the majority opinion in Johnson v.

M’Intosh (1823), cementing the doctrine of discovery in U.S. Indian law:

On the discovery of this immense continent, the great nations of Europe were
eager to appropriate to themselves so much of it as could respectively
acquire…and the character and religion of its inhabitants afforded an apology
for considering them as a people over whom the superior genius of Europe
might claim an ascendancy…But, as they were all [Europeans] in pursuit of
nearly the same object, it was necessary…to establish a principle which all
[Europeans] should acknowledge as the law by which the right of acquisition,

58
 which they all asserted, should be regulated as between themselves. This principle
was that discovery gave title to the government by whose subjects, or

by whose authority, it was made, against all other European governments…(pp.

572-573).

Marshall’s opinion concretely expresses the belief in the superiority of Europe and

therefore the ascendancy of white settlers over Indians. As a result of this inherent

superiority, white settlers are therefore entitled to acquire and manage the new

territories (Williams, 1986, 1990). The outcome of this structural function positions

settler laws as the only mechanisms available to define the legal relationship between

Indians and settlers. This has created an adversarial relationship most times between

tribes and the U.S.

Johnson v M’Intosh was also important in the sense that it utilized international

law; more accurately described as European law to declare its claim or title to U.S.

territory over other European powers.

3. “Build Self-sustaining states that are dejure or defacto independent of the

mother country”: The ‘New American’
In order to create a self-sustaining settler state, the United States had to first

achieve its independence and achieve legitimacy (legal, political, and psychological) in

the eyes of the European mother country(ies). It accomplished this using established

legal doctrine to lay claim to independence. In the United States ideology was used to

create a new identity apart from the ‘mother country.’ As in the first two characteristics

of origins and white supremacy, the most important and enabling ideological function in

this identity production is that of mythology. Therefore an important corollary of this

59
 mythology is the establishment of white settler nationalism (WSN) or the ‘new native’

(Moran, 2002; Wolfe, 2006)).

A key component of 19th and 20th century settler nationalism was the framing of

this nationalism under the guise of ‘newness’ (Moran, 2002). Independence was

ideologically achieved through the perpetuation of the myth that the United States and

its settlers were creating a new society, free of the problems and traditions that

burdened Europe (Moran, 2002). White settlers were and continue to be free to

construct their own myths of identity, which are reserved for those that can achieve

whiteness (Leonardo, 2007). As described earlier, this newness, initially, was brought

about by the displacement both physically and metaphorically of indigenous peoples.

This newness relied on the assumption of settler superiority over indigenous peoples.

Certain assumptions were used to achieve and justify this new identity. For instance

indigenous peoples were framed as ‘savages’ and were not considered civilized peoples

(Moran, 2002). In other words humanity was equated with those considered civilized,

and Indians constructed as savages were thus merely a part of the backdrop of nature.

Moran (2002) eloquently speaks to the outcome of these attitudes: “The land was an

empty space waiting to be filled and developed by the new society [citation omitted]”

(p. 1016). Therefore, the ‘civilized’ white settlers were able to freely construct their new

American identity upon a clean slate (Moran, 2002). This discursive strategy was key in

creating an identity apart from that of old Europe (Moran, 2002).

60
 Patrick Wolfe (2006) describes that this ‘new nativism’ was used to set apart

the settler state from its origin country: “On the symbolic level, however, settler society

subsequently sought to recuperate indigeneity in order to express its difference—and,

accordingly, its independence—from the mother country” (p. 389). This facilitated both

the ideological and structural aspects of building a self-sustaining state, de facto of the

origin states. Returning to the important structural mechanism of law used to promote

the United States as a self-sustaining state, Robert Williams’ (1986) examination of

Johnson v M’Intosh points to an instantiation of this, quoting from Chief Justice

Marshall’s decision:

In the establishment of these relations [between tribe and conqueror], the rights
of the original inhabitants were, in no instance, entirely disregarded; but were
necessarily, to a considerable extent, impaired . . . their rights to complete
sovereignty, as independent nations, were necessarily diminished, and their
power to dispose of the soil at their own will, to whomsoever they pleased, was
denied by the original fundamental principle, that discovery gave exclusive title
to those who made it. Those relations which were to exist between the
discoverer and the natives, were to be regulated by themselves [natives and
conqueror]. The rights thus acquired being exclusive, no other power could
interpose between them (Marshall in Williams, 1986; p255).

Chief Justice Marshall’s decision lays the ground not only for title of territories in the

continental United States, it also determines the relationship between tribes and the U.S.

government. Johnson v M’Intosh creates the legal precedent for settler domination over

indigenous peoples.

4. “Organized around settler political domination over indigenous

populations”: Legal Domination

61
 It is worth repeating a portion of Chief Justice John Marshall’s majority

opinion in Johnson v M'Intosh, which clearly provides the legal mechanisms for settler

political domination over indigenous populations:

…the rights of the original inhabitants [Indians] were, in no instance, entirely

disregarded; but were necessarily, to a considerable extent, impaired . . . their
rights to complete sovereignty, as independent nations, were necessarily
diminished, and their power to dispose of the soil at their own will, to
whomsoever they pleased, was denied by the original fundamental principle,
that discovery gave exclusive title to those who made it (Marshall in Williams,
1986; p255).

“Those” who claimed title through “discovery” are the white settlers of the United

States. As described, this domination is affirmed on the basis of assumptions, mainly

that white settlers are inherently superior to Indians.

In the United States, political domination also included African slaves and other

groups absorbed in the process of westward expansion. However, the doctrine of

discovery, declared in U.S. law, provided the U.S. with the basis for the domination of

those groups it encountered as white settlers expanded west. This demonstrates that the

ideological and structural functions of the white settler state do not operate

independently of one another. In order to achieve political domination of indigenous

populations, the settler state operates on multiple levels including psychological,

territorial, and cultural. As illustrated in the previous points, to achieve settler

domination and establish the ‘new’ settler-society, the ‘problem’ of indigenous

populations had to be resolved either through displacement, genocide, containment or a

62
 combination thereof. Propelled by settler expansion the impetus behind this goal was

the larger goal of transforming from settler into native (Moran, 2002; Wolfe, 2006).

Therefore, one of the key targets of settler expansion was reterritorialization, or

the transformation of indigenous lands into settler lands (Wolfe, 2006). Not only is

settler expansion and reterritorialization important for the three aforementioned

characteristics of the settler state, it is also central to settler domination of indigenous

peoples. To reiterate, the central mechanisms used to achieve this were the imposition

of European law including property law (or setter title) based on legal constructs such as

the Doctrine of Discovery (Williams, 1990). In the United States settler expansion was

achieved through many mechanisms, including “frontier homicide” (Wolfe, 2006),

relocation, and erasure of Indian tribes as evidenced in the Indian policy of the U.S.

These mechanisms were key facilitators of settler domination. A more appropriate name

for the process of settler domination is what Wolfe (2006) calls the “organizing

grammar of race” (p. 387), which owes its origins to the European traditions of

xenophobia and played out territorially in the United States (Wolfe, 2006). In the same

way, Moran (2002) contends that settler identity, which I identify as white settler

nationalism (WSN), is intimately tied to the “conquering, transforming and ordering of

space” (p. 1016). Wolfe (2006) and Moran (2002) both identify territorial policy as

central features of white settler domination. Borrowing Wolfe’s (2006) term the

“organizing grammar of race” and Moran’s (2002) “ordering of space” I identify these

territorial policies as both the racial and spatial grammars of settlerism.

63
 This grammar of settler domination is concretely expressed in both the legal

landscape (Delaney, 1998) and legal ontology of the white settler-state. Delaney (1998)

defines the legal landscape as “the complex ensemble of lines and spaces—territorial

configurations—that give legal meaning to determinable segments of the physical world

or actual lived-in landscapes” (p. 13). I define legal ontology, borrowing from Delaney

(1998), as the complex ensemble of legal mechanisms that give legal meaning to the

myths and assumptions of settler identity. Both the legal landscape (Delaney, 1998) and

legal ontology of the white settler state are informed by the particular cultural practices

and beliefs of settlers. Robert Williams (2005) extending Robert Cover’s (1983)

important work explains that these legal mechanisms or grammars are not mere laws.

Instead, Williams (2005) asserts, legal mechanism are created or filtered through a

particular cultural medium, a process identified as jurisgenesis (Cover, 1983; Williams

2005). The creation of legal meaning or jurisgenesis (Williams, 2005) in the white

settler-state, in this case the United States, is filtered through the series of myths,

assumptions, and forms previously identified. The end result of this process is the

attempted erasure of indigenous peoples on many levels.

Ideologically and structurally, an outcome of the grammar of the settler-state

results in what Moran (2002) regards as an absence or lack of history. This absence of

history fabricates the clean slate upon which white settlers in the United States build

their fictive ‘new’ histories. Along with this ideological outcome, Wolfe (2006)

explains that the structural outcome of the grammar of the settler-state resulted in “the

64
 breaking-down of native title into alienable individual freeholds, native citizenship,

child abduction, religious conversion, resocialization in total institutions such as

missions or boarding schools, and a whole range of cognate biocultural assimilations”

(p. 388). Ward Churchill (1985) describes how this new history and identity is

achieved:

… members of the dominant culture are unable to retain their sense of distance
and separation from that which they dominate. Instead, over a period of
generations, they increasingly develop direct ties to the "new land" and,
consequently, exhibit an ever increasing tendency to proclaim themselves as
"natives." This, of course, equates to a quite literal negation of the very essence
and existence of those who are truly indigenous to the colonized ‘locales.’ (p.
29).

This shift, from settler to native reproduces a key aspect of the jurisgenerative

nature of legal grammar—jurispathos (Cover, 1983; Williams 2005), the legal

sanctioning of violence and racism against certain groups (Williams, 2005).

Thus, the legal grammars of the settler-state generate law in favor of white-

settlers, at the expense of indigenous peoples and communities of color.

5. Indigenous Relationships with the Settler State

I add this characteristic to the initial four point framework I borrow from

Weitzer (1990). Indigenous peoples have engaged the settler-state in a variety of

ways. Tribes have not been passive recipients of the colonial process. As

Champagne (1996) reminds us, Native nations are actively engaging the settler-

state and simultaneously maintaining tribal life. For instance, the Pueblo of

Isleta petitioned and received Treatment as State (TAS) status from the EPA

65
 (Southwest Regional Assessment Group, 2000). This represents one case in

which a tribe has used the laws, or legal grammar, of the United States to protect

its tribal culture.

The Southwest Regional Assessment Group’s (2000) report explains that

Isleta’s success in attaining TAS status was an important victory for all

indigenous communities. This significance has to do with the standards, which

the Isleta Pueblo was able to establish:

Isleta Pueblo’s standards were based on three significant use

designations—use for irrigation, recreation, and for religious
ceremonial use. The latter is important to emphasize as no tribe had
ever asserted its right to religious freedom for the protection of its
waterways. The Pueblo’s contention was based on the fact that tribal
religious ceremonies, or the right of tribal members to practice their
religion as it had since time immemorial, was adversely impacted by
the contamination of river water by toxic discharges. Tribal members
were unable to ingest the water or immerse in it for ceremonial
purposes.

This decision reflects an instance in tribes use settler state mechanisms to protect their

own cultural and religious practices. While laws have been applied in ways that limit

the exercise of tribal sovereignty, tribes have responded in various ways to continue to

safeguard their cultural patrimony. The case of Isleta Pueblo is significant not only

because it protects religious practices, it is significant because Isleta’s TAS status

allows it to enforce environmental quality standards on non-tribal peoples, including the

city of Albuquerque (Southwest Regional Assessment Group, 2000). This is only one

example of how tribes act to protect their interests. Undoubtedly, indigenous peoples

continue to thrive, despite the realities of existing within a settler-state.

66
 Champagne (1996) insists that more important questions to ask include: “In

North America, Native communities survived 500 years of colonialism. How? Why? In

what ways?” (p. 3). A part of this answer may lay in the fact that indigenous

communities understand the mythologies of the United States. The white settler-state is

an unstable entity because it is based on a series of fictions and founding myths that

consistently need to be shored up. This understanding of the settler-state, I argue, allows

us to better situate and more accurately depict Derrick Bell’s (1980) interest

convergence theory, Lomawaima and McCarty’s (2006) safety zone theory, and Robert

Williams’ (2005) singularity thesis. In addition, the concept of the settler-state allows

for a bridging of perspectives, theories, and practices that might otherwise not engage

one another. Understanding the settler-state, allows more people to witness its unstable

and destructive character, and begin to enter into discussions, practices, based upon

differing paradigms. This analysis of the framework of the white settler state and the

ideological and structural functions that promote it allow researchers to properly situate

how education functions as a central institution of the white settler state, which I

identify as the Colonial Model of Education.

B. Colonial Model of Education (CME)

One key mechanism utilized in the United States to promote settler domination

is education. Inherent in these practices are the same series of ideological and structural

functions that define the United States as a settler-state. Thus, an important concept that

I draw from this background on Indian education is what I am calling the Colonial

67
 Model of Education (CME). I define CME as an educational model implemented by a

settler state to promote settler state ideologies, institutions, values, and norms through a

variety of goals, assumptions, and forms. It is imposed upon colonized groups,

including indigenous peoples and many times results in specific outcomes. However, it

has always been contested by the colonized.

The overarching goal of CME is assimilation into settler culture and

perpetuation of the settler state, its institutions, practices, and beliefs, in essence the

maintenance of white supremacy. A related goal validates the legal authority of the

white settler nation’s governing institutions, practices, and beliefs. It also promotes

Judeo-Christian values and worldviews with the intent to Christianize or de-Indianize

students. Furthermore, CME is guided by the overarching assumption that western

educational paradigms are universal and superior.

CME is administered through a variety of forms. In the case of indigenous

peoples, it was historically accomplished through the implementation of boarding

schools and day schools. More recent forms of the CME are less explicit. While

contract and grant schools offer Indian nations the ability to shape and control their

schools, these schools are nevertheless subject to federal education policy that waxes

and wanes between increased federal oversight such as NCLB (Senese, 1991) and

increased local-control (Snyder-Joy, 1994). Also BIA-administered schools, as well as

contract and grant schools, many times retain CME structures, including hierarchical

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 administration models (Snyder-Joy, 1994) and formalized or professionalized training

of teachers shaped by outside policies and standards (Trujillo & Alston, 2005).

Because only 7 percent of Indian students attend BIA-administered, contract, or

grant schools, state controlled public schools must also be examined. Public schools

reproduce the forms, or structures that represent CME. These forms include highly

administered schools, hierarchical administration, formalized or professionalized

teacher training, and federally mandated education goals. Closely related to form, the

outcomes of the CME are many, but promote similar end goals. These include the

adoption and dissemination of curriculum that serve to invalidate & contradict native

cultures. The goals and intended outcomes of schooling policies and practice promote

integration of native children within white settler-society. The outcomes, both

historically and presently include loss of language, loss of native culture, and the

breaking apart families and communities. CME serves as vehicle to instill alien values

and is subject to the unstable nature of the settler state identified earlier. These goals

and outcomes are achieved through a variety of mechanisms such as standardizing

language policy that emphasizes particular curriculum over indigenous language

leading to diminished fluency, or in worst cases, the eradication of native languages.

However, let me stress that indigenous peoples are not passive recipients of

CME. They have resisted colonial forms of education. Such responses to CME include

tribes asserting their sovereignty and taking control over education, including contract

and grant schools, and creating schools that are not dependent upon federal funding.

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 Despite being subjected to CME in the United States, indigenous peoples manage to

maintain tribal cultures. In this manner indigenous peoples have gathered a great deal of

knowledge, both theoretical and practical, concerning CME. This includes strategies of

both resistance and adaptation, and an intimate understanding of the waxing and waning

of positive and negative Indian policy. This dissertation represents an engagement with

what I see as the continuation of CME, as represented by the curriculum pipeline. Then

again, like its institutional house, CME is subject to the instability of the settler-state,

and like the swinging pendulum of Federal Indian policy and Indian education policy,

CME grows and contracts, accommodating the grand mythology of settlerism.

In order to better understand why and how the United States produces such

incoherent federal Indian policy and Indian education policy, it is important to pair this

discussion with Bell’s (1980) interest convergence theory, Williams’ (2005) singularity

thesis, and Lomawaima and McCarty’s (2006) safety zone theory. Taken individually,

they illuminate important features, but taken together, their insights shed light on the

unstable mechanisms of settler states. They reveal that this instability is due to the

fictitious nature of the discourse upon which the settler state is founded (Williams,

1986). By defining the white settler-state and CME, this allows me to place curriculum,

and particularly social studies curriculum into the proper context from which it was

born—as a narrative that promotes settler nationalism, more appropriately identified as

settler mythologism.

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 Yet these perspectives do not fully bring down the house, so to speak. For this

I turn to the formative work of Vine Deloria (and others) to examine the foundations of

this house—western metaphysics. Continuing with the dual metaphors of the pipeline

and the house, if indeed the settler-state represents the house within which CME and

other projects are housed, then we need to ask the following questions: how is CME

channeled out of this house into other homes; how solid are the foundations of this

house; what are the foundations of this house built from? In the next chapter, I examine

the foundations more closely, drawing from the important life’s work of Vine Deloria,

who tirelessly redirected those who would listen to look at the foundations of the

settler’s home, and just as important take care of our own foundations.

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 CHAPTER THREE:
LITERATURE REVIEW

Illuminating the Metaphysics of the West: The Legacy of Vine Deloria

The secularity of the society in which we live must share considerable blame in
the erosion of spiritual powers of all traditions, since our society has become a
parody of social interaction lacking even an aspect of civility. Believing in
nothing, we have preempted the role of the higher spiritual forces by
acknowledging no greater good than what we can feel and touch. The change of
living conditions experienced by Indian people in the last century also has a
great deal to do with the erosion of our spiritual powers. Wrenched from a free
life where the natural order has to be understood and obeyed, confined within a
foreign educational system where memorization and recital substitute for
learning and knowledge, each generation of Indians has been moved farther and
farther away from the substance of the spiritual energy that once directed our
lives. (Deloria, 2006; xviii)

In the first chapter, I introduced the conceptual organization of this dissertation,

identifying the curriculum pipeline. A key aspect of the curriculum pipeline is the

ideological component, or ideas of origin. Much work is devoted to identifying the role

of ideology in shaping education and curriculum in particular (Altbach et al., 1991;

Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991). Key multicultural education research, likewise,

focuses on the role of ideology in shaping education and curriculum (Banks & Banks,

2004). However, this work fails to address the foundations of ideology, and in turn

inadvertently smuggles western metaphysical ideas in their ideas. As Duane

Champagne (2007) reminds us, this occurs because they “…generate knowledge and

techniques for solving issues and problems confronted by complex, highly specialized

and compartmentalized contemporary nation-states and communities” (p. 355). To be

sure, education researchers, to quote from Champagne (2007) “…collect and interpret

data and generate theory with the idea of contributing to human knowledge, but

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 knowledge is generally understood within Western world views or epistemological

understandings” (p. 355). Therefore I center indigenous worldviews and

epistemological understandings in order to “collect and interpret data and generate

theory” (p. 355) from an indigenous perspective.

A key perspective promoted by indigenous scholars that I center in this project,

is the notion of western metaphysics, which I briefly operationalize as the set of western

beliefs normalized in education. Similarly, these same scholars call for the centering of

indigenous metaphysics in educational practices and discourses. I review particular

components of western metaphysics including its origins in Greek and Christian

thought, and western metaphysics approaches to reality and truth claims, and

temporality. I also review particular components of indigenous metaphysics, including

the role of geography in shaping metaphysical orientations. In particular I build upon

the role of place in indigenous metaphysics in shaping being, relationships, and

approaches to reality and truth claims. I review how indigenous metaphysics in turn

shape indigenous educational practices. Finally, I briefly outline how particular research

in science education has begun to examine how indigenous and western metaphysics

play out in science education. The combination of this review builds working

frameworks of both western and indigenous metaphysics that I use to examine social

studies curriculum.

Thus, in order to do this, I explore the idea of metaphysics in education as

opposed to conflated or substituting its meaning with the concept of “worldview”. In

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 short, I am arguing, that the concept of metaphysics captures the primary subject of

my theoretical analysis most accurately: first principles, or, the foundational categories

of systems of thought. In delineating how I utilized the concept of metaphysics in this

study, I examine a selective literature concerning metaphysics; both as this concept has

been conceived in knowledge systems of the west and those of indigenous tribes.

Moreover, as an indigenous project, I am utilizing Vine Deloria’s’ body of work

concerning western and indigenous metaphysics because it serves as a powerful

analytical tool for uncovering how western metaphysics persist in contemporary culture

and society in the United States and, for this study’s purposes, especially in Western

education models.

As Daniel Wildcat (2001) has pointed out in his work, Deloria’s work in Power

and Place: Indian Education in America represents a “…call to consider the advantages

of building an educational practice on a foundation of American Indian metaphysics”

(p. 9). Wildcat (2001) acknowledges that this task is not an easy one, but in or order

begin such a project there is a “…need for serious dialogue in comparing what is

described as the Western metaphysics of space, time, and energy to the American

Indian metaphysics of place and power” (p. 9). Thus, I am using the work of Deloria to

begin to sketch such an educational project that revisions education from the

perspective of indigenous metaphysics so as to lay the groundwork for developing

curriculum and classroom practices that are better attuned to native perspectives. Such

an approach is one that enables me to locate the patterns and themes of western

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 metaphysics along the curriculum pipeline, particularly in social studies textbooks and

their accompanying content standards, in ways other research has failed to do.

One such area of research in the field of education that represents a site where

Western metaphysics have not been adequately dealt with is in multicultural education

research and practice, that, I am arguing, has a propensity to leave deeper cultural

challenges untouched. As a consequence, and a central claim of my dissertation, is that

multicultural education maintains a Colonial Model of Education that, in the final

analysis, serves the settler-state model. While it may be argued that these deeper

cultural fissures exist only in relation to conservative beliefs, I suggest these deeper

cultural fissures also exist in the metaphysical structure of liberal, progressive, and/or

radical perspectives in education. The framework of western metaphysics that I outline

here will help reveal these deeper cultural fissures and how they persist in educational

content.

For this reason I want to take this moment in my selective review of the

literature to emphasize that the perspective of indigeneity I bring to this project

represents an opportunity to identify and locate the sources of these cultural fissures.

These culture fissures have to do with, for instance the construction of time in a linear

fashion that remain present in education, and particularly in multicultural education.

From an indigenous perspective these deeper cultural fissures, illuminated in Vine

Deloria’s work, include differing perspectives of time, place, being, and perspectives on

reality or truth claims. Western views, on the other hand, emphasize linear perspectives

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 of time, while indigenous perspectives generally maintain cyclical notions of time.

Western views perceive place as an inanimate object, and subject natural landscapes to

exploitation and territorialization, whereas indigenous views perceive place as

animated, imbued with spirit, and a central agent in indigenous worldview production.

Regarding being, or ontology, western views emphasize anthropocentric constructions.

On the other hand, indigenous ontological relations include not only people but also

landscapes, animals, and the spirit world and are better characterized as an epistemo-

ontology. In education, social studies and science curriculum provide clear evidence,

from an indigenous perspective, where such cultural fissures are clearly present,

something I examine below.

The hegemony of western metaphysics in educational curriculum and content is

pronounced. For instance, as Wildcat (2001) astutely observes that while conservative

commentators such as William Bennett put forward that in order to resolve the

problems facing education in the United States we must return “to the core values of

Western civilization—Deloria argues that the very tradition and system of knowledge

Bennett wants Americans reconnected to is actually the problem” (p. 9). Therefore in

order to problematize the call to return to original or first principles, I turn to Vine

Deloria’s mapping of western and indigenous metaphysics as a way to analyze

educational curriculum and its ability (or inability) to address indigenous needs. From

this mapping of the problem, my project will address, first, how social studies

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 curriculum embodies western metaphysics, and second how social studies curriculum

promotes and instills white settler-state values.

It is on this point of focus that my project offers a unique and much needed

analysis: the examination of western metaphysics and how social studies curriculum

thus promotes the Colonial Model of Education (CME). While other research examine

similar components of the settler-state, they do not expose the western metaphysics at

the foundations of educational curriculum. John Wilinsky (1998), for example, contends

that education practices continues to be shaped by the legacy of imperialism, and that

this project has mapped and named the world “bringing it within a single system of

thought” (pp. 9-10). Wilinsky (1998) insists: “To appreciate what might persist of that

imperial age in our educated imaginations, we need to return to its original lessons, to

what was first made of discovery and the new” (p. 25). While imperialism has indeed

“mapped and named the world,” attempting to bring it “within a single system of

thought,” I claim there remain other systems of thought that map and name the world

such as indigenous knowledge systems. Wilinsky’s (1998) assertion concerning a single

system of thought highlights perfectly why the notion of western metaphysics needs to

be critically analyzed in education—to examine how education is framed by what is the

oftentimes invisible foundation of the colonial project in the west—western

metaphysics.

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 In beginning such an analysis I am drawing on and using Deloria’s definition

of western metaphysics.22 While Deloria draws from western philosophy in his

definition of metaphysics, he also promotes a very concrete and distinct understanding

of western metaphysics. Taking cue from Wildcat’s (2001) assertions, “Beginning a

dialogue with a map, so to speak, of Western civilization’s metaphysical landscape is

critical, for it is distorted…” (p. 9), I map out the key components of western

metaphysics and in particular how they shape educational practices. In this chapter, I

construct such a map by looking at how Deloria has conceptualized western

metaphysics, focusing on key components identified by Deloria such as time, place, and

being and how these orientations shape ideology and structure in Western thought and

institutions. I also review selections from the literature on indigenous metaphysics,

drawing specifically from the work of Vine Deloria, Gregory Cajete, Duane

Champagne, and others, that will help identify a framework of what indigenous

metaphysics look like. Finally, to demonstrate how indigenous metaphysics can be

useful and productive in expanding knowledge perspectives in education, I briefly

review ethno-science education research, which examines how metaphysics inform

what is considered as standard accounts of science. A more comprehensive analysis of

both western and indigenous metaphysics is merited, but for the purposes of this

22
In fact indigenous peoples throughout the globe who have encountered western imperialism each have
their own understanding of western metaphysics and worldviews, and they have an intimate
understanding of western worldviews or customs. See for example, Christine Zuni Cruz’s (2000/2001)
article, “Tribal Law as Indigenous Social Reality and Separate Consciousness-[Re]Incorporating Customs
and Traditions into Tribal Law.”

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 project, the following narratives provide the necessary introductory frameworks to

western and indigenous metaphysics.

I. Why Metaphysics?: Deloria and First Principles

What does Deloria (1979) mean by metaphysics in terms of an analytic

category? Deloria (2001) defines metaphysics as the “first set of principles we must

possess in order to make sense of the world in which we live” (p. 2), which is congruent

with much of western philosophy’s definition of metaphysics (Aristotle, 1966;

Baumgarten, 1743; Grube, 1966; Plato, 1992). However, Deloria takes a different

trajectory than that of western philosophy’s definition of metaphysics. His definition of

metaphysics is developed specifically from an indigenous perspective (Deloria, 1979,

1991, 1994, 1992, 2002, 2006). As might be expected, Deloria’s work on metaphysics

remains somewhat marginalized in the field of philosophy, although there is a growing

number of scholars who draw from Deloria or take up where he left off (Arola, 2007;

Linklater, 2007; Pratt, 2006; Ann Waters, 2004a).

Scott Pratt (2006), quoting from Deloria’s (1979) important work The

Metaphysics of Modern Existence, answers the question, why metaphysics are crucial to

define: “’The fundamental factor that keeps Indians and non-Indians from

communicating is that they are speaking about two entirely different perceptions of the

world,’ that is, he [Deloria] says later, two radically different metaphysics” (p. 4). Yet

in the United States, western perceptions of the world continue to dominate educational

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 models. If Indians and non-Indians are coming from such different perspectives of the

world, what does this mean for indigenous students within western education and what

does metaphysics have to do with it?

In Power and Place: Indian Education in America Deloria (2001) notes that the

field of metaphysics in Western thought is considered an outmoded relic of ancient

western thought that has given way to the more “useful” scientific approach and formal

logic. In fact, Kevin Schilbrack (2000) calls attention to the fact that in contemporary

western philosophy, since Kant, the idea of metaphysics as “inquiry into the character

of reality…is no longer legitimate…” because “metaphysical knowledge is impossible”

(p. 67). In opposition to this view in Western philosophy Deloria (2001) argues that the

concept of metaphysics is still useful, insisting that “metaphysics need not bear the

burden of its past” (p. 2). He argues that metaphysics, understood as a series of first

principles that cultures or peoples maintain in order to comprehend the world, can be a

powerful concept for assessing Western culture’s fundamental assumptions and

normative frameworks dominate today (Deloria, 2001). In agreement with Deloria

(1979, 2001) and Wildcat (2001), the concept of metaphysics is necessary to examine in

relation to educational models and more specifically as Deloria (1979) has articulated,

and Pratt (2006) reminds us, how the current CME fails indigenous students:

No matter how well educated an Indian may become, he or she always suspects
that Western culture is not an adequate representation of reality. Life therefore
becomes a schizophrenic balancing act wherein one holds that the creation,
migration and ceremonial stories of the tribe are true and that the Western
European view of the world is also true (p. viii).

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 This conflict must be concretely illuminated in a variety of educational processes

including curriculum, if education is indeed going to be indigenized.

For this reason, Deloria’s body of work, especially his conceptualization of

metaphysics, is not only credible but also eye opening since it comes from an

indigenous perspective that illuminates the origins of western worldviews that are the

byproduct of western metaphysics. Hence, I argue it is important to utilize the

concept of metaphysics developed by Vine Deloria because as he demonstrates, it is a

useful concept with which to critically engage western thought and practices that remain

unrecognized in western circles because they are completely normalized, yet remain

problematic for indigenous peoples. In the same way, Deloria’s work has not found its

way into broader educational discourses. While taken up by scholars interested in

Indian education, predominantly Indian scholars, I argue that Deloria’s work shines a

light on multicultural education in ways that move the field towards truer diversity.

Western philosophy is not the only discipline to examine ideas concerning

metaphysics, or first principles. In cultural anthropology, the similar concept of

worldview is further developed in order to address culture under the gaze of the

anthropologist. Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski in Naugle (2002) describes

worldview: “What interests me really in the study of the native is his outlook on things,

his Weltanschauung, the breath of life and reality which he breathes and by which he

lives. Every human culture gives its members a definite vision of the world, a definite

zest of life” (p. 238). Many times worldview and metaphysics are used interchangeably.

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 Yet metaphysics and worldview have a different genealogy: metaphysics was

first developed in philosophy whereas worldview developed out of the discipline of

cultural anthropology. More important here, the concept of metaphysics has been

indigenized (Smith, 2002), offering an indigenous intervention and reframing (Smith,

2002) of metaphysics that better aligns with indigenous perceptions of western culture.

The concept of worldview however has been developed in a field mostly concerned

with observing indigenous peoples, and I argue does not quite capture the foundational

issues the notion of metaphysics does. For instance, cultural anthropologist Michael

Kearny (1984) defines the concept of worldview as “culturally organized macrothought;

those dynamically inter-related basic assumptions of a people that determine much of

their behavior and decision making, as well as organizing much of their body of

symbolic creations…and ethnophilosophy” (in Cobern, 1988; p. 5).

There are similarities between worldview and metaphysics that are worth

illustrating. Both Kearny (1984) and Deloria (2001) provide similar starting points:

Kearny’s (1984) basic assumptions and Deloria’s (2001) first principles similarly

identify key components of worldview and metaphysics respectively. In addition,

Kearny’s (1984) notion of macrothought, he contends, determines peoples’ behavior

and decision-making, much like Deloria (2001) asserts first principles help people make

sense of the world they live in.

Allen and Crawley (1998), who studied Kickapoo students’ relationship to

science education, provide the following definition of worldview, which draws from

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 cultural anthropology’s definition of world view:

Worldview may be defined simply as the way people think about themselves,
their environments, and abstract ideas such as truth, beauty, causality, time, and
space. Worldview and culture are closely woven together. Worldview may even
be described as “a variant of the concept of culture” [citation omitted]. It is the
way people have of looking at reality, the basic assumptions and images that
provide a more or less coherent way of thinking about the world, the cognitive
structure into which an individual fits new information. Worldview provides a
standard upon which a person’s thinking is based (Cobern, 1991), the
epistemological structure by which the plausibility of assertions is judged
[citation omitted]” (p. 113).

Like Kearny and Deloria, Allan and Crawley (1998) identify basic assumptions that

provide peoples with ways of understanding and thinking about the world, or as they

refer to it a standard epistemological structure. Allen and Crawley’s (1998) definition of

worldview provides important components of worldview that parallel Deloria’s

conceptualization of metaphysics. Specifically, Allan and Crawley’s (1998) “…abstract

ideas such as truth, beauty, causality, time and space” parallels Deloria’s argument that

conceptions of time, place, and being are key components of western metaphysics that

inform cultural production. While Allen and Crawley (1998) and Kearny’s (1984)

concepts of worldview and Deloria’s (1979, 2001) metaphysics are similar, they

nevertheless have developed within different contexts and from different perspectives.

Worldview in cultural anthropology was developed in order to study the Other

(Said, 1979)—the primitive and exotic cultures, which has normalized the western gaze.

On the other hand, I contend Deloria’s conceptualization of metaphysics, specifically

western metaphysics, disrupts this western gaze by centering indigenous perspectives.

In essence, metaphysics, as conceived from an indigenous perspective, represent those

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 first principles that in turn produce particular worldviews. In education, however,

researchers have incorporated the concept of worldview in ways that compliment

Deloria’s conceptualization of western metaphysics. For instance, William Cobern

(1988) who investigates culturally relevant teaching and learning in science education

has been at the forefront of incorporating worldview theory from cultural anthropology

in education, particularly science education. Other scholars have addressed similar

issues regarding indigenous education practices that are developed from indigenous

metaphysics (Cajete, 1994, 2000; Kawagley, 1995, 1996). I bring this research together

because I contend that while they utilize different concepts, they fundamentally address

similar issues. However, I am not asserting that metaphysics and worldviews are

synonymous. What I am contending is that it is useful to keep these concepts as

analytically distinct categories and that doing so produces a unique analysis that could

not be achieved through the concept of worldview. Instead, I argue it is more useful to

understand metaphysics as first principles that in turn shape worldviews, and that it is

more powerful to adopt Deloria’s framework because it operates from a place of

indigeneity (Deloria & Wildcat, 2001), a viewpoint not often centered or valued in

academic knowledge production.

An example that demonstrates the analytic difference between metaphysics and

worldview can be seen in the question that if metaphysics is understood as first

principles that shape worldviews, then how would a culture’s perception and value of

temporality shape its worldview? In many indigenous traditions, time (a key element of

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 metaphysics) is generally perceived and valued as a cyclical manifestation—not to the

exclusion of linear time (Deloria, 1992; Krech, 2006). On the other hand, western

cultures perceive and value linear time. This cultural attitude concerning time in

western cultures is at the basis of history and it is reflected in the construction of social

studies curriculum as a chronological recounting of historical events. Arguably,

indigenous peoples temporal attitudes are not as concerned with maintaining exact dates

(Deloria, 1992), instead focusing on cyclical ceremonies and practices, linked with the

seasonal cycles of their specific homelands. However, education in the United States

largely frames knowledge production from a western standpoint, as is evidenced in

social studies curriculum. With the understanding of Deloria’s basic notion of

metaphysics in view, I now will examine western metaphysics and specifically the

nature of its first principles.

II. Western Metaphysics as a “Cultural Archive” (Smith, 2002)

At the most basic level western metaphysics is the way the western mind

(Tarnas, 1991) understands and orders the world. But why does the western mind

understand and interpret the world in the unique way in which it does? And further, why

is it important to understand the western mind and to make western metaphysics a

central object of inquiry? It is important, because as the breadth of Vine Deloria’s work

demonstrates, western metaphysics arranges and rationalizes the way the western mind,

its institutions, and its practices function. Furthermore, this understanding of the world

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 operates in such a manner that precludes and marginalizes other metaphysical

systems. Education in the United States is one site that clearly demonstrates this clash,

and Indian education is a location in which the radically opposing metaphysical systems

(western and indigenous) are present. But because of the dominance of western

metaphysics in Indian education, and multicultural education in general, there is little

room for indigenous informed education to flourish.

In addition, many Native scholars have taken up important questions that

emphasize the importance of metaphysical assumptions. These include the questions

what are Western metaphysics; what historical and philosophical developments have

shaped this complex of ideas, institutions and systems; and more narrowly, how have

western metaphysics come to shape educational discourse and practice in the United

States? I begin this process by first looking at how scholars answer the first question:

what, from indigenous perspectives, are western metaphysics? I center indigenous

perspectives because they provide relevant critiques of western metaphysics and

provide a powerful framework for rethinking some of the basic assumptions used not

only in colonizing educational projects but also in multicultural ones. For indigenous

peoples, the legacy of western metaphysics is more than a mere set of ineffectual ideas

and values; to the contrary, the legacy of western metaphysics locates and reproduces

itself in institutions, communities, families and individuals. As Maori scholar Linda

Smith (2002) indicates, ideas are made real by specific “systems of knowledge, the

formation of culture, and the relations of power in which these concepts are located” (p.

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 48). In the United States, extending Smith’s (2002) insights, “[t]he individual, as the

basic social unit from which other social organizations and social relations form, is

another system of ideas which needs to be understood as part of the West’s cultural

archive” (p. 49). The cultural archive, which Smith (2002) identifies, is a useful

springboard from which to deconstruct western metaphysics.

In examining the cultural archive (Smith, 2002) of western metaphysics, I draw

from the formative work of Vine Deloria (1979, 1992, 1997, 2002, 2006, 2001),

scholars such as Gregory Cajete (1994, 2000), Duane Champagne (2005a, 2005b), Ann

Waters (2002, 2004), Daniel Wildcat (2001), and other scholars who have written

extensively on western and indigenous metaphysics. It is worth noting here, that while I

draw on the breadth of Deloria’s work, the impetus of his work changed over time. In

Metaphysics of Modern Existence, Pratt (2006) explains, Deloria (1979) attempted to

“to develop a new philosophical ground between Native and Western worlds that is

suited to responding to the crises faced by the world as it approached the twenty-first

century” (p. 4). Deloria (1979) was searching for a possible “new metaphysics”, or a

metaphysics that took into account both indigenous and western scientific approaches

(Pratt, 2006), which Deloria (1991, 2001) later rejected, responding to Western peoples

inabilities or lack of desire to search for this common ground with indigenous peoples

(Pratt, 2006). Instead, Deloria, with Wildcat, in Power and Place: Indian Education in

America offer, as Pratt (2006) describes, an “…attempt to provide Native people

themselves with a philosophical framework that will at once preserve their traditions

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 and provide resources for negotiating the schizophrenia of their interactions with

European-descended culture” (p. 4). While Deloria’s goals changed from his early work

to more recent work, his extensive work on outlining western metaphysics remains

central here.

Hence, drawing from this literature I argue that if we are to begin to deconstruct

the cultural archive of western metaphysics it will “depend upon the manner,” as

Deloria (1979) suggests, “in which we examine the general conceptions of reality held

by Western peoples rather than upon a precise knowledge of what the most advanced

thinkers have intuited” (p. 19). In order to do this, Deloria (1979) turns to “the religious

and philosophical beliefs traditionally held in Western civilization” (p. 19). This is a

strong point in Deloria’s work, not only because he focuses on the importance of

religion and philosophy, but also because he insists that the western mind cannot be

understood without looking at how they have co-constructed each other. I contend that

this aspect also represents one of the most challenging features of Deloria’s work

because it touches upon deeply held and internalized belief systems.

Acknowledging and illuminating that western metaphysics is foundational and

omnipresent in western education has widespread implications. As Daniel Wildcat

(2001) maintains “we must begin a discussion of education in America with the

metaphysical assumptions of Western civilization implicit in and underlying modern

notions of curriculum and pedagogy, given that so little attention is paid to the topic

today” (p. 9). For this reason, I investigate the western metaphysical assumptions that

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 shape and define the curriculum pipeline, indeed the path western metaphysics take to

become content in textbooks. William Cobern (1988) also provides another important

reason to forefront and critically engage western metaphysics in education; although he

speaks in the context of science education, his perspective applies to education broadly:

It has been demonstrated that students do not come into the science classroom
with minds “tabula rasa.” Students bring with them ideas and values about the
natural world that they have formulated on their own or have acquired from
previous educational experiences…Some students come into class already
holding a high value of science. Others come with value systems that will
readily incorporate a high view of science given the proper circumstances.
Others are prepared to resist (p. 5).

Cobern (1988) continues, that in regards to science education, “it is assumed that

students come into secondary and college science classes with relatively homogeneous,

fundamental views of the natural world capable of assimilating and valuing modern

scientific understanding” (p. 5-6). Cobern (1988) wishes to challenge such assumptions

and instead focus on how students’ worldviews impact how they learn, how they are

taught, and pedagogy in general. By bringing together the insights of Deloria, Wildcat,

and Cobern, though the latter focuses on the production of worldviews, I hope to expose

and lend legitimacy to metaphysical inquiries in education and along the curriculum

pipeline, principally social studies curriculum.

Furthermore, Deloria, Wildcat, and Cobern’s work provide useful points of

comparison with multicultural education research that has been influential in shaping

the multicultural content of curriculum. It is true multicultural research in education

identifies the need to bring student’s particular worldviews and epistemologies into the

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 classroom. It does not however identify how the metaphysical understandings behind

worldviews influence student learning. Moreover, because multicultural education is

firmly embedded within the cultural archive of western metaphysics, much of the

discourses, practices, and research it promotes maintains western metaphysics, thereby

excluding other metaphysical and worldview systems. In this regard, ethno-science

education research is at the forefront of this metaphysical challenge because it does

engage these basic metaphysical dynamics, something I am extending to social studies

curriculum and standards. Before I review some of the science education literature

dealing with this issue, I first want to move into Deloria’s work that identifies the

fundamental components of western metaphysics.

As stated, Deloria’s work identifies the cultural archive of western metaphysics

that include dualism, universalism, proselytization, anthropocentrism, and humanism.

He also identifies the originary metaphysical concepts that shape how this cultural

archive is constructed as origins, time, place, and being. On the whole, western

metaphysical conceptualizations of origins, time, place, and being represent the cultural

archive of the west, which is mostly normalized. For instance, Allen and Crawely

(1998) articulate: “Western philosophy and values in regard to the natural world were

described as exploitative, reductionist, competitive, empirical, decontextualized,

rational, and materialistic [citation omitted]” (p. 111). Even as Allen and Crawley

(1998) describe western philosophy’s most important orientations, they do not articulate

how and why western philosophy is “exploitative, reductionist, competitive, empirical,

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 decontextualized, rational and materialistic” (p. 111). Thus I turn to Deloria’s body of

work that identifies the metaphysical components in the western mind that lead to these

types of orientations in western philosophy and western society.

Greek & Christian Origins of Western Metaphysics

According to Deloria (1979, 2001), Western metaphysics represents the coming

together of Greek and Judeo-Christian ideas. Deloria (1979), like others (Rubenstein,

2003; Smith, 2002; Tarnas, 1991), explains that the trajectory and development of

western beliefs owe much to the “Platonic dilemma ensuring the validity of human

knowledge and Plato’s subsequent division of the world into otherworldly and this-

worldly realms” (p. 19). Richard Tarnas (1991) explains that the Greeks developed “a

global metaphysical perspective, intent on encompassing both the whole of reality and

the multiple sides of the human sensibility” (p. 69). In essence, Tarnas (1991) explains,

the Greek attempt to understand the world created an epistemological system that

continues to influence the western mind today. The important components of western

metaphysics that in turn shape the complex pantheon of the western worldview have to

do with the origins identified by Tarnas (1991) that shaped a particular perspective

regarding time, place, reality (or truth) and being.

Here I want to emphasize how these components of western metaphysics (time,

place, reality and being) have come to shape key ideas such as dualism, universalism,

humanism, anthropocentrism, patriarchy and other concepts that inform the cultural

archive of the west. Yet these concepts do not operate independently. Instead they rely

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 on one another, and together they create a complex worldview system. This particular

set of ideas created a worldview system that has had and continues to have devastating

consequences and seemingly irresolvable contradictions. American Indian philosopher,

Anne Waters (2004) identifies this aspect of Western metaphysics plainly: “Cultures

that locate identity in a politics of ideas, e.g. those belonging to Greek thought, tend to

colonize other cultures, and rule politically oppressive states” (p. 154). But why do

these cultures colonize others and “rule politically oppressive states” (p. 154)? Deloria

(1979) and other scholars such as Champagne (1995) explore the underlying

assumptions of western thought, helping answer this question. For example, Deloria

(1979) argues that because the goal of western thought, borrowing from its Greek

origins, is focused on “...determining the ultimate constituent from which all

phenomena were derived” (p. 33) its resulting epistemological system is similarly

deterministic, enabling its colonizing and dominating of nature.

In addition to this inherently objectifying nature of western thought, the origins

of western metaphysics in Greek and Christian thought has created a framework that

locates the ontology of human beings as oppositional to that of nature. This

human/nature binary has resulted in a metaphysics that embraces dualisms, humanism,

and anthropocentrism, culminating in the domination of the other. This orientation

enables the dehumanization of those that fall outside the boundaries of western

metaphysics, and strips any ontological agency that other entities may have. Within

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 these Greek origins, Deloria (1979) identifies how particular concepts such as

dualism developed:

The task of Greek philosophy, before and after Plato, was to divine from the
welter of phenomena the ultimate constituent of the universe. When this
dualism was merged with Christian theology in the controversies over the status
of Jesus, the meaning of historical revelation, and the fear of the last judgment,
Greek thought was considered capable of articulating the philosophical aspects
of the Christian religion was welcomed. God existed in the Heavenly City
where the faithful would be rewarded by eternal life, and all values of
importance became those of the other world (1979; 20).

Greek thought and the need of Christian theology in that historical moment resulted in

the creation of a concept that continues to shape western worldviews today that I want

to look at here—dualism. The dualist orientation of western metaphysics remains

embedded in the cultural archive of the West as evidenced in Western modern science

and Christianity, and thus represent two places I identify the persistence of dualism.

At present, the discourses surrounding western modern science and Christian

theology indicate that the two paradigms are completely at odds with one another.

However, when one examines the metaphysical frameworks of these paradigms it is

evident that they both draw from the same pantheon of western metaphysics and share

the mutual goal of seeking and defining universal truths (Deloria, 1992; Harding, 1998).

Richard Rubenstein (2003) explains that “[t]oday we tend to think of science and

orthodox religion as inherently and perpetually in conflict”, but this was not always the

case (p. 7). Rubenstein (2003) continues, “by marrying Christian theology to

Aristotelian science, they [church leaders] committed the West to an ethic of rational

inquiry that would generate a succession of ‘scientific revolutions’ as well as

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 unforeseen upheavals in social and religious thought” (p. 9). Undeniably, the

Christian worldview permeates what Tarnas (1991) refers to as the Western cultural

psyche, even in its most secular form.

As stated, western metaphysics derives its dualist orientation from classical

Greek philosophy and western religions. Linda Smith (2002) argues that philosophers

such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle promoted the notion that humanity is on a higher

plane than other beings such as animals and plants because of humans’ capacity for

language and reason, and are “regarded as the founders of this humanistic tradition of

knowledge” (pp. 47-48). Similarly, western religious doctrine, promotes the

human/nature split. Vine Deloria (1992) elaborates on the consequences of this binary:

“One aspect is that the natural world is thereafter considered as corrupted, and it

becomes theoretically beyond redemption” (p. 80). Although many Westerners do not

adhere to this belief explicitly, it nevertheless implicitly shapes western ideas and

institutions. Regarding being, therefore, Bateson (1972) explains how this dualism

impacts being, or ontology:

If you put God outside and set him vis-à-vis his creation and if you have the
idea that you are created in his image, you will logically and naturally see
yourself outside and against the things around you. And you will arrogate all
mind to yourself, you will see the world around you as mindless and therefore
not entitled to moral or ethical consideration. The environment will seem to be
yours to exploit. Your survival unit will be you and your folks or conspecifics
against the environment of other social units, other races and the brutes and
vegetables.” (Bateson, 1972 in Deloria, 1979; 20)

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 This division, or other worldly orientation (Champagne, 1995) that orients the western

mind has resulted in notions of humanism and anthropocentricism evident in western

modern science, education, and politics.

Developing this insight, in the context of public education, this same dualism is

reflected in what and who is part of the educational experience and how non-human

subjects are utilized simply for the benefit of human learning without a serious

consideration of their own nature and ontology. Social studies textbooks, for instance,

focus solely on human history. This anthropocentric perspective originates in western

metaphysics. The idea, in Christian doctrine, indeed developed in Greek thought, that

“man receives domination over the rest of creation” has been, according to Deloria

(1992), “…adopted wholeheartedly by Western peoples in their economic exploitation

of the earth” (p. 82). Deloria (1992) does make note that “the modern world is just now

beginning to identify the Christian religion’s failure to show adequate concern for the

planet as a major factor in our present ecological crisis” (p. 83). However, he

distinguishes that in the attempt “…to bring religious sensitivity to the problem of

ecological destruction, one can see a shallow understanding of the basis of the religious

attitude that has been largely responsible for this crisis” (p. 84). It remains superficial

because it does not unearth the ontological reasons for this crisis that has created an

entire knowledge system that divides human from nature. Above all, Deloria (1992)

argues that in western society “[n]o effort is made to begin a new theory of the meaning

of creation. Indeed, the popular attitude of stewardship is invoked, as if it had no

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 relationship to the cause of the ecological crisis whatsoever” (p. 84). Instead, the

attitude of stewardship, or caretaker of the environment, maintains an anthropocentric,

binary relationship to nature, in which humans administer nature.

In the West the notion of place, when coupled with particular conceptualizations

of time, origins, and being can best be described by the function of containment. In

addition because of the compartmentalization of being in western metaphysics, place is

rendered an object, stripped of agency, at the disposal of human intervention. As

described earlier, Deloria (1992) submits that, in the West, because “man receives

domination over the rest of creation” through Christian doctrine there is an extension of

this attitude expressed in the paradigms of western science, political expansion, and

imperialism. Place, or geography, in the framework of western metaphysics is therefore

simply another object in the theater of western history, another object to be

administered. John Locke’s (1980) Second Treatise of Government provides a concrete

example of the exploitative nature of western metaphysics in his chapter on property:

“God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to

make use of it to the best advantage of life, and convenience. The earth, and all that is

therein, is given to men for the support and comfort of their being” (p. 18). From this

conceptualization of space and nature, the modern concept of property was developed,

which remains a central ideological force today.

The idea of property is possible because, as Deloria (1992) argues, “Western

European peoples have never learned to consider the nature of the world discerned from

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 a spatial point of view” (p. 63). In the west place is valued for the role it plays in

establishing other elements of western metaphysics such as the truth claims produced by

western metaphysics. Although particular places, such as the Middle East, figure

prominently in western metaphysics and culture, these places such as the Holy Land,

Deloria (1992) differentiates, have “historically been a battlefield of three world

religions each of which has particular sacred places it cherishes. But these places are

appreciated primarily for their historical significance and do not provide the sense of

permanency and rootedness that the Indian sacred places represent” (p. 67). In addition,

these places are appreciated for their role in establishing the world prominence and

narrative of a particular religion in claiming a singular and universal truth for the

entirety of the world.

Western Metaphysics: Constructing Reality & Truth Claims

Repeating Deloria’s (1979) key assertion that in order to understand “…the

Western conception of reality, therefore, we must fall back upon the religious and

philosophical beliefs traditionally held in Western civilization” (p. 19) I am suggesting

here that we should take seriously Deloria’s challenge to examine more closely the role

of religion in western metaphysics. Western religion and its monotheistic structures,

Deloria (1992) argues, is “usually the product of the political unification of a diverse

society more often that it is the result of a revelation of ultimate reality” (p. 66). In this

same way, the application of western metaphysical structures has occurred in order to

manage the political unification of a diverse society through the historical example of

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 colonialism and contemporary capitalism in settler societies such as the United States.

Education, I contend, within the context of a settler state, serves a similar role. Without

a doubt, the Colonial Model of Education I identify in the previous chapter that is

prevalent in the United States remains largely unchallenged because of the nature of

western metaphysics that creates it.

Returning to the role of religions in shaping western metaphysics, Deloria

(1992) goes on to argue that religion in the west is a key component in understanding

how truth claims are made:

In the western tradition revelation has generally been interpreted as the

communication to human beings of a divine plant, the release of new
information and insights when the deity has perceived that mankind has
reached the fullness of time and can now understand additional knowledge
about the ultimate nature of our world. Thus, what has been the manifestation
of deity in a particular local situation is mistaken for a truth applicable to all
times and places, a truth so powerful that it must be impressed upon peoples
who have no connection to the event or to the cultural complex in which it
originally made sense (p. 66)

What I want to emphasize from my review of Deloria’s (1992) critique of western

religions is that within the western mind the value of a singular or universal truth is

instilled. From this foundation, the western mind operates from a metaphysics

concerning truth that establishes a particular type of epistemology and ontology that

imposes truth claims, operating through such discourses of science, religion, and

education. This perspective, inherent in Western religion, lays at the foundation of

colonialism, imperialism, and the oppression of non-western peoples, producing the

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 settler-state and its institutional apparatuses and practices such as Colonial Models of

Education.

Western metaphysics not only promote a belief in a universal truth, this view

also leads to totalitarian principles. Deloria (1992) reveals the origins of these

totalitarian principles: “Ultimately the religion becomes a matter of imposing the ethical

perspective derived from reprocessing the religious experience on foreign cultures and

not in following whatever moral dictates might have gleaned from the experience” (p.

66). This ability to conceive of a singular reality and make a universal truth claim

enabled and fueled the intellectual climates of the Renaissance, the Age of Exploration,

and the Age of Empire. For this reason, I argue, it is important to understand these

themes in religion, particularly as it has developed in the west, because it represents a

central ideological component of western metaphysical assumptions and structures. 23

Thus, in the same way western religions attempt to become universal, western

metaphysical structures attempt to not only promote universal narratives, but also

impose themselves universally. The settler-state continues in this project. The

educational paradigms inherited and reproduced in the United States, I am claiming

here, carry on this legacy. The Colonial Model of Education (CME) functions to

maintain and promote a universal educational infrastructure and paradigm.

23
While there was also a strong secular trend in the Renaissance and indeed a stronger one during the
Enlightenment period in Europe, even the liberalism of John Lock still embodied a notion of natural right
that, while secular, situated the right to land appropriation in agreement with Christian views. Thus even
liberalism has the stamp of Christianity’s dualism that has never disappeared in the secular attempt to re-
write natural right without God.

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 From western metaphysics, the cultural archive of the west has inherited a

thought system that declares its superiority over knowledge systems of those perceived

to be inferior. This element enables the founding mythologies of settler-states, produced

through CME, and indeed the oppressive mechanisms imposed by settler-states. The

following story, told by Deloria (2004) provides a telling example:

A missionary, Reverend Cram, once came to the Senecas to convert them and
recited the story of Adam and Eve. When he was finished the Senecas insisted
on relating one of their creation stories. Cram was livid, arguing that he had
told the Senecas the truth while they had recited a mere fable to him. The
Senecas chastised him for his bad manners, saying that they had been polite in
listening to his story without complaining and he should be willing to listen to
their tales” (p. 9).

This account of Reverend Cram is a perfect example of how two different worldviews

approach truth claims. Reverend Cram’s truth claim is absolute and universal, and in

pronouncing as such he is attempting to convert the Seneca. The goal of western

thought and practice, reflected in Cram’s beliefs has been, as maintained by Deloria

(1979), to “explain the physical universe on determining the ultimate constituent from

which all phenomena were derived” (p. 33). Continuing his critical examination of

western religion, Deloria (1992) contends that religions developed in western societies

bear the particular markers of their cultural and social imprint. In contrast, Native

traditions, Deloria (1992) counters, rely on “…their ability to explain the cosmos, not

their potential to provide a wide range of spiritual experiences” (p. 66).

The settler-state, in this case the United States, and institutions in service of the

settler state, like education, more accurately described as CME, similarly bear the

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 markers of western metaphysics. In this manner educational curricula promoting

western worldviews are imposed upon peoples whose worldviews maintain alternative

narratives, traditions, and knowledge claims. Social studies curriculum represent

instances in education where the western metaphysical constructs driving the settler-

state are apparent. Consequently, it is important to understand in further detail how the

totalizing principles of western metaphysics produce missionizing paradigms, whether

they are religions in nature or education narratives found in social studies curriculum.

The settler-state, I argue, extending Deloria’s insights, like western religion is an

expansive institution that has enabled western metaphysics to be transferred from one

place to the other. In this regard, Deloria (1992) describes western religions’ propensity

to express a unifying truth, despite geographic location as “[t]he recounting of the

event becomes its [religion’s] major value and both metaphysics and ethics are believed

to be contained in the description of the event” (p. 66). Thus, Deloria (1992) insists:

“The question that the so-called world religions have not satisfactorily resolved is

whether or not religious experience can be distilled from its original cultural context

and become an abstract principle that is applicable to all peoples in different places and

at different times” (p. 66). I contend that the settler-state has attempted to resolve this

issue. The settler-state assumes that its formative ideologies can be and should be

applied, or imposed, to all peoples, despite culture or location. Similarly, one can

question if current forms of education can be distilled from their original cultural

context? Obviously, the educational system adopted in the United States assumes that

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 specific educational models can be distilled from their original context as abstract

principles and are thus applicable to all students.

Western Metaphysics & Temporality

Intimately related to western metaphysical conceptualizations of truth and

universality is the concept of temporality. Western metaphysics promote a particular

view of time, which is intimately related to western metaphysical constructs of origins,

reality, and truth. Shepard Krech (2006) explains that western metaphysical temporality

is linear, originating in Judeo-Christian ideas: “Equally well understood are the deep

roots of linear time in the West and its importance in ancient Hebrew thought, and the

unidirectional teleology of Christianity” (p. 576). This metaphysical understanding of

time has shaped a peculiar Western worldview. Deloria (1992) describes this

perspective:

Western European peoples have never learned to consider the nature of the
world discerned from a spatial point of view…The very essence of Western
European identity involves the assumptions that time proceeds in a linear
fashion; further it assumes that at a particular point in the unraveling of this
sequence, the peoples of Western Europe became the guardians of the world.
The same ideology that sparked the Crusades, the Age of Exploration, the Age
of Imperialism, and the recent crusade against Communism all involve the
affirmation that time is peculiarly related to the destiny of the people of
Western Europe. And later, of course, the United States (p. 63).

This construction of temporality produces concepts such as linearism, chronologism,

and progressivism. From its Christian and Greek origins, time is constructed as

progressive. It is imbued with the belief that the future represents progress over a past

that is imperfect. In essence culture is concerned with perfecting the imperfect past, and

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 it is a particular culture that is heralded with representing and realizing perfection for

humanity. Deloria (1992) explains that this particular product of western metaphysical

views of time, “involves the assumption that time proceeds in a linear fashion; further

it assumes that at a particular point in the unraveling of this sequence, the peoples of

Western Europe became guardians of the world” (p. 63). Deloria (1992) continues:

“The same ideology that sparked the Crusades, the age of Exploration, the Age of

Imperialism, and the recent crusade against Communism all involve the affirmation that

time is peculiarly related to the destiny of the peoples of Western Europe”, and in

particular the United States (p. 63). To be sure, this aspect of Western metaphysics has

imbued the United States as a settler-state with the fictive belief it is the guardian of the

world.

The western cultural archive of linear time is expansive. Krech (2006) describes

the ideologies, institutions, and technologies produced from this aspect of the western

cultural archive:

Many have described the series of mechanical timekeepers devised in early

modern Europe that measured and partitioned linear time evermore precisely.
Finally, many have written insightfully on the increasing rule of clock time and
progressive and evolutionary thought from the late eighteenth century on, all
enhanced by mail services, railroads, and industrial work, which privileged and
enforced mean time, synchronization, and punctuality” (p. 574).

In fact linear time is at the service of the settler-state, indeed the modern nation-state,

ordering its economic, political, and cultural expansion. The historical narratives

produced through CME affirm this perspective. Closely linked with linear time in the

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 west is the development of particular types of written literacy, such as historical

narratives.

History, as a paradigm in the West is constructed from these particular

conceptualizations of temporality. In the west, historical narratives are largely

constructed through written texts and function mainly as chronicles of western peoples

exploits (Deloria, 1992), and within the United States, promote settler-state

mythologies. In addition, Krech (2006) explains “..that the systems in which literacy is

embedded privilege linearity, which either reinforces or undermines extant temporal

systems” (p. 576), such as those of indigenous peoples. It is therefore important to

expose how the historical narratives favored in social studies curriculum promote

narratives that center western peoples and ideas, thereby marginalizing other knowledge

systems. Further exploring western history’s propensity to center particular narratives,

Deloria (1992) clarifies that this is influenced by Christianity’s emphasis on universal

truth claims:

From the very beginning of the religion, it has been the Christian contention
that the experiences of humankind could be recorded in a linear fashion, and
when this was done, the whole purpose of the creation event became clear,
explaining not only the history of human societies but also revealing the nature
of the ends of the world and the existence of heaven, or a future world, into
which the faithful would be welcome. Again, we have a familiar distinction.
Time is regarded as all-important by Christians, and it has a casual importance,
if any, among the tribal peoples [emphasis mine] (p.103).

With regards to history’s origins in Christianity, Deloria (1992) continues:

Western history as we now have it has failed to shake of its original Christian
presuppositions. It has, in fact, extended its theory of uniformity to include Old
Testament events so that the history of humankinds appears as a rather tedious
story of the rise and fall of nation after nation, and the sequence in which world

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 history has been written shows amazing parallels to the expansion of the
Christian religion (pp. 107-108).

This perspective of history centers, as Deloria (1992) points out, a narrative that centers

the West as the starting point of history. This comes as no surprise as history’s

conceptual origins are born from a western worldview that is informed by a Christian

conceptualization of the world that believes it maintains the global and historical truth

concerning origins.

In turn, this framing of history impacts the way other cultures are perceived.

Deloria (1992) describes:

China with its history going back far beyond the days of Abraham thus does not
appear as a significant factor in world history until it begins to have relations
with the West. Indian with even more ancient records appears on the world
scene only when the British decide to colonize it, despite its brief role as a
conquest goal of Alexander the Great (pp. 107-108).

He continues,

Christian religion and the Western idea of history are inseparable and mutually
self-supporting. To retrench the traditional concept of Western history at this
point would mean to invalidate the justifications for conquering the Western
Hemisphere. Americans in some manner will cling to the traditional idea that
they suddenly came upon a vacant land on which they created the world’s most
affluent society. Not only is such an idea false, it is absurd. Yet without it both
Western man and his religion stand naked before the world” (p. 112).

Deloria (1992) provides provocative, and I assert accurate condemnations of history as

it is conceived in the west. Furthermore, Deloria (1992) touches upon a key founding

mythology—the idea of “vacant land” which enabled white settler-nationalism.

Underlying the paradigm of history are the metaphysical components of time and truth,

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 shaped by its origins in Greek and Christian thought. Social studies curriculum is not

a neutral distributor of knowledge; in fact it is a main conveyor of settler-nationalism.

While Deloria (1992) devotes much energy into the inquiry of western religions,

particularly Christianity in his conception of western metaphysics, one can argue that

this emphasis cannot speak to the secular nature of western culture. Therefore, I ask:

can Deloria’s (1992) assertions regarding Western cultures and Christianity be applied

to secular society; and can the actions of secular society be blamed on Christianity?

Deloria (1992) similarly acknowledges this critique: “It is said that one cannot judge

Christianity by the actions of secular Western man,” but he rejects this reasoning,

answering, “[w]here did Westerners get their ideas of divine right to conquest, of

manifest destiny, of themselves as the vanguard of civilization, if not from

Christianity?” (p. 113). Extending Deloria’s linkage of secular and religious action in

the West, I contend that another key component of western metaphysics that is central

in western worldviews and education in the United States is the telling of the story, or

what Deloria (1992) identifies as proselytizing.

This feature inherited from western religious practices I argue, in agreement

with Deloria (1992) is the “dependence on teaching and preaching techniques” (p. 68),

or proselytizing, employed by western religious traditions, which is also a strategic

component of education. In particular, these methods, identified by Deloria (1992), of

“[p]reaching and teaching have, as their goal, the possibility of changing individual

personality and behavior, presumably in a manner more pleasing to the deity” (p. 68).

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 This proselytizing, or converting imposes specific cultural constructs of time, space,

and history, indeed truth. The story of Reverend Cram and the Senecas bears repeating:

A missionary, Reverend Cram, once came to the Senecas to convert them and
recited the story of Adam and Eve. When he was finished the Senecas insisted
on relating one of their creation stories. Cram was livid, arguing that he had
told the Senecas the truth while they had recited a mere fable to him. The
Senecas chastised him for his bad manners, saying that they had been polite in
listening to his story without complaining and he should be willing to listen to
their tales” (p. Deloria, 2004; 9)

This exchange provides a useful example, demonstrating how western metaphysics

informs Reverend Cram’s telling of the story, in a manner that assumes a superior

position vis-à-vis the Senecas’ telling of the story.

Vine Deloria’s (1992) insights and astute critiques of western thought and how it

is operationalized is key in understanding why education today operates the way it does.

In particular, Deloria’s critical gaze exposes the specters of western metaphysics in

many important ways that provide useful constructs for indigenous educational

endeavors. I argue that one cannot fully engage disruptive educational practices and

discourses if one does not fully understand the origins of the western cultural archive.

By locating western metaphysics in the characterization of religion, as Deloria (1979,

1992) does, it becomes an easier task to begin to deconstruct the normative aspects of

education today that speak directly to research and practice looking to construct

indigenous educational projects. The emphasis of western metaphysics on universal

assumptions, linearity of thought, and the colonizing nature of western metaphysics has

tremendous implications for education as it is developed, practiced, and imagined in the

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 United States. The totalizing principles of western metaphysics beg the question, if

the United States as a settler-state fully informed by western metaphysics can move

beyond them.

A number of scholars, including Vine Deloria, have also accomplished a great

deal of work, documenting the diversity of indigenous metaphysics. In this essay, due to

consideration of scope, I have only selected some of the key components of indigenous

metaphysics that this literature identifies. In contrasting indigenous metaphysics with

western versions, it becomes clear how the primacy of western metaphysics in the U.S.

and education in particular, represents a continuing challenge for indigenous peoples. I

now move on to the second task underscored by Wildcat (2001), actively reconstructing

indigenous metaphysical systems.

III. Indigenous Metaphysics

The best description of the Indian metaphysics was the realization that the
world, and all its possible experiences, constitutes a social reality, a fabric of
life in which everything had the possibility of intimate knowing relationships
because, ultimately, everything was related. This world was a unified world, a
far cry form the disjointed and sterile world painted by western science. Even
though we can translate the realities of that world into concepts familiar to us
from the western scientific context, such as space, time, and energy; the Indian
world can be said to consist of two basic experiential dimensions which, taken
together, provided a sufficient means of making sense of the world. These two
concepts were place and power, perhaps better defined as spiritual power or
life force. Familiarity with the personality of objects and entities of the natural
world enabled Indians to discern immediately where each living being had its
proper place and what kinds of experiences that place allowed, encouraged, and
suggested (p. 10). Vine Deloria (1991)

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 Without a doubt, Vine Deloria’s work continues to be a leading influence in

framing the issues Indians face, though not without controversy. Deloria (1991, 1994,

1992, 2001) has tirelessly argued that in order to understand education, both indigenous

and western forms, the concept of metaphysics must be fully understood. Daniel

Wildcat (2001) properly places the importance of centering indigenous metaphysics in

education:

Deloria’s proposal that we explore an indigenous (in this case American Indian)
metaphysics must be among the first projects American Indian educators
undertake if we are to not only decolonize, but also actively “indigenize” and
truly make Native educational institutions our own” (p. 31).

Thus, in order to indigenize and decolonize education, one needs to, as Wildcat (2001)

makes the case, explore indigenous metaphysics. Accordingly, Deloria (1991)

succinctly articulates some of the conceptual frameworks that differentiate indigenous

metaphysics from western metaphysics, elaborating that while indigenous approaches

are holistic, western approaches are disjointed, favoring the compartmentalization of

knowledge. Deloria’s (1991) definition of indigenous metaphysics expresses a central

aspect of indigenous metaphysics; namely that power and place are the interrelated

metaphysical dimensions from which indigenous peoples make sense of the world.

Gregory Cajete (2000) points out that no words exist for science or philosophy in

indigenous languages, “or any other foundational way of coming to know and

understand the nature of life and our relationships therein” [emphasis added] (p. 2).

While indigenous metaphysics are diverse, I agree with scholars such as Vine Deloria

and Gregory Cajete who claim it is important to provide descriptions of the shared

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 components of indigenous metaphysics. It also represents a strategic manner to frame

indigenous perspectives into western discourses such as multicultural education in ways

that achieve indigenous goals such as nation building, cultural preservation, and self-

determination.

In education, the idea of metaphysics has been brought to the forefront in

science education research. Particularly, ethnoscience research investigates the conflict

between indigenous and western metaphysics. In this vein, Allen and Crawley (1998)

have identified a “worldview…associated with Native American traditions” (p. 114).

They describe these elements as “kinship, harmony, cooperation, and spiritualism

[citation omitted]” (p. 114). I advance, borrowing from Deloria’s conceptualization of

metaphysics, that these elements are informed by metaphysical structuring and

understanding of time, place, and being of indigenous cultures. In this section, I review

Deloria’s extensive body of work documenting indigenous metaphysics, coupling his

scholarship with the work of Ted Jojola, Duane Champagne, Gregory Cajete, and Anne

Waters. After this initial review and outline of indigenous metaphysics, I chart how

indigenous metaphysics inform indigenous conceptualizations of education. Finally, I

end with a brief appraisal of science education literature that is beginning to highlight

important metaphysical differences between indigenous and western worldviews.

“Power and Place”: Geography and Indian Metaphysics

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 In the book Power and Place: Indian Education in America, Deloria develops

his concept of “power and place” in explicating indigenous ways of knowledge. Simply

put, Deloria (2001) explains that taken together, “[p]ower and place produce

personality” (p. 23). Pueblo scholar Ted Jojola (2004) provides a similar perspective:

Among the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, it is well established that a

world-view is at the core of community identity. Although every tribe has its
own variant, there are common elements that make up the worldview and that
serve to define a community’s identity in time, space, and place (pp. 89-90).

Place is therefore a central theme in Native traditions (Nabakov, 2002; Ortiz, 1974). As

Ball (2002) indicates: “For Native cultures, place becomes the primary referent for all

formulations of meaning and value within the culture” (p. 463); in essence how

indigenous communities come to know.

This “personality” of place produces epistemo-ontological cultural orientations

that do not operate apart from each other. In fact the role of place in indigenous

metaphysics is at the core of indigenous worldviews. Deloria (1992) expresses this

process:

The places where revelations were experienced were remembered and set aside
as locations where, through rituals and ceremonials, the people could once
again communicate with the spirits. Thousands of years of occupancy on their
lands taught tribal peoples the sacred landscapes for which they were
responsible and gradually the structure of ceremonial reality became clear. It
was not what people believed to be true that was important but what they
experienced as true. Hence revelation was seen as a continuous process of
adjustment to the natural surrounding and not as a specific message valid for all
times and places (p. 67).

This relationship to place hence shapes perspectives of time, of truth, and being that are

foundationally different than western metaphysical perspectives. Because place remains

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 central in indigenous metaphysical systems I reiterate that not only does place remain

central in defining the institutions of tribal life, it retains a sacred and central component

in shaping tribal life, best evidenced by tribal religions. Tribal, or indigenous religious

experiences, as they are labeled today, are shaped by an intimate and knowing

relationship with place. Deloria (1992) describes this intimate relationship between

tribal religions and place:

The vast majority of Indian tribal religions, therefore, have a sacred center at a
particular place, be it a river, a mountain, a plateau, valley, or other natural
feature. This center enables the people to look out along the four dimensions
and locate their lands, to relate all historical events within the confines of this
particular land, and to accept responsibility for it. Regardless of what
subsequently happens to the people, the sacred lands remain as permanent
fixtures in their cultural or religious understanding (p. 67)

In essence Deloria (1992) is describing the role of place in shaping tribal identity and

defining tribal roles and responsibilities. These responsibilities are quite different than

those informed by a western metaphysics.

Deloria’s descriptions of indigenous metaphysics shed light on the interrelated

nature of indigenous metaphysics. Regarding the role of revelation within the context of

indigenous experiences he explains that revelation in the indigenous framework

functions differently than revelation in Western religions, because of the central role of

place: “The nature of revelation at sacred places is often of such a personal nature as to

preclude turning it into a subject of missionary activities. Thus, most Indian tribes will

not reveal the location of sacred places unless they are compelled to do so”, and if

revealed, tribal members “…will not then reveal the kinds of ceremonies that are

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 supposed to be held there” (p. 68). Unlike western religious revelations thus are not

intended as universal messages “to be placed in secular or immature hands for

distribution” (Deloria, 1992; p. 68). From this metaphysical understanding of place,

indigenous peoples have subsequently developed a distinctive epistemic-ontological,

unlike that of western metaphysics.

“Power and Place Equals Personality”: Indigenous Metaphysics & Being

Vine Deloria’s (2001) definition of indigenous metaphysics as an understanding

of the world, and “…all its possible experiences [which] constitute a social reality, a

fabric of life in which everything ha[s] the possibility of intimate knowing relationships

because, ultimately, everything [i]s related” (p. 2) informs a particular metaphysical

construct of being. It bears repeating that the central role of place cannot therefore be

separated from being, as a result of the epistemo-ontological orientation of indigenous

metaphysics. Indigenous ontologies are therefore direct products of the tribal spiritual

experiences, indeed knowledge systems, summarized above. Elaborating upon the

discussion of religions as representative of particular metaphysical systems, Deloria

(1992) maintains that unlike western religions, indigenous peoples’ religious traditions

and creation stories are derived directly from the world around them, and the

relationships established with other forms of life. These relationships provide an

expansive epistemo-ontological framework for indigenous peoples that instead of

dividing humans from nature, proceed from unitary perspectives concerning human and

nature. Indigenous philosopher, Anne Waters (2004) explain that because of this

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 holistic perspective, “American Indian consciousness, and hence American Indian

identity, is cognitively of, and interdependent with, our land base” (p. 155).

This holistic approach, shared by many indigenous cultures, can be further

characterized as a this-worldly orientation (Champagne, 1995) as opposed to western

perspectives that maintain dualist, other-worldly orientations (Champagne, 1995)

identified by Deloria (1992). Indigenous metaphysical assumptions about being, or

ontology, are informed by a tribe’s religion or cosmological beliefs that are rooted in

place. Gregory Cajete (2000) describes that indigenous creation stories provide

indigenous people with “particular understandings of the way the world has come into

being, and the ways they have come into being as people” (p. 32). As a result,

indigenous societies value the relations that exist in this world because, as Champagne

(1995) reminds us, “Indians do not see the world as being in need of change, since it is

the sacred gift of a benevolent Creator” (p. 33). This non-differentiation in respect to

social, cultural, and political institutions in turn leads to conservative orientations in

indigenous communities due to the interrelated aspects of tribal life (Champagne,

1995). Champagne (1995) explains in further detail: “There are strong religious and

cultural reason for Indian conservatism, since Indian religions and world views strongly

emphasize preserving traditional ceremonies, institutions and preserving harmonious

relations with the spirit beings in the universe” (p. 33). Thus, the interrelated nature of

culture, polity, economy and community in indigenous communities creates resistance

towards change that is imposed upon indigenous societies by western norms. In this

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 way, indigenous traditions value this-worldly orientations, and are not concerned with

the binary and dualistic construction of western worldviews.

“Power and Place”: Indigenous Metaphysics and All Our Relations

The intimate nature of place and being in indigenous metaphysics produces

similarly intimate relations. Unlike western humanism and anthropocentrism, Deloria

(1992) points out that “…numerous accounts [exist] from the various tribal religious

traditions relating how an animal, bird, or reptile participated in a creation event” (p.

88). For tribal peoples, Deloria (1992) continues, “living things are not regarded as

insensitive species. Rather they are ‘people’ in the same manner as the various tribes of

human beings are people” and thus “[e]quality is thus not simply a human attribute but

a recognition of the creatureness of all creation” (p. 89-90). This aspect of indigenous

metaphysics looks radically different than western metaphysics. These metaphysical

orientations lead to different types of ontological orientations, specifically with nature

and animals. In fact that animals play a central role in the creation stories of indigenous

peoples. This orientation results in cultural beliefs that, for instance do are not

anthropocentric or humanistic. This orientation, has been referred to as animism:

Animism, or spiritism, is the belief that all parts of nature — the elements, the
plants, and the animals — have spirits. At its core is the recognition that
everything in the phenomenal world is truly alive and has spirit — not only
humans, animals, and plants, but also nonbiological expressions of the natural
world, such as stones, rivers, and cultural artifacts (Hemachandra, 2003; p. 5).

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 Others, such as Scott L. Pratt (2006) have referred to this indigenous metaphysical

orientation as “agent ontology”, or “vitalism” (p. 5).

Regarding agent ontology, Deloria (1992) further describes, that the “task of the

tribal religion, if such a religion can be said to have a task, is to determine the proper

relationship that the people of the tribe must have with other living things and to

develop the self-discipline within the tribal community so that man acts harmoniously

with other creatures” (p. 88). Unlike western divisions between human and nature,

indigenous cultures do not operate from a metaphysical imperative to subdue the Earth

and other living things, but rather, meanings are determined from observing the living

world and how it works systemically to produce and maintain life (Deloria, 1992).

Expanding on Champagne’s (1995) insights that tribal orientations are conservative in

nature, Deloria (1992) adds, for tribal peoples, “to exist in creation means that living is

more than tolerance for other life forms—it is recognition that in differences there is the

strength of creation and that this strength of creation and that this strength is a deliberate

desire of the creator” (p. 89). This aspect of indigenous metaphysics is radically

different than western metaphysics. Regarding education, in the west, within the settler-

state, the focus is anthropocentric and humanistic, leaving no room for the metaphysical

orientations of indigenous worldviews concerning spirit, power, and place.

“Power & Place”: Indigenous Metaphysics & the Particular

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 As described above, Deloria points out that indigenous metaphysics are not

concerned with claiming universal truths. Rather indigenous peoples are concerned with

what Deloria describes as “the personal nature of the universe” (p. 23). This personal

nature, he continues, translates into the particular, “…which of necessity must be

personal and incapable of expansion and projection to hold true universally” (p. 23).

Similarly, indigenous cultures are not concerned with recording their knowledge and

stories in the manner of western historical stories. Instead, as Deloria (1992) argues,

these stories, indeed indigenous knowledges, do not promote absolutist ends, nor are

these stories valued for providing specific details of past events:

At no point…does any tribal religion insist that its particular version of creation
is an absolute historical recording of the creation event or that the story
necessarily leads to conclusions about humankind’s good or evil nature. At best
the tribal stories recount how the people experience the creative process which
continues today (p. 88).

This metaphysical orientation, in essence precludes these origin stories to be imposed

on others. As the exchange between the missionary Reverend Cram and the Seneca

exemplifies, the Seneca were willing to hear Cram’s story because his story was valid

for his peoples, but his refusal to respect their story was indicative of rudeness; not a

dismissal of his story. As Deloria (2001) reminds us, the “...key to understanding

Indian knowledge of the world is to remember that the emphasis was on the particular,

not on general laws and explanations of how things worked” (p. 22).

As westerners such as Reverend Cram came into contact with tribal peoples,

indigenous practices were perceived as witchcraft. Without a doubt, some tribal

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 religions maintain perspectives that to the western mind are inconceivable. Deloria

(1992) depicts, “the idea that humans can change into animals and birds and that other

species can change into human beings” is common, and through this process, “species

can communicate and learn from each other” (p. 90). Deloria (1992) argues that this

Western dismissal or marginalization of these beliefs is attributed to western

metaphysical assumptions derived from “the Christian idea of the complete alienation

of nature and the world from human beings as a result of Adam’s immediate

postcreation act in determining the Western and Christian attitude towards nature” (pp.

90-91).

Tribal religions, or spiritual practices, approach the process of coming to know,

or revelation, differently than western religions. Unlike the western religious tradition

of proselytizing, indigenous traditions place value on the experiential nature of the

religious experience. This experiential nature, Deloria (1992) reveals, is related to tribal

religious orientations that are “…actually complexes of attitudes, beliefs, and practices

fine-tuned to harmonize with the lands on which the people live” (p. 70). Furthermore,

the disclosure of tribal or indigenous religious experience is tied to sacred places, and

not intended to be a universal message. Rather the nature of revelation, Deloria (1992)

insists, “…is often of such a personal nature as to preclude turning it into a subject of

missionary activities”; “most Indian tribes will not reveal the location of sacred places

unless they are compelled to do so”; if revealed, tribal members “will not then reveal

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 the kinds of ceremonies that are supposed to be held there”; revelations thus are not

universal messages “to be placed in secular or immature hands for distribution” (p. 68).

Indigenous Metaphysics & Education

Allen and Crawley (1998) describe that with regards to education: “Native

American educational values were reported to be patience, cooperation, reservation,

group emphasis, and nonmaterialism [citation omitted]” (p. 114). Deloria’s (2006)

insights speak powerfully to the problem of western education and indigenous peoples.

When considering indigenous educational models, it is important to understand how

indigenous metaphysics in general generate learning. For instance, a principle figure or

concept in Pueblo cosmology is that of Kokopelli. Gregory Cajete (2000) explains that

“Kokopelli represent the creative process or the creative energy that is a part of all

things-humans, the earth, and the cosmos as a whole” (Cajete, 2000). These processes,

which both give and manifest life are present in the constantly emerging knowledge

systems of indigenous communities. Gaining knowledge requires experiences in life,

which provide guidance. This “coming-to-know” process of indigenous learning thus

must be central in how educational practices are created and proposed (Cajete, 2000;

80).

The common elements described by Deloria of time, being, place and relations,

in the context of indigenous education inform what Ted Jojola (2004) calls the

transformative model of learning, or how people “come-to-know.” This transformative

model, according to Jojola (2004), was central in Pueblo village life, as clans and

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 families explored the world around them, following migration patterns specific to

their clans (p. 92). For the Pueblos, “[t]he experiencing of life by conducting journeys

to the edges of the world was inculcated in the mythos of the emergence stories. More

importantly, the ancestors anticipated the importance of experiential learning to the

transformation and survival of the communities”(Jojola, 2004; 92).

Identity, according to Jojola (2004), thus “no longer exists in a space, time, and

place continuum” (p. 95). The traditional clan or family patters of “experiential or

transformation learning no longer is the motivation for change” and thus the goal of

“indigenous planning is not just to reinforce cultural identity, but to challenge the

community into understanding how the past and present serve to give coherence to the

future” (Jojola, 2004; 95) These shifts in the framing of places and memory within

contemporary indigenous communities and educational practices must be centered in

order to create educational practices that can capture this essence.

Gregory Cajete’s (1994, 2000) extensive work on indigenous education also

emphasizes the transformational nature of education in the Indian context. Cajete

(1994) explains:

…much of indigenous education can be called “ endogenous” education; it

revolves around a transformational process of learning by bringing forth
illumination from one’s ego center. Educating and enlivening the inner self is

the imperative of Indigenous education in the metaphor, “seeking life” or for

“life’s sake.” Inherent in this metaphor is the realization that ritual, myth,
vision, art, and learning the art of relationship in a particular environment,
facilitates the health and wholeness of the individual, family, and community
(p. 209).

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 For Cajete (1994), like Jojola (2004), place is central in anchoring the transformative

or endogenous nature of indigenous education. Unlike Cajete’s (1994) more positive

attitude towards the current state of transformative educational practices, Jojola (1994)

argues that the transformative model of experience attributed to past Pueblo life is

largely missing from contemporary tribal projects that impact cultural life. The

positions these two scholars present help articulate that the realities of indigenous

educational practices are diverse as the needs of the communities differ. For this

reason, educational practices must be organic and derived from the ontological and

epistemological realities of the tribal community.

Cajete (1994) acknowledges:

Much of what characterizes Indian education policy is not the result of research
predicated upon American Indian philosophical orientations, but the result of
Acts of Congress, the history of treaty rights interpretation through the courts,
and the historic Indian/white relations unique to each Tribal group or
geographic region (p. 19).

While traditional indigenous educational practices take place within families and certain

communities, there has been little exploration in the field of education attempting to

integrate the two approaches, the Western and the indigenous (which is itself diverse).

Cajete (1994) explains that an obstacle to this type of integration stems from the

“significant differences in cultural orientations” of the Western and indigenous systems,

“and the fact that Indian people have been forced to adapt to an educational process not

of their making” (P. 21). Cajete (1994) argues that American Indian education needs to

be “principally derived from, and informed by, the thoughts, orientations, and cultural

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 philosophies of Indian people themselves,” and that this need, according to Cajete, is

an essential component in “Indian educational self-determination” (p. 21).

In the context of Indian education as shaped by self determination policies in

Indian country the struggle is as Daniel Wildcat (2001) states- to maintain educational

practices in which tribal identity is central “as opposed to existence within a culture of

indoctrination facilitated most effectively through U.S. government education

programs” (p. 9).

Tewa educator and scholar Gregory Cajete also challenges the metaphysical

assumptions of Western civilization in education discussed by Deloria and Wildcat.

Cajete (1994) locates the metaphysical components of Indian education as a spiritual

ecology that is contrary to public education found in the United States:

The basis of contemporary American education is the transfer of academic

skills and content that prepares the student to compete in the infrastructure of
American society as it has been defined by the prevailing political, social, and
economic order” (p. 19).

Cajete (1994) contributes to the work of Deloria and Wildcat (2001) by providing

models of how indigenous or Indian metaphysics play out in indigenous educational

needs. For example, Cajete (1994) explains, “traditional American Indian education

historically occurred in a holistic context that developed the importance of each

individual as a contributing member of the social group” (p. 26). Educational models in

the United States “emphasize objective content and experience detached from primary

sources and community” and this according to Cajete (1994) leads to the creation of

students as “marginal participant[s] and perpetual observer[s]”. Ultimately this

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 detachment is a “foundational element of the crisis of American education and the

alienation of modern man from his own being and the natural world” (Cajete, 2004; p.

26).

From an indigenous or Indian metaphysical standpoint this emphasis on

education as technique presents epistemological/ontological problems. Cajete (1994)

explains that “American educational theory is generally devoid of substantial ethical or

moral content regarding the means used to achieve its ends” (p. 19). Cajete (1994)

points out that “Indians view life through a different cultural metaphor than mainstream

America” (pp. 19-20).

Cajete, Deloria, and Wildcat’s work concerning educational practices and

philosophy are informed by this differing cultural metaphor or paradigm. For these

scholars, then the analyses and concepts they utilize and the propositions they articulate

are radically different than what is found in traditional American educational discourses

and practices. Further exploring this metaphysical conundrum, I turn to specific

paradigms shaped by western metaphysics.

Science Education

Turning to paradigms produced and informed by western metaphysics provides

concrete examples of how these western metaphysical structures impact cultural

products. Deloria’s body of work provides an excellent understanding of the

metaphysical components of the western mind that produce ideas and practices we

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 encounter in education. In this regard, multicultural education has done a sufficient

job in identifying and outlining these practices. However, multicultural education

research has not identified the origins of these practices. As Duane Champagne has

described this is due to the reality that multicultural orientations themselves are a

product of western institutions. With regards to education, Allen and Crawley (1998)

have identified the following western features: “Western educational values were

reported to be competitive, confident, demonstrative, individualistic, and directed

[citation omitted]” (p. 111).

As stated, science education research is at the forefront of research attempting to

identify these metaphysical conflicts that inform science learning. Wildcat (2001)

explains that “in Western thought scientific theories of reality, knowledge, and methods

for knowing are logically consistent” (p. 15) and this knowledge system again precludes

indigenous scientific systems. Along the same vein, Snively and Corsiglia (2001)

explain that “Westerners freely acknowledge the existence of indigenous art, music,

literature, drama, and political and economic systems in indigenous cultures, but

somehow fail to apprehend and appreciate indigenous science” (p. 7). Snively and

Corsiglia (2001) coincide with Wildcat’s (2001) assertions that western approaches to

learning in the case of science preclude indigenous science approaches. The authors

(2001) state that in “educational settings where Western modern science is taught, it is

taught at the expense of indigenous science, which may precipitate charges of

epistemological hegemony and cultural imperialism” (p. 7). It is important to note that

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 the educational fields of learning instituted in all levels of education, such as science,

are subcultures or components of Western culture, and indeed western metaphysics

(Wildcat, 2001). Snively & Corsiglia (2001) argue, “non-Western and minority culture

students of Western science may be forced to accept Western values and assumptions

about political, social, economic, and ethical proprieties in the course of receiving

instruction on Western science”, and similarly, “mainstream students can be prevented

from examining important values, assumptions, and information imbedded in other

cultural perspectives” (p. 24). From these examples, it becomes even more apparent

why indigenous metaphysics must inform educational theorizing, models of practice,

and how learning structures.

Without a doubt, science education is an extension of Colonial Models of

Education (CME). Cobern and Loving (2000) explain: “Indeed, colonial education

designed for indigenous peoples used science as the tool of choice to modernize and

supplant indigenous culture” (p. 53). As Deloria’s body of work concerning western

metaphysics describes, it promotes a universalist view of the world, subscribes to the

perspective of one singular truth, and therefore encourages proselytizing. However,

because groups of people such as indigenous peoples in the Americas were found

deficient Cobern and Loving (2000) state that, “the West judged the rest of the world by

its own measures of choice, Western science and Western technology, and used

education to enforce change on those societies found deficient” (p. 53). To be sure

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 western metaphysical binary split of human and nature informed a cultural attitude or

worldview that promoted dominance of indigenous peoples:

In the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, most European thinkers

concluded that the unprecedented control over nature made possible by Western
science and technology proved that European modes of thought and social
organization corresponded much more closely to the underlying realities of the
universe than did those of any other people or society, past or present (Adas in
Cobern & Loving; pp. 53-54).

Interestingly, science education research, which examines the challenges of

metaphysics in science parallels similar critiques in other disciplines. This is not

without accident as science education is one area in which post-colonial theory has

informed this move to challenge western metaphysics.

Science education, after all represents an aspect of what I refer to as the CME

prevalent in the United States. Therefore, in critically assessing the colonial features of

science, I am returning to a few post-colonial critiques of western science that have

informed an extensive body of work that critically examines science as a product of the

western mind (Figueroa & Harding, 2003; Harding, 1998, 1993; Kawagley &

Barnhardt, 1998; Kawagley et al., 1998). These works have informed this turn in

science education research. A major figure in the philosophy of science and post-

colonial theorizing of science is Sandra Harding. Particularly her book Is Science

Multicultural? Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies represents a central

work within this debate. Notably, Harding (1998), drawing from postcolonial critiques

of science, identifies the idea of Europology. Within western modern science, Harding

(1998) describes Europology as “…a delineation of distinctive characteristics of

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 European culture and practices, including beliefs about nature and about sciences and

technologies” (p. 56). In addition, and paralleling Deloria’s insights on western

metaphysics, Harding (1998) identifies three “distinctively European features of modern

sciences and technologies” (pp. 56-59). These European cultural elements of modern

science are identified as “Christian Laws of Nature”; “European Expansion”; and

“Northern Distribution and Accounting Practices” (pp. 56-59).

First, beginning with “Christian Laws of Nature”, Harding (1998), drawing from

John Needham and echoing, in part, Deloria’s assessment concerning science, argues

that Christianity both propelled and retarded modern science. Second, concerning

“European Expansion,” Harding (1998) calls attention to the fact that the projects and

goals of western modern science were shaped by European expansion. Consequently,

she describes: “The majority of peoples who bear the consequences of the science and

technology decisions made through such processes [of expansion and empire] do not

have a proportionate share in making them…” (p. 58). This perspective of western

modern science produced, according to Harding (1998), a “systematic knowledge and

systematic ignorance [that] are produced by northern sciences’ distinctive ‘locations in

nature’ that were themselves in part created through European expansion, and by the

kinds of interests that European cultures and their sciences had in those parts of nature”

(p. 58). This expansionism produced particular projects such as improving “land and sea

travel”; expansion of scientific knowledge concerning use and economic use of

“minerals, plants, and animals of other parts of the word”; protecting “settlers in the

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 colonies”; and securing, enabling indigenous labor (p. 59). As Harding (1998) reveals,

this system of knowledge was created for the benefit of Europeans, without concern for

or interest in how this science would impact the colonized and their lands.

Third, regarding “Northern Distribution and Accounting Practices,” Harding

(1998) explains that a third cultural element of WMS “is the distinctive pattern of the

distribution of their consequences—who gets which consequences of scientific and

technological change—and the way northern sciences account for these distribution

patters” (p. 60). Likewise the benefits of western modern science are afforded largely to

settler society (Harding, 1998). This uneven distribution of the consequences and

benefits of WMS is not a fluke. Rather it is directly attributed the fact that particular

peoples choose “‘what to produce, how to produce it, what resources to use up to

produce and what technology to use’” (Harding, 1998; p. 60). Harding (1998) raises an

important point that coincides with Deloria’s insights on western metaphysics: WMS

does not account for the consequences of its practices. Instead these consequences are

externalized as either “‘not science’” (Harding, 1998; 60) or the necessary byproducts

of WMS. This accounting, Harding (1998) indicates, “is the normal consequence when

nature is treated as if its individual components were isolated and unrelated” (p.60), a

key component of western metaphysics identified by Deloria as well.

Western modern science (WMS) promotes key components of western

metaphysics, including its relationship to place. Harding (1998) illuminates that “[e]ven

in ‘the same’ environment different cultures have different interests and desires. These

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 lead cultures to pose distinctive questions about ‘the same’ part of the natural world”

(p, 64). Coupling Deloria’s insights on western metaphysics further contextualizes

Harding’s (1998) insights, and it provides for some points of departure. If one examines

a variety of indigenous metaphysics that correspond to the ‘same environment,’ such as

many of the cultures that reside in the Southwest, they actually maintain very similar

interests and desires (Cajete, 2000). Drawing from Deloria’s work, one can argue that

cultures “pose distinctive questions about ‘the same’ part of the natural world” because

a particular culture’s understanding of key metaphysical components of time, being,

place, and other concepts create and order worldviews that fall in line with these basic

assumptions.

Furthermore, as described earlier, traditional indigenous cultures are not

necessarily prone to ask questions about the natural world in the way western modern

science does, from a detached and objective standpoint. That is not to say that there

does not exist a Native science. Gregory Cajete (2003), for instance, writes that Native

Science “is a map of natural reality drawn from the experience of thousands of human

generations…Native science strives to understand and apply the knowledge gained from

participation in the here and how, and emphasizes our role as one of nature’s members

rather than as striving to be in control of it” (p. 47). James Maffie’s (2003) work on

indigenous epistemology and science provides additional important insights.

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 James Maffie’s (2003) work provides a brief introduction to the Nahua 24

concept of Teotl, contrasting its epistemological foundations to Western scientific

approaches. Maffie (1999) describes teotl as the central concept of “…Nahuatl

metaphysics” that represents “a single, dynamic, self-generating sacred energy,

principle, or force—what the Nahuas called teotl—created as well as continually

generates, permeates, and governs the universe” (p. 15). Maffie (2003) explains how

and why Nahua epistemology looks different, behaves differently, and ultimately makes

different claims than Western scientific methods and its proponents (see also Harding

1998). Embedded in Maffie’s (2003) arguments are the metaphysical foundations of the

differing knowledge systems. Maffie’s (2003) analysis maps out how distinct each

knowledge inquiry system operates. He constructs his comparative analysis around the

question, “[w]hat does each [Nahua & Western Scientific inquiry] posit as the ultimate

goal(s) of inquiry?” (p. 82)

Maffie (2003) again describes, that underlying and unifying all Nahua thought

and action is the concept or process of teotl which “is the view that there exists a single,

vital, dynamic, vivifying, eternally self-generating-and-self-regenerating sacred energy,

power, or force” (p. 71). Maffie (2003) explains that this life force, teotl, is “both

immanent and transcendent. It is immanent in that it penetrates deeply into every detail

of the universe and exists within the myriad of created things; it is transcendent in that it

is not exhausted by any single, existing thing” (pp. 71-72). His examination of Nahua

24
Indigenous peoples located primarily in Mexico

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 epistemology provides a useful articulation of indigenous epistemo-ontology, which

illustrates how specific knowledge systems cannot be divided up into

conceptual/institutional categories as they are in the west because they utilize inherently

different metaphysical assumptions. Instead, Nahua epistemology is driven by a

transcendental view, which stresses the balance that seeks to maintain the delicate

system of life (Maffie 1999, 2003). Therefore with regard to scientific inquiry, he

concludes that because Western Science and Nahua inquiry ask different questions as

they are informed by different worldviews, the types of projects and processes they take

on look differently and have different goals in mind. It follows, that educational

theorizing, practices, and models should reflect these particular goals.

IV. Next Steps

Thus, from the work of Vine Deloria and others we have a working framework

to identify western and indigenous metaphysics. More importantly both these

frameworks originate from an indigenized standpoint that is born from perspectives not

usually represented in academic discourse. The review of metaphysics in this chapter

paints a useful portrait of the foundations of western metaphysics that shape not only

education in the United States, but also provides important insights into how settler

expansion was ideologically achieved. This review also provides a useful comparative

picture between indigenous and western metaphysics that outlines the key distinctions

between the metaphysical systems. A more comprehensive analysis of both western and

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 indigenous metaphysics is merited, but for the purposes of this project, the previous

examination, I argue provides useful working frameworks of these foundational

elements that shape education, and social studies curriculum in particular. In the next

chapter, I examine the theoretical and methodological framework I use to insert the

frameworks of metaphysics into my examination of social studies curriculum pipeline.

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 CHAPTER FOUR:
METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, I introduce the theoretical and methodological framework I use

in this dissertation, which in conjunction with the frameworks of western and

indigenous metaphysics developed in the previous chapter, I use to examine social

studies curriculum pipeline. I begin with a description of my theoretical and

methodological framework, which includes Decolonizing Methodologies (Smith, 2002),

Critical Interstitial Methodology (Calderón, 2006a, 2006b), and Grounded Theory

(Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Next, I describe my data sources, findings, and data analysis.

In this case my data sources are U.S. History textbooks approved for use in the Los

Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and the corresponding California social

science standards. My findings, based on content analysis of these textbooks and

standards are sketched out in this chapter. I also describe how I construct my data

analysis, using a sample of four texts drawn from my data sources.

As stated in my introductory chapter, this work is guided by Daniel Wildcat and

Vine Deloria’s (2001) call to indigenize education. Wildcat (2001) explains: “By

indigenization I mean the act of making our educational philosophy, pedagogy, and

system our own, making the effort to explicitly explore ways of knowing and systems

of knowledge that have been actively repressed for five centuries” (p. vii). Specifically,

the educational discourses I examine in this dissertation are social studies curriculum

specifically social studies textbooks and standards. Heeding Wildcat’s (2001) appeal to

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 identify Western features and reconstruct indigenous metaphysical systems in

education in this dissertation, I examine social studies curriculum in order to

 Identify the features of western metaphysics in these discourses.

 Identify how these features promote a Colonial Education Model
 Identify how these features conflict with indigenous metaphysics

I begin my examination with curriculum because as Wildcat (2001) points out,

“[c]urriculum at all levels of American education bears the largest imprint of Western

metaphysics” (p. 10). In order to expose these western metaphysical imprints I turn to a

variety of theoretical methodologies such as Smith’s (2002) Decolonizing

Methodologies (DM) and Calderon’s (2006a, 2006b) Critical Interstitial Methodology

(CIM), in combination with Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) Grounded Theory (GT). By

indigenizing the theoretical and methodological tools used in this dissertation, I center

indigenous metaphysics, which provide a distinctive position with which to interrogate

texts, making it possible to locate the assumptions of western metaphysics in textbooks

and standards that maintain the Colonial Model of Education (CME), an essential

characteristic of the white settler-state.

I. Theoretical Framework & Methodologies

The research questions guiding this study are as follows:

 How does social studies curriculum embody western metaphysics?

 How does social studies curriculum in the United States reproduce a
Colonial Model of Education (CME)?
 How is social studies curriculum antithetical to indigenous cultures and
sovereignty?
 What are the sources of western metaphysics in social studies curriculum?

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In order to answer these questions, I first identify what western metaphysics are from an

indigenous standpoint. As the review of Deloria’s work in the previous chapter

demonstrates, western metaphysics are a series of views about origins, time, place, and

being that inform the western cultural archive (Smith, 2002). Thus I locate how social

studies curriculum maintains this cultural archive. In chapter two I identify components

of CME, framing it an integral aspect of the white settler state. In order to answer the

second question, I expose how social studies curriculum maintains ideologies central to

CME and white settler state. Similarly in the previous chapter, I identify a working

framework of indigenous metaphysics. This framework allows me to demonstrate how

social studies curriculum function in ways antithetical to indigenous cultures. In

answering these interrelated questions, I am able to identify the sources of western

metaphysics. But in order to center the working frameworks on western and indigenous

metaphysics developed in the previous chapter, I look to a series of methodologies and

theoretical perspectives that guide how I use these frameworks to examine U.S. History

textbooks and standards.

As stated, I performed an indigenized content analysis of U.S. History textbooks

and standards in order to demonstrate how educational curriculum reproduces western

metaphysical assumptions. Specifically, in my examination of texts I examine how

Native themes are explicitly dealt with in the texts in order to establish what types of

learning students are explicitly intended to receive. Smith’s (2002) DM aids me in this

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 step, allowing me to center indigenized perspectives, and more specifically trace and

expose the western and indigenous frameworks developed in the previous chapter.

Next, I examine what types of categories and themes emerge, or are generated from the

texts and standards, which significantly conflict with indigenous metaphysical systems.

In this step of text analysis I use GT, modified by CIM. Then, I analyze texts in order to

recommend where indigenous issues should be included, but are missing in order to

make curriculum organization receptive to multiple epistemological systems. In this

step, DM and Deloria and Wildcat’s (2001) call to indigenize education guide these

recommendations. Finally, I link up how current treatment of Native peoples in social

studies curriculum reproduce the CME as it relates to Native groups in the U.S. Again,

DM aids in both these steps by offering indigenized assessments.

To review, specific theoretical frameworks, including Decolonizing

Methodologies (DM) (Smith, 2002) and Critical Interstitial Methodology (CIM)

(Calderon, 2006a, 2006b), guide the analysis of textbooks and standards. In addition, I

use Grounded Theory (GT) (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) to guide my collection of data

from the texts. GT also assists in the process of how I theorize what the textbooks and

standards are stating, particularly as it relates to western metaphysics, the white settler

state, and CME. To do this I pair Smith’s (2002) specific DM of indigenizing,

intervening, reading, and reframing, which center indigenous metaphysics, with Strauss

and Corbin’s (1998) GT’s approaches in order to indigenize (Deloria & Wildcat, 2001)

the GT approach. Helping in this process, is CIM, which strips GT of claims to

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 objectivity, centering instead an indigenized perspective. The combination of these

approaches, allow me to flesh out western metaphysics and its institutionalization in the

CME prevalent in the United States.

A. Smith’s (2002) Decolonizing Methodologies: Indigenizing, Intervening,

Reading, and Reframing

Linda Smith’s (2002) Decolonizing Methodologies (DM) are designed to center

indigenous metaphysics, build upon indigenizing methodologies, or ways of doing

research (Harding, 1997), and frame the manner in which research questions are asked.

In order to do this, however, I will treat each decolonizing methodology separately. I

outline Smith’s (2002) methodological projects I use in further detail, beginning with

the method of indigenizing.

1. Indigenizing: Specifically, Smith’s (2002) method of indigenizing functions

to center native metaphysics by locating and centering a “politics of indigenous identity

and indigenous cultural action” in the curriculum examined, and it is …“grounded in

the alterNative conceptions of world view and value systems” (p. 146). Deloria and

Wildcat’s (2001) work on the process of indigenizing provides further depth to Smith’s

(2002) method of indigenizing. This includes Deloria’s life body of work, outlined in

chapter two, that provides a useful framework to identify western metaphysics, and it

includes the framework developed in the last chapter around indigenous metaphysics.

Thus, the process of indigenizing, Daniel Wildcat (2001) illuminates, requires the

centering of indigenous worldviews:

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 Indigenous peoples represent a culture emergent from a place, and they actively
draw on the power of that place physically and spiritually. Indigenism…is a
body of thought advocating and elaborating diverse cultures in their broadest
sense—for example, behavior, beliefs, values, symbols, and material
products—emergent from diverse places. To indigenize an action or object is
the act of making something of a place. The active process of making culture in
its broadest sense of place is called indigenization (p. 32).

By indigenizing the theoretical and methodological tools used in this dissertation, I

center indigenous metaphysics, which provide a distinctive position with which to

interrogate textbooks and standards. This makes it possible to locate the assumptions of

western metaphysics in texts that maintain the CME, an essential characteristic of the

white settler-state. The methodology of indigenizing, additionally has a particular goal,

as described by both Smith (2002) and Wildcat (2001), to intervene in discourses and

practices that impact indigenous communities, and as Wildcat (2001) suggests, rebuild

indigenous perspectives. Intervening represents the second of Smith’s (2002) DM I

employ in this dissertation.

2. Intervening: The method of intervening is, in conjunction with indigenizing,

directed at intervening in the educational discourses that impact native peoples, in this

case social studies curriculum (Smith, 2002). The method of intervening in this project

represents a strategic examination of textbooks and standards in order to identify

western metaphysics in these texts and promote changes in the development and use of

textbooks. This latter aspect of promoting change is an essential characteristic in

Smith’s (2002) method of intervening. However, she warns, these interventions should

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 not simply replace one type of assimilating process with another. As such the CME,

of which social studies curriculum are a key component, functions to assimilate

indigenous peoples. Therefore in intervening, the perspectives offered should proceed

from an indigenized position. Intervening and indigenizing in this project are

accomplished through the third methodology of reading that I borrow from Smith

(2002).

3. Reading: Smith’s (2002) notion of reading implies a “[c]ritical rereading of

Western history” (p. 149). Therefore, the reading of social studies curriculum represents

a critical rereading of Western history (Smith, 2002)). Applying Smith’s (2002) method

of reading, textbooks and standards are critically read as origin stories that are

“deconstructed accounts of the West” through the eyes of “indigenous and colonized

peoples” (p. 149). In other words I center an indigenized perspective that critically

examines textbooks and standards in order to identify and deconstruct western

metaphysical narratives in the texts. Furthermore, I utilize the method of reading as the

act of tracing and mapping the genealogy of colonialism in order to locate and make

visible the imprints of western metaphysics in textbooks that represent the origin

stories, or foundational ideological narratives of the United States as a settler-state. The

method of reading allows me to, as Smith (2002) states, “locate practices, the origins of

the imperial visions, the origins of ideas and values” found in the textbooks (p. 149).

Reading in conjunction with the methods of indigenizing and intervening offer powerful

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 tools for examination. Further aiding in this process is the final method of reframing I

borrow from Smith (2002).

4. Reframing: The method of reframing is “about taking much greater control

over the ways in which indigenous issues and social problems are discussed and

handled” (p. 153). Smith (2002) points out that the traditional framing of issues in

western societies “is about making decisions about its parameters, about what is in the

foreground, what is in the background, and what shadings or complexities exist within

the frame” (p. 153). Reframing, for Smith (2002) is related to how the researcher frames

or defines the issue and decides how to resolve the issue from an indigenized

perspective. Reframing occurs “in other contexts where indigenous people resist being

boxed and labeled according to categories which do not fit.” (Smith, 2002; p. 153).

Reframing also occurs “…within the way indigenous people write or engage with

theories and accounts of what it means to be indigenous” (Smith, 2002; pp. 153-154)

Using the method of reframing, in conjunction with GT, I draw out the elements

“foregrounded,” concerning indigenous peoples that are stated explicitly in social

studies curriculum. I label the narratives where indigenous peoples and issues are

“foregrounded” in the texts as explicit. In addition, I look for “what is in the

background” or “what shadings or complexities exist within…” the textbooks and

standards (Smith, 2002; p. 153). This background information is uncovered through an

indigenized reading that locates the more nefarious components of western metaphysics

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 that are not necessarily explicitly linked to indigenous topics. I label these themes as

generated.

The combination of methods, including indigenizing, intervening, reading, and

reframing, in conjunction with the frameworks I outline in the previous chapter provide

for a robust and distinctive analysis. I pair Smith’s (2002) DM with Strauss and

Corbin’s (1998) GT approach to generate data from the textbooks and standards I

examine. To help me in pairing up these two approaches I use a methodological

approach I have previously developed, which I label Critical Interstitial Methodology

(CIM) (Calderon 2006a, 2006b).

B. Critical Interstitial Methodology

CIM is briefly defined as a methodology, or way of examining, two or more

theories/methodologies that are generally viewed as mutually exclusive, or incompatible

(Calderón, 2006a, 2006b). CIM utilizes the concept of interstice, or space in between in

order to rebuild useful and strategic uses of theories and methodologies, which originate

from differing epistemological sources. This rebuilding occurs in the interstice,

specifically the intellectual interstice, and centers the frameworks of non-western

epistemologies. I purposefully place intellectual production in the interstice because in

academia exploration of non-Western communities occurs for the most part in a

unidirectional manner flowing from a Western colonizing position. Thus, by positioning

intellectual production in this interstice, epistemological models can meet in a sort of no

person’s territory (outside the realm of western metaphysics). The movement into this

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 territory, though, means that theories cross borders to meet. But because this

intellectual territory is outside the realm of western spaces, theories that are more

strongly derived in western spaces are more prone to critique because in this territory,

the West is confronted with the fact it is not a universal.

Western theories are normally not aware of the spaces they cross as their

colonizing nature renders them indifferent to the many borders they cross, indeed the

metaphysics that inform them. Non-western and oppositional epistemologies, however,

occupy a more comfortable and expansive role in this in-between space (Anzaldua,

1987). They are better equipped to illuminate Western thought’s limitations (Deloria &

Wildcat, 2001). Furthermore, non-western or oppositional epistemologies are used to

crossing borders and these borders are many times important and strategic components

of these theories (Anzaldua, 1987; Burciaga, 2007; Collins, 2004; Grande, 2004; hooks,

1990). Most important, in the interstitial intellectual space, non-western epistemologies

are not labeled as marginal or in relation to a western framework.

In addition, CIM explicitly reconstructs the analytical relationship between

theories and methodologies framed from differing epistemological frameworks in ways

that promote and illuminate tangible and organic needs of non-Western communities.

Although similar to and indebted to methods such as the multiperspectival approach

(Kellner, 1995), CIM differs in important ways.25 CIM thus allows for a multi-

25
Douglas Kellner (1995) has developed the notion of a multiperspectivalism. Kellner (1995) explains:
“Simply put, a multiperspectival cultural studies draws on a wide range of textual and critical strategies to
interpret, criticize, and deconstruct the artifact under scrutiny. The concept draws on Nietzsche’s

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 dimensional and dialogical exploration of concepts and ideas, which does not

privilege western modes of analysis. In this project, for instance, I am linking up

indigenous informed theorizing and perspectives such as Deloria’s, Wildcat’s, and

Smith’s (2002) work with Strauss and Corbin’s GT. Strauss and Corbin’s (998) GT is

informed by western models, but by linking up indigenous informed perspectives such

as DM with GT through the CIM approach allows me to reframe GT.

C. Grounded Theory

GT and the inductive approach allow me to discover the categories that emerge

from the analysis of social studies texts and standards (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Strauss

and Corbin’s (1998) GT shaped how I went about collecting data from the textbooks

and content standards. However, moving GT in the interstice exposes some components

of GT that from the perspective of indigeneity and Smith’s (2002) indigenizing and

reframing, result in a different looking GT. For instance, I do not subscribe to Strauss

and Corbin’s (1998) notion of objectivity. They correctly report: “Analysts as well as

research participants, bring to the investigation biases, beliefs, and assumptions. This is

not necessarily a negative trait; after all, persons are the products of their cultures, the

times in which they live, their genders, their experiences, and their training” (p. 97).

However, they follow up this important insight with the following statement:

perspectivism, which holds that all interpretation is necessarily mediated by one’s perspectives and is thus
inevitably laden with presuppositions, values, biases, and limitations. To avoid one-sidedness and partial
vision one should learn ‘how to employ a variety of perspectives and interpretations in the service of
knowledge’ [citation omitted]” (p. 98) .

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 The important thing is to recognize when either our own or the respondents’ biases,
assumptions, or beliefs are intruding into the analysis. Recognizing this
intrusion often is difficult because when persons share a common culture,
meanings are often taken for granted…Yet, to do justice to our participants and
give them a proper “voice,” we must be able to stand back and examine the data
at least somewhat objectively [emphasis added] (p. 97).

While Strauss and Corbin (1998) admit that “it is not possible to be completely free of

bias…for so many are unconscious and part of our cultural inheritances…” they

nevertheless urge researchers to “break through or move beyond them [biases]” (pp. 97,

99). Placing GT in the critical interstice, along side DM, allows me to expose the

instantiation of western metaphysics in the GT framework.

In this case the claim of objectivity in Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) GT signals a

key feature of western metaphysics—the propensity to assume normative perspectives.

In stating this, I also suggest that GT provides powerful tools of analysis. To use these

tools, I move GT into the intellectual interstice using CIM. In this space, I intervene

(Smith, 2002) and locate the western metaphysical constructs of GT, set them aside, and

indigenize and reframe (Smith, 2002) GT. Thus when I read (Smith, 2002) the social

studies textbooks and standards using GT I am actively looking for the genealogy of

western metaphysics, indeed the CME.

In section two, I describe the actual data sources, how I went about collecting

data, and how I constructed my analysis of the data. In this section, I further detail how

I use GT in the data collection and analysis process.

II. Data Sources, Collection/Findings, and Analysis

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 This section is divided into three subsections: data sources; data collection and

findings; and data analysis. The first subsection simply describes my data sources, in

this case textbooks and standards. The second subsection describes how I went about

collecting my data and report my findings. I refer to this data collection process as my

first read through of the textbooks and the standards. The third subsection refers to my

analysis of the data findings collected in my first read through of the textbooks and

standards. In this third sub-section, I describe the sample I use construct my narrative

analysis of the findings.

A. Data Sources

My data sources consists of all U.S. History instructional texts approved for use

the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) for the calendar years of 2006, 2007,

and 200826 and the History-Social Science Frameworks for California Public Schools. I

looked at textbooks from LAUSD for several reasons. First, I chose textbooks produced

for the California market because California along with Texas define textbook content

nationwide (Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991; Bianchini & Kelly, 2003; Sleeter, 2002).27

Second, and closely related to my first reason, California is recognized as a leader in the

standards reform movement influencing other state’s standards (Bianchini & Kelly,

2003). In California the State Board of Education adopts textbooks for K-8, and school

26
Appendix 1 lists the U.S. History textbooks approved for use in LAUSD for May of 2006, June of
2007, and March 27, 2008 that were examined for this dissertation.

27
In fact textbooks adopted to conform to California standards are actually written, to a degree, to fit the
California standards “because California adoptions are so lucrative…” (Sleeter, 20002; p. 22).

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 districts adopt secondary grave level textbooks that align with or exceed state

(Education Code Section 60400). I also looked at LAUSD U.S. History instructional

texts and California social science standards because I was based in Los Angeles at the

time of the research. Thus I examine textbooks adopted by LAUSD, the largest school

district in California, and the second largest school district in the country. These texts

are therefore representative of social studies curriculum nationwide.

The U.S. History textbooks I review include books approved for use in the

following courses: U.S. History and Geography, AB, Grade 11 (U.S. History One); U.S.

History and Geography: Continuity and Change in the Twentieth Century, Grade 11

(U.S. History Two); Advanced Placement American History, Grade 11 (AP American

History); and Advanced Placement U.S. History, Grade 11 (AP U.S. History). In 2006

the textbooks adopted for use in AP American History and AP U.S. History do not

overlap with those approved for use in the U.S. History One and Two courses. The AP

American History course and the AP U.S. History course instructional texts do not

overlap, with the exception of one text. However, the number of approved textbooks in

LAUSD decreased in number significantly between 2006 and 2007. In fact, the 2006

course U.S. History One and ten titles approved for this course do not carry over into

2007 and 2008 listings. Similarly, the AP American History course listing and texts

approved for it does not carry over into 2007 and 2008. In 2007 and 2008 the only

approved course listings are U.S. History Two and AP U.S. History. In 2007 and 2008,

the textbooks approved for U.S. History Two and AP U.S. History remain the same as

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 in 2006.28

I also examine the History-Social Science Frameworks for California Public

Schools (Framework), which shape textbook content. To summarize, the findings

reported below and in chapter six are drawn from my examination of all the U.S.

History textbooks approved for use in 2006, 2007, and 2008 (with the exception of a

testing preparation guide) and the Framework.

B. Data Collection & Findings

In this subsection, I describe how I went about collecting data from the

textbooks and standards. I also provide tables documenting my findings. To begin my

data collection process I first examined all the textbooks approved for use in LAUSD

for 2006, 2007, and 2008, as described in detail above. In reading these texts, I used

Grounded Theory (GT), guided by Decolonizing Methodologies (DM) in order to

perform an indigenized reading of textbooks. In this initial examination, I looked to

each textbook’s subject index for the headings, American Indian(s) or Native

American(s). Each textbook contained a subject heading for either American Indian(s)

or Native American(s), listing the page numbers that referred to the subject, including

sub-headings on events, tribes and individual American Indians. Next I read the

passages on events, tribes, and individual Indians in each textbook, and began my

coding process. From this initial reading, I expanded my examination to include the

section and chapter in which indigenous issues, tribes, and individuals were included for

28
Appendix one provides a useful visual listing of instructional texts for 2006, 2007, and 2008.

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 further context, continuing the coding process. Next I performed a broader

examination of the textbooks as a whole, using the table of contents as a guide, for

contextualizing how U.S. history is constructed within the textbooks. I examined which

time periods, events, individuals, and ideas were repeating themes in the textbooks.

Following my collection of data from textbooks, I examine the California

Framework. I examined the entire Framework including the standards for k-12, the

learning goals, and critical analysis skills listed in the Framework. California standards

are comprehensive and sequential, meaning they build upon previous grade lessons.

Textbooks adopted for use in California therefore provide comprehensive and

sequential reviews. The Grade 11 textbooks I examine contain reviews of history

covered in previous grades. Therefore in examining the standards contained in the

Framework, I read them comprehensively as a whole. I used the same guidelines

reading the standards that I used for reading the texts, including the coding techniques I

describe below.

Specifically, regarding the coding process, I utilized specific GT methods

modified by DM through the CIM approach. I first read through all U.S. History

textbooks, coded the data, and organized my findings from the textbooks. Then I read

through the standards and accompanying Framework, doing the same. I performed line-

by-line analysis open coding, which allowed me to identify central ideas in the texts as

working concepts. One of the first processes in Grounded Theory (GT) is the process of

conceptualizing. According to Strauss & Corbin (1998) arriving at concepts is important

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 because this is a key step in building theory. I simultaneously performed in vivo

coding in which words/phrases are taken from the history textbooks themselves as

codes. As I read the texts, I wrote concepts on the textbook pages themselves and on

sticky notes. For example, reading the pre-contact, or pre-1492 narratives in the

textbooks I discovered and labeled a multitude of concepts using both open and in vivo

coding. These included land-bridge narratives, Native American culture, Native

American religion, geography, regions, archeology, science, etc.

Next, I grouped a variety of concepts into categories, which Strauss & Corbin

(1998) simply define as “concepts that stand for phenomena” (p. 101). Phenomena,

indeed concepts, are “an abstract representation of an event…that a researcher identifies

as being significant in the data” (Strauss & Corbin, 1998; 103). In this case, the

phenomenon I identified were how textbooks dealt with American Indians. They treated

them explicitly, which I characterize as places in the history texts Indians are actually

contained. Second, I found textbooks treated Indian issues indirectly or implicitly. I

characterize these narratives as places in the texts where Indians are not necessarily

mentioned but the context of the passage or idea impacts Indians directly. This second

type of reading (Smith, 2002) in which I coded for implicit or indirect ideas is guided

by reframing (Smith, 2002) and is informed by indigenous metaphysics. Finally, I

found that textbooks missed ‘treating’ Indians all together as well. In this last reading

(Smith, 2002)I utilized the method of intervening and indigenizing (Smith, 2002) to

identify and intervene where texts are missing indigenous perspectives.

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 For Strauss and Corbin (1998) the purpose behind labeling phenomena, “is to

enable researchers to group similar events, happenings, and object under a common

heading or classification” (p. 103). The similar happenings I grouped together were the

explicit, implicit, and missing ways Indians were treated in the texts. With this

framework in place, I read through the standards and accompanying Framework and

found that similar concepts and categories emerged. As stated, I found that the multiple

concepts I identified through open and in vivo coding dealt with Native Americans in

three different ways. One was explicit mention, which I labeled as explicit. The second

was implicit mention, which I label generated. The third treatment was what was absent,

which I label missing. These labels represent the three categories that emerged from my

identification of concepts in both the textbooks and standards. Grouping concepts

together in categories is important because it allows the creation of manageable units

for analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). For me the manageable units of analysis had to

do with the ways textbooks explicitly contained indigenous history, how textbooks

implicitly framed particular issues that generate ideas that impact indigenous

communities, and how important issues from indigenous perspectives are missing.

Within each category I identify above, there are subcategories, defined by

Strauss & Corbin (1998) as “concepts that pertain to a category, giving it further

clarification and specification” (p. 101). Thus after identifying the three working

categories, I began the process of ordering my concepts into the categories of explicit,

generated, and missing, aided by axial coding. Axial coding, Strauss & Corbin (1998)

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 explain is “the process of relating categories to their subcategories, termed ‘axial’

because coding occurs around the axis of a category, linking categories at the level of

properties and dimensions” (p. 123). Simply, the subcategories properties and

dimensions I identified linked to categories because they either represented explicit,

generated, or missing themes (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Similarly, there was consistent

overlap between the concepts identified in the textbooks and standards. This is not a

surprise as standards determine textbook content. Further, in order to link the

subcategories, I utilized the method of indigenizing and reframing, to think through the

actual concepts I identified in the texts and how western metaphysics informed them.

To be sure, the texts I investigated affirmed western metaphysics and the Colonial

Model of Education.

In conjunction with Smith’s DM, I organized my findings into two general

areas, form and content (Apple and Christian-Smith, 1991). I used diagrammatic memos

to aid in the organization of both the form and content findings. Similarly, as stated

earlier, the coding process was accompanied by memos, which are written notes of my

text examination that aid in my analysis (Strauss & Corbin). Specifically I performed

two kinds of memos, including code notes and diagrams. Code notes are memos, which

contain the products of my open coding, in vivo coding, and axial coding. These code

notes include the sticky notes I used to write codes down and the pages of the texts

themselves on which I wrote notes. In addition, I created more sophisticated code notes

in which I used charts to represent my findings. These are more appropriately identified

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 as diagrams. These diagrams are visual tools that illustrate the relationships between

the concepts I identified during coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

Table 4.1 below is an example of a diagram in which I identify the three main

categories that emerged from my reading of the text (textbooks and standards) and the

concepts I identified.

Table 4.1: Textbook & Standards Categories

Explicit Generated Missing

Concepts Concepts from Concepts from Concepts missing

Social Studies texts Social Studies from texts &
& Standards that texts & Standards Standards
explicitly mention that indirectly
Indians impact Indians.

This diagram depicts the three main categories that emerged from my reading (Smith,

2002) of the instructional texts and Framework. In addition, in this diagram I begin

defining the parameters for each category.

Table 4.2 below is an example of another diagram I created which depicts the

subcategories I identify, and how each subcategory fits within the larger three

categories. This diagram also represents a more detailed picture of the coding process as

it lists the subcategories found for both the U.S. History textbooks and content

standards. Placing the subcategories within the appropriate category was aided by axial

coding that allowed me to link the properties and dimensions of the subcategories to the

categories. For instance, in the explicit category I list the subcategory of Land-Bridge

Narrative. I arrive at that label through the aid of in vivo coding. I simply used the terms

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 found in the textbooks, which describe how Indians arrived to the North American

continent via the Beringia land-bridge. In this portion of the narrative relating how

indigenous ancestors crossed from Siberia to Alaska were included narratives on

archaeology, radio carbon dating, and other scientific language. I labeled these science

narratives as western scientific rationales. While these science narratives are used to

speak to the land-bridge narrative, they don’t explicitly correlate with indigenous

perspectives. Instead the textbooks rely on these scientific theories to tell the story of

the land-bridge. For this reason, I place the western scientific rationales in the generated

category. Additionally, western scientific rationales indirectly impact American Indians

in this section. But how so? Remembering this is an indigenized Grounded Theory

approach I assess that key narratives are missing from an indigenous standpoint. These

missing narratives have to do with tribal perspectives of origins, which many times

reject the land-bridge theory.

Table 4.2: Textbooks and Standards Subcategories

Explicit Generated Missing
Subcategories Subcategories Subcategories
Textbooks • Native cultures • Western Origins/ • Tribal Origins
• Land-Bridge Christianity • Tribal Religion/
Narrative • Western Scientific Philosophy
• Contact/Colonization Rationales • Tribal perspectives on
• Colonial Period • Westward contact & colonization
• Westward Expansion Expansion (Manifest • Tribal perspectives on
(settlers clash with Destiny) westward expansion
Indians) • Immigration • Review of Federal
• Poverty • Technology/ Indian Law
• Congressional Action Industrialization accompanied by Tribal
• The New Deal & • Racism perspectives on Indian
Indians • Diversity; Law
• Civil Rights • Civil Rights • Tribal Sovereignty
(minority) (Equality) • Tribal Cultural

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 • Legal Action/ • Environment. Continuity
Congressional Action • Tribal Self-
Determination
• Tribal Lands
Standards • National Identity/ • Western • Tribal Origins
Nation of Immigrants Origins/Christianity: • Tribal Religions/
• Geography & Culture • Immigration/ Philosophy
• Governance Migration • Tribal perspectives on
• Relations • Technology/ contact & colonization
• Indian Defeat/Indian Industrialization • Tribal perspectives on
Wars (Western Scientific westward expansion
• Internal Indian Rationales) • Review of Federal
conflicts • Diversity Indian Law
• Great Men • Race & Racism: accompanied by Tribal
• Federal Indian • Equality perspectives on Indian
Policies Law
• Westward Expansion • Tribal Sovereignty
• Civil Rights/Equality • Tribal Cultural
Continuity
• Tribal Self-
Determination
• Tribal Lands
I used the diagram picture in Table 4.2 to connect the subcategories that

emerged in the textbooks with those that emerged from my reading (Smith, 2002) of the

Framework. For example, because the standards and broader learning goals and critical

thinking skills outlined in the Framework shape textbook content, I linked specific

categories and subcategories from the textbooks with those from the Framework in my

narrative analysis of the Framework. I will discuss this analysis in subsection C below.

These first two tables represent content findings. In my initial investigation of

textbooks and standards, I also found these texts followed particular forms. For instance

the standards and textbooks emphasized the following broad historical periods:

• Pre-Contact (pre 1492);

• Contact (late 15th century to early 16th century);
• Colonial Period (16th-17th century);

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 • Westward expansion and settlement (18th-19th century);
• Civil War and reconstruction (1861-1877);
• The early twentieth century (1900-1950);
• The civil rights period and other struggles for equality (1950-1970);
• The sixties & seventies;
• The eighties; and
• Contemporary times.

To reiterate, content standards, particularly social science standards, stress the historical

periods students should learn about in textbooks. Another form finding gathered from

both my examination of textbooks and standards are organizational. These include the

following three organizational tools:

• Linear & chronological narratives

• Knowledge compartmentalization
• Textbook Grammar (Luke, 1989)

I explore these findings in further detail in the data analysis section.

C. Data Analysis

In order to write about the significance of my findings, I chose a sample of four

textbooks to construct my narrative analysis in chapter six. In chapter seven, I look at

the entire California Framework to write my narrative analysis. As stated I focus on

four textbooks from the universe of textbooks I initially examined. Three of these

textbooks are approved for use in LAUSD in 2007 and 2008 for the course, U.S.

History and Geography: Continuity and Change in the Twentieth Century, Grade 11.

The fourth textbook is approved for use in 2006 for the course U.S. History and

Geography, AB, Grade 11. The textbooks are the following:

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 Nash, G. B. (1997). American odyssey: The United States in the twentieth century.
New York: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill.
Appleby, J., Brinkley, A., Broussard, A. S., McPherson, J. M., & Richie, D. A.
(2005). The American vision. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies,
Inc.
Danzer, G. A., Klor de Alva, J. J., Krieger, L. S., Wilson, L. E., & Woloch, N.
(2006). The Americans: Reconstruction to the 21st century (California
Edition ed.). Evanston, Illinois: McDougal Littell.
Cayton, A., Perry, E. I., Reed, L., & Winkler, A. M. (2002). America: Pathways
to the present, modern American history. Needham, MA: Prentice Hall.

The Nash (1997) text is from the 2006 list of approved instructional texts, and the other

three are from both the 2007 and 2008 lists. Specifically, the Nash (1997) text was

approved for the 2006 U.S. History and Geography, Grade 11 course and the Appleby,

et al. (2005), Danzer, et al. (2006) and Cayton (2002) texts are approved for the United

States History and Geography: Continuity and Change in the Twentieth Century, Grade

11 course.

The Appleby, Cayton, and Danzer textbooks are the only three textbooks

approved in LAUSD currently for the U.S. History course every student is mandated to

take by the state as detailed in the 2005 edition of the History and Social Science

Framework for California Public Schools. I chose these four textbooks because they are

representative of the texts used in California. Moreover, I limit my analysis to these four

textbooks and do not include those approved for AP U.S. History in LAUSD. These

four texts contain the same content as those textbooks approved Advanced Placement.

In addition, the majority of students are not placed in AP courses in LAUSD. As

statistics show, the majority of students in LAUSD take U.S. History and Geography:

Continuity and Change in the Twentieth Century, Grade 11 course. In contrast a very

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 small number of students are enrolled in AP U.S. History courses. For instance, the

latest data report that 40,325 students were enrolled in U.S. History courses in LAUSD

in the 2006-2007 school year.29 During the same year, only 4,829 students were

enrolled in AP U.S. History courses (California Basic Educational Data System

(CBEDS), 2008). The total number of students enrolled in Grade 11 in LAUSD during

the 2006-2007 was 46,057. Thus the majority of these students, approximately 88

percent, were enrolled in “regular” U.S. History courses, and approximately 10 percent

were enrolled in AP U.S. History courses (California Basic Educational Data System

(CBEDS), 2008).30 Students are therefore more likely to encounter the four textbooks I

analyze in chapter six.

Within the textbooks, I focus on three time periods described in the textbooks:

pre-contact; westward expansion; and civil rights. I focus on these time periods because

they represent portions of the textbooks in which Native Americans are mentioned

most. I also focus on these three time periods for analytical clarity. Additionally, I focus

on the main concepts or subcategories for each time period. In the pre-contact period,

the narrative analysis includes the explicit land-bridge subcategory or theme and the

related western scientific rationale generated theme. This also includes the missing

theme, tribal origins. Table 4.3 is a visual of how I organized this analysis.

29
The California Department of Education mandates that in Grade 11 students are required to take the
course, U.S. History and Geography: Continuity and Change in the Twentieth Century.

30
In calculating these percentages, I assume that the 40,325 students enrolled in U.S. History are in
Grade 11 as the eleventh grade is when students are mandated to take U.S. History.

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Table 4.3: Textbook Analysis Organization
Pre-Contact Westward Expansion Civil Rights
Time Period Time Period Time Period
Explicit Land-Bridge Settlers Clash with Minorities
Subcategory Indians
Generated Western Scientific Manifest Destiny Equality
Subcategory Rationales
Missing Tribal Origins Tribal Perspectives on Tribal Perspectives-
Subcategory Expansionism Sovereignty & Self-
Determination

I also weave into this narrative analysis of the three time periods the form

findings I list above. I outline how these forms replicate western metaphysics. For

instance, I illustrate how the textbooks and standards follow linear/chronological

depictions of history and how they compartmentalize knowledge. The textbooks all

begin 0with pre-contact narratives, exemplifying the linear/chronological form

identified above.

In writing my narrative analysis, I also examine the pre-contact time period and

the three corresponding categories of explicit, generated, and missing. I describe the

explicit land-bridge subcategory, or theme providing textual examples from the four

textbooks. I follow this illustration with the generated theme of western scientific

rationales, providing textual examples from the textbooks. Next I outline the missing

subcategory, tribal origins, describing how indigenous perspectives are missing. In

addition, I show how indigenous perspectives contradict the aforementioned land-bridge

and western scientific rationales textbook narratives. I use the framework of western

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 metaphysics to critique the explicit and generated subcategories. Further, I utilize the

indigenous metaphysics framework to flesh out the missing subcategory. I also link up

how the explicit land-bridge and generated western scientific rationales are typical

white settler state and CME narratives. I do this for the two other time periods of

westward expansion and civil rights as well. The narrative analysis for those two

periods follows the same formula I describe above.

In my narrative analysis of the 2005 History and Social Science Framework for

California Public Schools, my narrative analysis is a comprehensive review of the

Framework (2005) including the learning goals, critical thinking goals, and actual

content standards. My narrative analysis treats the Framework as a whole, because it

dictates not only the actual history content contained in the instructional texts but the

broader lessons students are supposed to learn as well. These broader lessons include,

for instance the learning goal of achieving understanding democratic ideals. Similarly,

and related to critical thinking skills, the Framework identifies chronological and spatial

thinking skills as a key in learning about history. Like my analysis of the four

instructional texts, I limit my narrative analysis to the time periods of pre-contact,

westward expansion, and civil rights.

For instance, the narrative analysis of the Framework discusses how the land-

bridge narrative is constructed within the Framework. For this I include analysis on

learning goals and the critical thinking goals that accompany the standards in the

Framework. Furthermore, in the narrative analysis I provide for the Framework also

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 include analysis taken from both the textbook findings and the textbook narrative

analysis. For example, because the standards and broader learning goals and critical

thinking skills outlined in the Framework shape textbook content, I linked specific

categories and subcategories from the textbooks with those from the Framework in my

narrative analysis of the Framework.

Continuing with the land-bridge narrative, I look to the Framework to see which

subcategories shape the content found in the textbooks. Reading (Smith, 2002) through

the Framework, I identify a series of both explicit and generated subcategories or

themes that help frame the land-bridge narrative found in all the textbooks I examine. In

the Framework these subcategories are the explicit national identity/nation of

immigrant, geography & cultures, themes. The generated subcategories are

immigration/migration. In combination, these subcategories provide the context for the

various learning goals associated with the textbooks. I do the same for the other

subcategories identified within the pre-contact time period. I also follow the same

analytical organization for the other two time periods included in my analysis of

westward expansion and civil rights.

III. Next Steps

In the next chapters, I examine in depth both the instructional texts and

accompanying content standards used in LAUSD. These examinations, guided by the

theoretical and methodological framework I outline in this chapter, paint an interesting

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picture of the social studies curriculum pipeline.

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 CHAPTER FIVE
U.S. HISTORY TEXTBOOKS RESEARCH REVIEW

Before I delve into my textbook findings and analysis, I review what previous

research that examines U.S. History textbook content has found. First I examine what

research has said about the role of the textbook in society. Specifically I examine early

studies of textbooks, studies of American Indian representation in textbooks, and

current textbook research. From this review of research on textbooks I offer a series of

concepts that build upon the Colonial Model of Education and the white settler state in

ways that illuminate western metaphysics. But before I do this, I situate the role of

multicultural education in influencing the content of textbooks.

As stated, I broadly situate this project within the discourses, practices, and

policies of multiculturalism because this is a key discourse within which the educational

needs of communities of color, including American Indians, are discussed, developed

and implemented. Contemporary multicultural education, James Banks and Cherry

McGee Banks (2004) point out, emerged from the Civil Rights movement, and in

particular, the inclusion of communities of color in textbooks began in earnest in

response to the Civil Rights movements of the twentieth century. From this context

emerged a series of studies that closely examined how school textbooks represented

communities of color. In particular, many studies examined the proliferation of U.S.

History textbooks that attempted to include more multicultural content, responding to

the Civil Rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s, (Charnes, 1984; Council on

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 Interracial Books for Children, 1977a; Elkin, 1965; Fitzgerald, 1979; Foster, 1999;

Glazer & Ueda, 1983; Jackson, 1976; Kane, 1970; Katz, 1973; Lerner et al., 1995;

Marcus, 1961; Michigan Department of Education, 1971).

While the literature on the topic is extensive, I limit my scope to focus on three

areas within the research on textbooks: critical perspectives on textbooks and schooling;

research that examines multicultural representation in U.S. History textbooks; and

research that examines Indian representation in U.S. History textbooks. In addition, the

literatures I look at are informed by critical perspectives, which include the position that

multiculturalism is a valid and necessary discourse. There is also literature that critiques

multicultural representation in U.S. History textbooks. This literature generally asserts

that multicultural content distorts American history, replacing key historical moments

and figures in favor of people of color and women (Glazer & Ueda, 1983; Lerner et al.,

1995; Ravitch, 1990; Schlesinger, 1992; Sewall, 1988). In addition this literature shares

the perspective that the role of U.S. History is to build a unitary American identity

based upon a history that centers what is perceived to be a true and universal U.S.

History (ibid). While this literature is included in my review, it is not the central

literature of inquiry.

Finally, from my review of these multiple literatures, I generate a series of

definitions, which in conjunction the concepts developed in earlier chapters, I use to

help in my interrogation of textbook narratives. In addition, because I center this project

from the politics and perspectives of indigeneity as informed by Linda Smith, native

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 nation-building, and indigenous metaphysics, as described in the previous chapters,

the way I look at the relevant literature is guided from these perspectives and the

following guiding research questions, accompanied by sub-questions specific to

textbooks:

 How do textbooks embody western metaphysics

 How do textbooks reproduce a Colonial Model of Education
 What types of lessons do the textbooks promote that are antithetical to
indigenous cultures and sovereignty?
 What are the sources of western metaphysics in textbooks?

From this review of literature, I identify how textbooks over time reproduce CME and

embody western metaphysics. In addition the review of past literature, which examined

the treatment of American Indians in textbooks detail the types of lessons textbooks

promote that are antithetical to indigenous cultures. Finally, the concepts I generate

from this review of research aid in my identification of the sources of western

metaphysics in the textbooks.

I. The Role of Textbooks in Schooling and Society31

In order to begin to answer these questions, I turn, as stated, to the main delivery

form of knowledge in the classroom, textbooks. Because textbooks are the dominant

form of informational delivery in the classroom (Altbach et al., 1991; Apple &

Christian-Smith, 1991; Reyhner et al., 1993), it is crucial to examine what type of

information and sets of values they are delivering. In addition California (along with

31
There are other studies that examine U.S. history textbooks, such as Jean Anyon’s (1979) study,
“Ideology and the United States History Textbooks”, in the Harvard Educational Review, which
examines bias regarding labor and economic history in textbooks.

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 Texas and Florida) represents one of the major markets in textbook publication and it

is one of the most influential states in defining the content of textbooks across the

nation (Bianchini & Kelly, 2003; Ross, 1996). Beginning from the claim that content

delivered through textbooks are framed from a particular cultural standpoint, at the

expense of other views, (Altbach et al., 1991; Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991) I

examine exactly what type of standpoint or views are promoted by the texts. While

many students internalize what they learn from textbooks, and some reject or dismiss

the information found in textbooks, the textbook content nevertheless affirms particular

views while obscuring or dismissing other views (Sleeter & Grant, 1991).

Two important books that exemplify this literature are Textbooks in American

Society, edited by Philip G. Altbach, Gail P. Kelly, Hugh G. Petrie, and Louis Weis

(1991) and The Politics of the Textbook, edited by Michael Apple and Linda Christian-

Smith (1991). Both books incorporate discussions that examine a range of issues

concerning textbooks, including content analysis of texts, textbook adoption processes,

and the role of pressure groups in their adoption (Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991; Wong

& Loveless, 1991).

Specifically, and of particular relevance in this dissertation, the investigation of

how textbooks are used to validate specific cultural practices and versions of knowledge

receive ample treatment by both books. For instance, Apple and Christian-Smith (1991)

make the case that textbooks play an important role in defining whose culture is taught

in school (1). While texts deliver “facts” to students, they are also a result of, according

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 to Apple and Christian-Smith (1991), “political, economic, and cultural activities”,

and thus textbooks “signify through their content and form—particular constructions of

reality, particular ways of selecting and organizing the vast universe of possible

knowledge” (1-2). This “selective tradition”—defined as “someone’s vision of

legitimate knowledge and culture… that in the process of enfranchising one group’s

cultural capital disenfranchises another”—in the context of classroom textbooks

function to create what society recognizes as legitimate knowledge (Apple and

Christian-Smith, 1991; 4). The authors claim that textbooks define “canons of

truthfulness” and therefore construct and promote specific ideologies, epistemologies,

and ontologies (p. 4). Likewise, Michael Apple (1991) in Altbach, et. al., (1991),

explains that the text is a cultural artifact since it “embodies visions of legitimate

knowledge of identifiable groups of people” and as the dominant teaching tool in the

classroom becomes what Apple terms “official knowledge” (p. 8).

Furthermore, the adoption process for textbooks is mired in similar economic,

political, and cultural battles between competing groups who battle for their particular

vision of reality to be implemented (Altbach et al., 1991; Apple & Christian-Smith,

1991; Cornbleth & Waugh, 1993; Ross, 1996). The adoption process also mirrors larger

societal problems, including issues of power, particularly the problem of who controls

textbook content, at the expense of marginalized groups such as women, people of

color, and the poor (Ibid). For instance, according to Apple and Christian-Smith (1991)

textbooks and “[c]urricula are not imposed in countries like the United States. Rather,

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 they are the products of often intense conflicts, negotiations, and attempts at

rebuilding hegemonic control by actually incorporating the knowledge and perspectives

of the less powerful under the umbrella of the discourse of dominant groups” (p. 10).

This latter point is important because it demonstrates how marginalized groups may

consent to this hegemonic process.

The important contributions offered by these authors (Altbach et al., 1991;

Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991) in the discussion of the role of textbooks in the

classroom center on how texts perpetuate specific cultural constructs through both

content and form, and in doing so reify the existing power structure. Regardless of the

adoption process of textbooks, they are framed within the power structure and dynamics

of the United States, including the attempts of marginalized such discussions

concerning textbooks, these insights manifest a continued reliance on western modes of

analysis and critique. While issues of power in the adoption process are addressed, these

critiques retain colonial blind32 lenses, defined in previous chapters. The question

remains: if this trend is indeed representative of the process of curriculum inclusion in

textbooks, how do people of color fare in this process?

A. Early Studies of Textbook Representation

32
I have coined the term “colonial-blind” in order to refer to practices that normalize western knowledge
organization and assumptions, promote western notions of being (metaphysics) and promote
westernization of knowledge and its institutionalization through means perceived as neutral. Of particular
importance in this project are those practices that claim to be critical yet fail to “see” how their own
epistemological and ontological assumptions promote western metaphysics. “Colonial-blind” is a play on
the term color-blind.

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 In the sixties, seventies, and early eighties, a series of studies examined the

treatment of people of color in textbooks found that texts contained bias, or

stereotypical treatment of people of color (Council on Interracial Books for Children,

1977a; Elkin, 1965; Kane, 1970; Katz, 1973; Marcus, 1961; Wirtenberg et al., 1980).

Similarly, the Council on Interracial Books for Children (1977a), published the book

Stereotypes, Distortions and Omissions in U.S. History Textbooks in which racist and

sexist stereotypes, distortions and omissions contained in U.S. History textbooks of the

time, focusing on the treatment of women, African Americans, Asian Americans,

Chicanos, Native Americans and Puerto Ricans were examined. The Council’s study

provides important insights into how this type of textbook analysis has proceeded in the

past; establishes useful frameworks for the study of people of color in textbooks; and

provides important insights into how people of color, and Native Americans, have been

treated in textbooks historically.

The Council on Interracial Books for Children (1977), herein the Council, found

that while in the past, people of color were invisible in the textbooks examined, people

of color were incorporated in greater degrees in the textbooks. Some groups (Blacks and

Native Americans), the authors maintained, received more sympathetic treatment while

“a bit more attention is being paid to other third world groups and to women as well”

and although these groups were mentioned in the texts and more visible, the depiction

was not necessarily reflective of reality (125). The Council (1977) clarified that the

perspective or point of view that dominated the textbooks was that of “white, upper-

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 class male” and that “[g]enerations of young people have been taught that the U.S. is a

white country and that the prime architects of U.S. life and history are white males”

(125). The Council (1977) determined that this white-world view was nearly ubiquitous

in the texts they analyzed, and although people of color were included, the narratives

provided information “about” people of color, rather than “from” their perspective

(125).

In particular the Council (1977) found that a basic concern contained in the texts

was one of perspective. Specifically the texts perpetuated three types of perspectives:

single perspective from the view of whites; narrow perspective that does not link up

how the history of people of color impacts whites; and Eurocentric perspective which

emphasizes the “importance of white roots and European backgrounds” (125). To

elaborate on the perspectives, the Council (1977) provided revealing evidence. With

regards to single perspective the Council (1977) provides the following textbook

excerpt, which illustrated that the perspective of the texts were singularly framed from

the experiences of whites:

‘Alone in the wilderness, the frontier family had to protect itself from wild
animals and unfriendly Indians.’ Had the books represented other perspectives,
these quotations might have read:… ‘While the people were trying to live,
farm, and hunt peacefully in their homelands, they had to constantly be on
guard against marauding and invading whites’ (p. 125).

The Council (1977) further found that the U.S. History textbooks organized content,

including chapter titles and text commentary, from the perspective of whites in the

United States.

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 The narrow perspective, defined as a perspective that does not link “the lives

and the aspirations of the average white citizens…to the lives and the interests” of

people of color. For example, the Council (1977) includes the following text excerpt to

demonstrate the narrow perspective: “‘This 1896 ruling [Plessy v. Ferguson] by the

Supreme Court was a serious blow to the efforts of black Americans to improve their

lives.’” (p. 126). The Council (1977) argues that while Plessy was a serious blow to

Blacks, the decision also impacted whites. The Council (1977) explained, “A broader

perspective would demonstrate that others besides Black people have an interest in and

responsibility for ending segregation” (ibid). According to the Council’s (1977)

findings, a third perspective, or the Eurocentric perspective, was consistently utilized in

the textbooks they examined. The Council (1977) defined the Eurocentric perspective as

a one-sided perspective that “emphasizes the importance of white roots and European

backgrounds. It conveys the impression that third world people in the U.S. lack a

cultural heritage, are definable only in terms of their relationship to white people, and

are therefore, inferior to whites” (ibid).

The Council (1977) also discovered that people of color and women were

included in three major forms: “great minorities”—emphasis on the accomplishments of

famous individuals such as Martin Luther King; “contributors”—minorities portrayed

as contributors to American society, i.e., “Native Americans gave ‘us’ corn” and

“African Americans gave ‘us’ jazz”… implying that people of colors’ achievements

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 “are valuable only insofar are they prove useful to ‘us’” (p. 127); and “protestors”—

focus on the equality movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

According to the Council (1977) textbooks examined also promoted a series of

unifying and underlying assumptions. One of the main underlying assumptions of the

textbooks they examined in the late seventies is the assumption that the United States is

a “true democracy, by virtue of its electoral system in which citizens can vote for the

leader of their choice” (p. 128). Another assumption found by the Council (1977) was

the tendency of textbooks to blame the victim. With regards to Native Americans, the

Council (1977) found that textbooks perpetuated the idea that they were “dispossessed

of their land because ‘they did not understand the concept of private land ownership’”

(p. 129). In addition, the Council (1977) stated that instead of examining institutional

mechanisms of oppression, textbooks focused on individual acts of bigotry, thereby

diminishing the role of social structures and groups’ interests in maintaining them (p.

129). The Council (1977) concluded, that to “the extent that discrimination, racism, and

sexism are dealt with in textbooks, they are treated as aberrations, as isolated mistakes

of the past” (p. 129). Furthermore, the Council (1977) highlighted that oppression “is

rarely examined from the perspective of its victims”, and the textbooks fail to show that

“[r]acism, sexism, and economic exploitation are not occasional aberrations of the U.S.

system, but deeply ingrained mechanism of the national social and economic structure”

(p. 129).

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 This work represents an important and vital part of the debate informing how

textbooks used in schools frame majoritarian stories (Solórzano & Yosso, 2000)

concerning the U.S., at the expense of marginalized groups. Here, however I want to

extend the work done in this text by expanding the theoretical and analytical lenses used

to analyze U.S. History textbooks. In particular the use of indigenous informed

methodologies, I assert, is better equipped to engage western metaphysics that have

remained unexamined in social studies textbooks. I draw upon Linda Smith’s methods

of rereading and reframing, coupled with Stuart halls encoding/decoding allow me to

expand the theoretical gaze beyond traditional western theories of Marxism and

structuralism, towards a deeper understanding of the role of western metaphysics. I will

also extend and utilize several of the insights made by the Council (1977) concerning

how people of color were treated in the textbooks they examined. As stated, several of

the observations made by the Council on Interracial Books for Children (1977) are

useful in my analysis here. By coupling these definitions with a critical understanding

of the role of western metaphysics, I achieve a more robust analysis of how American

Indians are treated within the textbooks I analyze.

Before I proceed however, there are two broad disadvantages to this study both

theoretical and analytical. First, the texts theoretical limitations are found in its

structural undertones. While I believe that such analysis is vital, it is nevertheless

limited in its ability to speak to Native realities and needs. Similarly, its emphasis on the

role of economic disparity as a major contributor to racism and sexism, leave little room

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 to explore more foundational beliefs that perpetuate classism, racism and sexism.

Second, the analytical propensity to study African Americans, Asian Americans,

Chicanos, Native Americans, Puerto Ricans and women, using the same framework

does not necessarily expose problematics that may be specific to each group.

Particularly, using a singular lens of analysis reproduces western metaphysical

tendencies that alienate Native viewpoints within a larger discourse of minority

treatment, or third world orientations used by the text.

B. Textbook Representations of American Indians

There have been other studies that have analyzed how history textbooks treat

Indians. Specifically, most of these studies occurred in the seventies, and a couple in the

1980s, that examined prejudice towards Indians in history textbooks (Brotherhood,

1974; Costo & Henry, 1970; Garcia, 1978, 1980; Hirschfelder, 1975; Husband, 1977;

Kirkness, 1977; Mallam, 1973; O'Neill, 1984, 1987; C. H. Swanson, 1977; Vogel, 1968,

1974; Wilson, 1980). Additionally a similar study was done on the treatment of

American Indians in government textbooks (Ashley & Jarratt-Ziemski, 1999). These

studies of textbooks reveal one common feature: U.S. History textbooks

overwhelmingly reproduce settler-state ideologies, more appropriately identified as

mythologies identified in chapter one, including erasure of indigenous peoples in

settler-narratives; assertions of settler superiority vis-à-vis representations of Indians as

child-like; and affirmations of settler domination over Indians based on settler

superiority.

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 Beginning in the late sixties Virgil J. Vogel’s (1968) important study found

that authors of history textbooks utilized four methods or schools of historical approach

“…to create or perpetuate false impressions of aboriginal Americans, namely:

obliteration, defamation, disembodiment, and disparagement” (p. 16). These four

methods, or schools of historical approach concerning Indians are replete in the

textbooks. Vogel (1968) defines the obliteration school as those authors whose

historical writing erases the American Indian from history, either through omission in

texts, or through statements that “Indian removal, or slaughter is customarily presented

as the inexorable march of civilization displacing savage hunters” (p.16). The second

school of historical treatment of Indians, according to Vogel (1968) is disembodiment

which he defines as acknowledgement of “the existence of the Indian, but only as a

subhuman nomad, a part of the fauna belonging to the wilderness yet to be conquered;

in short, a troublesome obstacle to be overcome” (p. 18). The defamation school, Vogel

(1968) argues denigrates the Indian and perpetuates the idea of Indians as unintelligent

(p. 20). Finally, Vogel (1968) explains that the disparagement school perpetuates the

denial of Indian contribution to American culture (p. 21). Vogel (1968) concludes that

while there is “no comprehensive account of Indian cultural contributions, there are

some commendable materials available at all [grade] levels”, including high school (p.

27). While the textbook he recommends “is notably free of racial bias and shows the

Indian side of some frontier struggles” it nevertheless retains some of the “old baggage”

(p. 28). Vogel’s (1968) work is important because it demonstrates a couple of key

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 characteristics of settler-state ideology, including erasure of indigenous populations

and assertion of superiority and domination over indigenous populations.

Similarly, Rupert Costo and Jeannette Henry’s (1970) Textbooks and the

American Indian is a response to the stereotypes and distortions concerning Indians

prevalent in history textbooks used in schools. More precisely, this study reports the

findings of an evaluation of more than three hundred books by thirty-two Indian

scholars which found that most of the texts were derogatory towards Natives and

“contained misinformation, distortions, or omissions of important history” (p. 11). In

their examination of the textbooks the scholars applied nine criteria: are American

Indians presented as a continuous and integral part of American history; do the texts

perpetuate the discovery narrative; is the information relating to Indians correct; do the

texts accurately describe Indian cultures at the time of contact; are Indian cultures

described as dynamic or treated as static; are American Indian contributions to the

world and the U.S. described; do textbooks describe and accurately portray Indian

sovereignty; do the texts describe the religions, philosophies, ideas of Indian peoples;

and do textbooks accurately describe the state of American Indians contemporaneously?

The authors (1970) found overwhelmingly that the U.S. history textbooks examined

promoted a European view of history beginning with “discovery”; distorted facts

concerning Indians; Indians as remnants of the past, or static; Indians as inferior and

savage; and white expansion as inevitable result of progress. In essence, like Vogel’s

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 (1968) study Costo and Henry’s (1970) more detailed study found the same settler

mythologies reproduced in the textbooks they examined.

A subsequent study, R. Mallam’s (1973) “Academic Treatment of the Indian in

Public School Texts and Literature” was inspired by Textbooks and the American

Indian. Although the author examined elementary level history textbooks, his findings

echoed those of the Costo and Henry (1970) study, including distortion,

misrepresentation, and inaccuracy concerning American Indians. Like the 1970 study,

Mallam (1970) found that contemporary portrayals of American Indian were limited,

and instead favored romanticized portrayals of American Indians as mythic, simplistic,

and child-like artifacts of the past, reproducing key settler mythologies.

Arlene B. Hirschfelder’s (1975) study “The Treatment of Iroquois Indians in

Selected American History Textbooks” also drew inspiration from Costo and Henry’s

(1970) work. In particular she extends the insights of these previous studies to examine

the treatment of the Iroquois Tribes in American history textbooks. She examined 27

U.S. History textbooks from the late fifties and sixties and found that “the textbooks

have presented an array of misinformation, misconceptions, omissions, and

ethnocentricity” concerning the Iroquois, but for the most part the Iroquois are not

mentioned in the texts (p. 33). Similarly, Charles H. Swanson’s (1977) study, “The

Treatment of the American Indian in High School History Texts” examined “whether

there have been any significant textual changes in the thematic depiction of historical

Indian-White relations in recent years and to discuss how textual depictions can aid in

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 the formation and perpetuation of unfavorable stereotypes of American Indians” (pp.

28-29). In another study, Swanson (1977) performed a content analysis of 48 history

textbooks, focusing on the early Colonial period and the Revolutionary war; Indian

removal from the east; U.S. government Indian policy during the second half of the 19th

century; the Wheeler-Howard Act and U.S. citizenship; and the Eisenhower

administration to the present (p. 29). He found that little had changed in relation to the

presentation of Indian-White relations, such as “white-initiated violence, government

duplicity, and contemporary problems on and off the reservation” promoting the same

types of distortions and stereotypes found in past studies (p. 35).

In the same year, Verna J. Kirkness’ (1977) article, “Prejudice about Indians in

Textbooks” provides an important summary of the text analysis studies done concerning

American Indians in textbooks in both Canada and the United States, concluding that

despite the overwhelming evidence of bias and distortions documented by these studies

(Brotherhood, 1974; Costo & Henry, 1970), little had been done by the Canadian and

American education authorities in response to these findings. In addition Kirkness

(1977) found that “textbook researchers have tended to arrive” at uniform conclusions;

“Indians…receive the worst treatment in textbooks of any class of minority”; the

textbooks of the time contained prejudice “in a more subtle manner; and that “authors

tend to use the same secondary sources for reference, and therefore tend to say the same

things” (p. 600).

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 The following year, Jesus Garcia’s (1978) study, “Native Americans in U.S.

History Textbooks: From Bloody Savages to Heroic Chiefs” examined a series of eighth

grade level U.S. History textbooks adopted for use in California in order to evaluate

whether Natives were “described in a variety of topics and issues, and whether terms

employed to describe the group went beyond stereotype phrases” (p. 1). Garcia (1978)

utilized themes and term lists developed by Helen R. Harris (1973) and David Pratt’s

(1972) Word List. In Garcia’s (1978) examination of textbooks he found that American

Indian textbook inclusion fell into the following six time periods: North American tribes

& European explorers; French & Indian War; Westward expansion; Bureau of Indian

Affairs; Indian contributions; and civil disobedience (p. 4). He concluded that these

texts perpetuate stereotypes, omission of Indians from history, and the depiction of

Indians is limited to six general themes originally developed by Harris (1973): “noble

savage”; “white man’s helper”; “Indian maiden”; “red varmint”; “warrior/fighter”; and

“chief” (p.5). Indeed, like the other study’s Garcia’s (1978) study demonstrates that not

only the content affirms settler mythologies, but also the descriptors used in relation to

Indians affirm these settler mythologies. Two years later, Jesus Garcia (1980) followed

this study with “The American Indian: No Longer a Forgotten American in U.S. History

Texts Published in the 1970s” in which he examined twenty secondary U.S. History

texts and found that “the Harris themes are no longer encompassing” and “a revised list

of themes is needed if Native American content is to be appropriately identified” (150).

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 However, Garcia (1980) noted treatment of Indians remained “stilted” and urged for

more “balanced” portrayal of Indians (pp. 152, 164).

Following the renaissance of multiculturalism post the Civil Rights era, did

Indian representation fare better? O’Neill’s (1987) study,33 “The North American Indian

in Contemporary History and Social Studies Textbooks”, is a review of both American

and Canadian studies done on American Indians in textbooks (ranging grades K-16). He

reviewed the three waves of studies that examined Native Americans in textbooks. The

first wave “appeared in the mid-to late 1960s, and were generally condemnatory in

nature” (Indian and Metis Conference Education Committee, 1964; Sluman, 1966;

Vanderburgh, 1968; Vogel, 1968); the larger second wave (Brotherhood, 1974; Costo &

Henry, 1970; Hirschfelder, 1975; Katz, 1973; Mallam, 1973; McDiarmid & Pratt, 1971;

Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, 1974; Paton, J. Deverell), O’Neill writes,

“…found that the textbook portrayal of the North American Indian was distorted,

denigrative, inaccurate, and incomplete” (p. 1); and the third wave, later studies or

studies with sporadic commentaries regarding American Indians (Fulford, 1984; Garcia,

33
In the eighties, G. Patrick O’Neill’s (1984) Canadian study, “Prejudice Towards Indians in History
Textbooks: A 1984 Profile”, was an attempt to revisit the textbook studies of the seventies that examined
bias and distortions concerning Native Americans. O’Neill (1984) questioned whether the “stereotypes
proliferated, moderated, been modified or eliminated” in ten high school history textbooks (p. 34). He
specifically examined what types of “descriptors” textbook authors used to describe North American
Indians; what type of consistency or variation exists between descriptors; and Indian contributions to
society [Canadian] noted (34). He used the Evaluation Coefficient Analysis (ECO), a quantitative content
analysis that “provides a system for identifying words that express value judgments about a particular
group; in this case, the North American Indian” (p. 35). O’Neill (1984) found that “the problem of
prejudice towards Indians in recent history textbooks is less serious than earlier works indicated”, but O’
Neill cautions that there is “still ample room for improvement” (p. 37). O’Neill attributes the increased
positive treatment of American Indians to attitudinal changes towards minorities; increased publicity of
issues faced by Indians; and Native people becoming more active and militant in lobbying for their own
needs (pp. 37-38).

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 1978, 1980; Jackson, 1976) were conflicting—some stating textbook treatment of

American Indians remained unchanged (Garcia, 1978), while others stating moderate

(Jackson, 1976), or enormous (Fulford, 1984) improvements (1). Specifically, O’Neill

(1987) found that “[f]indings based on contextual descriptive” or qualitative studies

were unanimous in that most “accounts of the North American Indian remain disjointed,

distorted and incomplete” (p. 4). Studies that found improvements in the treatment of

Indians in textbooks were a result of “scaled numerical” or quantitative studies that

found that “much of the biased language, found in earlier textbooks, has been

eradicated” (p. 4) but their portrayal remained simplistic and stereotypical (p. 5).

Studies that O’Neill (1987) labeled as “impressionistic data”, or “idle inference” were

prone to find fundamental changes in textbook treatment of American Indians, but these

findings, O’Neill (1987) argued are unreliable. O’Neill affirms that the “status of North

American Indian in most history and social studies textbooks has not substantially

improved in the last 20 years” (p. 5). This is no surprise because social studies

textbooks, I argue are a key conveyor of settler-state ideology.

These studies, which examined the treatment of Indians in history textbooks,

arrive at similar conclusions, finding that Indians in history textbooks are treated in a

stereotypical and bias fashion. Some of these representations include Indians portrayed

as savages, unintelligent, and/or they are romanticized and infantilized, and inactive

agents of history. Indians are also treated as remnants of the past, and not contemporary

figures in the United States. These studies also found that while Indian representation

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 increased in the time periods they examined, this representation remained problematic

as history textbooks continued to promote a Eurocentric perspective. In this regard, a

limitation of these studies is their dated nature. One could argue, that while these studies

produced important insights concerning stereotypes, distortions, and prejudice

concerning Indians, textbooks today may do a better job in their treatment of Indians.

However, these studies reveal the entrenched and unchanged nature of settler- state

ideology, more accurately described as settler mythology. In this way my dissertation

adds to this body of literature by offering a contemporary and richer analysis of the

treatment of Indians in U.S. History textbooks.

Missing from these studies is a critique of the western metaphysical assumptions

produced and transmitted through social studies textbooks. In addition, while these

studies found the same limitations and were aware of previous research, most did not go

on to identify the larger ideological reasons for these continued stereotypes and

distortions. For this reason, my examination of contemporary history textbooks extends

the important work of these researchers by demonstrating that indeed, stereotypes,

distortions, and prejudice towards Indians continue to be reproduced. Also unlike these

earlier examinations of Indians in history texts, I do not use quantitative methods to

measure the amount of times Indians are mentioned or pictured in textbooks as a gage

to measure textbook representation. Instead, I focus on themes generated from the texts

concerning Native Americans to examine deeper foundational epistemological and

ontological issues.

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 C. Current Examinations of Textbooks

More current examinations of textbooks have found similar biases and

distortions (Foster, 1999; Martinez, 1998; Sleeter & Grant, 1991). Sleeter and Grant

(1991), in “Race, Class, Gender, and Disability in Current Textbooks,” point out that

existing studies that examine what they call racial bias in school textbooks—those done

during the seventies and more contemporary studies, expose that over time, the

inclusion of people of color over time has increased (Butterfield et al., 1979; Charnes,

1984; Glazer & Ueda, 1983; Kane, 1970; Michigan Department of Education, 1971).

However, while receiving more content inclusion, the treatment remains problematic

(Sleeter & Grant, 1991). In the book De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a

Multi-Colored Century, Elizabeth Martínez (1998) examines California elementary and

middle school social studies textbooks and also finds that while minorities are included

at higher rates than in the past, current textual inclusion promote a problematic brand of

multiculturalism. Finally, Foster (1999) examines the role of U.S. History textbooks in

developing American national identity in response to the historical movement of a

variety of ethnic immigrant groups.

Sleeter and Grant’s (1991) own analysis of fourteen social studies textbooks

examine how race (and other subjects) are treated. Sleeter and Grant (1991) use the

following methods in their analysis of history textbooks: picture analysis (tallying of

pictures including race and gender); the people to study analysis (tallying the race and

sex of people mentioned in texts); language analysis (examining language use for sexist,

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 racist, or loaded words with regards to stereotypes, and obscuring words); the

storyline analysis (whose story is being told, which group receives the most attention,

how groups are presented, how do groups “cause” or “solve” issues); and

miscellaneous. Martinez (1998) uses a combination of analysis techniques, including

critical content analysis. Foster (1999) examines the role of history textbooks,

beginning in the nineteenth century and moving into the contemporary period. He does

this by examining a variety of popular history textbooks used in schools beginning in

the nineteenth century.

Sleeter and Grant’s (1991), Martinez (1991), and Foster (1999) found that

whites, particularly males dominate the narrative of American history promoting a

Eurocentric perspective. Additionally, Sleeter and Grant (1991) point out that people of

color “are not portrayed as solvers of their own problems” and discussions of historical

struggles faced by people of color are presented from a white point of view (p. 86).

Furthermore, textbooks affirm the idea of individuality and collectivity appears

minimally, for example in reference to reservation life (Sleeter & Grant, 1991). Of

particular importance the authors argue that textbooks function as an extension of social

control by presenting “…constructed relations among groups as natural”, and “[t]he

vision of social relations that the textbooks…analyzed for the most part project is one of

harmony and equal opportunity…” (p. 99). Like the earlier textbook studies,

contemporary textbooks center white perspectives, which are a central aspect of the

racial grammar and ordering of settler-mythologies.

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 Martinez’s (1998) analysis of California social studies textbooks finds similar

projections, providing further context for the racial grammar of the settler-state. For

example, Martinez (1998) argues that the textbook content perpetuates the “nation of

immigrants” narrative, framing the United States as a “salad bowl” of diverse cultures

living harmoniously. Martinez (1998) adds that textbooks perpetuate the “origin myth”

of the United States, which serves as a basis for national identity that distorts how

genocide, slavery, and imperialism are key elements of this myth. In conclusion, Sleeter

and Grant (1991) argue that increased representation of minorities is key in gaining a

broader idea of different groups’ histories, but that the move towards multiculturalism

of the sixties and seventies has stymied, returning towards a more monolithic

representation favoring white-males. Martinez (1998) calls for a similar move towards a

“new origin narrative and national identity…that lays the groundwork for a

multicultural, multinational identity centered on the goals of social equity and

democracy” (p. 48). Martinez’s (1998) work is important because it explicitly locates

key components of settler mythologies, including what she identifies as “origin myths.”

Foster (1999) discusses the conservative attacks on multicultural representations

in U.S. History textbooks that responded to what appeared to be an overrepresentation

of minorities in history textbooks at the expense of a discussion of a cohesive national

identity in favor of “political correctness” (Glazer & Ueda, 1983; Schlesinger, 1992;

Sewall, 1988). However, Foster (1999) illuminates, textbooks written post civil rights

movements maintain a Eurocentric dominant narrative that emphasize what Foster

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 (1999) names “three enduring and essentially conservative themes” (p. 267):

American history remains a nationalistic endeavor, favoring triumphant and patriotic

narratives in which immigrants came to America to achieve their dream of land and

opportunity; second there is an “absence of conflict and controversy” in which racism is

presented as an “amorphic” problem of the past that is overcome by history enabled by

never presenting racism and oppression from the perspective of those oppressed; and

finally the theme of mentioning, or “adding content to the text without altering the

book’s organizing framework or central message…” underscoring “…the conviction

that the experiences of ethnic groups are only important in so far as they contribute to

the larger story of an American history dominated by white society” (p. 271),

replicating the Council’s (1977) findings that minorities are included as “contributors.”

Foster’s (1999) study similarly identifies what Zeus Leonardo (2007) describes as white

nationalism, which like the oscillating nature of Indian policy grows and shrinks with

what Lomawaima and McCarty (2006) identify as safety zone theory. In this case

Foster’s (1999) study identifies a period of reduction, responding to a more

conservative character of white nationalism.

Sleeter and Grant (1991), Martinez (1998), and Foster’s (1999) studies of social

studies texts affirm both the Indian specific and the broader race and gender textbook

examination reviewed earlier. These studies conclude that specific perspectives

dominate history textbooks—namely a Eurocentric perspective that promotes the

perspective of history in terms of white settler actions and communities of color

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 interactions with whites (never inter-group or across ethnic group). Also, a variety of

narratives such as national identity are used in textbooks to reproduce views that favor

white-settler ideologies and institutions. However, merely increasing inclusion of

people of color, or Indians, in textbooks, as suggested by Sleeter and Grant (1991) does

not address deeper epistemological and ontological issues found in textbooks. In this

way Sleeter and Grant’s (1991) study, like the other studies reviewed, is limited.

Martinez’s (1998) suggestion of moving towards a new multinationalism provides more

room for epistemological exploration (Champagne, 2005b; Terren, 2007). I argue it is

not through the creation of a new origin myth as she suggests, but instead through a

deeper understanding of the epistemological and ontological, or metaphysical reasons of

these profound differences. Finally Foster’s (1999) study concludes that it is not

accident that history textbooks are constructed the way they are. Foster (1999) points

out that because textbooks operate within an economic market, it is in publishers best

interests to produce textbooks that are not controversial and easily adoptable by many

constituents:

In order to conform to the pressures of a highly competitive market, to stave off

damaging criticism from the influential political right and to appease those who
control the theatre of education, textbook publishers keenly adhere to
established practices. Textbooks remain servants of political orthodoxy. They
celebrate national achievements, venerate the Western tradition and emphasize
a shared American experience (p. 278).

Thus, coupling these studies with my current examination provides a broader portrait of

how textbooks perpetuate deeper epistemological and ontological ideologies that have

far larger ramifications for Indians and other colonized peoples. In particular, U.S.

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 History textbooks leave little room for legitimate perspectives on tribal sovereignty

and nation building.

II. Concepts

As stated, the scholarship reviewed finds that textbooks perpetuate Eurocentric

standpoints. Coupled with the insights gained from the previous chapters, this

perspective is more appropriately identified as Settler-perspectivism. Settler

perspectivism incorporates a Eurocentric perspectivism, narrow perspectivism, and

single perspectivism identified by the Council’s (1977) work. Moreover, settler-

perspectivism situates identity from the standpoint of the white settler. For example,

settler-perspectivism in history textbooks functions as follows: whites are the center of

the story line; history is told from the perspective of whites; the narrative of history

unfolds from both the time periods and geographic location central to European settlers,

following their trajectory from the Eastern seaboard towards the west. Finally, settler-

perspectivism promotes settler mythologies, and accommodates the waxing and waning

nature of whiteness. In this way textbooks promote a Colonial Model of Education

(CME), which stresses settler perspectives.

The concept of immigrant-nation, linked to settler perspectivism, represents the

narrative that the history of the United States, and indeed the nation itself, is a nation of

immigrants, a key settler mythology. This discourse is utilized to subsume diversity, or

difference, into a larger narrative of immigration, that links up ideology to the idea of a

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 white settler-nationalism, again reifying a CME. Indeed U.S. history textbooks

function to manufacture hegemonic positions regarding the narrative of the United

States as a nation of immigrants in order to instill a broader, universal creed of

American National Identity (Gordan, 2007), which Leonardo (2007) identifies as white

nationalism.

National Identity is also directly correlated to the narratives of settler

perspectivism and the immigrant-nation narrative, and promotes the belief that there is

one singular national identity based upon a narrow definition and history of whiteness,

and as such is a key aspect of the racial grammar of the settler state. Martinez (1998)

explains that “linking the national identity with race is not unique to the United States.

National identity always requires an ‘other’ to define it. But this country has lined its

identity with race to an extraordinary degree, matched only by two other settler states:

South Africa and Israel” (p. 45). Schooling has played a central role in what Lowe

(1999) states is the “development and transmission of a sense of nationhood” (p. 231)

while at the same time constructing nationhood in ways that deny certain peoples access

to this sense of nationhood. In addition Lowe (1999) points out that the building of

national identity is also constructed in ways that have been resisted by “local

populations” (p. 232). This construction of national identity is not accidental. Richard

Drinnon (1997) points out that racism with regard to Indians “defined natives as

nonpersons with the settlement culture and was in a real sense the enabling experience

of the rising American empire” (p. xxvii). This other is part of the United States

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 historical and geographical imagination (Wolfe, 2006). National Identity in the United

States draws from Enlightenment ideals of equality, citizenship and individualism

(Anderson & Domosh, 2002)

These three ideas work simultaneously to center specific epistemological and

ontological projects. This system of ideology, I argue has directly grown out of settler

conflict with indigenous peoples. These narratives promote discourses that justify the

genocide of Indians; the taking of Indian territories; and the remaking of settler identity

into natives (Perez-Huber et. al, 2008). In this way these three ideas function in

contemporary education to perpetuate colonial models of education that serve settler

ideologies and institutions.

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 CHAPTER SIX
U.S. HISTORY TEXTBOOKS FINDINGS & ANALYSIS

In this chapter, I provide the results of the textbook content analysis I

performed, followed by an in depth study of the meaning of the findings. First I provide

a detailed description of the findings gathered from the textbook review, divided into

form and content. Next, I offer a narrative analysis of a sample of four U.S. History

textbooks approved for use in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), for

the grade 11 course United States History and Geography: Continuity and Change in the

Twentieth Century. In this narrative analysis I focus on three time periods. These are

pre-contact, westward expansion, and civil rights. In addition, I focus on a series of

explicit, generated, and missing themes that I identify in my findings for each time

period.

The following are the four specific research questions, based on the four broad

research questions that frame this dissertation that guide my textbook analysis:

 How do textbooks embody western metaphysics?

 How do textbooks reproduce a Colonial Model of Education (CME)
 What types of lessons do the textbooks promote that are antithetical to
indigenous cultures and sovereignty?
 What are the sources of western metaphysics in textbooks?

The use of the explicit, generated, and missing categories aid in examining how

textbooks embody western metaphysics and reproduce CME. In addition, my analysis

of the three time periods illustrates how textbooks promote lessons that are antithetical

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 to indigenous cultures. Finally, the missing themes and the use of indigenous

metaphysics help me identify the sources of western metaphysics.

I. Findings

As stated, I performed a content analysis of U.S. History textbooks in order to

demonstrate how educational curriculum reproduces western metaphysical assumptions.

Specifically, in my examination of textbooks I do the following: 1) examine how

Native themes are explicitly dealt with in the textbooks in order to establish what types

of learning students are explicitly intended to receive and how these lessons reaffirm

western knowledge organization; 2) examine what types of categories and themes

emerge, or are generated from the texts and standards, which significantly conflict with

Native metaphysical systems; 3) analyze texts in order to recommend where Native

American issues should be included, but are missing in order to make curriculum

organization receptive to multiple epistemological systems; and 4) link up how current

treatment of Native peoples in social studies curriculum reproduce colonial models of

education as they relate to Native groups in the U.S.

As described in chapter four, the content analysis of the textbooks is guided by

specific methodological frameworks, including Smith’s (2002) decolonizing

methodologies (DM), and Strauss & Corbin’s (1998) Grounded Theory (GT), and

Calderon’s (2006a, 2006b) Critical Interstitial Methodology (CIM). Through the CIM

approach, I link DM of indigenizing, intervening, reading, and reframing, which center

Native metaphysics, with GT interpretive codes.

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 My textbook findings are separated into two general areas, form and content.

In defining form and content I draw from Apple and Christian-Smith’s (1991) work that

explains that textbooks are artifacts of “political, economic, and cultural activities,” and

through their content and form, “signify…particular constructions of reality,

particularly ways of selecting and organizing the vast universe of possible knowledge”

(pp.1-2, 3). Specifically the form of the textbook selects and organizes knowledge in the

texts in a manner that reproduces and reaffirms western metaphysics. The specific

methods that comprise the form of the text include chronological narratives,

universalism, and white-settler perspectivism. The content of the textbooks similarly

reflect specific “political, economic, and cultural activities” and “particular

constructions of reality” (Ibid). In addition the content reflects the “selective tradition”

(Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991), which in textbooks manufactures a particular “vision

of legitimate knowledge and culture” that disenfranchises other cultural knowledge

systems (Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991; 4).

A. Form Findings (U.S. History Textbooks)

The organization of the content reveals western metaphysical imprints, including

linearism, compartmentalization, and grammar. The manner in which the story of U.S.

History is told in the textbooks all follow western organization and perpetuation of

knowledge. Specifically, the U.S. History textbooks all utilize the same structural

function to organize their textbooks. They rely on

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 • Linear & chronological narratives- U.S. history textbooks follow
chronological & linear narratives of history, and is accomplished through
a variety of mechanisms such as chronological ordering of chapters, and
use of tense appropriate language (Ninnes, 2007).
• Knowledge compartmentalization- U.S. history textbooks are divided
into units, chapters, sections, and subsections. Students as readers of the
texts are treated as informational managers (Freebody et al., 1991), in
which the reader organizes and brings past knowledge to inform the text.
Mastery of informational management is determined and measured by
the chapter and chapter section reviews and questions (Freebody et al.,
1991).
• Textbook Grammar (Luke, 1989)- the language used in the texts, such as
tense usage and rhetorical devices, works in conjunction with knowledge
compartmentalization to order knowledge in perpetuate Eurocentric
perspective. It affirms a decontextualized approach to literacy.

These form, or structural functions do not operate separately; rather they operate

interconnected in the way textbook form is organized.

The linear and chronological functions are generally organized in the following

ways. U.S. History texts provide either an expansive chronological history of the United

States, ranging from pre-modern times to the twenty first century, or they are split into

two volumes. For example, the first volume recounts pre-modern history to the Civil

War period, and the second volume begins with the history of Reconstruction and ends

with twenty first century American history.

In conducting this analysis, I found that textbooks were organized according to

the following time periods which I identify as:

• Pre-Contact (pre 1492);

• Contact (late 15th century to early 16th century);
• Colonial Period (16th-17th century);
• Westward expansion and settlement (18th-19th century);
• Civil War and reconstruction (1861-1877);
• The early twentieth century (1900-1950);

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 • The civil rights period and other struggles for equality (1950-1970)
• The sixties & seventies;
• The eighties; and
• Contemporary times.

These time periods are consistent with Garcia’s (1978) and Swanson’s (1977) findings

that Indian inclusion in U.S. History textbooks are generally organized to similar

categories, including Indian removal from the East (Swanson, 1977) or Westward

Expansion (Garcia, 1978). They are representative of white settler state organization of

new history.

Within each time period, the U.S. History textbooks I examined overwhelmingly

address the same material. The pre-contact history material consists of explaining how

American Indians arrived to the United States, their settlement of the region, and

geographic exploration of the different Native cultures located within the boundaries of

the United States. Contact periods provide narratives concerning the arrival of

Europeans to the New World, including the Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, and

British, and the meeting of three worlds (Europe, Africa, and Native America). The

Colonial period expands on the meeting of the three worlds, and transitions into a focus

on the development of the colonies on the Eastern seaboard of the United States. The

westward expansion and settlement narratives focus on the movement of Europeans

from the East Coast towards the western territories, the impact on Native Americans,

and the need for new territories.

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 The civil war and reconstruction periods focus on the civil war and the period

of reconstruction that followed. The early twentieth century focuses on the two World

Wars, the Great Depression, and the New Deal policies of the time. The Civil Rights

and other movements for equality narratives focus on desegregation in the South and

the African American civil rights movement, and other minority groups’ movements for

equality. The sixties and seventies period covers the war in Vietnam, the student and

anti-war movements, along with the women’s liberation movement. The eighties period

focuses on the Reagan era and economic prosperity and the end of the cold war. Finally,

the contemporary period focuses on contemporary issues such as affirmative action, the

Iraq wars, and other contemporary issues.

In addition textbooks frame the narrative in past tense, reflecting a specific

grammaticism (Luke, 1989). This maintains a temporal dislocation between past and

present. With regards to Indians, Ninnes (2000) explains that “[t]ense can be thought of

as a way of representing the temporal location of indigenous knowledge and

indigeneity” (p. 613). The U.S. history textbooks representations of indigenous cultures

describe cultural practices of Indians in the past tense. Ninnes (2000) argues that

“…the use of past tense to describe extant beliefs and practices can give the impression

that these practices and beliefs have been…’superannuated by history’” (p. 613). The

tendency of American history textbooks to reify time compartmentalization, i.e. past,

present, and future, leaves little room to engage different cultural conceptions of time.

This compartmentalization of time perpetuates the narrow perspective (Council on

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 Interracial Books for Children, 1977a), and it runs counter to many indigenous

perspectives on temporality (Deloria, 1992). Moreover, many of the rhetorical devices

employed in the textbooks demonstrate the “single perspective.” For example, the

textbook narrative language is authoritative.

B. Content Findings (U.S. History Textbooks)

As stated in the methodology section, in my analysis of the textbook content,

three categories emerged in relation to Native Americans while I coded the data. These

three categories are explicit (what is foregrounded), generated/implicit (what is in the

background), and missing.34 In addition, themes emerged within each category during

the coding process35, which I examine in detail below. I begin by analyzing the explicit

category and its accompanying themes. Specifically, the U.S. History textbooks I

examined explicitly frame Native Americans in relation to U.S. History in the same

fashion. I labeled the explicit themes I found as follows:

• Native cultures (as part of the three worlds of Europe, native America,
and Africa meeting in the New World);
• Land-Bridge Narrative
• Contact/Colonization;
• Colonial Period;
• Westward Expansion (settlers clash with Indians);
• Poverty;
• Congressional Action
• The New Deal & Indians

34
The methodologies of indigenizing, intervening and reframing guide what is included in the missing
category
35
During this coding process, I used both Encoding/Decoding (guided by Smith’s (2002) decolonizing
methodologies) with Grounded Theory to guide my work.

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 • Civil Rights (minority);
• Legal Action/ Congressional Action.

Similarly, I found the following generated themes:

• Western Origins/Christianity;
• Western Scientific Rationales
• Westward Expansion (Manifest Destiny);
• Immigration;
• Technology/Industrialization
• Racism;
• Diversity;
• Civil Rights (Equality); and
• Environment.

The labeling of both the explicit and generated categories and their corresponding

themes follow the chronological outline contained in the U.S. History texts. Finally, I

find that the following missing themes are useful instructional material:

• Tribal Origins
• Tribal Religions/Philosophies
• Tribal perspectives on contact and colonization
• Multiple Tribal perspectives on westward expansion
• Review of Federal Indian Law accompanied by Tribal perspectives on
Indian Law
• Tribal Sovereignty
• Tribal Cultural Continuity
• Tribal Self-Determination
• Tribal lands

From an indigenous standpoint, the political, economic, and cultural activities

are products of western metaphysics, and thus both the form and content in the

textbooks reinforce colonial models of learning and teaching. While I examine these

functions separately, in practice form and content function simultaneously to validate

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 and reproduce western metaphysics, while disenfranchising other ways of learning

and teaching.

II. Analysis

In my analysis below I focus on three time periods consistent in the textbooks,

pre-contact, westward expansion and Civil Rights. Within these three time periods I

examine a sample of explicit and generated themes, and investigate how the addition

of the missing themes challenge or add insights to the textbook narratives. Specifically,

within each time period I focus on the following themes: Pre-Contact-land-bridge,

western scientific rationales, and tribal origins; Westward Expansion- settlers clash with

Indians, manifest destiny, and tribal perspectives of expansion; and Civil Rights-

minorities; equality; and tribal perspectives on sovereignty and self-determination.

Table 6.1 below is a representation of this analysis.

Table 6.1: Textbook Analysis Organization

Pre-Contact Westward Expansion Civil Rights
Time Period Time Period Time Period
Explicit Land-Bridge Settlers Clash with Minorities
Themes Indians
Generated Western Scientific Manifest Destiny Equality
Themes Rationales
Missing Tribal Origins Tribal Perspectives on Tribal Perspectives-
Themes Expansionism Sovereignty & Self-
Determination

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 While I examined all U.S. History textbooks approved for use in LAUSD,36 I

focus on four textbooks in this analysis:

Nash, G. B. (1997). American odyssey: The United States in the twentieth

century. New York: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill.
Appleby, J., Brinkley, A., Broussard, A. S., McPherson, J. M., & Richie, D. A.
(2005). The American vision. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies,
Inc.
Danzer, G. A., Klor de Alva, J. J., Krieger, L. S., Wilson, L. E., & Woloch, N.
(2006). The Americans: Reconstruction to the 21st century (California
Edition ed.). Evanston, Illinois: McDougal Littell.
Cayton, A., Perry, E. I., Reed, L., & Winkler, A. M. (2002). America: Pathways
to the present, modern American history. Needham, MA: Prentice Hall.

Within the textbooks, I focus on three time periods described in the textbooks (pre-

contact, westward expansion, and civil rights) because they represent portions of the

textbooks in which Native Americans are mentioned most. I also focus on these three

time periods for analytical clarity.

A. Content & Form Analysis of Pre-Contact, Westward Expansion, and

Civil Rights

1. Pre-Contact

As mentioned, the U.S. History textbooks I examine begin their account of U.S.

history with a description of the U.S. pre-European arrival, focusing on Native

Americans and their lands. This description of North American Indians is treated

geographically. For example, U.S. history textbooks describe the Indian tribes of the

36
I examined the list of books approved for in the LAUSD, revised in May of 2006, June of 2007, and
March 2008 (See Appendix 1 for a full list). The only book I include in this analysis not to carry over into
the 2007 list is the Nash textbook. However, because it is included in the previous years list, I include it
in this analysis as well.

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 eastern seaboard, the southwest, the Northwest, and western coasts. As found in the

1977 study Stereotypes Distortions and Omissions in U.S. History Textbooks, current

U.S. History textbooks extensively describe Native American pre-Columbian cultures,

but little to no continuity between the Native values and beliefs in contemporary times

and pre-Columbian ancestors are described. In the pre-contact period, the land-bridge

narrative represents a central explicit theme that is accompanied by the generated

theme of western scientific rationales. Missing, in these narratives are tribal, or

indigenous, perspectives concerning these narratives, and the conflict that land-bridge

theories produce for indigenous peoples. The western metaphysical components

represented in this section include: originary standpoints that maintain western scientific

beliefs; temporal perspectives that emphasize linear time (in this case pre-history); and

ontological perspectives that center anthropocentric narratives that favor human action

and dualistic perspectives that dichotomize human and nature in the form of geography.

1a. Explicit Theme: Land-Bridge Narrative

As stated, the explicit category refers to descriptions in the social studies texts

where Native Americans are explicitly mentioned, maintaining hegemonic positions. In

this vein, the U.S. History textbooks I examined begin with an explicit narrative

describing how the indigenous people arrived to the United States over the Beringia

land straight. I label this explicit narrative the “land-bridge” theme. This theme of the

land-bridge found in textbooks perpetuates the “nation of immigrants” narrative. As

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 Elizabeth Martinez (1998) explains, “this view [a nation of immigrants] sees Native

Americans as the first ‘immigrants,’ based on their having come across the Bering Strait

from Asia” (p. 33).

For example, Gary Nash’s (1997) U.S. History textbook states:

Archaeological evidence indicates that across the wide, grassy land bridge that
once connected Asia and North America trekked the first people to settle in
North America...The first settlers stalked big game such as mammoths and
bison...Scientists disagree on when people first came to the Americas and on
how many waves of settlement they rode [emphasis added] (p. 22).

Nash (1997) promotes the narrative that Native Americans migrated to North America,

affirming the “nation of immigrants” narrative, and thus represent the “first settlers.”

Gary Nash (1997), professor and director of the National Center for History in the

Schools at UCLA, is widely considered to promote progressive and multicultural

versions of U.S History (Martinez, 1998). Yet when viewed from an indigenous

perspective Nash promotes a version of indigenous peoples’ histories that relies on

western metaphysical structural and informational content.

Joyce Appleby, et. al. (2005), in The American Vision, promote the land-bridge

theme in a similar fashion :

Native Americans are descended from Asians who probably began migrating to
North America approximately 15,000 to 30,000 years ago…
No one can say for certain when the first people arrived in America.
The Folsom discoveries proved that people were here at least 10,000 years ago,
but more recent research suggests that humans arrived much earlier. Presently,
scientific speculation points to a period between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago—
much earlier than what scientists believed…
How long ago the first Americans appeared remains a hotly debated
question. Scientists can state much more confidently, however, who these
earliest people were, how they arrived in America, and what their lives were
like.

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 To learn the origins of ancient peoples, scientists study their skulls, bones,
and teeth. In recent years they have been able to examine DNA…From DNA
and other evidence, researchers have concluded that the earliest Americans
probably came from Asia” [emphasis mine] (pp. 12- 13).

Appleby, et. al. (2005) rely on the same scientific discourse to promote the land-bridge

story, placing science at the center of this debate. Appleby, et al (2005) also affirm the

view that Native Americans, like other peoples, migrated to North America, and thus

represent the “first Americans.”

One more example of the ubiquitous land-bridge theme contained in U.S.

History textbooks is promoted by Danzer, et al (2006):

No one knows for sure when the first Americans arrived, but it may have been
as long as 22,000 years ago. At the time, the glaciers of the last Ice Age had
frozen vast quantities of the earth’s water, lowering sea levels and possibly
creating a land bridge between Asia and Alaska across what is now the Bering
Strait. Ancient hunters may have trekked across the frozen land, known as
Beringia, into North America [emphasis mine] (pp. 4-5).

In this passage, the notion that Native Americans migrated to the land mass of

the U.S. is presented as fact, and it validates the narrative of the United States

being a nation of immigrants, Indians, being the “first.” Although Danzer, et.

al.(2006) qualify their statement that “Ancient hunters may [emphasis added]

have trekked across the frozen land, known as Beringia into North America” (p.

5), this qualification relates to how Native Americans arrived here, and nothing

else. Danzer, et. al. (2006) continue:

Archaeologists believe that the earliest Americans lived as big-game hunters.

That way of life changed around 12,000 to 10,000 years ago when temperatures
warmed, glaciers melted, and sea levels rose once again. The land bridge
disappeared under the Bering Sea, bringing to an end land travel between the
Asian and North American continents. As the climate grew warmer, the large

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 animals no longer thrived. People gradually switched to hunting smaller game
and fish and gathering nuts and berries (p. 5).

Danzer, et al. (2006) display, like Nash (1997) and Appleby, et al. (2005), certitude that

the ancestors of Native Americans crossed a land-bridge into the Americas, and are thus

the first Americans.

Following this trend, Cayton, et al. (2002), also claim definitively that the

ancestors of Native Americans crossed the land-bridge to the Americas to become the

“first” Americans:

Archaeologists think the first Americans may have arrived as many as 40,000
years ago. At that time, known as the Ice Age, the lowering of the level of the
world’s oceans created a temporary land bridge between Asia and what is now
Alaska. As groups arrived from Asia they dispersed, and their settlements
eventually ranged from the Arctic Circle to South America’s tip. by the late
1400s, when the first Europeans arrived, Native Americans had developed a
variety of distinct languages and customs [emphasis mine] (p. 19).

This passage affirms that Native Americans, like all others, are merely immigrants to

this country. Additionally, like the Danzer, et al. (2006) qualification concerning the

date of arrival of peoples to the Americas, Cayton, et al. (2002) claim: “No one knows

exactly when people first came to the Americas. It is known, however, that some early

peoples left fingerprints in New Mexico mud that hardened 28,000 years ago, and that

weapons have been chipped from Alaskan stone 12,000 years ago” (p. 19). Unifying

these passages from the textbooks examined is the reliance on western scientific

rationales to explain both the land-bridge narrative and the evidence relating to when

these earliest Americans might have migrated.

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 1b. Generated Theme-Western Scientific Rationales

The western scientific rationales, although treated in relation to the land-bridge

narratives I define as falling within the generated category, materials that exist in the

background (Smith, 2002). As stated, I define the generated category as concepts and

ideas that do not explicitly name or mention Native Americans, but instead represent

ideas and concepts that directly conflict with Native epistemologies and/or have been

utilized to validate colonial models of education. While one can argue that western

scientific rationales appear in direct relation to Native Americans, I view this rationale

as falling within the generated definition because they appear to support the explicit

theme of land-bridge. For example Nash (1997) states in relation to the land-bridge:

“Archaeological evidence indicates that across the wide, grassy land...trekked the first

people to settle in North America...Scientists disagree on when people first came to the

Americas and on how many waves of settlement they rode” [emphasis added] (p. 22).

Appleby, et. al.(2005) go into further deal concerning western scientific rationales:

The Folsom discoveries proved that people were here at least 10,000 years ago,
but more recent research suggests that humans arrived much earlier.
Presently, scientific speculation points to a period between 15,000 and 30,000
years ago—much earlier than what scientists believed [emphasis added] (pp.
12-13).

While Appleby, et. al. (2005) hints that there is scientific debate concerning the time

period when humans arrived in North America, the authors nevertheless retain their

perspective that humans migrated here. For example, the authors’ state:

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 How long ago the first Americans appeared remains a hotly debated question.
Scientists can state much more confidently, however, who these earliest people
were, how they arrived in America, and what their lives were like.
To learn the origins of ancient peoples, scientists study their skulls, bones,
and teeth. In recent years they have been able to examine DNA…From DNA
and other evidence, researchers have concluded that the earliest Americans
probably came from Asia [emphasis added] (p. 13).

Danzer’s, et. al.’ (2006) reliance on western scientific rationales do not appear

as boldly:

Archaeologists believe that the earliest Americans lived as big-game hunters.

That way of life changed around 12,000 to 10,000 years ago when temperatures
warmed, glaciers melted, and sea levels rose once again. The land bridge
disappeared under the Bering Sea, bringing to an end land travel between the
Asian and North American continents. As the climate grew warmer, the large
animals no longer thrived. People gradually switched to hunting smaller game
and fish and gathering nuts and berries [emphasis added] (p. 5).

Danzer’s et al. (2006) narrative concerning the land-bridge, nevertheless affirms a

reliance on western scientific rationales to frame the discussion surrounding the land-

bridge theory, as evidenced by the reference to archaeology. Interestingly, Danzer et al.

(2006) does not note that this is indeed a theory subject to dispute within scientific

circles.

Cayton et al (2002) rely on the same western scientific sources to explain the

evidence concerning Native American migration to the Americas, yet initially provide

two contrasting theories concerning this arrival: “No one knows exactly when people

first came to the Americas. It is known, however, that some early peoples left

fingerprints in New Mexico mud that hardened 28,000 years ago, and that weapons

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 have been chipped from Alaskan stone 12,000 years ago” (p. 19). Cayton et al (2002)

explain that: “Archaeologists think the first Americans may have arrived as many as

40,000 years ago” [emphasis added] (p. 19). It is not made clear that the so-called

migration of Indians to the Americas is subject to debate within scientific circles. While

Cayton et al. (2002) make clear that it is unknown when these migrations occurred, they

do not state that the dates they present rely on different scientific theories concerning

this migration.

1c. Missing Theme-Indigenous Origins/Perspectives

In constructing the missing category, I was guided by Smith’s (2002)

Decolonizing Methodologies, which center indigenous metaphysics. In this manner, by

intervening (Smith, 2002) in the texts, and offering indigenized (Smith, 2002)

perspectives, the land-bridge and western scientific rationale themes can be read and

reframed (Smith, 2002) in a decolonizing manner. In addition, Wildcat (2001) states

that “American Indians must elaborate our own indigenous systems of metaphysics and

contrast them with the dominant metaphysics of Western civilization” (p. 47), and so in

elaborating upon the missing themes, I contrast indigenous metaphysics from western

metaphysics. Missing from both the explicit and generated categories related to pre-

contact time period are discussions of tribal views of origins. Indigenous perspectives

require critical discussions of western scientific rationales as a paradigm of western

metaphysics and indigenous science approaches informed by indigenous metaphysics.

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 As stated the aforementioned examples of land-bridge and western scientific

rationales, although one is explicit, and the other is generated, demonstrate how

prevalent western metaphysical systems are in relation to narratives concerning

indigenous peoples in the Americas. For example, the texts rely on western scientific

rationales to legitimate their views of indigenous history. These examples are found

universally in the instructional texts analyzed for this dissertation. There is no mention,

or qualification, in any texts, that indigenous creation stories relate completely different

accounts about origins and contain their own scientific thought (Cajete, 2000; Harding,

2003; Maffie, 2003). For instance, the Pueblo tribes’ share emergence stories, which

situate their origins from locations in the Southwest. To be sure indigenous metaphysics

center relationships to place that inform being differently than the narratives included in

the textbooks. In fact, many native peoples dismiss the notion of the land-bridge.

Peter Nabokov (2002) provides a telling example where a Navajo elder is asked

to comment on his thoughts concerning land-bridge theory. The elder provides his

answer through a translator, but the answer he provides repudiates the western theories

promoted by the U.S. History instructional texts: “As for pathways from Western

Alaska south, he said that, ‘maybe some other guys came over like that, but us Navajos

came a different way.’” (p. 30). This tribal member’s individual response to the land-

bridge theory relates back to his tribe’s creation stories. Vine Deloria (1997) explains

that “American Indians, as a general rule, have aggressively opposed the Bering Strait

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 migration doctrine because it does not reflect any of the memories or traditions passed

down by the ancestors over many generations” (p. 81).

Deloria (1997) elaborates that “some tribes speak of transoceanic

migrations….and others speak of the experience of creation”, while others “even talk

about migrations from other planets” (p. 81). In addition, the consequences of

promoting the land-bridge narrative are critical, as it has been used politically to

challenge native sovereignty (Deloria, 1997). Anne Waters (2004) explains that the

reasoning behind this theory promoted in segments of western science supposes that

since Indians themselves migrated to these territories, indigenous peoples are thus only

the earliest inhabitants, a perspective consistently reproduced by the U.S. history

textbooks I examined. In spite of this, indigenous peoples maintain their own origin

stories, and it is in these origins where indigenous peoples locate their rights to self-

governance (Champagne, 2007b).

Exploring particular indigenous metaphysical frameworks provide more context

for this position. For example, Ní[ch' í, place, or geographies are important elements in

the Navajo creation story. McNeley (1997) provides an insight to the belief Navajos

have concerning their origins:

At the place of emergence are four layers (worlds). They emerged with it
(Wind) from there-the Holy People came out through twelve big reeds
connected together. They came up from there with ceremonials. Wind exists
from there, from way back then. It did not form recently (BY)” (p. 15).

Duane Champagne (2002) provides another example of how indigenous tribes view

their relationship to geographic territory in relation to origins:

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 First and foremost, Mohave national identity and homeland were dreamed and
sung realities. They emerged in the era of supernatural ancestors such as Frog,
Serpent, and Buzzard, whose homes and exploits were commemorated in place
names. Then human ancestors claimed these places, amalgamated them into a
sacred geography, and through more dreaming and singing maintained
communication with Frog and Buzzard’s parallel plane of existence (p. 128).

Thus, U.S. History textbooks promote a position that is at odds with indigenous

knowledge and accounts of creation and origins. This land-bridge narrative is presented

as largely fact, and this is accomplished by including western scientific sources in order

provide scientific backing. Western science, however, is a product of its western

metaphysical origins, which many times dismiss indigenous knowledge as primitive and

unreliable.

With regards to western scientific rationales, Sandra Harding (1998) illuminates

that western science itself represents “…a delineation of distinctive characteristics of

European culture and practices, including beliefs about nature and about sciences and

technologies”, or Europology (p. 56). Harold Booher (1998) in Deloria (2002) explains

that “’modern science originated in the Western Judeo-Christian world rather than the

pantheistic East because of a belief in a god that transcends nature and placed man in a

similar kind of transcendence’” (p. 14). Booher (1998) adds, “”[t]his allows man to

observe objectively truth about nature’” (p. 14). Moreover, Harding (1998) explains that

an important cognitive core of western science is its claim to cultural or value neutrality

and when this scientific approach is introduced or applied to other cultures “…it is

experienced as a rude and brutal cultural intrusion” that devalues local or indigenous

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 knowledge systems and legitimizes “'outside experts'”(p. 61). Vine Deloria (2002)

points out that with “science asserting that its answers to these questions [concerning

origins and cosmology] are complete and accurate, we have inherited a strange body of

doctrine that has limited our understanding considerably” (p. 15). With regards to the

land-bridge narrative Deloria (1997) points out that “[m]ost scholars today simply begin

with the assumption that the Bering Strait migration doctrine was proved a long time

ago…” when in fact it has not been proven (p. 70).

In addition U.S. History textbooks promote narratives that are highly contested

even within western circles, western science is consistently changing according to new

methodologies, discoveries, and paradigms (Klein & Schiffner, 2003; National

Academy of Sciences, 1993). While some textbooks such as the Nash (2007) textbook

state: “Scientists disagree on when people first came to the Americas and how many

settlements they rode” (p. 22). He nevertheless indicates that these migrations came

over a land-bridge. Both the Appleby et. al. (2005) and Danzer (2006) texts have similar

qualifications, stating that there are scientific debates concerning when the “first

Americans” crossed the land-bridge. However, as the following Encyclopedia

Smithsonian (2007) entry on Paleoamerican Origins articulates new perspectives on the

ancient movement of peoples:

Recent discoveries in New World archaeology along with new scientific

methods for analyzing data have led to new ideas regarding the origin of the
first peoples of the Americas and their time of arrival.

The traditional theory held that the first Americans crossed the land
bridge from Siberia to Alaska around 11,500 years ago and followed an "ice-

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 free corridor" between two large Canadian ice sheets (the Laurentide and
Cordilleran) to reach unglaciated lands to the south. These first inhabitants,
whose archaeological sites are scattered across North and South America, were
called the Clovis people, named after the town in New Mexico where their
fluted spear points used for hunting mammoth were first found in 1932.

There is now convincing evidence of human habitation sites that date

earlier than the Clovis culture including sites located in South America. Monte
Verde, a well-studied site located along a river near southern central Chile,
dates 12,500 years ago. This site contains the buried remnants of dwellings,
stone tools including large bifacial projectile points, and preserved medicinal
and edible plants. How did people manage to settle this far south at such an
early date? A coastal migration route is now gaining more acceptance,
rather than the older view of small bands moving on foot across the middle
of the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska and into the continents.
Emerging evidence suggests that people with boats moved along the Pacific
coast into Alaska and northwestern Canada and eventually south to Peru and
Chile by 12,500 years ago—and perhaps much earlier [emphasis added]
(Fitzhugh et al., 2007)

As this simply entry describes, the land-bridge theory, while not dismissed is giving

way to other theories. For example, a recent study has found evidence that indeed

Polynesians may have landed on the coasts of the Americas, supporting perspectives of

transoceanic voyages to the Americas pre Columbus, and disrupting unique land-bridge

migrations (Storey et al., 2007). Other theories support or examine the idea of

transoceanic migrations to the Americas in general (Montenegro et al., 2006)

Yet reliance on western scientific rationales represents an extension of western

metaphysics as discussed in the chapter three. Western metaphysics go unnoticed by

most because it is a normalized standpoint within the west, and textbooks are artifacts

of this cultural process. Moreover the project of colonization imposed this system of

knowledge and being upon peoples throughout the world through a variety of

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 mechanisms, some of the most important being conversion to western religions

(particularly Christianity), occupation of non-western lands, and the creation of white-

settler states. A variety of discourses and paradigms have been produced within the

framework of western metaphysics including theology, science, and particular forms of

politics, economics, and social order. From an indigenous standpoint, many scholars

have written extensively on this system or world view (Ball, 2002; Cajete, 2000;

Champagne, 1995; Deloria, 1979, 1992, 1997, 2002; Jojola, 2004; Smith, 2002).

Therefore it is important to draw from the insights of these scholars and indigenous

peoples in general in order to illuminate and make visible western metaphysical

imprints. In the current example, it is important to make visible how textbooks reliance

on western scientific theories as universal interpreters of truth in fact perpetuate specific

cultural, or world-views about other peoples.

In this next section I examine how specific paradigms perpetuated territorial

expansion by white settlers, pushed on by ideologies deeply formulated in western

metaphysical assumptions.

2. Westward Expansion

Like pre-contact narratives universally contained in the U.S. History

instructional texts examined, the narrative concerning westward expansion and

settlement in the U.S. is ubiquitous in the materials examined. Westward expansion in

the textbooks evaluated contains both explicit and generated categories. Specifically,

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 explicit mention of Indians in relation to westward expansion has to do with the clash

between white settlers and Indians as the settlers move west. Generated categories with

regard to westward expansion, such as manifest destiny, do not explicitly mention

Indians, but nevertheless manifest destiny represents a topic that clearly has great

implications for Native Americans. The missing themes have to do with tribal, or

indigenous perspectives, concerning westward expansion. These indigenous standpoints

provide interesting counterpoints to the explicit and generated themes of westward

expansion found in the texts. Again, the same western metaphysical components of

origins, temporality, and ontology, developed in the pre-contact narratives, are repeated

in this section. Regarding origins, the focus of this time period on westward expansion

centers on the expansion of white European settlers within the North American

continent and the inevitable movement and progress made by this expansion. Likewise

linear and chronological methods chart settlers’ expansions west, and the ontological

focus remains anthropocentric.

a. Explicit Theme-Westward Expansion (White settlers clash with

Indians)

Focusing on the same four instructional texts, the narratives of westward

expansion deal at length with various episodes where Native American tribes and white

settlers clash, specifically focusing on two time periods in which white settlers pushed

west, the early and late 19th century. For example, Nash (1997) explains in the section

titled “Territorial Expansion, November 7, 1805: Explorers Reach the Pacific Ocean”:

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 Only 40 years earlier, the frontier—the shifting zone where colonist-controlled
lands met Native American- controlled lands—began at the Appalachian
Mountains. Over the next decades white settlers steadily displace Native
Americans as they pushed this frontier westward (p. 130).

Nash (1997) describes that during this time, “the threat pioneers feared most, however,

was an attack from Native Americans” (p. 133). On the other hand, Nash (1997)

counters:

The greatest threat to Native Americans, in turn was white settlers. For more
than 150 years Native Americans had watched a tide of settlers stream west,
threatening their ways of life Usually, however, the conflicts between settlers
and Native Americans arose over land.
In theory, the United States government insisted on respect for Native
American land claims. In 1787 the Northwest Ordinance declared: ‘The utmost
good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their land and property
shall never be taken from them without their consent; and, in their property
rights, and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed.’—The Northwest
Ordinance, 1787
This well-intentioned promise proved flimsy, however, in the face of
land-hungry settlers (pp. 133-134).

Nash (1997) further describes the impact of this early 19th century expansion on the

Shawnee and the Cherokee, relating the story of Tecumseh and the Trail of Tears. Nash

(1997) writes: “The Cherokee learned that many conflicts between white settlers and

Native Americans were resolved using the written laws of the state

governments…[t]hese efforts, however, did not protect the Cherokee from Southern

whites who hungered to obtain Cherokee land to grow cotton” (p.135). He concludes,

“the Cherokee were unable to stop the relentless westward advance of white people”

(ibid).

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 Nash’s (1997) account of late 19th century expansion explores the conflict

between settlers and Native Americans in the Great Plains and Oklahoma and the

Homestead Act:

The success of the Oklahoma rush led the government to open more lands in
the West. The following year, federal authorities authorized settlement on
millions of acres of Sioux land in South Dakota. The government could not
hold back the tide of eager settlers, and after 1900 thousands descended on the
former Native American reservation (pp. 196-197).

Nash (1997) further describes that the opening of the west was enabled by the

completion of the transcontinental railroad, but the expansion of the railroad proved to

be disastrous for Native Americans:

The rapid settlement of the lands west of the Mississippi River after the Civil
War led to a generation of violent conflict. Settlers fought the dozens of Native
American nations that had inhabited these lands for generations.
In 1871 the federal government decreed that all Western Native
American nations must agree to relocate to one of two reservation areas. The
northern Plains nations were assigned to the western half of present-day South
Dakota; the southern Plains nations were assigned to what is now Oklahoma.
Government policy, as well as military conflict with those who resisted,
undermined Native American cultures. In 1871 the government ended the
practice of treating each Native American nation separately. Under the new
policy, Native Americans lost two rights. They could no longer negotiate
treaties to protect their lands and they could no longer vote on laws governing
their fate…
Some reformers compared this act [Dawes Act] to the Emancipation
Proclamation: just as enslaved people were set free, so Native Americans would
gradually gain citizenship…Within 20 years after the Dawes Act, Native
Americans retained control of only 20 percent of their original reservation lands
(pp. 200-201).

Nash’s (1997) narrative concerning white settler expansion into the western territories

of the United States presents a dark time in the history of the United States, which

condemns white settlers for their “land hungry” actions and the inaction of the United

States in respecting treaties.

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 However, Nash (1997) also presents this aspect of American Indian history as

an inevitable result, as evidenced by the following excerpt:

A newspaper editor in that year summed up the prevailing feeling among the
[white] settlers: ‘Sympathy and sentiment never stand in the way of the onward
march of empire.’ The Oglala Sioux leader Red Cloud…expressed the
corresponding Native American lament in 1870: ‘When we first had all this
land we were strong; now we are all melting like snow on the hillside, while
you are growing like spring grass’” (p. 201).

These two accounts, one provided by a white settler, and one by a popularly featured

Native American leader, both express the idea that both white expansion and Native

American removal and termination were an inevitable result of the march of the

American nation.

Appleby, et. al. (2005) provide a similar narrative that begins with a description

of early white settler expansion:

By 1790 the area between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi
River had become the most rapidly growing region in the United States. Drawn
by abundant land, fertile soil, wide rivers, and a wide variety of fish and game,
Americans flocked to the region. In less than a decade, Kentucky had grown
from a few hundred settlers to over 70,000, and in 1792, it became a state. Four
years later, Tennessee became a state as well. In the meantime, other settlers
were moving steadily west from Pennsylvania and Virginia into the Northwest
Territory. The rise in white settlement led to confrontations with Native
Americans in the region (p. 217).

In addition, Appleby, et al. (2005) describe the late 19th century surge of white settler

expansion into the west, focusing on the Native cultures of the plains.

As ranchers, miners, and farmers moved onto the Plains, they deprived Native
Americans of their hunting grounds, broke treaties guaranteeing certain lands to
the Plains Indians, and often forced them to relocate to new territory. Native
Americans resisted by attacking wagon trains, stagecoaches, and ranches.
Occasionally an entire group would go to war against nearby settlers and
troops. The first major clash on the Plains began in 1862, when the Sioux
people in Minnesota launched a major uprising (p. 426)

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The authors describe conflicts between the white settlers and Sioux and Cheyenne tribes

in particular. With regards to the impact that this settler expansion into the west had on

native peoples, the authors explain that there were Americans who opposed the

treatment of Indians by the U.S.:

Some Americans had long opposed the treatment of Native Americans. Author
Helen Hunt Jackson described the years of broken promises and assaults on
Native Americans in her book, A Century of Dishonor, published in 1881.
Jackson’s descriptions of events such as the massacre at Sand Creek sparked
discussions—even in Congress—of better treatment for Native Americans (p.
430).

However, the recommendations of these concerned Americans, though is presented

uncritically:

Some people believed that the situation would improve only if Native
Americans could assimilate, or be absorbed, into American society as
landowners and citizens. That meant breaking up reservations into individual
allotments, where families could become self-supporting.
This policy became law in 1887 when Congress passed the Dawes Act.
This act allotted to each head of household 160 acres of reservation land for
farming…The land that remained after all members and received allotments
would be sold to American settlers, with the proceeds going into a trust for
Native Americans.
This plan failed to achieve its goals. Some Native Americans succeeded
as farmers or ranchers, but many had little training or enthusiasm for either
pursuit. …
In the end, the assimilation policy proved a dismal failure. No
legislation could provide a satisfactory solution to the Native American issue,
because there was no entirely satisfactory solution to be had. The Plains
Indians were doomed because they were dependent on buffalo for food,
clothing, fuel, and shelter. When the herds were wiped out, Native Americans
on the Plains had no way to sustain their way of life, and few were willing or
able to adopt American setters’ lifestyles in place of their traditional cultures (p.
430).

Appleby, et. al’s (2005) discussion of the impact of westward expansion and ensuing

U.S. policy towards Indians echoes Nash’s (1997) accounts, providing specific

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 examples of European settlers encountering various tribes as the whites pressed west.

However, it does not provide a critical account of the policies enacted upon Indians and

the beliefs that drove them.

Danzer, et. al (2006) offer analogous narratives in the text The Americans:

Reconstruction to the 21st Century, beginning with early 19th century settler expansion

into the west:

As various presidents established policies in the early 19th century that

expanded U.S. territory, American settlers pushed first into the Northwest
Territory and then headed farther west.

For a quarter century after the War of 1812, only a few Americans explored the
West. Then, in the 1840s, expansion fever gripped the country. Many
Americans began to believe that their movement westward was predestined by
God. The phrase “manifest destiny” expressed the belief that the United States
was ordained to expand to the Pacific Ocean and into Mexican and Native
American territory. Many Americans also believed that this destiny was
manifest, or obvious and inevitable” (pp. 130-131).

In this case Manifest Destiny is linked to the westward expansion into Native American

territory, but it does so in an uncritical way.

Danzer et al. (2006) describe that in the late 19th century the tide of western

expansion was propelled by differing belief systems. In chapter 5, “Changes on the

Western Frontier”, Danzer, et al. devote a section, “Cultures Clash on the Prairie” on

the interactions and clashes between white settlers and the Indians of the great plains.

They describe Native American cultural life in brief detail:

Native Americans on the plains usually lived in small extended family groups
with ties to other bands that spoke the same language…The Plains Indian tribes
believed that powerful spirits controlled events in the natural world….Despite
their communal way of life, however, no individual was allowed to dominate

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 the group. The leaders of a tribe ruled by counsel rather than by force, and land
was held in common for the use of the whole tribe (p. 203).

Danzer, et al. (2006) go on to distinguish Native American land usage from that of

white settlers:

The culture of the white settlers differed in many ways from that of the Native
Americans on the plains. Unlike Native Americans, who believed that land
could not be owned, the settlers believed that owning land, making a mining
claim, or starting a business would give them a stake in the country. They
argued that Native Americans had forfeited their rights to the land because they
hadn’t settled down to “improve” it. Concluding that the plains were
“unsettled,” migrants streamed westward along railroad and wagon trails to
claim the land (p. 203).

In addition, the authors relate that white settlers were driven by economic incentives

created by the discovery of gold in the west.

The authors explain that the increased number of settlers, spurred by

government policy, infrastructural development, and cultural attitudes set the stage for

increased number of conflicts between settlers and Indians:

While allowing more settlers to move westward, the arrival of the railroads also
influenced the government’s policy toward the Native Americans who lived on
the plains. In 1834, the federal government had passed an act that designated
the entire Great Plains as one enormous reservation, or land set aside for Native
American tribes. In the 1850s, however, the government changed its policy and
created treaties that defined specific boundaries for each tribe. Most Native
Americans spurned the government treaties and continued to hunt on their
traditional lands, clashing with settlers and miners—with tragic results (p. 204).

Like Appleby, et al. (2005), Danzer, et al. (2006) describe the same battles and

skirmishes between the settlers and the Cheyenne (massacre at Sand Creek), Sioux

(Bozeman Trail, Wounded Knee), Comanche (Red River war) and others, maintaining a

partiality towards plains Indian representation.

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 Danzer, et al. (2006), like Appleby et al. (2005), also include content on Helen

Hunt Jackson, the representative figure of Americans unhappy with the treatment of

Native Americans: “The Native Americans still had supporters in the United States, and

debate over the treatment of Native Americans continued. The well-known writer Helen

Hunt Jackson, for example, exposed the government’s many broken promises in her

1881 book A Century of Dishonor” (206). Like Appleby et. al. (2005), Danzer, et. al.

(2006) point out that

At the same time many sympathizers supported assimilation, a plan under

which Native Americans would give up their beliefs and way of life and
become part of the white culture.
…The Dawes Act. In 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Act aiming to
“Americanize” the Native Americans. The act broke up the reservations and
gave some of the reservation land to individual Native Americans—160 acres
to each head of household and 80 acres to each unmarried adult. The
government would sell the remainder of the reservations to settlers, and the
resulting income would be used by Native Americans to buy farm implements.
By 1932, whites had taken about two-thirds of the territory that had been set-
aside for Native Americans. In the end, the Native Americans received no
money from the sale of these lands.” (pp. 206-207).

Danzer, et. al end this section, mentioning the Battle of Wounded knee, stating, “[t]his

event… brought the Indian wars—and an entire era—to a bitter end” (p. 208).

The Cayton, et al. (2002) textbook provides a similar lengthy narrative

concerning westward expansion, examining early and late 19th century expansion. The

authors explain that as trappers and traders explored the west, they brought back with

them “tales” of land that “encouraged thousands of American to begin pushing

westward into Texas, New Mexico, California, and Oregon” (p. 76), but this expansion

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 into the west resulted in tense encounters and conflicts with Native Americans.

Cayton et. al (2002) describe the first wave of this push west:

Throughout the early history of the United States, treaty upon treaty was made
and broken with Native Americans. Then in 1830 congress passed the Indian
Removal Act, which allowed the President to move eastern Indian peoples to
lands west of the Mississippi River. Over the next ten years, most eastern
Native Americans were driven west.
One of the groups forced west during this time was the Cherokee… and in
1837 and 1838, the United States Army gathered about 15,000 Cherokee and
forced them to migrate west…
Although the United States had proclaimed all land west of the 95th
meridian to be “Indian Country,” Native Americans would soon find that this
offered them no protection. Thousands of white settlers continued to pour into
Oregon, California, and other western regions. Meanwhile, the Bureau of
Indian Affairs, created to deal with Native American issues, tried to
“extinguish” Native American land claims through treaties and yearly
payments. By the 1850s the government increasingly championed the idea of
forcing Indians onto reservations.” (p. 77)

Cayton et al. (2002) also describe the westward movement of the late 19th century and

the beliefs that drove the settlers:

For generations, many Americans viewed the West as a wild, empty expanse,
freely available to those brave enough to tame it. But the West was not empty.
Other had been living there for centuries….
…Following the Civil War, the railroad companies began pushing their way
deeper into the West. With each mile of track laid, the Native Americans’
chances for survival became bleaker. The Plains soon swarmed with settlers,
many of whom felt justified in taking Native American lands. Settlers believed
they had a greater right to the land because they improved it by producing more
food and wealth than did the Native Americans (p. 180).

The authors attempt to provide a Native American perspective, adding: “To Native

Americans, on the other hand, the oncoming settlers were simply invaders. The Indian

peoples wanted to continue to live off their lands as they had been doing, free of the

influence of outsiders” (p. 180). They continue:

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 Some Native Americans tried to initiate friendly contacts. Others, however,
resisted violently. Many groups, realizing that they were outgunned and
outnumbered, eventually signed treaties that sold their lands. These nations
accepted federal government demands that they live within reservations, or
federal lands set-aside for Native Americans.
Often these agreements fell apart. One reason was that many had been
signed without the full approval of the affected Indian groups. In addition,
Native Americans and white settlers had widely different concepts of owning
land. When Native Americans signed treaties, they often did not realize that
settlers would not let them continue using the land. Isolated acts of violence on
both sides set off cycles of revenge and counter-revenge.” (p. 180).

While Cayton et al. (2002) attempt to provide a Native perspective, it is limited and

generalized to all Native Americans, and they do not explore the reasons white settlers

and tribes approached and understood their relationships to land differently.

Cayton et al. (2002) go on to describe what they call “the final destruction” of

Native American groups describing the defeat of the Cheyenne, and Sioux, continuing

the focus on Plains tribes, supplementing it with the defeats of the Navajo and Apache.

In this textbook, we again find Helen Hunt Jackson, but the authors do make the point

that while people condemned the treatment of American Indians they nevertheless

continued to hold negative views about Indians:

As sincere as reformers were, however most believed that Native Americans

still needed to be “civilized.” Christian missionaries, who ran schools on the
reservations, shared this belief. The government supported this opinion and
passed a criminal code in 1884 forbidding Indians to practice their religion.
Other reformers sought to break Native American traditions by requiring
Indians to farm individual plots. The Dawes Act of 1887 gave separate plots of

land to each Native American family headed by a male. Much of the land was
not suitable for farming, however, and many Native Americans had no interest
or experience in agriculture. Many simply sold their lands to speculators…” (p.
182)

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Cayton, et al. (2002) explain that government policies, such as homesteading increased

the number of settlers into Indian territory:

For the nearly 70 Indian nations that had been forced into Indian Territory,
worse was to come. Following the Civil War, a flood of settlers began to enter
the territory. Many were squatters, tempted by the territory’s farmland.
Although Native Americans protested and the government tried to stop
them, squatters continued to come. Other would-be settlers pressured Congress
to allow legal settlement in the territory. In 1889 Congress responded, opening
for homesteading nearly 2 million acres in Indian Territory that had not been
assigned to Native Americans (p. 183)

Arguably this passage minimizes the fault of the U.S. Government in opening up Indian

territory, proposing that Congress was merely responding to the pressure of settlers,

instead of acknowledging that the interests of Congress and the settlers were one in the

same.

While the U.S. history textbooks vary in detail regarding the impacts of

westward expansion they do articulate the reality that Native Americans were displaced,

many times violently, as a function of this. This displacement was encouraged by

ideologies and policies that facilitated expansionism. The narrative of westward

expansion is told from the Eurocentric perspective, with a limited attempt to include

Native viewpoints (however hegemonic). In addition, the textbooks point out that White

settlers and Indians had differing views regarding land, but they fail to explore the

reasons for these differing cultural attitudes. In addition they fail to critically engage

how the settler cultural attitude shaped and defined policies that were detrimental for

Indian peoples.

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 b. Generated Theme-Westward Expansion (Manifest Destiny)

Coupling the explicit categories of westward expansion with the generated

categories of the same time period provides a larger and more intimate portrait of

western metaphysical approaches in history. For example, within the generated

category of westward expansion, I found U.S. History textbooks point to the role of

Manifest Destiny in promoting westward expansion. In this regard, implicit in the

narratives of westward expansion is the foundational ideology of the frontier. Martinez

(1998) argues that “the frontier myth embodied the nineteenth-century concept of

Manifest Destiny, a doctrine that served to justify expansionist violence by means of

intrinsic racial superiority” (p. 45); manifest destiny is thus the belief that white

expansion was a necessary component of progress, which stood in opposition to the

backwardness of Indians that needed to be removed (Martinez, 1998).

Gary Nash (1997) writes on the subject of Manifest Destiny:

American settlers were flooding into territories throughout the country. Settler
in foreign-owned territories such as Oregon, Texas, and California wanted a
government of their own, and they wanted to be part of the United
States….James K. Polk was the settlers’ champion. When Polk ran for
President in 1844, he warmly supported expansionism, the process of
increasing the territory of the United States. After his election, Polk set out to
gain Oregon as well as the Southwest. Polk and many other Americans
supported the concept of Manifest Destiny—the notion that the United States
was a superior country and had a right to invade, conquer and occupy the North
American continent and beyond [emphasis added] (p. 219).

The Appleby, et. al. (2005) textbook states:

In 1845 a magazine editor named John Louis O’Sullivan declared that it was
the “manifest destiny” of Americans “to overspread the continent allotted by
Providence….” Many Americans believed in this concept of Manifest

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 Destiny—the idea that God had given the content to Americans and wanted
them to settle western lands” [emphasis added] (pp. 294-295).

Danzer, et. al. (2006) echo:

Many Americans began to believe that their movement westward was

predestined by God. The phrase “manifest destiny” expressed the belief that
the United States was ordained to expand to the Pacific Ocean and into
Mexican and Native American territory. Many Americans also believed that
this destiny was manifest, or obvious and inevitable (p. 130).

Interestingly, Cayton, et al. (2002) description of manifest destiny immediately follows

the section titled, “Native Americans lose their land.” However, there is no explicit link

made between the mentioned section, and the section on manifest destiny. Regarding

manifest destiny, Cayton et al. (2002) state:

Throughout the 1830s and 1840s, some Americans dreamed of continental

empire stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They believed that the United
States had a divine mission to spread liberty across the continent. A New York
journalist named John L. O’Sullivan neatly captured this sense of mission when
he coined the phrase manifest destiny. O’Sullivan claimed it was the nation’s
“manifest destiny” to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent
[emphasis added] (p. 77).

While a student may be able to connect the ideology of manifest destiny to the

displacement of Native Americans (and other groups such as Mexicans in the

Southwest), the overall nature of the discussion in the textbooks concerning manifest

destiny does not make this connection clear. Furthermore, the texts examined many

times mitigate the injustice of white settlement in Native territory by claiming it was

inevitable as settlers had practical reasons motivated by economics and abundance of

land available in “new” territories.

c. Missing Themes-Native Perspectives

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 What are missing from the westward expansion narratives contained in the

texts are the perspectives of tribes, or indigenous peoples, with regard to these territorial

intrusions. In addition, missing are indigenous perspectives concerning the

chronological approach to the narration of westward expansion. The insights provided

by these passages do not link up how these past wrongs continue to benefit white settler

society today, promoting a disconnect between past wrongs and today’s reality. In

essence these insights promote the narrow perspective identified by studies decades old

(Costo & Henry, 1970; Council on Interracial Books for Children, 1977a; C. H.

Swanson, 1977). In this way, the textbooks perpetuate settler-perspectivism, which

functions to legitimize the conquest and occupation of Indian lands, minimizing past

acts that are key in forging a cohesive national identity that obfuscates the genocide,

removal, and taking of Indian peoples and lands that to this day continue to reward

settler society. As Olund (2002) argues the “project of removal and reterritorialization

of Native people and land is the history of any modern settler state. It marks the crucial

difference between settler colonialism and overseas imperialism…Yet, like its overseas

cousins, American ‘internal’ colonialism was and still is a project of bringing

indigenous people into the orbit of Western history” (p. 132).

For example, in the discussions of westward expansionism, the reliance on

specific ways of dealing with history, fail to connect the origins of expansionism to

foundational tenets of western world-views, such as Christianity, Enlightenment and the

belief in white supremacy. For this reason it is important to pair how the U.S. History

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 instructional texts explicitly deal with Native American history as it relates to the

U.S., to the findings in the generated category. In addition, the textbooks do little to

connect leading ideologies of expansionism, such as Manifest Destiny to the

displacement of Native Americans. The concept of Manifest Destiny, “the idea that God

had given the content to Americans and wanted them to settle western lands” (Appleby

et al., 2005), was part of a larger discourse of the frontier, that continue to shape

Americans’ perceptions of themselves (Fredrickson, 1997). Frederick Jackson Turner

(1893), historian and author of the popularly called “Turner thesis”, advanced the idea

that the settlement of the West produced a cohesive American national identity—a

melting pot of European immigrants that came together to form the rugged,

individualist American, champion of democracy. Turner’s (1893) thesis is a key

component of the building of ‘new American’ identity of settlerism. With regard to the

territories of the West, Jackson (1893) famously stated: “The most significant thing

about the American frontier is , that it lies at the hither edge of free land” (p. 3).

This “closing” of the American frontier, is central to settler perspectivism, and

settler national identity. Anderson Olund (2002) again provides a provocative analysis

that applies here, explaining “Indians could only become Americans if ‘lawless’ Indian

Country were actively reconstituted as a governable space comprising individual,

private properties” (p. 133). The governable space during the period of westward

expansion in the 19th century was east of the frontier line, defined by Nash (1997) as the

“shifting zone where colonist-controlled lands met Native American-controlled lands”

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 (p. 13). In order to open Indian territories to settler expansions, the textbooks describe

that a series of governmental action and inaction created the means with which to

achieve the opening of these territories. Olund (2002) maintains, that “[t]o this end,

Indian reformers, including those working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, pursued a

legislative agenda [Major Crimes Act of 1885 & Dawes Act of 1887] of extending US

judicial sovereignty over reservations and allotting the land to individuals,

transformations that could only make sense in terms of one another” (p. 133). Although

the textbooks do not reference the Major Crimes Act, they do provide passages relating

how the Dawes Act was used to discourage Indian culture through the breaking apart of

reservation lands. Olund (2002) concludes that these “…acts mark a particular

transformation in the geography of American colonialism from one of displacement and

segregation to that of governance and individuation, a transformation that enabled the

erasure of conquest from the discourse of American liberal governance” (p. 133). This

gave way to the frontier myth and an American national identity, free from the baggage

of the Indian problem, which I identify as White Settler Nationalism (WSN).

Similarly, both the explicit and generated themes relating to westward

expansion are missing how the ideologies that promulgated expansionism are a

reflection of western metaphysics. For this reason the discourse of the land-bridge

theme, cannot be separated from the ideological underpinnings of manifest destiny that

promoted westward expansion. Taken together, these narratives serve as a

psychological excuse, on top of the ideological and territorial excuses mentioned above,

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 to legitimate the removal of Indians from these territories. Vine Deloria (1997)

explains that Americans “want to believe that the Western Hemisphere, and more

particularly North America, was a vacant, unexploited fertile land waiting to be put

under cultivation according to God’s holy dictates” (pp. 67-68). In conjunction with this

belief, Deloria (1997) argues “is the idea that American Indians were not original

inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere” (p. 68). Therefore, if Indians were immigrants,

then “they had no real claim to land that could not be swept away by European

discovery” (Ibid).

Textbooks, explicitly in some cases and implicit in others, retain the problematic

biases found in early textbooks. Although, these biases may not utilize the same

terminology, the connection can be made between Deloria’s (1997) insights and

Vogel’s (1968) work. For example, while current textbooks condemn the treatment and

displacement of Native Americans, they manufacture a sort of disconnect between past

actions and current privileges enjoyed by white settler society. This disconnect is

synonymous with the second school of historical treatment of Indians, defined by Vogel

(1968) as disembodiment—acknowledgement of “the existence of the Indian, but only

as a subhuman nomad, a part of the fauna belonging to the wilderness yet to be

conquered; in short, a troublesome obstacle to be overcome” (p. 18). It can be directly

linked to Costo and Henry’s (1970) findings that textbooks present white settler

expansion as an inevitable result of progress—a manifest destiny.

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 The ideological underpinnings of concepts such as manifest destiny laid the

historical foundations for a white settler ideology, indeed WSN that allowed not only

for the displacement of American Indians, but also for Jim Crow laws and segregation,

and the displacement of Mexicans following the 1845 Texas annexation, and the 1848

cession of Mexican lands to the United States. Interestingly, two bodies of Supreme

Court law developed in relation to African-Americans (subsequently racial minorities)

and American Indians, Civil Rights and Federal Indian law respectively. While

indigenous peoples view their rights to self-government originating from their creation

teachings (Champagne, 2007b), the U.S. government perceives these rights to be

granted by a series of treaties and law (Wilkins, 1994; Williams, 1990). Even though

the U.S. has made this distinction, albeit through its own rule of law and not that of

indigenous peoples, U.S. history textbooks fail to address this, opting instead to present

Indians as minorities.

3. Civil Rights

U.S. History textbooks overwhelmingly address Native Americans in the

modern period in the sections dealing with minority movements for equality.

Specifically, the context of minority rights is framed within the discourse of the Civil

Rights Movement. While the term minority rights is used to explicitly describe

responses to Civil Rights, the notion of equality generatively speaks to the broader

ideas encompassed by the Civil Rights movement, that while not explicitly mentioned

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 in regard to Native Americans, necessarily impact them. The missing category

continues with the trend found in pre-contact and westward expansion periods. Missing

from the texts are indigenous perspectives concerning minority rights and equality.

Certainly, Native American movements for indigenous rights were shaped and

buttressed by the African American Civil Rights and other movements for equality, yet

the framing of Native Americans as minorities excludes a more involved discussion that

articulates Native American sovereignty and cultural notions of nationhood. Like the

time periods of pre-contact and westward expansion described above, the civil rights

narratives contained in the textbooks strictly adhere to western metaphysical

perspectives of origins, time, and ontology. Regarding origins, the framing remains

within the settler-state, affirming settler state mechanisms, which define ontology

through legal mechanisms, such as civil rights. These origins and ontological forms

remain anthropocentric, leaving little room for indigenous informed metaphysics.

a. Explicit Theme-Civil Rights (Minority Rights)

U.S. history textbooks begin with detailed reviews of the African-American

Civil Rights movement. Following the chapters or sections on Civil Rights, the

instructional texts generally follow with narratives concerning “other” movements for

equality, including the women’s liberation movement, Latino, Asian-Americans, and

Native Americans, which they describe [excepting women] as minority right’s

movements. In addition, Native Americans are treated as “protestors”, affirming the

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 decades old study by the Council on Interracial Books for Children (1977),

Stereotypes Distortions and Omissions in U.S. History Textbooks.

With regards to form and knowledge compartmentalization, the Nash (1997)

textbook is organized in the following way: Unit 8-Toward Equality and Social Reform.

This unit is divided into three chapters: Chapter 20-The Civil Rights Struggle; Chapter

21-The Kennedy-Johnson years; and Chapter 22-Voices of Protest. Chapter 22, in

particular, is organized according to three sections, which examine the “Revival of

Feminism”, Hispanic American Organizing, and Land Claims of Native Americans.

Appleby, et. al’s. (2005) text similarly places Native Americans within the context of

protest and civil rights in Chapter 31 titled, “The Politics of Protest, 1960-1980”, which

includes sections on the student movement, the feminist movement, and “New

Approaches to Civil Rights”. In this chapter, Native American movements are

examined in the “New Approaches to Civil Rights” section that describes both

“Hispanic Americans” and “Native Americans” organizing. Similarly, the Danzer, et.

al. (2006) textbook examines Native Americans during this time period in the chapter

titled “An Era of Social Change”, in the first section titled, “Latinos and Native

Americans Seek Equality”. This section on Latinos and Native Americans is followed

by the section heading, “Women Fight for Equality”. Finally, in the Cayton et al. (2002)

textbook Native Americans are included in the chapter “ Other Social Movements,

1960-1975”, which is divided into three sections: 1.The Women’s Movement; 2.Ethnic

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 Minorities Seek Equality (subsections, the Latino Population, Asian Americans Fight

Discrimination); and 3.Native American Struggles.

While some texts point out that Native Americans sought autonomy during this

time period, occupied a unique legal status in the United States, and were not

immigrants (in the modern sense), the texts nevertheless reaffirm a primary minority

status of Native Americans. Nash’s (1997) textbook American Odyssey: The United

States in the 20th Century states:

As with Hispanic Americans, assimilation was an issue among Native

Americans and a factor in government decisions for several decades. Unlike
other minorities [emphasis added], Native Americans had never been
immigrants, for they were already here when Europeans first colonized the
country (p. 743).

One can ascertain from this statement, that Native Americans, despite their immigrant

or non-immigrant status, continue to be minorities. Furthermore, while Nash (1997)

states Native Americans are not immigrants, he continues to affirm the western view

that Native Americans migrated to this territory before the Europeans arrived, though

Nash (1997) does introduce the concept of self-determination:

...Many Native Americans did not want to blend their traditional cultures with
the American mainstream. They wanted self-determination, the opportunity to
participate themselves in the political and economic decisions that affected their
lives” (p. 743).

Even as Nash (1997) addresses self-determination, he frames it as participation in the

U.S. political and economic process, and he does not address Native views of self-

determination.

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 The Appleby, et. al. (2005) text utilizes similar accounts describing Native

Americans as protestors within this period of U.S. history. First the narrative frames

Native Americans as a minority group: “Using the civil rights movement as a model,

women, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans also organized to gain greater

recognition and equality” [emphasis added] (p. 918). In section 3 titled “Native

Americans Raise their Voices”, the textbook states:

Native Americans in 1970 were one of the nation’s smallest minority groups,
constituting less than one percent of the U.S. population. Few minority groups,
however, had more justifiable grievances than the descendants of America’s
original inhabitants...Most urban Native Americans suffered from
discrimination and from limited education and training. The bleakest statistic of
all showed that life expectancy among Native Americans was almost seven
years below the national average. To improve conditions, many Native
Americans began organization in the late 1960s and 1970s [emphasis added] (p.
936).

While the authors clarify that Native Americans are the original inhabitants of the

United States this is qualified as “descendants of Americas original inhabitants”,

placing primary emphasis on belonging to the United States and not their own tribal

nations. Appleby, et. al. (2005), like Nash (2007) do include language concerning self-

determination:

Unlike other groups demanding more assimilation into mainstream society,

many Native Americans wanted greater independence from it. They took a step
toward this goal in 1968 when Congress passed the Indian Civil Rights Act. It
guaranteed reservation residents the protections of the Bill of Rights, but it also
recognized the legitimacy of local reservation law [emphasis added] (pp. 936-
937).

While this represents a more detailed discussion of native self-determination, it

nevertheless falls short of explaining sovereignty, nationhood, and Native cultural views

234
 of tribal life. Nevertheless, Native Americans are firmly located within the discourse

of “other groups”, or minorities in the Appleby, et. al. (2005) textbook, qualified as

minorities who want to maintain some independence form American society.

Danzer et. al. (2006) maintain this position of Natives as minorities in a section

titled, “Native Americans Struggle for Equality”:

As are Latinos, Native Americans are sometimes viewed as a single

homogeneous group, despite the hundreds of distinct Native American tribes
and nations in the United States. One thing that these diverse tribes and nations
have share is a mostly bleak existence in the United States and a lack of
autonomy, or ability to control and govern their own lives. Through the years,
many Native Americans have clung to their heritage, refusing to assimilate, or
blend, into mainstream society…Despite their cultural diversity, Native
Americans as a group have been the poorest of Americans and have suffered
from the highest unemployment rate [emphasis added] (p. 771).

This passage makes clear that the authors are treating Native Americans as a

minority group, akin to Latinos and subject to the same issues of cultural

continuity and assimilation. It is also interesting to note some of the negative

descriptors used by the authors concerning Native life in the U.S., including

“bleak existence” and “Native Americans have “clung to their heritage”.

As is typical of the other texts, Danzer, et. al. (2006) include narratives

on Indians as protestors, like Latinos, African-Americans and women:

Voices of Protest. Many young Native Americans were dissatisfied with the
slow pace of reform. Their discontent fueled the growth of the American Indian
Movement (AIM), an often militant Native American rights organization.
While AIM began in 1968 largely as a self-defense group against police
brutality, it soon branched out to include protecting the rights of large native
American populations in northern and western states. For some, this new
activism meant demanding that Native American lands, burial grounds, and
fishing and timber rights be restored. Others wanted a new respect for their
culture…” (pp. 771-772).

235
It seems that Danzer, et. al. (2006) continue to attach negative descriptors to

describe Native Americans’ social protest activity, including, militant and

violent. Important in these passages, though, Danzer, et.al., (2006) do include

specific indigenous issues such as fishing and timber rights, and as demonstrated

below, the honoring of treaty rights:

Confronting the Government. In its early years, AIM, as well as other groups,
actively—and sometimes violently—confronted the government. In 1972, AIM
leader Russell Means organized the “Trail of Broken Treaties” march in
Washington, D.C., to protest the U.S. government’s treaty violations
throughout history (p. 772).

In addition, Danzer, et. al. (2006) include content that speaks to Indian self-

determination, and their status as nations:

Congress and the federal courts did make some reforms on behalf of Native
Americans. In 1972, Congress passed the Indian Education Act. In 1975, it
passed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act. These
laws gave tribes greater control over their own affairs and over their children’s
education…Armed with copies of old land treaties that the U.S. government
had broken, Native Americans went to federal court and regained some of their
rights to land…Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Native Americans won
settlements that provided legal recognition of their tribal lands as well as
financial compensation (pp. 772-773).

While the content seems to demonstrate sensitivity to important issues of Indian

self-determination, such as treaty rights, the authors nevertheless remind the

reader that Indians are minorities. The following sentence directly follows the

previous quote:

…While the 1960s and the early 1970s saw a wave of activism from the
nation’s minority groups, another group of Americans also pushed for
changes. Women, while not a minority group, were in many ways treated like

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 second-class citizens, and many joined together to demand equal treatment in
society [emphasis added] (p. 773).

Like Danzer et al. (2006), Cayton et al. (2002) does state that Native Americans

occupy a unique status in the United States. Cayton et al. (2002) describe this unique

status, in more detail than the other texts:

As the original inhabitants of North America, Native Americans occupied a

unique social and legal position. Although Indian cultures and languages varied
among peoples, white society viewed them as one group. By 1871 the United
States no longer recognized Indian nations as independent powers. It did not,
however, extend Native Americans full citizenship.

From the 1800s on, government agencies limited self-government for Native
Americans and often worked to erase their traditional lifestyles. Not until the
Snyder Act of 1924 was citizenship granted to all Native Americans born in the
United States. After 1924 Native Americans were recognized as citizens of both
the United States and their own nations or tribal groups (p. 601).

However this is prefaced with the following:

Native Americans made up another minority group that was inspired by the
civil rights movement to seek equality and control over their own lives. Shifting
government policies had caused Native Americans great suffering over the
years. Activists began using legal challenges and direct action to reach their
goals [emphasis added](p. 601).

By prefacing the description of Native Americans unique status with the statement that

Native Americans are minorities, Cayton (2002) affirm that Indians are minorities with

interesting legal relationships.

Cayton et al. (2002) continue:

As a whole, Native Americans have routinely been denied equal opportunities.

Many states refused to give them the vote until pushed by Native American
communities. It was not until 1948 that Arizona and New Mexico granted
Indians the right to vote. Native Americans had higher rates of unemployment,
alcoholism, and suicide, as well as a shorter life expectancy, than white

237
 Americans. Many communities have suffered from poverty and poor living
conditions. Like other non-white groups, Native Americans have been the
victims of centuries-old stereotypes reinforced by the images in movies and
other media [emphasis added] (p. 601).

In this context, Cayton et al. (2002) suggest the plight of Native Americans is very

similar to the plight of African-Americans, and other minority groups presented in the

textbook.

Similarly, like other minorities, key figures, or protestors are featured in the

Cayton, et al.(2002) textbook.

One of the primary activist movements was started in Minneapolis in 1968 by

Dennis Banks and George Mitchell, both Chippewa…The new organization
came to be called the American Indian Movement (AIM). It originally
focused on the special problems of Native Americans living in the cities.
Following the example of militant black groups, AIM set up Native American
patrols to monitor street activity…Eventually AIM’s goals broadened to
include the protection of Native American legal rights. They began to fight for
autonomy, or self-government, with respect to local matters, especially natural
resources… (p. 602).

Like Danzer (2006), Cayton et al. (2002) follow the description of aim with the

following statement: “Many people, both white and Native American, criticized AIM’s

militant approach” (p. 603). Furthermore, the Cayton et al. (2002) textbook explains

that

Native American activism brought some responses from the government…A

number of laws passed in the 1970s favored Native American rights. The
Indian Education Act of 1972 gave parents and tribal councils more control
over schools and school programs. The Indian Self-Determination Act of 1974
upheld Native American autonomy…Native Americans also continued to win
legal battles to regain land, mineral, and water rights (p. 605).

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 Cayton et al. (2002) are much more inclusive of issues of Indian self-determination,

mentioning the policies that respected this position. Yet, despite this, Native Americans

are nevertheless explicitly named a minority group, who have some unique rights, but

ultimately seek the same type of rights and goals as other minorities, namely equality.

For this reason, the notion of equal treatment, with regards to American Indians,

demands further exploration.

b. Generated Theme: Civil Rights (Equality)

Although I did not find substantial content in the Nash (1997) and Appleby et.

al., (2005) discussions of Civil Rights with regards to Native Americans, what I did find

presents substantial insights. For example, Nash (1997) states the following:

“Meanwhile, other minorities who also thought of themselves as disenfranchised looked

to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and the 1960s as a model for their own

efforts” (695). Coupled with Nash’s (1997) grouping of Indians as minorities in the

narratives cited earlier, it is clear, that this statement refers to Indians as well. Similarly,

the Appleby, et. al. (2005) textbook, as indicated in the section above, explicitly links

Native Americans to the goals of the civil rights movement. Regarding civil rights and

the idea of equality, Appleby, et. al. (2005) write the following apparently neutral

statement regarding equality: “Equal Treatment. All Americans, regardless of race,

religion, or political beliefs, have the right to be treated the same under the law”

[emphasis added] (p. 186). As with Nash (1997), this latter statement, coupled with the

Appleby, et. al. (2006) categorization of Indians as a racialized minority, indicates that

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 Indians, like other minorities, are Americans and therefore have the right to the same

protection under the law. While this is not a negative statement, it nevertheless hints to

deeper assumptions about American Indians.

While the narrative describing the Civil Rights movement seems benign, it

nevertheless generates ideas and concepts that are applied to Native peoples, in ways

that are many times at odds with Native political, economic, and cultural realities.

Danzer, et. al (2006) describe the Civil Rights movement as follows:

The Civil Rights Movement was successful in changing many discriminatory

laws. Yet as the 1960s turned to the 1970s, the challenges for the movement
changed. The issues it confronted—housing and job discrimination, educational
inequality, poverty, and racism—involved the difficult task of changing
people’s attitudes and behavior (p. 722).

Danzer, et. al. (2006) later add how this movement for equity influenced other

minority groups: “Minority groups assert their equal rights, demanding changes

to long-standing practices and prejudices” (p. 767). Cayton et al. (2002) describe

equality with regards to one of the central delivery mechanisms of equality—

citizenship:

From the 1800s on, government agencies limited self-government for Native
Americans and often worked to erase their traditional lifestyles. Not until the
Snyder Act of 1924 was citizenship granted to all Native Americans born in
the United States. After 1924 Native Americans were recognized as citizens of
both the United States and their own nations or tribal groups.
As a whole, Native Americans have routinely been denied equal
opportunities. Many states refused to give them the vote until pushed by
Native American communities. It was not until 1948 that Arizona and New
Mexico granted Indians the right to vote [emphasis added](p. 601).

But as Cayton et al. remind us, “Native Americans made up another minority

group that was inspired by the civil rights movement to seek equality and

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 control over their own lives” [emphasis added] (601). When coupled with the

explicit treatment of minority groups and rights, it becomes clear why these

discourses serve to inculcate in students that American Indians are minority

groups, who may have some differing legal rights, but ultimately are a part of

the larger fabric of the United States.

c. Missing Themes: Native Perspectives (Sovereignty)

As demonstrated Indian perspectives concerning civil rights and notions of

equality are missing from the textbooks. Specifically, indigenous notions of self-

determination and sovereignty, if mentioned, do not attempt to define what sovereignty

is. Tribal sovereignty has to do on the one hand, “with a tribe’s right to retain a measure

of independence from outside entities and the power of regulating one’s internal affairs,

including the ability to make and execute laws, to impose and collect taxes, and to make

alliances with other governments” (Wilkins, 2002; p. 48). However, Wilkins (2002)

clarifies this nation-nation relationship is not based on legal rights and relationships

with federal and state governments. Rather, he insists “tribal sovereignty has a unique

cultural and spiritual dimension which differentiates it from the sovereign power of a

state or the federal government” (p. 48). Champagne (2007b) provides further insight,

explaining that the “roots of American Indian self-government …precede the treaties

and the formation of the U.S. Constitution. American Indian nations are not parties to

the U.S. Constitution, and therefore not part of the original consensus that is American

government” (Champagne, 2007b). Unlike racialized minorities, who are party to the

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 U.S. Constitution, David Wilkins (1994) continues, “...Indians' legal status, then,

derives from their recognized citizenship in a tribal nation, a status no other minority

group can claim” (p. 2).37

American Indian insistence to self-determination and self-government are vitally

important on multiple levels, and the fact that U.S. History textbooks insist on treating

Indians as minorities presents challenges for Indians. Champagne (2005b) explains this

in further detail:

Native communities predate the formation of modern nation-states and predate

the arrival of settler colonists by thousands of years. Native communities have
governed themselves from time immemorial and have maintained independent
institutions, cultures, and territories. Native peoples seek to preserve their
territory and rights to self-government, and want to continue and develop their
institutions, culture, religion, and governments. Native communities have found
it difficult to follow the usual paths of assimilation and integration chosen by
most immigrant-settler communities. Native peoples insist on rights to land and
self-government that are highly unusual and outside the theory of the formation
and growth of nation-states. The treating of indigenous peoples as ethnic or
racial groups ready for nation-state assimilation and integration has resulted in
considerable abuse and much resistance from Native peoples (pp. 3-4).

This treatment of indigenous peoples as “ethnic or racial groups,” or minorities, is

reproduced in the textbooks examined above. It is not a mistake that Indians are treated

as minorities. In fact, as demonstrated in the introduction, it has been a consistent policy

of the United Sates to assimilate Indians. The following excerpt from President Ronald

Reagan’s 1988 speech, featured in Drinnon (1997), describes the sentiment that drives

assimilationist policies: “Maybe we made a mistake in trying to maintain Indian

37
I am not arguing that Indians do not experience racism, and are subject to the repercussions of racism,
instead I focus on the perception that Indians are minorities, and the impact this has on Native work for
sovereignty. This issue is explored in further depth in chapter 5.

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 cultures. Maybe we should not have humored them in that, wanting to stay in that

primitive life style. Maybe we should have said: no, come join us. Be citizens, along

with the rest of us” (Ronald Reagan in Drinnon, 1997; xiii). Drinnon (1997) points out

that indeed, American Indians, seemingly unbeknownst to Reagan, have been citizens

of the United States since 1924, but more importantly, implicit in Reagan’s speech is

“…the historic certitude that ‘we’ white Americans have a national right to say yes or

no to these aboriginal neighbors” (p. xiii). Reagan’s speech is an example of the

exercise of settler domination over indigenous peoples.

Furthermore, what this conflict represents is a deeper metaphysical issue

reflecting different underlying epistemologies concerning how peoples view the world.

Whereas western metaphysics insist upon linear, universal stories that tell a perceived

‘truth,’ an investigation of indigenous metaphysics reveal that stories are diverse,

contradictory, and incomplete when seen from a differing perspective. Verna J.

Kirkness (1977) found that textbooks of the period tended to promote the same biases

regarding Indians because they used the same sources. Likewise, the textbooks I

examine promote the same narratives regarding Indians, if not because they rely on the

same sources, but also because the textbooks abide by California content and

curriculum standards developed for U.S. history.

In the next chapter I examine the corresponding content standards and

curriculum framework established in the History Social-Science Framework for

California Public Schools, 2005 edition.

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 CHAPTER SEVEN
CALIFORNIA HISTORY SOCIAL SCIENCE CONTENT STANDARDS

In this chapter I examine the 2005 History and Social Science Framework for

California Public Schools (Framework). First I provide a brief history and description

of the development of standards nationwide and in California. I also describe the

textbook adoption process in California in relation to the California standards. Next I

devote a section to a review of research on social studies standards in California and

generally. From this review of research I generate a series of concepts that build upon

the Colonial Model of Education (CME) and the white settler state. The final section of

this chapter is a detailed description of the Framework (2005) itself.

Moving from the examination of U.S. History textbooks approved for use in

LAUSD,38 I now turn my attention to the history-social science standards adopted for

use in California. Content and curriculum standards, in essence, shape and define what

content is included in textbooks, and in order to understand why textbooks contain the

information they do, it is important to therefore examine the content standards that these

textbooks are built from. Peterson (1998) defines content and curriculum standards in

the following way:

1. Content standards define what students should know and be able to do,
specifying skills or knowledge at various grade levels [citation omitted] In
the past, schools often used whatever content was found in their textbooks.
With this reform, content standards are defined by national subject areas

38
Interestingly, the textbook adoption process in California has consequences for other states, as
publishers create textbooks to meet California standards.

244
 associations, local districts, or states. Schools are then expected to develop
curriculum standards within and across subjects.

2. Curriculum standards usually describe instructional techniques or classroom

activities that help students achieve the content standard [citation omitted].
Curriculum standards are often developed at each grade level in all the core
subjects as well as others as defined by the school or district. These
curriculum standards are aligned with content standards and identify what
goes on in classrooms to help students achieve the standard. (Peterson,
1998).

In California the History-Social Science Frameworks for California Public Schools

presents the California content standards approved for history-social science, in

conjunction with a curriculum framework and course descriptions.

In 1987, the History–Social Science Frameworks for California Public Schools

were first adopted, and readopted in 1994, 1998, 2001 (Sleeter, 2002). According to the

California State Board of Education, the standards developed “…‘reflect knowledge

and skills necessary for California's work force to be competitive in the global,

information-based economy of the 21st century’" (p. 1). The California content

standards detail what knowledge students should know. California history-social

science standards have been designed to define what knowledge, concepts, and skills

students should learn concerning history-social science, at each grade level. Students,

statewide, are tested to measure mastery of these standards. Christine Sleeter (2002)

explains that not only do the textbooks adopted in California conform to the standards;

these textbooks were actually written, to a degree, to fit the California standards

“because California adoptions are so lucrative…” (p. 22).

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 While the California State Board of Education (CSBE) has a process for

adopting K-8 textbooks, it does not adopt textbooks for secondary grade levels. Instead,

the state requires school districts adopt secondary grade level textbooks. The CSBE

requires that textbooks adopted for use by school district align with or exceed state

standards (Education Code Section 60400) (Los Angeles Unified School District

Division of Educational Services, 2001). Next, I provide a brief review of the literature

relating to standards, and then I provide a detailed portrait of California history-social

science standards.

I. Review of the Literature: Critical Examinations of Curriculum Standards

As the review of selected literature in the previous chapter demonstrates,

textbooks reflect the power dynamics of larger society (Altbach et al., 1991; Apple &

Christian-Smith, 1991). Similarly, curriculum standards respond to these power

dynamics (Apple, 1993, 2001; Kanpol & McLaren, 1995; Ross, 1996; McCarthy, 1994;

Sleeter, 2002; Sleeter, 2005; Sleeter & Stillman, 2005 ). Reports such as A Nation at

Risk (1983), Raising Standards for American Education (1992) and policies such as

George H.W. Bush’s America 2000 education goals and William J. Clinton’s Goals

2000: Educate America Act (amended in 1996), responded to the perception that

students were failing to learn skills to be successful in a technologically advanced

society. In order for the U.S. to remain economically competitive, these reports and

policies advanced that school reform should emphasize higher standards and

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 accountability (Aronowitz & Giroux, 1991; Sleeter, 2002; Sleeter & Stillman, 2005;

Wixson et al., 2003).

Responding to these findings, conservative critiques (Bloom, 1998; Hirsch,

1988; Ravitch, 1990; Schlesinger, 1992) were launched against multiculturalism and

bilingual education that had grown out of the Civil Rights movement and the protest

movements of the sixties (McCarthy, 1994; Sleeter, 2004; Sleeter & Stillman, 2005).

Critics claimed these educational programs were damaging educational progress and

disrupting national and social cohesion. As a result educational policy moved towards

the elimination of these programs in favor of highly rigid standards (Sleeter & Stillman,

2005). No Child Left Behind (NCLB) represents the latest and most extensive federal

policy ensuring states’ commitment to standards and assessment aimed at raising

student performance and as a result, all fifty states have some type of standards. Safety

Zone Theory (Lomawaima & McCarty, 2006) might help in explaining the larger

context within which these policies and attitudes wax and wane.

In general, the studies that critically examine standardization and its impact on

curriculum argue current standards negatively impact inclusion of epistemological

diversity in the curriculum (Bohn & Sleeter, 2000; McCarthy, 1994; Sleeter, 2005).

They contend standardization is driven by neo-liberal policies aimed primarily at

creating standards at the service of the market economy (Altbach et al., 1991; Apple &

Christian-Smith, 1991; Leonardo, 2007; McLaren, 2006; Sleeter, 2004, 2005).

Standards marginalize students of color (Bohn & Sleeter, 2000; McCarthy, 1994), are

247
 anti-democratic (Apple, 2000a; Ross, 1996; Sleeter, 2005), and are increasingly rigid

(Sleeter, 2005).

Studies that examine social studies standards in general (Ross, 1996), and

California history-social science standards in particular (Sleeter, 2002; Sleeter &

Stillman, 2005) have found that social studies curriculum while not a major emphasis of

NCLB, nevertheless promote similar goals. Wayne Ross (1996) finds that the

development of social standards nationally, which influences the crafting of state

standards, reflect specific ideological orientations in his article “Diverting Democracy:

The Curriculum Standards Movement and Social Studies Education”. Similarly,

Christine Sleeter’s (2002) examination of California’s History-Social Science

Framework for California Public Schools in the study “State Curriculum Standards and

the Shaping of Student Consciousness” and Christine Sleeter and Jamy Stillman’s

(2005) study, “Standardizing Knowledge in a Multicultural society” both examine

California history-social science standards in order investigate the connection of these

standards to larger power relations. These studies examine how ideology is used in the

standards to perpetuate specific types of thinking.

Regarding the influence of national projects in the development of social studies

standards, Wayne Ross’s (1996) reports that

…the debate over social studies curriculum has been heavily influenced by a
small group of conservative foundations, academics and the federal
government, with an eye toward creating ideological consensus around a
curriculum that promotes a national identity and strives to preserve the
European American dominant culture and promote it as the common culture of
all Americans (p. 23).

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In this same vein, Sleeter (2002) finds that the California Framework’s U.S. history

narrative is centered on the experiences of white men. The narrative follows the

progression of Europeans west and people of color only appear in relation to this

westward movement (Sleeter, 2002), affirming decades old research (Council on

Interracial Books for Children, 1977). Like Ross (1996) Sleeter (2002) finds the

California history-social science standards explicitly state that U.S. history should

promote a common national identity. The major mechanism used in the California

history-social science standards to promote this common identity is the centering of the

narrative of the United States as a nation of immigrants (Sleeter, 2002; Sleeter &

Stillman, 2005). This research illustrates that the goal of history-social science

standards affirm white settler nationalism (WSN) and the myths and assumptions that

sustain WSN.

With regards to racism, the California U.S. History-Social Science Framework

(Framework) manages to mention slavery, the Civil Rights movement, without

mentioning the racist structural and ideological mechanisms that laid the foundations

for slavery and segregation (Sleeter, 2002). Ross (1996) finds that social studies

curriculum in general make white racism invisible. Sleeter (2002) also points out that

while the history of colonialism is mentioned in the California history-social science

standards and its accompanying framework it is given short attention, providing

students little knowledge concerning colonization and conquest. Furthermore, Sleeter

(2002) states that the California history-social science Framework “teaches students that

249
 a representative democracy like that in the U.S., coupled with free-market unregulated

capitalism, is the one best system to emerge from world history” (p. 18). In essence the

California Framework promotes settler myths and assumptions of white settler

superiority, which I identify as white supremacy.

Providing more context, Sleeter and Stillman (2005) explain that the California

Framework “is constructed as a detailed story, sequenced over several grade levels, and

organized around historically dominant groups’ perspectives, experiences, and ways of

seeing the world” (p. 38). In addition, the learning encouraged by the Framework

directs students to consume interpretations of history prepared by others [textbooks],

rather than co-constructing history (Sleeter & Stillman, 2005). As stated, this

interpretation of history is one, which stresses the narrative of the U.S. as a nation of

immigrants, specifically European ones, founded upon Judeo-Christian values and

European institutions (Sleeter & Stillman, 2005). These mythologies actualized in the

Framework serve to maintain WSN, and the larger structure of the white settler state

(WSS).

The battle over social studies standards is one that is seen to have broader

implications, outside of schooling. The battle to control standards, particularly social

studies standards has been largely controlled by a coalition of former federal

appointees, academics (both liberal and conservative) and government policies that

perpetuate what Cornbleth and Waugh (1993) name the “neo-nativist agenda”. In fact,

Cornbleth and Waugh (1993) argue that this agenda “has set the tone and terms of the

250
 debate to influence the course of school curricula into the 21st century” (p. 32). The

“neo-nativist agenda” has laid the groundwork for content standards that promote a

narrow definition of what it means to be American (Cornbleth & Waugh, 1993)—a

national identity defined by European origins, ideas, and culture, at the expense of

diversity and multiculturalism (Ross, 1996). Cornbleth & Waugh’s (1993) insights

correspond to the a ideological function of the WSS: the creation of a ‘new’ American,

or ‘new native.’

In California this agenda was carried out by Charlotte Crabtree and Diane

Ravitch, coauthors of the 1987 history-social science framework (Cornbleth & Waugh,

1993). The Framework was revised in 1997, adopted in the 1998 History-Social Science

Content Standards, and incorporated in the 2005 History-Social Science Framework,

remaining, according the California Department of Education (2004), essentially

unchanged from its 1987 origins. These standards subsume the experiences of people

of color under the narrative of European immigration (Cornbleth & Waugh, 1993). As

the previous studies of the California History-Social Science Framework demonstrate

(Sleeter, 2002; Sleeter & Stillman, 2005), this continues to be the case. Cornbleth and

Waugh (1993) argue: “To control school or curriculum knowledge is a means of

exercising power beyond school walls by shaping how we understand ourselves, others,

our nation, and our world. Curriculum knowledge affects individual and collective

identity, capacity, attitude, and action” (p. 31). Undoubtedly, curriculum is a central tool

used to preserve and indoctrinate WSS ideologies and structures.

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 These studies of the History-Social Science Framework for California Public

Schools affirm insights gained from my examination of textbooks. In addition, these

studies provide important findings concerning curriculum and content standards,

namely that the California history-social science Framework affirms a Eurocentric

perspective (Ross, 1996; Sleeter, 2002; Sleeter & Stillman, 2005). The Framework

emphasizes the notion that the United States is a nation of immigrants (Sleeter, 2002;

Sleeter & Stillman, 2005). It also emphasizes Judeo-Christian origins (Sleeter &

Stillman, 2005). It also reflects the power dynamics of a western capitalist society and

neo-liberalism (Altbach et al., 1991; Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991; Sleeter, 2002;

Sleeter & Stillman 2005) and it emphasizes the goal of instilling a narrow definition of

national identity (Cornbleth & Waugh, 1993; Ross, 1996; Sleeter, 2002). In other

words, the California Framework not only promotes fundamental aspects of WSN, the

Framework actively deploys the CME. These methods include the centering of western

metaphysics echoed in the emphasis on Judeo-Christian origins and the affirmation of

settler political domination through the constrictive formulation of WSN.

To be sure, the Framework operates to protect white settler ideologies and the

WSS. It is worth repeating a formative ideological function and characteristic of the

white settler state. This is the relationship between white settlers and indigenous

peoples. Therefore, one of the most useful contributions from these studies is Sleeter’s

(2002) analysis of how the California history-social science Framework treats American

Indians. Sleeter (2002) explains that indigenous people appear in the standards in

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 relation to the history of Euro-Americans, echoing the findings of previous studies

that people of color appear in relation to whites. In essence, Sleeter (2002) finds the

Frameworks

…keep indigenous people locked in the past and locates their study mainly at
the elementary level. /It is possible for teachers to add indigenous people to the
curriculum, but the main story is already structured and the curriculum as a
whole is packed. To center the U.S. story on any group the U.S. conquered
would disrupt the Framework’s immigration paradigm, as well as the
assumption that the mission of the U.S. is to bring freedom to the rest of the
world (p. 15).

It is not a mistake that indigenous peoples are represented figures existing only

in the Nation’s past. As described in chapter two, the discursive erasure of

indigenous peoples must be maintained in order to protect the formulation of

WSN as the ‘new native.’

These studies reviewed here, while accurately assessing the limitations

of the social studies curriculum in general and the California Framework in

particular, fail to properly situate these limitations within the broader ideological

and structural apparatus they are produced in. The history social-science

standards they critique function the way they do because they are created within

the CME, whose goal it is to protect the WSS. The Missing from these insightful

studies is an analysis of how content standards embody western metaphysics,

and therefore preclude critical engagement with differing epistemological and

ontological constructs. As stated while the aforementioned studies provide

important insights concerning how standards reproduce power dynamics of a

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 market drive, neo-liberal state, they fail to engage how standards reproduce

deeper epistemological and ontological assumptions that if not brought to the

forefront, will continue to preclude truly authentic pluralistic diversity. What

follows is such an undertaking, where I examine how content standards promote

western metaphysical assumptions that conflict with, in this case, indigenous

metaphysics.

II. Concepts

Before I provide the concepts I derived from the literature review, I review the

definitions from previous chapters in order to build upon the insights and key concepts

provided by the above studies. Western metaphysics represents the encompassing and

normative epistemology and ontology of white settlers that shape the ideas, institutions,

politics, economics, and social order of the United States. Indigenous metaphysics

represents the diverse epistemological and ontological knowledge systems of the

various Indian tribes of the Americas, with a special emphasis on tribes located in the

geographical boundaries of the United States. Western metaphysics and indigenous

metaphysics represent the broad knowledge systems that are examined in this

dissertation. These broad concepts are coupled with specific ideologies that have

developed to perpetuate western metaphysics, including settler perspectivism, and

immigrant-nation discourse. These concepts are part of the larger project of white settler

national (WSN). Moreover within each of these ideologies are further sub-concepts that

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 aid in fully exploring these concepts as they specifically relate to textbooks and

content standards. For example, settler perspectivism is developed in textbooks by

Eurocentrism, narrow perspectivism, and single perspectivism (Council on Interracial

Books for Children, 1977b) . Immigrant-nation discourse promotes the idea that the

United states is a nation of immigrants and is aided by a type of flattened notion of

diversity, utilized to subsume diversity, or difference, into a larger narrative of

immigration, that links up ideology to the idea that Americans are settlers. The

immigrant-nation discourse promotes the myth that Indians no longer exist. Related to

this erasure, settler perspectivism promotes the belief that there is one singular national

identity based upon a narrow definition and history framed by the nation of immigrants

narrative and the flattened notion of diversity, all components of the larger settler

ideologies of WSN.

From the studies reviewed in this chapter, we once more find the sub-narratives

of WSN, which include settler perspectivism and immigrant-nation discourse. Added to

the previous definitions, these definitions help broaden the perspective on how these

ideas are transmitted from state mandate, school policies, standards, to texts. The

immigrant-nation discourse defined in the previous chapter is continued in the studies

reviewed here. This immigrant-nation discourse perpetuates the idea that the United

States is a nation of immigrants more appropriately conceived as European immigrants

that transformed themselves into the ‘new native.’ The discourse surrounding national

identity can be further characterized as a standardizing national identity discourse that

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 promotes a colorblind (Bonilla-Silva, 2001; Perez-Huber et al., 2008) framing of

national identity. This standardizing functions to protect WSN and the WSS.

III. History-Social Science Framework for California Public Schools

The California State Board of Education (CSBE) defines content standards in

the following way: “Content standards were designed to encourage the highest

achievement of every student, by defining the knowledge, concepts, and skills that

students should acquire at each grade level” (California Department of Education,

2007). The CSBE defines curriculum framework: “Frameworks are blueprints for

implementing the content standards adopted by the California State Board of Education

and are developed by the Curriculum Development and Supplemental Materials

Commission” (California Department of Education, 2007). Sleeter (2002) points out

that California “leads the nation in developing a comprehensive system of state

standardized curricula” (pp. 10-11), which it achieves through a highly centralized

system.

The 2005 History-Social Science Framework for California Public Schools

(Framework) incorporates California’s history–social science content standards, which,

according to the 2005 Framework, “are the basis for statewide instruction and

assessment in history–social science” (p. v). The express intent of the Framework

(2005) is to provide “guidance for instruction through which students will understand

historical trends and current social, political, economic, and cultural conditions” (p. v).

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 The Framework (2005) states that students should learn and understand the “ideas

central to liberty, responsible citizenship, and representative government and how these

elements have evolved into institutions and practices that guide their decision making as

future voters and leaders” (p. v).

As Sleeter (2002) explains, the Framework (2005) not only outlines what is

taught in schools, it its conceptually designed around three core learning goals. These

learning goals are: “(1) promoting knowledge and cultural understanding (defined as

literacy in history, ethics, culture, geography, economics, and politics); (2) promoting

democratic understanding and civic values; and (3) promoting skills attainment and

social participation” (p. 12).

In addition, the Framework (2005) is organized according to theme, time period,

and geographic location (Sleeter & Stillman, 2005). The Framework (2005) also

provides corresponding intellectual skills that students should gain following each

sequence of history social science (elementary, middle, and secondary). The learning

goals mentioned above are, in turn, guided by the Framework’s (2005) authors’ vision

of a rapidly changing and globalizing world. Particular, the Framework (2005) focuses

on the idea of continuity and change:

The study of continuity and change is, as it happens, the main focus of the
history–social science curriculum. The knowledge provided by these disciplines
enables students to appreciate how ideas, events, and individuals have
intersected to produce change over time as well as to recognize the conditions
and forces that maintain continuity within human societies (p.2).

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 This continuity and change is a central feature of the Framework (2005), which is

explicitly emphasized in Grade Three course “Continuity and Change” and Grade 11

course, “United States History and Geography: Continuity and Change in the Twentieth

and Twenty-First Centuries.”

The Framework (2005) outlines general lessons and mandates for history-social

science that will achieve 21st century readiness in a market driven economy. These

lessons are guided by loyalty to the United States, and an understanding of the U.S. as

the central figure in global politics:

As educators in the field of history–social science, we want our students to

perceive the complexity of social, economic, and political problems. We want
them to have the ability to differentiate between what is important and what is
unimportant. We want them to know their rights and responsibilities as
American citizens. We want them to understand the meaning of the
Constitution as a social contract that defines our democratic government and
guarantees our individual rights. We want them to respect the right of others to
differ with them. We want them to take an active role as citizens and to know
how to work for change in a democratic society. We want them to understand
the value, the importance, and the fragility of democratic institutions. We want
them to realize that only a small fraction of the world’s population (now or in
the past) has been fortunate enough to live under a democratic form of
government, and we want them to understand the conditions that encourage
democracy to prosper. We want them to develop a keen sense of ethics and
citizenship. And we want them to care deeply about the quality of life in their
community, their nation, and their world (p. 2).

Furthermore, this Framework (2005) emphasizes democratic engagement and

citizenship, and more importantly democracy as a unique and upstanding form of

government that is special to the United States.

In order to accomplish the above-mentioned mandates, the Framework (2005)

emphasizes the study of history-social science as an interdisciplinary process that

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 incorporates history, geography, economics, political science, anthropology,

psychology, sociology, and the humanities (California Department of Education, 2005).

The Framework (2005) also outlines the following critical thinking skills as central

goals: ethical understanding; understanding the connection between ideas and

behaviors; that history is a result of individual choice; that history is shaped by both the

ideas and actions of governments and individuals; and how “people in other times and

places have grappled with fundamental questions of truth, justice, and personal

responsibility and to ponder how we deal with the same issues today” (p. 3). The above-

mentioned lessons and critical thinking goals are guided by “studying the ideas of great

thinkers, major religions, and principal philosophical traditions” (ibid).

In addition, the Framework (2005) identifies seventeen instructional

characteristics, or teaching goals, for history-social science curriculum, which are listed

in Appendix 3. These instructional characteristics represent the best practices,

according to the Framework (2005) authors, with which to “strengthen education in the

history– social science curriculum” and achieve the intellectual goals, critical thinking

skills, and content benchmarks (p. 4). These seventeen teaching goals are intended to

provide the best methods with which to successfully deliver curriculum, which I

describe next.

The Framework (2005) focuses on material developed to meet the history-social

science content standards and accompanying learning mandates. The Framework (2005)

identifies three learning goals with relation to the content standards. In addition, each of

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 these three learning goals are accomplished by following specific curriculum strands,

or lessons, drawn from interdisciplinary fields and practices of history-social science.

Finally each of these curriculum strands, or lessons, is further aided by essential

learnings that outline what specific types of lessons are to be used in order to achieve

the appropriate learning. Table 7.1 provides a diagrammatic representation of learning

goals, curriculum strands and essential learnings;

Table 7.1: Learning Goal Outline

I. Learning goal
A. Curriculum strand
1. Essential Learning

1. Learning Goals; Curriculum Strands, & Essential Learnings

As stated, the Framework (2005) identifies three broad learning goals for the

history-social science curriculum. These three learning goals are: knowledge and

cultural understanding (KCU); democratic understanding and civic values (DUCV);

and skills attainment and social participation, (SASP). Table 7.2 lists these learning

goals along with a brief definition of each learning goal.

Table 7.2: The Learning Goals with description

Learning Knowledge & Democratic Skills Attainment
Goal: Cultural Understanding and and Social
Understanding Civic Values Participation
(KCU) (DUCV) (SASP)
“incorporating learnings “incorporating an “including basic study
Description: from history and the other understanding of our skills, critical thinking
humanities, geography, and national identity, skills, and participation
the social sciences” (p. 10) constitutional heritage, civic skills that are essential
values, and rights and for effective
responsibilities” (p. 10) citizenship” (p. 10).

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These three learning goals are not treated as mutually exclusive in the Framework

(2005) Instead the learning goals are integrated across grade levels. In order to assist

with this cross-grade integration, the CSBE developed what they call curriculum strands

to further develop each of the three learning goals of KCU, DUCV, and SASP. The

Framework (2005) describes that “[t]hese basic learnings [or curriculum strands] are

first introduced in the primary grades, in simple terms that young children understand,

and then regularly reappear in succeeding years, each time deepened, enriched, and

extended” (p. 10).

Table 7.3 is a visual representation of the curriculum strands, defined above that

develops the three learning goals of KCU, DUCV, and SASP.

Table 7.3: Curriculum Strands for each Learning Goal

Learning KCU DUCV SASP
Goals
Historical literacy National identity Participation
strand; strand; skills strand
Ethical literacy Constitutional Critical
strand; heritage strand thinking skills
strand
Corresponding Cultural literacy Civic values, rights, Basic study
Curriculum strand; and responsibilities skills strand
Strands Geographic literacy strand
strand;
Economic literacy
strand; &
Sociopolitical
literacy strand

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 As Table 7.3 above demonstrates, the KCU learning goal consists of six curriculum

strands: historical literacy; ethical literacy; cultural literacy; geographic literacy;

economic literacy; and sociopolitical literacy. The second learning goal of DUCV,

consists of three curriculum strands: national identity strand; constitutional heritage

strand; and the civic values, rights, and responsibilities strand. Finally, the third learning

goal of SASP, consists of three curriculum strands: participation skills; critical thinking

skills; and basic study skills.

Each curriculum strand is, in turn, broken down into essential learnings that are

integral in the development of each of the curriculum strands. As stated, KCU has six

curriculum strands developed to aid in student comprehension of KCU. The first

curriculum strand of KCU is the historical literacy curriculum strand, which stresses

the following six essential learnings:

1. Developing research skills and a sense of historical empathy;

2. Understanding the meaning of time and chronology
3. Analyzing cause and effect
4. Understanding the reasons for continuity and change
5. Recognizing history as common memory, with political implications and
6. Understanding the importance of religion, philosophy, and other major
belief systems in history

Next, to develop the ethical literacy strand of KCU, the 2005 Framework lists the

following essential learnings:

1. Recognizing the sanctity of life and the dignity of the individual

2. Understanding the ways in which different societies have tried to resolve
ethical issues
3. Understanding that the ideas people profess affect their behavior
4. Realizing that concern for ethics and human rights is universal and
represents the aspirations of men and women in every time and place.

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The third literacy strand of the KCU goal of the Framework (2005) is the cultural

literacy strand, organized according to these essential learnings:

1. Understanding the rich, complex nature of a given culture: its history,

geography, politics, literature, art, drama, music, dance, law, religion,
philosophy, architecture, technology, science, education, sports, social
structure, and economy
2. Recognizing the relationships among the various parts of a nation’s
cultural life;
3. Learn about the mythology, legends, values, and beliefs of a people;
4. Recognizing that literature and art shape and reflect the inner life of a
people
5. Take pride in their own cultural heritages and develop a multicultural
perspective that respects the dignity and worth of all people.

The geographic literacy strand of KCU is characterized by the following essential

learnings:

1. Developing an awareness of place

2. Developing locational skills and understanding
3. Understanding human and environmental interaction
4. Understanding human movement
5. Understanding world regions and their historical, cultural, economic, and
political characteristics.

The fifth and second to last literacy strand of KCU, economic literacy, is

developed by these essential learnings:

1. Understanding the basic economic problems confronting all societies

2. Understanding comparative economic systems
3. Understanding the basic economic goals, performance, and problems of
our society
4. Understanding the international economic system.

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 The final literacy strand of the KCU goal is sociopolitical literacy, characterized by

the following essential learnings:

1. Understanding the close relationship between social and political

systems
2. Understanding the close relationship between society and the law
3. Understanding comparative political systems.

Table 7.4 below provides a diagrammatic model of the essential learnings associated

with each of the literacies developed for the first learning goal, KCU.

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Table 7.4: Knowledge & Cultural Understanding (KCU) Essential Learnings
Learning Curriculum Essential Learnings
Goal 1 Strand
Historical 1- Develop research skills and a sense of historical
Literacy empathy;
(To gain 2- Understand the meaning of time & chronology;
literacy students 3- Analyze cause & effect;
must achieve
the following 4- Understand the reasons for continuity and change;
essential 5- Recognize history as common memory, with political
learnings) implications; &
6- Understand the importance of religion, philosophy, &
other major belief systems in history.
Ethical 1- Recognize the sanctity of life & the dignity of the
Literacy individual;
2- Understand the ways in which different societies have
tried to resolve ethical issues;
3- Understand that the ideas people profess affect their
behavior;
4- Realize that concern for ethics and human rights is
KCU universal & represents the aspirations of men and women
(To gain in every time and place.
knowledge & Cultural 1- Understand the rich, complex nature of a given culture:
cultural Literacy its history, geography, politics, literature, art, drama,
understanding music, dance, law, religion, philosophy, architecture,
, students &
teachers focus technology, science, education, sports, social structure, &
on 6 economy;
curriculum 2- Recognize the relationships among the various parts of a
strands) nation’s cultural life;
3- Learn about the mythology, legends, values, & beliefs
of a people;
4- Recognize that literature & art shape and reflect the
inner life of a people; &
5- Take pride in their own cultural heritages & develop a
multicultural perspective that respects the dignity & worth
of all people.
Geographic 1- Develop an awareness of place;
Literacy 2- Develop locational skills and understanding;
3- Understand human & environmental interaction;
4- Understand human movement; &
5- Understand world regions & their historical, cultural,
economic, and political characteristics.
Economic 1- Understand the basic economic problems confronting all
Literacy societies;
2- Understand comparative economic systems;

265
 3- Understand the basic economic goals, performance, &
problems of our society; &
4- Understand the international economic system
Sociopolitica 1- Understand the close relationship between social &
l Literacy political systems; &
2- Understand the close relationship between society & the
law; &
3- Understand comparative political systems

The second learning goal, DUCV, has three curriculum strands (national

identity; constitutional heritage; and civic values, rights and responsibilities). Each

curriculum strand is further developed by a series of essential learnings. For example,

the national identity strand is composed of the following essential learnings:

1. Recognizing that American society is and always has been pluralistic and
multicultural, a single nation composed of individuals whose heritages
encompass many different national and cultural backgrounds
2. Understanding the American creed as an ideology extolling equality and
freedom
3. Recognizing the status of minorities and women in different times in
American history
4. Understanding the unique experiences of immigrants from Asia, the
Pacific Islands, and Latin America; fifth, understanding the special role
of the United States in world history as a nation of immigrants;
5. Realizing that true patriotism celebrates the moral force of the American
idea as a nation that unites as one people the descendants of many
cultures, races, religions, and ethnic groups.

The second curriculum strand of DUCV is the constitutional heritage, which is

developed by two essential learnings:

1. Understanding the basic principles of democracy

2. Understanding the historical origins of basic constitutional concepts such
as representative government, separation of powers, and trial by jury.

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Finally, the civic values, rights and responsibilities curriculum strand of DUCV is also

composed of two essential learnings:

1. Understanding what is required of citizens in a participatory democracy

2. Understanding individual responsibility for the democratic system.

Table 7.5 below offers a diagram representation of the second learning goal, DUCV, its

curriculum strands, and accompanying essential learnings.

Table 7.5: DUCV Essential Learnings

Curriculum Essential Learnings
Strand
National 1- Recognize that American society is and always has
Identity been pluralistic and multicultural, a single nation
(To gain literacycomposed of individuals whose heritages encompass
students must many different national and cultural backgrounds;
achieve the 2- Understand the American creed as an ideology
following essential
extolling equality and freedom;
DUCV learnings)
3- Recognize the status of minorities and women in
(To gain of
democratic different times in American history;
understanding 4- Understand the unique experiences of immigrants
and civic from Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Latin America;
values 5- Understand the special role of the United States in
understanding,
educators world history as a nation of immigrants; &
focus on 6- Realize that true patriotism celebrates the moral
curriculum force of the American idea as a nation that unites as
strands) one people the descendants of many cultures, races,
religions, and ethnic groups.
Constitutional 1- Understand the basic principles of democracy; &
Heritage 2- Understand the historical origins of basic
constitutional concepts such as representative
government, separation of powers, and trial by jury.
Civic Values, 1- Understand what is required of citizens in a
Rights, and participatory democracy; &
Responsibilities 2- Understand individual responsibility for the
democratic system.

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 The third, and final learning goal of SASP consists of three curriculum strands

(participant skills, critical thinking skills, and basic study skills). Each curriculum strand

consists of essential learnings. Participant skills is made up of three essential learnings:

1. Developing personal skills

2. Developing group interaction skills
3. Developing social and political participation skills.

The critical thinking skills curriculum strand is guided by three essential learnings:

1. Defining and clarifying problems

2. Judging information related to a problem
3. Solving problems and drawing conclusions.

Finally, the basic study skills curriculum strand consists of six essential learnings:

1. Acquiring information by listening, observing, using community

resources, and reading various forms of literature and primary and
secondary source materials
2. Locating, selecting, and organizing information from written sources,
such as books, periodicals, government documents, encyclopedias, and
bibliographies
3. Retrieving and analyzing information by using computers, microfilm,
and other electronic media
4. Reading and interpreting maps, globes, models, diagrams, graphs,
charts, tables, pictures, and political cartoons
5. Understanding the specialized language use in historical research and
social science disciplines
6. Organizing and expressing ideas clearly in writing and in speaking.

Table 7.6 is a visual model of the third and final learning goal of SASP, the

curriculum strands that characterize it, and the essential learnings that in turn develop

each curriculum strand.

Table 7.6: SASP Essential Learnings

Curriculum Essential Learnings
Strand

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 Participant 1- Develop personal skills;
Skills 2- Develop group interaction skills; &
(To gain literacy 3- Develop social and political participation skills.
students must
achieve the
following
SASP essential
(To gain the learnings)
goal of skills
attainment & Critical 1- Define and clarify problems;
skills
Thinking 2- Judge information related to a problem; &
participation,
educators Skills 3- Solve problems and draw conclusions.
focus on
curriculum Basic Study 1- Acquire information by listening, observing, using
strands) community resources, and reading various forms of
Skills
literature and primary and secondary source materials;
2- Locate, select, and organize information from written
sources, such as books, periodicals, government
documents, encyclopedias, and bibliographies;
3- Retrieve and analyze information by using
computers, microfilm, and other electronic media
4- Read and interpret maps, globes, models, diagrams,
graphs, charts, tables, pictures, and political cartoons;
5- Understand the specialized language used in
historical research and social science disciplines; &
6- Organize and express ideas clearly in writing and in
speaking.

Following these three learning goals are the course descriptions. The

Framework (2005) describes that the course descriptions “… provide an integrated and

sequential development of the goals of this curriculum” (p. 28). The course titles are as

follows:

• Kindergarten—Learning and Working Now and Long Ago

• Grade One—A Child’s Place in Time and Space
• Grade Two—People Who Make a Difference
• Grade Three—Continuity and Change
• Grade Four—California: A Changing State
• Grade Five—United States History and Geography: Making a New Nation

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 • Grade Six—World History and Geography: Ancient Civilizations
• Grade Seven—World History and Geography: Medieval and Early Modern
Times
• Grade Eight—United States History and Geography: Growth and Conflict
• Grade Nine—Elective Courses in History–Social Science
• Grade Ten—World History, Culture, and Geography: The Modern World
• Grade Eleven—United States History and Geography: Continuity and Change in
the Twentieth Century
• Grade Twelve—Principles of American Democracy (One Semester) and
Economics (One Semester)

In the textbook examination I focus on textbooks approved for the Grade 11 course title.

The Framework (2005) explains that there is an increased emphasis on chronological

sequencing of history, and that beginning in grade six, “each course in this series

contributes to students’ learning of historical chronology” (p. 29). Beginning in grade

seven, “each course provides for a review of learnings from earlier grades” (p. 31). In

addition, the Framework (2005) describes that each course listed above provides the

opportunity for students to study particular time periods in depth. Finally the

Framework (2005) emphasizes that each course provides students the opportunities to

link the past with the present.

In turn, the courses are subdivided into age appropriate curriculums, including

primary curriculum (K-3), middle grades curriculum (4-8), and secondary curriculum

(9-12). Each age appropriate curriculum is guided by developmental considerations, and

each course titles are accompanied by subtitles. Following the developmental

considerations, the Framework (2005) delves into detailed course descriptions for each

grade, supplemented with the accompanying standards for the course. For the middle

grades (4-8) and secondary grades (9-12), the Framework (2005) adds “Historical and

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 Social Science Analysis Skills”—intellectual, reasoning, reflection and research skills

that are supposed to be “learned through, and applied to” the content standards” of the

age appropriate curriculum (p. 115).

Finally, the Framework (2005) provides “Criteria for Examining Instructional

Materials-Kindergarten Through Grade Eight.” Sleeter and Stillman (2005) point out

that in this regard secondary school teachers “have more latitude than elementary

teachers to choose texts, but are held accountable through student testing” (p. 39). In

addition, secondary school teachers choose textbooks that have been adopted by their

district that conform or exceed the California standards. In LAUSD the choice is limited

to three texts. In the next chapter, I provide the findings of my examination of the

Framework (2005).

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 CHAPTER EIGHT
CALIFORNIA HISTORY-SOCIAL SCIENCE FRAMEWORK
FINDINGS & ANALYSIS

In this chapter I present my findings and analysis from the review of the

History-Social Science Framework for California Public Schools (Framework). First I

describe my findings drawn from the Framework (2005). I discuss how the Framework

(2005) and included content standards explicitly and implicitly treat and organize

American Indians, tying in these findings with those generated in the U.S. History

textbooks. I also provide an extensive review of how the standards contained in the

Framework (2005) align with the textbooks I examine earlier. Finally I analyze both the

form and content findings of the Framework (2005). Particularly in the form analysis

of the Framework (2005) I include the characteristics of the Framework (2005) I

reviewed in the previous chapter. Additionally, in my narrative analysis, I continue my

examination of the three time periods of pre-contact, westward expansion, and civil

rights subcategories, or themes, focusing on the same explicit, generated, and missing

subcategories used in the textbook analysis of chapter six.

In conducting this analysis I am guided by the questions of this study as they

relate to standards:

 How do standards embody western metaphysics?

 How do standards reproduce the Colonial Model of Education (CME)?
 What types of lessons do the standards promote that are antithetical to
indigenous cultures and sovereignty
 What are the sources of western metaphysics?

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 By examining the Framework (2005) and standards contained within it, I describe

how standards embody western metaphysics and reproduce CME. Examining the

standards allows me to illustrate, how akin to the U.S. History textbooks I examine in

chapter six, the Framework (2005) relies on lessons that promote western metaphysics

and therefore are antithetical to indigenous cultures and sovereignty. Finally, a close

examination of the Framework (2005) allows me to map on how the concepts identified

in previous chapters reveal the sources of western metaphysics in the Framework.

I. Content Standards

School districts are required to adopt textbooks for use in high school that meet

or exceed the California standards outlined in the Framework (2005). For this reason, I

turn my attention to the standards that shape textbook content. In the following section,

I examine how the Framework (2005) as a whole informs textbook content. While I

examine U.S history instructional texts approved for use in the Grade 11 U.S. History

course, my findings reveal that the corresponding Grade 11 U.S. History standards

contained in the Framework (2005) explicitly mention American Indians only once.

However, content standards, and their accompanying framework are not supposed to be

read in isolation. Instead, the Framework (2005) is developed to sequentially and

comprehensively build upon previous grade level work .

Students in California begin to learn about American Indians as soon as the first

grade. To begin, the first grade history-social science content standard 1.5 for the course

“A Child’s Place in Time and Space” requires “students describe the human

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 characteristics of familiar places and the varied backgrounds of American citizens and

residents in those places” (p. 41). Substandard 1.5.2 requires students “[u]nderstand the

ways in which American Indians and immigrants have helped define Californian and

American culture” (p. 41). Students revisit learning about American Indians in grade

three, which emphasizes “continuity and change”. Sleeter (2002) explains that in grade

three students are study local history and geography. In this context, the grade three

standards introduce indigenous peoples of the past, in relation to the local history and

geography (Sleeter, 2002). Specifically, content standard 3.2 requires “[s]tudents

describe the American Indian nations in their local region long ago and in the recent

past” (p. 52). Furthermore, standard 3.2 and substandards 3.2.1-4 require the following

learnings:

1. Describe national identities, religious beliefs, customs, and various folklore

traditions.
2. Discuss the ways in which physical geography, including climate, influenced
how the local Indian nations adapted to their natural environment (e.g., how
they obtained food, clothing, tools).
3. Describe the economy and systems of government, particularly those with
tribal constitutions, and their relationship to federal and state governments.
4. Discuss the interaction of new settlers with the already established Indians of
the region (p. 52).

In addition, in grade three, standard 3.4 requires “[s]tudents understand the role of rules

and laws in our daily lives and the basic structure of the U.S. government” (p. 53). This

includes substandard 3.4.5., which requires students “[d]escribe the ways in which

California, the other states, and sovereign American Indian tribes contribute to the

making of our nation and participate in the federal system of government” (p. 53). In

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 the fourth grade, Sleeter (2002) describes that students study indigenous nations of

California’s past as part of larger California history.

Continuing with American Indian content, grade four content standard

“California-A Changing State”, 4.2 provides “[s]tudents describe the social, political,

cultural, and economic life and interactions among people of California from the pre-

Columbian societies to the Spanish mission and Mexican rancho periods” (p. 61).

Content 4.2.1 requires students “[d]iscuss the major nations of California Indians,

including their geographic distribution, economic activities, legends, and religious

beliefs; and describe how they depended on, adapted to, and modified the physical

environment by cultivation of land and use of sea resources” (p. 61). In addition 4.2.3

requires students“[d]escribe the Spanish exploration and colonization of California,

including the relationships among soldiers, missionaries, and Indians…” (ibid). In grade

four, students are expected to learn about the “ the structures, functions, and powers of

the local, state, and federal governments as described in the U.S. Constitution” as

defined by section 4.5 of the standards. With regard to Indians, subsection 4.5.5 requires

students learn “the components of California’s governance structure (e.g., cities and

towns, Indian rancherias and reservations, counties, school districts)” (p. 63).

Beginning in the fifth grade, students are introduced to U.S. history in which a

unit is devoted to the study of pre-Columbian peoples (Sleeter, 2002). Specifically,

students’ history-social science grade 5 education centers on how history and geography

combine to create the history of the United States. Content standard 5.1 requires:

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 Students describe the major pre-Columbian settlements, including the cliff
dwellers and pueblo people of the desert Southwest, the American Indians of
the Pacific Northwest, the nomadic nations of the Great Plains, and the
woodland peoples east of the Mississippi River (p. 71).

Substandards 5.1.1-5.1.3 outline that students know the following concerning

Indians:

1. Describe how geography and climate influenced the way various nations
lived and adjusted to the natural environment, including locations of villages,
the distinct structures that they built, and how they obtained food, clothing,
tools, and utensils.
2. Describe their varied customs and folklore traditions.
3. Explain their varied economies and systems of government (p. 71).

Continuing, standard 5.3 and substandards 5.3.1-6 require:

Students describe the cooperation and conflict that existed among the American
Indians and between the Indian nations and the new settlers
1. Describe the competition among the English, French, Spanish, Dutch, and
Indian nations for control of North America.
2. Describe the cooperation that existed between the colonists and Indians
during the 1600s and 1700s (e.g., in agriculture, the fur trade, military
alliances, treaties, cultural interchanges).
3. Examine the conflicts before the Revolutionary War (e.g., the Pequot and
King Philip’s Wars in New England, the Powhatan Wars in Virginia, the
French and Indian War).
4. Discuss the role of broken treaties and massacres and the factors that led to
the Indians’ defeat, including the resistance of Indian nations to
encroachments and assimilation (e.g., the story of the Trail of Tears).
5. Describe the internecine Indian conflicts, including the competing claims for
control of lands (e.g., actions of the Iroquois, Huron, Lakota [Sioux]).
6. Explain the influence and achievements of significant leaders of the time
(e.g., John Marshall, Andrew Jackson, Chief Tecumseh, Chief Logan, Chief
John Ross, Sequoyah) (pp. 71-72).

Standard 5.4 requires “[s]tudents understand the political, religious, social, and

economic institutions that evolved in the colonial era” (p. 72). Substandard 5.4.1

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 requires students “Understand the influence of location and physical setting on the

founding of the original 13 colonies, and identify on a map the locations of the colonies

and of the American Indian nations already inhabiting these areas” (p. 72). Continuing,

in grade 5, standard 5.6 requires “Students understand the course and consequences of

the American Revolution” (p. 73). Substandard 5.6.1 requires be able to “[i]dentify and

map the major military battles, campaigns, and turning points of the Revolutionary War,

the roles of the American and British leaders, and the Indian leaders’ alliances on both

sides” (p. 73). In addition, substandard 5.6.6 requires students “[d]emonstrate

knowledge of the significance of land policies developed under the Continental

Congress (e.g., sale of western lands, the North-west Ordinance of 1787) and those

policies’ impact on American Indians’ land.” (p. 73). Sleeter (2002) notes that after

sixth grade, American Indians appear less frequently, and when they do it is in relation

to settler expansion westward.

In grade 8, “United States History and Geography: Growth and Conflict”

standard, 8.2 requires “Students analyze the political principles underlying the U.S.

Constitution and compare the enumerated and implied powers of the federal

government” (p. 108). Substandard 8.2.3. requires students know how to “[e]valuate the

major debates that occurred during the development of the Constitution and their

ultimate resolutions in such areas as shared power among institutions, divided state-

federal power, slavery, the rights of individuals and states (later addressed by the

addition of the Bill of Rights), and the status of American Indian nations under the

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 commerce clause.” (p. 108). Continuing in grade 8, content standard 8.5 requires

“Students analyze U.S. foreign policy in the early Republic” (p. 110). Substandard 8.5.3

states students need to “Outline the major treaties with American Indian nations during

the administrations of the first four presidents and the varying outcomes of those

treaties.” (p. 110). Grade 8 standard 8.8, “Students analyze the divergent paths of the

American people in the West from 1800 to the mid-1800s and the challenges they

faced” contains two substandards, 8.8.1 & 8.8.2, pertinent to American Indians:

1. Discuss the election of Andrew Jackson as president in 1828, the importance

of Jacksonian democracy, and his actions as president (e.g., the spoils
system, veto of the National Bank, policy of Indian removal, opposition to
the Supreme Court).
2. Describe the purpose, challenges, and economic incentives associated with
westward expansion, including the concept of Manifest Destiny (e.g., the
Lewis and Clark expedition, accounts of the removal of Indians, the
Cherokees’ “Trail of Tears,” settlement of the Great Plains) and the
territorial acquisitions that spanned numerous decades (p. 111).

Finally, grade 8 standard 8.12 reads, “Students analyze the transformation of the

American economy and the changing social and political conditions in the United States

in response to the Industrial Revolution” (p. 113). Substandard 8.12.2 requires students

to accomplish the following with regards to Indians: “Identify the reasons for the

development of federal Indian policy and the wars with American Indians and their

relationship to agricultural development and industrialization” (p. 113).

Sleeter (2002) explains that in grade 8 content standards emphasize U.S. Indian

policy, including Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal, Indian treaties, and the defeats of

American Indians. Following Grade 8, American Indians vanish from the curriculum

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 (Sleeter, 2002). Once students enter high school the political status of Indians,

including treaty rights, are not referenced (Sleeter, 2002). The exception to this absence

in secondary curriculum is the inclusion of American Indians with regards to Civil

Rights (Sleeter, 2002). For instance, in the Grade 11 course “United States History and

Geography-Continuity and Change in the Twentieth Century”, standard 11.10 requires

“Students analyze the development of federal civil rights and voting rights” (p. 156).

The pertinent substandard regarding American Indians and civil rights is substandard

11.10.5:

Discuss the diffusion of the civil rights movement of African Americans from
the churches of the rural South and the urban North, including the resistance to
racial desegregation in Little Rock and Birmingham, and how the advances
influenced the agendas, strategies, and effectiveness of the quests of American
Indians, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans for civil rights and equal
opportunities (p. 156).

Sleeter (2002) concludes: “Although regaining land and sovereignty, and rebuilding

economies is central today to the work of indigenous peoples [citation omitted], these

issues are not mentioned, implying that Native Americans no longer exist politically

and have been absorbed culturally” (p. 15). Sleeter’s (2002) assessment of the treatment

of American Indians in the curriculum corresponds to the ideological and structural

functions that make up the white settler state (WSS). Undoubtedly, the Framework

(2005) promotes a CME that reifies white settler nationalism (WSN) and blindly

promotes western metaphysics.

Examining the content standards, grades kindergarten through twelve, I found

that the standards incorporate American Indians in ten broad explicit themes:

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 1. National Identity/ Nation of Immigrants: Defined as standards that affirm
the view of American Indians as part of the fabric of a larger national
identity (Standards 1.5; 1.5.2).
2. Geography & Culture: Defined as the standards that introduce American
Indians in relation to geography to teach how American Indian cultures were
shaped by geography, including pre-Columbian cultures (Standards 3.2;
3.2.1; 3.2.2; 4.2; 4.2.1; 5.1; 5.1.1; 5.1.2; 5.4.1).
3. Governance: Defined as those standards that mention American Indians in
relation to systems of government, including the mention of tribal
constitutions, rancherias, and reservations (Standards 3.2.3, 3.2.4, 3.4, 3.4.5,
4.5; 4.5.5; 5.1.3).
4. Relations: This category encompasses those standards that describe Indian
relationships with European figures, including settlers (Standards 4.2.3; 5.3,
5.3.1, 5.3.2).
5. Indian Defeat/Indian Wars: This category includes those standards that
examine American Indian participation in battles/wars, their defeat, and
relocation (Standards 5.3.3, 5.3.4, 5.6, 5.6.1).
6. Internal Indian conflicts: This category describes the standard(s) that
examine internal Indian conflicts (Standard 5.3.5).
7. Great Men: This category (derived from the Council on Interracial Books for
Children (1977) encompasses individual American Indian figures featured in
the standards (Standard 5.3.6).
8. Federal Indian Policies: This category, like its name suggests, covers
standards that examine federal Indian policy (5.6.6; 8.5, 8.5.3, 8.8, 8.8.1,
8.12.2;).
9. Westward Expansion: This category, while also self-explanatory, is used to
include standards that examine the impact of westward expansion on Indians
(5.6.6;8.8.2).
10. Civil Rights/Equality: Finally, this category includes the standard(s) that
examine American Indians in relation to Civil Rights (11.10.5).

While I separated the standards into these ten themes, the standards do not function so

rigidly and do overlap. As stated, the grade 11 standards only explicitly mention Indians

once, but when the standards are read as a whole, it becomes apparent how standards

shape textbook content.

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 The themes that emerged in relation to explicit treatment of Indians are

aligned with the themes that emerged in the textbook analysis. This is not a mistake

since standards shape what content is found in the textbooks For example, the explicit

theme Geography & Culture that is defined as standards that treat American Indians in

relation to geography and teach how American Indian cultures were shaped by

geography, including pre-Columbian cultures, replicates the Native Cultures explicit

theme from the textbook findings. Examining some of the standards that inform the

Geography & Culture theme in closer detail, along with corresponding textbook content

illuminates this alignment between standards and instructional texts. For example,

standard 3.2.2 requires students be able to “[d]iscuss the ways in which physical

geography, including climate, influenced how the local Indian nations adapted to their

natural environment (e.g., how they obtained food, clothing, tools)” (p. 52). In addition,

standard 5.1.1. requires students “[d]escribe how geography and climate influenced the

way various nations lived and adjusted to the natural environment, including locations

of villages, the distinct structures that they built, and how they obtained food, clothing,

tools, and utensils” (p. 71). In other words, these standards require students describe

how geography impacted Indian culture, and how Indians in turn reacted to their

geography.

In this same fashion, the textbook themes I label Native Cultures describe pre-

Columbian cultures and the role of geography in shaping Indian cultural attributes. For

example in the textbook The Americans: Reconstruction to the 21st Century by Danzer,

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 et. al. (2006), in a section titled “Native American Societies of the 1400s”, the authors

state:

The varied regions of the North American continent provided for many
different ways of life. The native groups that populated the continent’s coasts,
deserts, and forests 500 years ago were as diverse as their surroundings.
Diverse Peoples. The inhabitants of California adapted to the region’s
varied environments. The Kashaya Pomo lived in marshlands along the central
coast, hunting waterfowl with slingshots and nets. To the north of them, the
Yurok and Hupa searched the forests for acorns and trapped fish in mountain
streams.
The waterways and forests of the Northwest Coast sustained large
communities year-round. On a coastline that stretched from what is now
southern Alaska to northern California, groups such as the Kwakiutl, Nootka,
and Haida collected shellfish from the beaches and hunted the ocean for whales,
sea otters, and seals.
In the dry Southwest, the Pueblos and Pima tribes, descendants of the
Anasazi and Hohokam, lived in multistory houses made of stone or adobe, a
sundried brick of clay and straw, and grew maize (corn), beans, melons, and
squash.
Beneath the forest canopy of the northeast, members of the Iroquois
nation hunted fish and game, such as wild turkeys, deer, and bear. In the
Northeast, where winters could be long and harsh, Northeast peoples relied
heavily on wild animals for clothing and food. In the warmer Southeast, groups
lived mainly off the land, growing such crops as maize, squash, and beans”(p.
6).

In this passage, the authors describe how Indian tribes from four different geographic

areas adapted to their environments, and were simultaneously shaped by it,

demonstrating alignment between standards and textbooks.

In this regard, the content of the textbooks is aligned to the Framework’s (2005)

content standards. Another example is the Relations explicit theme found in the

standards, and the Contact/Colonization explicit theme found in the textbooks. The

standards that have to do with the Relations theme describe Indian relationships with

European figures, including settlers, and in turn the Contact/Colonization theme

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 demarks portions of the textbooks that describe interactions between the European

settlers and Indians during contact and colonial periods. Similar alignment is found with

regard to themes found in the generated category.

The generated category, which is defined as ideas or concepts found in the

standards that do not explicitly name Native Americans, but nevertheless articulate

concepts and ideas that greatly impact Native Americans, is made up of a variety of

themes. These generated themes that arose out of my examination of the history-social

science standards specifically are:

1. Western Origins/Christianity: Defined as standards that affirm and

define western origins of the United States, including philosophy and
religions, specifically Christianity, and how these have shaped our
Constitutions and individual rights (Standards 5.4, 5.7; 7.11; 8.1, 8.2,
8.3; 11.1, 11.1.1-11.1.4, 11.3, 11.3.1-11.3.5).
2. Immigration/Migration: Defined as the standards & aspects of the
Framework that emphasize the role of immigration in the creation of
the United States, including geography, settler expansion and the role
of migration in the creation of urban landscapes (Standards 4.4.3,
4.4.4; 5.8; 8.6.3, 8.8, 8.8.3-8.8.6, 8.12.5; 11.2; 11.2.3; 11.11;
Curriculum Framework…)
3. Technology/Industrialization (Western Scientific Rationales):
Defined as those standards that emphasize the role of science and
technology in the industrialization of the United States, and how
industrialization helped shape the character of the United States
(Standards 6.1; 8.6.1, 8.6.2, 8.7, 8.12; 11.2.1, 11.2.2, 11.2.6, 11.8,
11.5.7, 11.7.6).
4. Diversity: This category encompasses those standards that describe
the diversity of Americans, and the role of diversity in creating
unique American cultural products (Standards 1.5; 8.6.4; 11.5,
11.5.4, 11.5.5).
5. Race & Racism: This category includes those standards that examine
the role of race and racism in American history (Standards 8.7.4, 8.9,
8.10, 8.11; 11.2, 11.5.2, 11.10).
6. Equality: This category describes the standard(s) that examine the
Civil Rights movement in American and the role of equality in

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 voting rights, and the underlying principal of equality (Standard
5.7; 11.10, 11.10.1-11.10.4, 11.10.6).

In this regard, the generated themes replicate those themes for the textbooks, for the

most part, are conceptually similar. For example westward expansion is not treated as a

separate generated theme here because in the standards I found it is subsumed under a

larger discourse of immigration and migration. Whereas in the textbooks, entire

chapters and sections are dedicated to the idea of westward expansion, and therefore

receives its own label.

However, examining both generated themes from the standards and textbooks,

titled Western Origins/Christianity, provides an excellent example how textbooks align

the content of these generated themes with the content standards themselves. For

example, the standards in grades seven, eight, ten and eleven emphasize the role of the

Enlightenment as foundational in shaping the United States. For example, standard

11.1.1 states: “Describe the Enlightenment and the rise of democratic ideas as the

context in which the nation was founded” (p. 151). Thus the textbooks narratives devote

a great deal of material towards describing Enlightenment thinkers, their ideas, and their

influence on American democracy and philosophy.

To further provide concrete evidence of this alignment of textbooks to standards,

the textbook publishers themselves provide standards maps that illustrate how their

textbooks align with the corresponding standards, in this case Grade 11 United States

History and Geography: Continuity and Change in the Twentieth Century. As stated,

textbooks for secondary grade curriculum are adopted by local school districts and not

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 by the California State Board of Education (CSBE). School districts are therefore

required to adopt books that meet or exceed the standards set out in the Framework

(2005). While publishers are not required to provide standards maps, they are

encouraged to do so by the CSBE (California Department of Education, 2007). The

standard map describes how the textbook meets and exceeds the California standards.

For example, Glencoe/McGraw-Hill provides the following standard map,

demonstrating how Nash’s (1997) American Odyssey, aligns with standard 11.1.1

described below (SE/TWE-Student Edition/Teacher’s Wraparound Edition):

The publisher outlines on which pages standard 11.1.1 is introduced, practiced, and

taught to mastery in the textbook.

Glencoe/McGraw-Hill provides the same standard map for Appleby’s et al’

(2005) The American Vision. The standard map for 11.1.1 is represented as follows:

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Like the Nash (1997) textbook, the Appleby et al. (2005) textbook map describes on

what pages standard 11.1.1, which requires students understand the role of the

Enlightenment in shaping the democratic ideals of the United States, is introduced,

practiced, and taught to mastery. The same maps exist for the other two textbooks by

Cayton et. al (2002) and Danzer, et. al (2006), but I will not provide them here as they

provide the exact same information.

As these maps and my previous analysis demonstrate, standards shape the

content contained in instructional texts. For this reason the subcategories or themes I

identify for the standards are either the same or overlap with those I identify for

textbooks. Regarding the missing category, those themes remain the same for textbooks

and standards. In the next section, I analyze these findings utilizing the Smith’s (2002)

DM that centers the frameworks of indigenous and western metaphysics. I focus on the

same three time periods examined in the chapter six—pre-contact, westward expansion,

and civil rights—in order to examine how the categories that emerged in relation to

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 these time periods (explicit, generated, and missing) are embodied in the Framework.

I have shown how standards are aligned with textbook contents. I now examine how the

deeper western metaphysical assumptions perpetuated by the textbooks are reproduced

by the standards.

II. Analysis

The sum total of the California History-Social Science Framework shapes how

the content is incorporated into textbooks. This includes the learning goals and the

historical and social science analysis skills contained in the Framework (2005), along

with the content standards adopted in the Framework (2005). In sum, the History-Social

Science Framework for California Public Schools shapes the form and content of

textbooks. In this section, I analyze both the content and form findings of the

Framework (2005) outlined in section one. I begin with the form analysis of the

Framework and follow with the content analysis of the Framework

A. Form Analysis of Framework

In particular I examine one feature of form found in my examination of

textbooks and content standards—chronological narratives of history. As mentioned in

the previous chapter, U.S. history textbooks are organized according to chronological

and linear historical narratives, a chief trait of western metaphysics. The emphasis on

chronology is one of seventeen major “distinguishing characteristics” of the History-

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 Social Science Framework for California Public Schools. The Framework states with

regard to chronological organization:

1. This framework is centered in the chronological study of history. History,

placed in its geographic setting, establishes human activities in time and
place. History and geography are the two great integrative studies of the field.
In examining the past and present, students should recognize that events and
changes occur in a specific time and place; that historical change has both
causes and effects; and that life is bounded by the constraints of place.
Throughout this curriculum, the importance of the variables of time and
place, when and where, history and geography, is stressed repeatedly (p. 4).

It follows that the U.S. history textbooks adopted for use in LAUSD, adopt

chronological narratives of history, as it is a major characteristic emphasized by the

Framework, and school districts are mandated to meet or exceed California state

academic standards in their adoption of textbooks. Moreover, history as chronology is

the major form of historical master narrative developed in the west, and as described in

chapter three, chronology, or linearism are central concepts of western metaphysics.

Therefore, the subject, or project of “history” as it is popularly understood is a

paradigm of western metaphysics that utilizes a variety of conceptual mechanisms, such

as chronology. History in American schooling has, as it’s central aim, to tell the official

history of the nation (Apple, 2000; McLaren, 2006), and inculcate in students their

place within this imagined narrative (Anderson). The Framework (2005) in this regard

explicitly states that the following are goals of the history-social science framework:

As educators in the field of history–social science, we want our students to

perceive the complexity of social, economic, and political problems. We want
them to have the ability to differentiate between what is important and what is
unimportant. We want them to know their rights and responsibilities as
American citizens. We want them to understand the meaning of the
Constitution as a social contract that defines our democratic government and

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 guarantees our individual rights. We want them to respect the right of others to
differ with them. We want them to take an active role as citizens and to know
how to work for change in a democratic society. We want them to understand
the value, the importance, and the fragility of democratic institutions. We want
them to realize that only a small fraction of the world’s population (now or in
the past) has been fortunate enough to live under a democratic form of
government, and we want them to understand the conditions that encourage
democracy to prosper. We want them to develop a keen sense of ethics and
citizenship. And we want them to care deeply about the quality of life in their
community, their nation, and their world (p. 2).

The Framework (2005) is explicitly intended to teach students to support the WSS and

the ideologies and structures that promote it. In addition one of the three learning goals

established by the Framework, Knowledge and Cultural Understanding (KCU),

contains the curriculum literacy of historical literacy, which in turn consists of the

relevant essential learning on chronology and history. The essential learning promotes

the following:

Understand the meaning of time and chronology. History inescapably deals

with the dimension of time. Children must learn the meaning of such terms as
decade, generation, century, and so on. As they grow more mature, students
should learn not only when events occurred but also what else was happening at
the same time in that society and elsewhere. To define a moment in time (and
place) for study is to select a particular set of possibilities and constraints.
Chronology defines relationships in time, and students should learn how major
events relate to each other in time so that the past is comprehensible rather than
a chaotic jumble of disconnected occurrences (p. 13).

The essential learning explicitly centers western metaphysical constructs of time,

including linearism and progressivism. Furthermore, it promotes western metaphysical

notions of place.

Accompanying the content standards for elementary, middle and secondary

education, the Framework (2005) outlines that students should acquire certain analytical

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 skills. With regards to chronology in grades 9-12 the Framework (2005) states

students should learn the following Historical and Social Science Analysis Skills:

Chronological and Spatial Thinking

1. Students compare the present with the past, evaluating the consequences of
past events and decisions and determining the lessons that were learned.
2. Students analyze how change happens at different rates at different times;
understand that some aspects can change while others remain the same; and
understand that change is complicated and affects not only technology and
politics but also values and beliefs.
3. Students use a variety of maps and documents to interpret human movement,
including major patterns of domestic and international migration, changing
environmental preferences and settlement patterns, the frictions that develop
between population groups, and the diffusion of ideas, techno-logical
innovations, and goods.
4. Students relate current events to the physical and human characteristics of
places and regions (p. 177).

Chronological storytelling, or linearism, is thus explicitly utilized as a tool to

accomplish the goals articulated by the Frameworks. In addition, the chronological and

spatial thinking skills, these Skills smuggle in other western metaphysical

instrumentalization.

How does the form of the textbooks, promoted by the Framework (2005)

disseminate a particular worldview and how does this conflict with indigenous

worldviews? In order to answer this question, it is important to delineate how history is

in fact a cultural product that does not match up with indigenous metaphysics (Martin,

1987). Martin (1987) argues that the discipline of history is merely whites presuming

“to document and interpret the history of a people whose perception of the world for the

most part eludes us [whites]” (p. 27). He continues, the concept of history displays an

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 “’ethnocentric bias’: the tendency to interpret another culture using the norms and

values of one’s own culture as a point of reference” (ibid).

Vine Deloria (1992) describes that the very essence of history, time and place,

reveal a great divergence between western immigrant, or settler society, and American

Indian philosophies. Deloria (1992) explains that that when “one group is concerned

with the philosophical problem of space and the other with the philosophical problem of

time, then the statements of either group do not make much sense when transferred

from one context to the other without the proper consideration of what is taking place”

(p. 63). Because place is a central actor in indigenous metaphysics, knowledge

production and indeed story telling proceed from these foundations (Deloria, 1992). On

the other hand, settler societies or “Immigrants review the movement of their ancestors

across the continent as a steady progression of basically good events and experiences,

thereby placing history—time—in the best possible light” (ibid).

In essence what one has with regards to the past, is as Peter Nabakov (2002)

claims “contrasting assumptions and priorities regarding the past” (p. 31). Furthermore,

cultural ideas regarding the past shape the goals and ideals of a society in the present

and in the future. While U.S. history in schools prioritizes imparting a particular

narrative about the creation and establishment of the United States in order to solidify

WSN and national identity, Indian accounts of the past are not so concerned with linear

narratives and exact dates. Instead, indigenous accounts of the past have more to do

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 with relationships to places, obligations set out by creation stories, and the ceremonial

life of a community, holistically engaging a tribe’s sense of itself.

The contrast between indigenous metaphysics and western metaphysics results

in very different assumptions about time. Yet school curriculum, in this case history,

only draws from one. Western Europeans, indeed white settlers perspectives are not

informed by place-based worldviews, but rather by time based, or linear perceptions of

the world (Deloria, 1992). As characterized by the framework of western metaphysics

the resulting white settler worldview is wedded to Christian ideas of a chosen people

(Deloria, 1992). Extending Deloria’s (1992) insights on western identity, Americans

perceive themselves to be in guardians of the world, and guardians of the most

enlightened political project—democracy. The Framework (2005), for instance states:

“We want them [students] to realize that only a small fraction of the world’s population

(now or in the past) has been fortunate enough to live under a democratic form of

government, and we want them to understand the conditions that encourage democracy

to prosper” [emphasis added] (p. 2).

B. Content Analysis of Framework

In the chapter six I examine how U.S. History textbooks the three categories of

explicit, generated, and missing are represented within the three time periods of pre-

contact, westward expansion, and civil rights. Within the pre-contact time period, I

examined the explicit theme of land-bridge, the generated theme of western scientific

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 rationale, and the missing theme of tribal origins. Similarly, within the westward

expansion and settlement period, I examined the explicit theme of white settler

interactions with Indians, the generated theme of manifest destiny, and the missing

Indian perspectives concerning westward expansion. Finally, in the civil rights period, I

examined the explicit theme of minority rights; the generated theme of equality; and

the missing Indian perspectives on sovereignty and self-determination from the civil

rights time period.

In this section I extend my analysis to incorporate the pertinent content and

curriculum standards and accompanying course descriptions regarding the three time

periods (pre-contact, westward expansion, and Civil Rights). Textbooks, particularly in

California, reflect the standards adopted as demonstrated in the findings above. For this

reason, I build upon my findings and analysis from chapter six, supplementing it with

similar analysis of the 2005 History-Social Science Framework for California Public

Schools (Framework), beginning with the examination of explicit and generated themes

from the three time periods, and concluding with an examination of missing themes.

1. Pre-Contact

With regards to the pre-contact time period and the explicit theme of land-

bridge, the generated theme of western scientific rationales, and the missing theme of

tribal origins, the California content standards do not explicitly state that students have

to learn the land-bridge narrative. For example, content standard “11.1 Students

analyze the significant events in the founding of the nation and its attempts to

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 realize the philosophy of government described in the Declaration of

Independence” (p. 161). The pre-contact narratives are presented as significant pre-

cursory events in the founding of the U.S. in textbooks. As shown, the history-social

science standards, indeed the history-social science Framework (2005) in California is

explicitly based upon sequential learnings that build upon previous grade learnings.

Therefore examining the standards as a whole provide evidence that the history of

Indians is intended to be read under the larger discourse of the explicit theme of

national identity/nation of immigrants. This explicit theme is characterized as standards

that affirm the view of American Indians as part of the fabric of a larger national

identity. To understand this intent, closer examination of earlier grade standards is

merited.

For example standard 1.5.1 requires students “Recognize the ways in which they

are all part of the same community, sharing principles, goals, and traditions despite their

varied ancestry; the forms of diversity in their school and community; and the benefits

and challenges of a diverse population” (p. 41). Standard 1.5.2 explicitly adds, with

regards to American Indians, that students “[u]nderstand the ways in which American

Indians and immigrants have helped define California and American culture” (p. 41).

Therefore, reading the standards as a whole, their explicit intent is to subsume the

discourse concerning American Indians into the larger discourse of national identity.

Moreover the Framework (2005) emphasizes, both in the standards (as shown above)

and the learning goals, views that affirm western metaphysics. For example, when the

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 content standards are coupled with the Knowledge and Cultural Understanding (KCU)

and the Democratic Understanding and Civic Values (DUCV) learning goals, detailed

in the Framework for history-social sciences, it becomes apparent how content

standards in combination with the curriculum framework function to determine what is

found in texts.

One of the curriculum strands that makes up the KCU goal is geographic

literacy. As demonstrated in the previous section, geographic literacy consists of a

variety of essential learnings. Of particular relevance to the land-bridge narrative is the

geographic essential learning, “understanding human movement,” which requires

students learn:

Humans have been on the move since the beginning of history. Students can
observe how early humans migrated from place to place in quest of food, water,
and security. Students can analyze how, later in history, great migrations
carried people from one continent to another in the search for places of greater
opportunity (p. 17).

Clearly, the land-bridge narrative is included as a learning goal of the history-social

science frameworks, which teaches students a geographic literacy concerning human

movement. In addition students are intended to learn the following Historical and

Social Science Skills with regards to chronology and spatial thinking, that echoes the

geographic literacy included above:

3. Students use a variety of maps and documents to interpret human

movement, including major patterns of domestic and international
migration, changing environmental preferences and settlement patterns, the
frictions that develop between population groups, and the diffusion of ideas,
techno-logical innovations, and goods [emphasis added] (p. 177).

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 The combination of the essential learning and the Skills emphasize lesson on human

movement and migration framed by western metaphysical understandings of geography

and peoples.

Similarly, the DUCV is developed by the following essential learning

concerning the national identity curriculum strand:

To understand this nation’s identity, students must: Recognize that American

society is and always has been pluralistic and multicultural, a single nation
composed of individuals whose heritages encompass many different national
and cultural backgrounds. From the first encounter between indigenous
peoples and exploring Europeans, the inhabitants of the North American
continent have represented a variety of races, religions, languages, and ethnic
and cultural groups [emphasis added] (p. 20).

Reading this essential learning goal in conjunction with the narratives, students are thus

intended to read pre-contact narratives, including the land-bridge narrative, as part of a

discourse that folds Indian peoples into the larger story concerning the nation’s identity.

This standard serves as the foundation for the immigrant-nation and national identity

perspectives found in the textbooks.

By framing indigenous peoples as immigrants themselves, this erases an

important aspect of indigeneity, of indigenous metaphysics—tribal origins. Many

tribes’ origins stories reject the land-bridge theory. Some tribal origin stories, for

instance, describe that the people originated from specific geographic location within

the United States. Yet by promoting this particular view of “human migration” the

Framework (2005) erases indigenous ontology, facilitating the construction of white

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 settler nationalism (WSN), of which the discourses of immigrant-nation and

standardizing national identity are key in constructing.

The generated western scientific rationales utilized by the textbooks examined

in this pre-contact time period are not explicitly stated in the standards. In this regard

western scientific rationales are also implicit in the Framework. The western scientific

rationales used to frame the land-bridge narratives in the textbooks expressed reliance

on the western discipline of archaeology. Moreover, the western scientific rationales

reveal the embedded nature of western modern science as valid mode of inquiry and

knowledge production that does not need to be named in the standards.

However, as the standards demonstrate there is little room for the inclusion of

missing tribal origins. Instead, Indians are included to affirm a singular, or

standardizing national identity. This emphasis on national identity is stressed

throughout the Framework (2005), including the learning goals, the sequential grade

content standards, and the course descriptions. This standardizing national identity

discourse is further articulated in the remainder of the national identity curriculum

strand that states, that as the course of history has progressed “…the United States has

grown increasingly diverse in its social and cultural composition. Teachers have an

obligation to instill in students a sense of pride in their individual heritages. Students

must recognize that whatever our diverse origins may be, we are all Americans” (p. 20).

This curriculum strand represents how the colorblind ideological function (Bonilla-

Silva, 2001; Perez-Huber et. al., 2008) of WSN operates.

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 As early as grade three, students are inculcated with this standardizing national

identity discourse. For example, the grade three course description explains that through

a variety of teaching mechanisms, including “…stories and the celebration of national

holidays, children should learn the meaning of the nation’s holidays and the symbols

that provide continuity and a sense of community across time…They should learn the

Pledge of Allegiance to the flag and the national songs that express American ideals,

such as ‘America the Beautiful,’ the ‘Star Spangled Banner,’ and ‘America.’” (p. 51). In

grade five this national identity is further encouraged: “In this unit students examine the

contributions of the different groups that built the American nation and, in the process,

became a new people. Students should understand that we are a people of many races,

many religions, and many different national origins and that we live under a common

governmental system” (p. 69). In other words, the sum total of the standards require

students to come to see that national identity embodies a diversity of peoples and

experiences, united under a singular American identity, defined by democracy,

individualism, and allegiance to the United States. Moreover the course unit expressly

embraces the ‘new American’ identity identified in the construction of WSN in chapter

two.

The sequential organization of history-social science, from primary, middle to

secondary, and the Frameworks emphasis on reviewing previous grade learning is

evident in the way the Framework shapes the content of textbooks.

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 2. Westward Expansion and Settlement

With regard to the time period of westward expansion, the Grade 11 U.S.

History content standards do not explicitly mention the historical episodes that

compromise westward expansion in the textbooks. Instead the Grade 11 content

standards focus on generated concepts students should learn regarding the movement of

peoples, specifically the generated Immigration/Migration theme, which I define as

those standards that emphasize the role of immigration in the creation of the United

states, including settler expansion. For example, standard 11.1.4 states students should

“[e]xamine the effects of the Civil War and Reconstruction and of the industrial

revolution, including demographic shifts and the emergence in the late nineteenth

century of the United States as a world power” (p. 151). Clearly, the westward

expansion of European settlers westward represents such type of demographic shift.

More specific, the same essential learning “Understanding Human Movement”

of the KCU learning goal applies for this historical narrative. It provides: “They

[students] should understand major patterns of domestic and international migration,

changing environmental preferences and settlement patterns, and the frictions that

develop between population groups from broadly distinct cultural regions”

[emphasis added](p. 17). Similarly the History and Social Science Analysis Skills tools

outlined in the Framework (2005) students are intended to acquire provide a similar

narrative:

3. Students use a variety of maps and documents to interpret human movement,

including major patterns of domestic and international migration, changing

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 environmental preferences and settlement patterns, the frictions that
develop between population groups, and the diffusion of ideas, techno-logical
innovations, and goods (p. 177).

In essence, the standards’ learning goals and analysis skills emphasize an approach to

studying western expansion and settler interactions with Indians that focus on

settlement patterns, particularly those related to white settler expansion. Other groups

are included only in as much as this settler expansion resulted in conflict with white

settlers.

Analyzing the standards as a whole, the concept of westward expansion is

explicitly incorporated beginning in grade 5. Specifically. I identify the three following

explicit themes in relation to westward expansion: Relations (defined as those standards

that describe Indian relations with settlers); Federal Indian Policies (standards that

examined federal Indian policy, including that which enabled expansion); and

Westward Expansion (those standards that examine the impact of westward expansion

on Indians). In grade 5 for example, standard 5.3 requires “[s]tudents describe the

cooperation and conflict that existed among the American Indians and between the

Indian nations and the new settlers”, emphasizing the relations that existed between

settlers and Indians (p. 71). Standard 5.6.6 similarly requires students “[d]emonstrate

knowledge of the significance of land policies developed under the Continental

Congress…and those policies’ impact on American Indians’ land” (p. 73).

In grade 8, students are expected, in standard 8.5 “analyze U.S. foreign policy in

the early Republic” (p. 110). Particular, substandard 8.5.3 states: “Outline the major

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 treaties with American Indian nations during the administrations of the first four

presidents and the varying outcomes of those treaties” (p. 110). Standard 8.8 requires

students “analyze the divergent paths of the American people in the West from 1800 to

the mid-1800s and the challenges they faced” (p. 111) With regard to Indian policy,

substandard 8.8.1 requires students “[d]iscuss the election of Andrew Jackson as

president in 1828, the importance of Jacksonian democracy, and his actions as president

(e.g., the spoils system, veto of the National Bank, policy of Indian removal, opposition

to the Supreme Court)” (p. 111). Moreover, substandard 8.8.2 states that students

should be able to do the following with regard to westward expansion:

Describe the purpose, challenges, and economic incentives associated with

westward expansion, including the concept of Manifest Destiny (e.g., the
Lewis and Clark expedition, accounts of the removal of Indians, the Cherokees’
“Trail of Tears,” settlement of the Great Plains) and the territorial acquisitions
that spanned numerous decades [emphasis added] (p. 111).

This substandard thus incorporates both the explicit and generated themes from the

westward expansion time period. The four textbooks examined all make mention of the

impact white, or European settlers had on the Cherokee in the early 19th century, and on

the Indians of the Great Plains in the late 19th century. In addition, the textbooks

describe the role of Manifest Destiny in propelling settler expansion.

With respect to the generated textbook theme of manifest destiny, while the

eighth grade history-social science standards mention manifest destiny, the 11th grade

content standards do not explicitly mention this concept. The generated theme that is

applicable in this time period is the Immigration/migration theme.

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 While the standards link the notion of manifest destiny to westward expansion,

it is not clear how critically manifest destiny is to be taught. In the textbooks

themselves, there is no explicit link made between the idea and the result. However, the

course description provided for grade eight provides further insights on how westward

expansion and manifest destiny are constructed in the Framework (2005). For the most

part, the narratives concerning westward expansion in the course description of grade

eight United States History and Geography: Growth and Conflict’s unit on “The

Divergent Paths of the American People: 1800–1850” follow traditional paradigms in

their description of how students should come to understand “The West” during this

time period. This includes emphasis on how westward expansion opened up new

economic markets, offered new territory for European immigrants, and provided

foundational stories concerning national identity. These foundational stories are

described as “folklore of individualism and rugged frontier life that has become a

significant aspect of our national self-image” (p. 102). Clearly textbooks reflect the

Frameworks (2005) central goal of developing and encouraging a national-identity.

Within the context of the Grade 11 textbooks examined in the previous chapters,

these lessons concerning national identity found in both the time periods of pre-contact

and westward expansion are affirmed in the units focused on “Connecting with Past

Learnings: The Nation’s Beginnings” and “Connecting with Past Learnings: The United

States to 1900.”

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 3. Civil Rights

The time period of civil rights is dealt with more extensively by the content

standards. The content standards regarding civil rights are found in standard 11.10,

which requires “Students analyze the development of federal civil rights and voting

rights”. The pertinent standard regarding American Indians and civil rights is

substandard 11.10.5:

Discuss the diffusion of the civil rights movement of African Americans from
the churches of the rural South and the urban North, including the resistance to
racial desegregation in Little Rock and Birmingham, and how the advances
influenced the agendas, strategies, and effectiveness of the quests of American
Indians, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans for civil rights and equal
opportunities (p. 156).

This is the only section of the Grade 11 U.S. history content standards in which Indians

are explicitly mentioned. Clearly, the content standards identify American Indians as

minorities, as evidenced by the above quoted standard. It follows that the textbooks

therefore treat American Indians as minorities. Specifically, regarding the civil rights

time period, standards explicitly treat American Indians in the Civil Rights/Minority

discourse. The generated standard theme of Civil Rights/Equality emphasizes how the

principle of equality shaped the civil rights movement including voting rights.

The generated standard theme of equality is shaped by the conceptual learning

goals that drive the history-social science Framework (2005). In particular, one of the

three learning goals emphasized for the Framework (2005), informs the discourses

concerning equality in the textbooks—the learning goal of Democratic Understanding

and Civic Values (DUCV). Part of the DUCV learning goal includes the curriculum

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 strand that centers on national identity and it is within this curriculum strand that the

pertinent essential learnings are developed concerning equality. For instance, the

essential learning, “Understand the American creed as an ideology extolling equality

and freedom” is characterized as follows in the Framework (2005):

The American creed is derived from the language and values found in the
Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights…The
creed provides the unifying theme of the memorable discourse of Martin Luther
King, Jr., “I Have a Dream”: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise
up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-
evident, that all men are created equal…” Students should learn the radical
implications of such phrases as “all men are created equal” and study the
historic struggle to extend to all Americans the constitutional guarantees of
equality and freedom (pp. 20-21).

This essential learning emphasizes an understanding of equality that rights are intended

to be guaranteed to all citizens of the United States. In addition, this essential learning

focuses on specific “historic struggles” that occurred in the United States regarding

equal rights, which in the textbooks examined include the Civil Rights movement and

other protest movements.

Another DUCV essential learning labeled, “Recognize the status of minorities

and women in different times in American history” encourages students to consider the

history of minorities in the United States:

Students should be aware of the history of prejudice and discrimination against

minorities and women as well as efforts to establish equality and freedom.
Students should understand how different minorities were treated historically
and should see historical events through a variety of perspectives (p. 21).

Finally, the DUCV essential learning, “Realize that true patriotism celebrates the moral

force of the American idea as a nation that unites as one people the descendants of

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 many cultures, races, religions, and ethnic groups” emphasizes the notion that while

America consists of diverse peoples, they come together to emphasize a common

national identity. Furthermore, one of the distinguishing characteristics of the

Framework (2005) states the following regarding diversity and multiculturalism:

This framework incorporates a multicultural perspective throughout the

history–social science curriculum. It calls on teachers to recognize that the
history of community, state, region, nation, and world must reflect the
experiences of men and women and of different racial, religious, and ethnic
groups. California has always been a state of many different cultural groups,
just as the United States has always been a nation of many different
cultural groups. The experiences of all these groups are to be integrated at
every grade level in the history–social science curriculum. The framework
embodies the understanding that the national identity, the national heritage,
and the national creed are pluralistic and that our national history is the
complex story of many peoples and one nation, of e pluribus unum, and of
an unfinished struggle to realize the ideals of the Declaration of Independence
and the Constitution [emphasis added] (pp. 6-7).

The history of minorities has been one shaped by the fight for equality—to be

recognized as equal citizens of the United States. In this regard, the idea of e pluribus

unum, out of many one, affirms the standardizing national identity, emphasized by the

Framework (2005). Therefore the history of minorities, like others, is shaped by an

understanding that the history of the United States “is a complex story of many peoples

and one nation”, of one national identity, and the struggle of peoples to share in this

identity (pp. 6-7). Missing from the Framework (2005) are discussions of tribal

sovereignty.

In conclusion the Framework (2005) promotes discourses that normalize

western knowledge organization and assumptions, promote western notions of being

(metaphysics) and promote westernization of knowledge and its institutionalization

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 through means perceived as neutral. The type of narrative concerning minorities is

subsumed within the larger narrative of multiculturalism within the standards. This

multiculturalism stresses a melting pot ideology that stresses a standardizing national

identity and relies on the discourse of the United States as immigrant-nation, a key

characterization of the white settler state in social studies curriculum. The narratives of

the pre-contact, westward expansion, and civil rights time periods promote this brand of

multiculturalism as it relates to Indians. The land-bridge theme emphasizes Indians as

the first Americans. White settler interactions with Indians emphasize the idea that

multiculturalism has not been easily won and has been violent at times. Minority

discourses emphasize that Indians are minorities and thus part of the plural fabric of the

nation. In this way, the textbooks, and the Framework (2005) promote a type of

multiculturalism that I label normative multicultural education (NMCE). I define

NMCE in the following way:

• Characterizes African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latino/as, and Native

Americans as minorities.
• Folds Native Americans into minority discourses rather than engaging their
sovereign status.
• Defines multiculturalism within settler-state discourses and institutions
• Emphasizes multicultural goals in relation to equality and citizenship rights
• Perpetuates the Colonial Model of Education
• Operates within traditional western metaphysical frameworks by emphasizing
an anthropocentric and progressivist characterization of democracy.

NMCE is framed in such a manner that precludes legitimate discussions of tribal

origins, tribal sovereignty and self-determination, and indigenous metaphysics in

general. This is no mistake, as Duane Champagne (2007) illuminates that

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 multiculturalism is a paradigm developed in nation-states, or white settler states, to

respond to the demands of diverse communities for inclusion within the state.

So far I have examined how textbooks reproduce western metaphysics,

including narratives that promote white settler state ideology. In this chapter, I examine

how content standards and their accompanying framework institutionalize western

metaphysics that end up in the actual curriculum (textbooks) used in the classroom. In

the next chapter I conclude this dissertation, providing examples of curriculums

produced by and for indigenous peoples.

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 CHAPTER NINE
INDIGENIZING CURRICULUM

In this concluding chapter I offer the examples of curriculums developed by

both indigenous organizations and state education agencies for indigenous issues. First I

look at independently designed curriculums that are offered as resources for either

supplemental material or curriculum adoption. These examples are not district specific

or tribal specific curriculums. Next I examine the state of Montana’s Indian Education

for All curriculums developed to meet Montana’s policy that mandates all Montana

students learn about Indian culture in a culturally responsive way under the Indian

Education for All Act (MCA 20-1-501). I also offer how future research based on this

dissertation work might look.

I. Indigenized Curriculums

A. The Indian Land Tenure Curriculum (Curriculum)

The Indian Land Tenure Foundation (ILTF) has developed a curriculum to help

teach about Indian land ownership and what they refer to as stewardship of Indian

lands. Moreover, they developed an educational curriculum in order to address the

centrality of land in indigenous metaphysics, indeed culture. The Curriculum is meant

to be flexible in order to fit into pre-existing curriculums. The Curriculum is structured

into four grade level lessons. These are k-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. In addition, grade

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 specific lessons are organized according to the following content areas, which the

ILTF defines as the standards of the Curriculum. These four standards are:

1. American Indian traditional land values

2. American Indian land tenure history
3. Contemporary American Indian land issues
4. Building a positive future for Indian communities through the land use
and stewardship

The lessons contained within the standards address what the ILTF refers to as “core”

subjects, including social sciences, language arts, and the sciences. It is important to

note that the ILTF does not construct standards in the traditional manner standards are

used in by school districts. Typically curriculums and standards are built subject or area

specific as is the case with the History and Social Science Framework for California

Public Schools that integrates social science approaches, including history, geography,

and other social science disciplines. The ILTF curriculum, on the other hand, is issue

specific, focusing on land issues and integrating a variety of disciplines such as history,

science, and language to aid in the lessons. This model is promising as it reframes ways

curriculums and standards are traditionally constructed and indigenizes curriculum and

standards that address indigenous issues.

The first standard which examines American Indian traditional land values is

built upon the following objective: “Students will demonstrate a knowledge and

understanding of traditional American Indian land values that formed the foundation for

Indian cultural identity, sense of place, and survival” (ILTF). The impetus behind this

standard is the consideration of traditional indigenous land values. The ILTF states:

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 “The survival of American Indian tribal societies is dependent upon their abilities to

know and retain special connections to their homelands” (ILTF). In particular, this

standard includes a key indigenous perspective missing from both the standards and the

textbooks I examine earlier—tribal origins. In the ILT Curriculum, tribal origins play a

central role: “The origin stories and related cultural practices that create unique tribal

identities are often based upon particular places, land-related incidents or the use of

specific natural resources and materials” (ILTF). This answers Wildcat’s (2001) call to

center indigenous metaphysics in education. Furthermore, the connection between

origins, the role of place, and current indigenous survival is centered in this Curriculum:

“Many tribal societies that were heavily dependent upon and sustained by their lands

are seeking to restore that relationship in order to strengthen their communities” (ILTF).

The second standard, American Indian land tenure history, has the following as

it objective: “Students will demonstrate a knowledge of key events in American Indian

history and how these events relate to the current land tenure of American Indian tribes

and individuals” (ILTF). This standard represents another theme missing from the

textbooks and standards I examine earlier—tribal perspectives on westward expansion

and lands.

The third standard, Contemporary Land issues, has the following objective:

“Students will be able to discuss issues presently affecting American Indian lands and

the ability of tribal nations to exercise sovereign powers over those lands” (ILTF).

Finally, the fourth standard, Building a positive future for Indian communities, has the

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 following objective: “Students will explore how a return to American Indian

traditional land values can help correct the effects of decades of land loss” (ILTF).

Specifically regarding tribal perspectives on westward expansion, more appropriately

identified as settler expansionism, the history of settler expansionism shapes “modern

Indian land tenure” (ILTF). Without a doubt the history of “… land losses were a result

of warfare, displacement, assimilation, broken treaties, tax lien foreclosures,

congressional diminishment, executive orders, forced evictions, illegal settlement by

non natives and illegitimate sales” (ILTF). To further understand the complexity of this

history requires including the missing theme if Review of Federal Indian Law

accompanied by Tribal perspectives on Indian Law. The ILTF states: “Furthermore,

highly complex relationships between federal government, tribal governments, and state

governments have evolved, created by treaties, legislation, executive orders and court

decisions. All of this has had an enormous impact on modern Indian land tenure, which

cannot be fully understood without an understanding of the history of American Indian

colonization” (ILTF). Finally, the ILTF is motivated by a key concept I identify in this

dissertation, framing the United States as a white settler state. This framing allows for a

more nuanced and realistic assessment of U.S. history and policy. Indeed the (ILTFO

argues: “In addition to exploring the history of domestic colonization and subsequent

changes in land tenure, principles of European colonization are further explored in

relation to indigenous homeland losses in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Africa and

South America” (ILTF).

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 The final standard, Building a positive future for Indian communities, has as

its objective: “Students will explore how a return to American Indian traditional land

values can help correct the effects of decades of land loss” (ILTF). This represents,

possibly the most important aspect of this curriculum. Not only has this Curriculum

intervened in curriculum construction, it offers indigenized perspectives that reframe

traditional settler state curriculum models. As an indigenized curriculum in assesses and

addressed the contemporary needs of indigenous peoples, pairing learning and action:

“The final standard looks to what Indian communities should consider as they work

toward a successful future in managing their lands” (ILTF). The ILT Curriculum also

does not shy away from the challenges facing this type of action oriented Curriculum.

For instance, it stresses that the assimilatory policies of the white settler state and

indeed the CME must be addressed: “Indians have had their lands severely diminished

and, in many cases, they have been moved great distances from their original

homelands. This diminishment and displacement has had significant impacts on tribal

culture, clan and social structure, traditional education, languages and overall tribal

health” (ILTF).

However, the ILT curriculum also stresses another key component I identified in

my characterization of the settler state, indigenous relationships with the settler state. It

addresses Champagne’s (1996) insistence that indigenous peoples are not bystanders of

this history. To be sure the ILT provides: “Tribal nations are finding the means of

asserting their sovereign status and taking steps to correct some of the harm to their

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 tribal societies and their land bases. This assertion can include acquisition of lost

lands, halting the erosion of Indian land base, restoration of traditional land values and

development of sustainable land-based tribal economies” (ILTF).

The sum total of these four standards imply a comprehensive approach to the

realities indigenous peoples face in the United States and how educational discourses

can be constructed in ways that meaningfully address them. The next curriculum I

examine represents a more tradition approach to curriculum.

B. Montana’s Indian Education for All (IEFA)

In this section I examine the various curriculums developed in Minnesota as part

of the Indian Education for All (IEFA) Act, focusing on the social studies components

of the curriculums. Specifically I review a number of the Montana Office of Public

Instruction’s (MOPI) IEFA curriculum materials offered through their website. The

IEFA Act has called attention nationwide to the issue of Indian education not only for

Indian student, but for all students as well with other states like South Dakota trying to

follow in Montana’s lead (Pember, 2002). The origins of the act, can be traced back to

the Montana Constitutional Convention of 1972 (Pember, 2007). In that year Article X,

Section 1(2) was added to the Montana Constitution, requiring “The state recognizes the

distinct and unique cultural heritage of the American Indian and is committed in its

educational goals to the preservation of their cultural heritage” (Pember, 2007; 18). This

was codified in 1999 into law with the passage of House Bill 528, now known as the

Indian Education for All Act. The Act reads in part:

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 Section 1: It is the constitutionally declared policy of this state to recognize the
distinct and unique cultural heritage of American Indians and to be committed
in its educational goals to the preservation of their cultural heritage.

Section 2: It is the intent of the legislature that in accordance with Article X,

section 1(2), of the Montana constitution:

(a) every Montanan, whether Indian or non-Indian, be encouraged to

learn about the distinct and unique heritage of American Indians in a
culturally responsive manner; and

(b) every educational agency and all educational personnel will work
cooperatively with Montana tribes or those tribes that are in close
proximity, when providing instruction or when implementing an
educational goal or adopting a rule related to the education of each
Montana citizen, to include information specific to the cultural heritage
and contemporary contributions of American Indians, with particular
emphasis on Montana Indian tribal groups and governments.

Section 3: It is also the intent of [sections 1 through 3], predicated on the belief
that all school personnel should have an understanding and awareness of Indian
tribes to help them relate effectively with Indian students and parents, that
educational personnel provide means by which school personnel will gain an
understanding of and appreciation for the American Indian people (MCA 20-1-
501).

Responding to the IEFA, the MOPI has designed a series of resources to aid in the

introduction of IEFA curriculum. However, funding issues has frustrated the

implementation of IEFA.

The funding of IEFA was brought to the Montana Supreme Court. In 2003, the

court held “that the state was required to provide enough funding to meet the

constitutional requirements of the Act” (Pember, 2007; p. 18). However, Pember (2007)

continues, “it still took another two years for legislators to allocate more than $11

million to meet the mandates of IEFA, ensuring a ‘quality’ education to all Montana

students” (p. 18). The Montana legislature was motivated to adopt IEFA by the

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 significant American Indian population and the prominence of American Indian

legislative members in the state (Pember, 2007). There are twelve tribal nations in

Montana, one of which is without a land base, and the remaining eleven are located on

seven reservations in the state (Montana Office of Public Instruction, 2007). In

Montana, 7.8 percent of the population identifies as American Indian or Alaska Native

alone or in combination (Pew Hispanic Center, 2007).39 American Indian students

represent a little over 11 percent of students enrolled in public schools (Montana Office

of Public Instruction, 2007). In addition of the total number of schools in Montana

(850), 83 schools have populations with 50 percent or more American Indian students

(ibid). Further, while white enrollment has been steadily declining in Montana public

schools, American Indian enrollment is increasing (ibid). The IEFA is not only a

response to the schooling of American Indians, it is also a response to Montana’s

assessment that understanding Indian cultures is a goal that serves larger issues of

equity for all students.

Thus far the impact on student achievement has not been measured as the IEFA

began implementation in the 2005-2006 school year (Starnes, 2006). What can be

assessed at this current juncture is the curriculum that has been developed to meet the

IEFA Act. Like with the Indian Land Tenure Curriculum, I focus on the guiding

principles or objectives of the materials developed by the Montana Office of Public

Instruction to fulfill IEFA.

39
Only two other states, New Mexico and Oklahoma, have higher percentage rates of American Indians
or Alaska alone or in combination (Pew Hispanic Center, 2007).

315
 1. Montana Office of Public Instruction (MOPI) IEFA Materials

In response to IEFA, MOPI outlined seven lessons, or objectives, all Montana

students need to know about Montana Indians. These lessons guide the curriculum

developed for IEFA, in conjunction with the Montana standards. In this section I focus

on social studies standards.40 These seven lessons are titled the “Essential

Understandings Regarding Montana Indians” and they are as follows:

1. There is great diversity among the 12 tribal Nations of Montana in their

languages, cultures, histories and governments. Each Nation has a distinct
and unique cultural heritage that contributes to modern Montana.

2. There is great diversity among individual American Indians as identity is

developed, defined and redefined by entities, organizations and people. A
continuum of Indian identity, unique to each individual, ranges from
assimilated to traditional. There is no generic American Indian.

3. The ideologies of Native traditional beliefs and spirituality persist into

modern day life as tribal cultures, traditions, and languages are still practiced
by many American Indian people and are incorporated into how tribes
govern and manage their affairs. Additionally, each tribe has its own oral
histories, which are as valid as written histories. These histories pre-date the
“discovery” of North America.

4. Reservations are lands that have been reserved by the tribes for their own use
through treaties, statutes, and executive orders and were not “given” to them.
The principle that land should be acquired from the Indians only through
their consent with treaties involved three assumptions:

i. Both parties to treaties were sovereign powers.

40
Montana social studies content standards are: Standard 1—Students access, synthesize, and evaluate
information to communicate and apply social studies knowledge to real world situations; Standard 2—
Students analyze how people create and change structures of power, authority, and governance to
understand the operation of government and to demonstrate civic responsibility; Standard 3—Students
apply geographic knowledge and skills (e.g., location, place, human/environment interactions, movement,
and regions); Standard 4—Students demonstrate an understanding of the effects of time, continuity, and
change on historical and future perspectives and relationships; Standard 5—Students make informed
decisions based on an understanding of the economic principles of production, distribution, exchange,
and consumption; Standard 6—Students demonstrate an understanding of the impact of human
interaction and cultural diversity on societies.

316
 ii. Indian tribes had some form of transferable title to the land.
iii. Acquisition of Indian lands was solely a government matter not to
be left to individual colonists.

5. Federal policies, put into place throughout American history, have affected
Indian people and still shape who they are today. Much of Indian history can
be related through several major federal policy periods:

Colonization Period 1492 -

Treaty Period 1789 - 1871

Allotment Period 1887 - 1934

Boarding School Period 1879 - - -
Tribal Reorganization Period 1934 - 1958
Termination Period 1953 - 1988
Self-determination 1975 – current

6. History is a story most often related through the subjective experience of the
teller. With the inclusion of more and varied voices, histories are being
rediscovered and revised. History told from an Indian perspective frequently
conflicts with the stories mainstream historians tell.

7. Under the American legal system, Indian tribes have sovereign powers,
separate and independent from the federal and state governments. However,
the extent and breadth of tribal sovereignty is not the same for each tribe
(Montana Office of Public Instruction, 2008a).

In addition the MOPI developed a social studies model curriculum that incorporates the

Essential Understandings outlined above, in conjunction with social studies content

standards.

I now assess each Essential Understanding utilizing the missing category themes

I identify in chapter six and eight, along with Smith’s DM and the framework of

indigenous metaphysics developed in chapter three. I include those themes I identified

as missing from the California texts and standards I examine earlier:

• Tribal Origins
• Tribal Religions/Philosophies

317
 • Tribal perspectives on contact and colonization
• Multiple Tribal perspectives on westward expansion
• Review of Federal Indian Law accompanied by Tribal perspectives
on Indian Law
• Tribal Sovereignty
• Tribal Cultural Continuity
• Tribal Self-Determination
• Tribal lands

Essential Understandings (EU) one and two both address issues of diversity among the

twelve tribes of Montana, and among individual American Indians (MOPI, 2008).

Regarding the tribes, EU one explains that diversity exists regarding governance,

culture, history and language. For individual American Indians diversity exists

regarding how Indians identify themselves, asserting there is no one thing that makes an

‘Indian.’ The notion of diversity represents a theme lacking from my own missing

themes. This in turn represents a useful aspect of the IEFA curriculum, which is based

on its building upon the local tribes of the state of Montana, versus a generalized

treatment of American Indians found in the California standards and textbooks.

The third EU identifies that students should understand that indigenous beliefs

and spiritual practices continue to inform tribal culture, tradition and language.

Significantly this EU stresses the fact that these spiritual beliefs are “incorporated into

how tribes govern and manage their affairs” (MOPI, 2008). This targets multiple themes

I identify as missing in the California context, including tribal origins, tribal

religions/philosophies, and tribal cultural continuity. As Champagne (2007) reminds us,

indigenous peoples locate their rights to self-governance in their tribes’ origin stories.

Coupling Champagne’s (200&) insights with the framework of indigenous metaphysics

318
 developed in chapter three, the mention of tribal religions/philosophies in EU two

addresses, for instance tribe’s attitudes concerning land-bridge theories. More

importantly EU two stresses that the broader context of tribal spiritual beliefs be

understood in how they continue to inform tribal life, stressing that actual beliefs

themselves should not necessarily be a part of this lesson as many of these are sacred

private matters.

EU four addresses the missing themes of tribal lands and Federal Indian policy

in a manner that follows Smith’s methods of reframing and intervening. The all too

common discourse surrounding tribal lands, including reservations, is reframed pointing

out that reservation lands were not “given” to tribes. Rather that through a process of

political negotiation with the federal government, in light of settler encroachment,

tribes’ reserved land through series of treaties and policies from taking by settlers. This

reframing of the common narrative Indians were given lands also centers indigenous

peoples sovereign powers, addressing another theme missing from California social

studies curriculum—tribal sovereignty.

EU five address the related missing theme of review of Federal Indian law and

policy, focusing on the major historical Indian policy periods I reviewed in chapter two.

This places this history into an appropriate historical perspective, which allows students

to assess the impact of vacillating nature of Federal Indian policy. In addition this EU

addresses the often over looked history of Indian schooling. By addressing this history

the need of IEFA is made more readily apparent.

319
 In addition EU six addresses another important component of the missing

themes I identify, which is that of tribal perspectives of U.S. historical events. EU six

explains that history is subjective, and by including multiple voices, history is expanded

to include differing perspectives. Including Indian voices provides a much different

narrative than to that of the typical settler expansionism narrative traditionally centered

in social studies curriculum. For instance he background information on EU six

challenges the typical narratives of westward expansion and manifest destiny, two

themes dominant in the California example. In fact, the framing of EU six moves

towards conceptualization more in accord with Lomawaima and McCarty’s (2006)

critical democracy.41 Finally EU seven, provides the opportunity for a more in depth

look at tribal sovereignty and self-determination, discussions absent in the California

example. Moreover EU seven stresses the fact that tribal sovereignty originates from

indigenous peoples themselves (Champagne, 2007c). Sovereignty does not originate in

any agreements made between tribes with the federal government (Wilkins, 1994,

2002b), realities oftentimes ignored or simply unknown by non-tribal peoples.

To summarize the seven Essential Understandings that guide IEFA represent

important models of intervening in the way traditional social studies curriculum are

conceptualized and developed to promote indigenized and reframed perspectives. The

41
Lomawaima and McCarty (2006) define critical democracy as a process, which embraces “more than a
benignly neutral diversity that celebrates cultural differences while muting the ideological forces that
privilege certain differences and marginalize others” (p. 281). Education is central in achieving a critical
democracy, but it cannot be “merely a homogenizing and standardizing machine, unable to draw strength
from diversity” (p. 281). Rather diversity, Lomawaima and McCarty (2002) argue, must “…tolerate
American Indians living as they might choose, both as Native people and as U.S. citizens” in order to
achieve the democratic ideals of equality and freedom.

320
 EU listed above begin to meet Wildcat’s (2006) call to center an indigenous

metaphysical orientations in education, and particularly curriculum.

The MOPI also offers a series of model lessons aligned with and the Montana

social studies standards and Essential Understandings for secondary classroom use

described above. These model lessons focus on twenty-one topics. These topics are:

1. Factors Causing Conflict and Cooperation Among Groups and Nations

2. Montana Tribal Governments
3. Tribal Leaders (contemporary and historical)
4. Tribal Sovereignty and Power
5. Government Protecting Rights and Needs of Citizens
6. Comparing Use of Land by Different Groups
7. Human Settlement Patterns – Rethinking Columbus
8. Analyzing Montana Indians' Points of Historic Significance – Two
Medicine
9. Montana State Constitution and Indian Education for All
10. Analyzing Multiple Viewpoints - The Lewis and Clark Expedition
11. The Colonization Era - An Interview with Dr. James Loewen
12. The Treaty Period - American Indian Perspectives
13. The Allotment Period - American Indian Perspectives
14. The Boarding School Period - American Indian Perspectives
15. Tribal Reorganization - American Indian Perspectives
16. Termination - American Indian Perspectives
17. Federal Indian Policy - Self-Determination
18. Contemporary American Indian Issues
19. Comparing American Indian and European Economic Systems
20. Results of Forced Assimilation – Loss of Native Languages
21. Who is an Indian? (i.e., Blood Quantum, Lineages, Personal Identity)

I focus on one lesson plan here.

The topic “Human Settlement Patters-Rethinking Columbus” is developed in a

model lesson plan provided by the MOPI. The goal of this lesson is for students to

“investigate, interpret, and analyze the impact of multiple historical and contemporary

viewpoints concerning events within and across cultures” (Montana Office of Public

321
 Instruction, 2008b). This goal addresses social studies content standard six, which

requires students “demonstrate an understanding of the impact of human interaction and

cultural diversity on societies” and benchmark42 six, requiring students be able to

“analyze the interactions of individuals, groups and institutions in society (e.g., social

mobility, class conflict, globalization)” by the time they graduate high school (MOPI,

2008b). Additionally, this lesson plan is based on Essential Understanding six that

requires students understand that history is subjective, and indigenous accounts often

conflict with “mainstream” accounts. I focus on the third stage outlined by the lesson

plan, designing the learning plan and activities to engage in EU six.

The lesson plan requires the teacher to:

• Introduce the topic of colonization

• Establish what students already know concerning colonization
• Emphasize that colonization is on-going—it continues to shape, for instance,
how Indians are written about in history textbooks
• Emphasize that tribal histories are mostly told through European male
perspectives
• Have students come up with a list of Indian related events/topics that they will
interpret from differing standpoints. Examples from the lesson plan include:
“Columbus and ‘discovery’, role of American Indians in the early colonial
times, Pocahontas, influence Indians had on early colonial thinking, westward
movement, Lewis and Clark, etc…”
• Discuss the guidelines outlined in the lesson plan with students regarding the
material they will read.

The lesson plan offers the opportunity to reframe student understandings of

colonization. It also offers the opportunity to intervene in mainstream or whitestream

42
MOPI defines benchmarks as “expectations for students’ knowledge, skills and abilities along a
developmental continuum in each content area. That continuum is focused at three points—at the end of
grade 4, the end of grade 8, and grade 12” (MOPI, 2008). Each of the six standards is accompanied by a
series of benchmarks that state what students should know by grades 4, 8 and 12.

322
 (Grande, 2004) narratives of history that are usually framed by settler perspectivism.

In addition it serves to make indigenous issues and history contemporary, challenging

typical representations of American Indians as remnants of the past. Finally, it offers the

opportunity for a critical reading of history, challenging typical figures and events

narrated in whitestream (Grande, 2004) settler histories.

Particularly, and just as important, the lesson plans offers the following

guidelines for the teacher to offer students, which facilitate a reframing and

indigenization of curriculum:

• With regard to events such as Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery,
Montana tribal histories offer differing points of view from those expressed
in your American history textbook.
• Your history textbook and a tribal history each represent “points of view”;
the point of view changes, depending on whose story is being told.
• Identifying and respecting another culture’s viewpoints of historical events
is basic to your understanding of how histories can influence our ideas and
points of view.
• Events from the past, and how they are viewed by tribes and by the U.S.
government, still cause issues of concern today.
• The “discovery” of an area is not necessarily a discovery. Indigenous
people had been in the area explored by the expedition for hundreds,
probably thousands of years (MOPI, 2008b).

Lewis and Clark are popular historical figures included in U.S. History curriculum.

Missing from these narratives are tribal stories of their interactions with Lewis and

Clark. In this way this lesson plan offers an opportunity to introduce these missing tribal

perspectives.

C. Other Considerations

323
 This dissertation represents and indigenized analysis of social studies

curriculum used in California. The above curriculum models represent attempts at

incorporating indigenized perspectives. However, one cannot simply expect teachers to

include the above curriculums in their classroom. Without sufficient teacher training

that engages deeply embedded beliefs that these types of curriculums challenge,

teachers may misinterpret, or reinterpret such curriculums through their own cultural

archives (Smith, 2002) in ways that defeat the intent of the curriculum. In addition,

inclusion of this type of curriculum challenges typical ways in which American Indian

subjects are included in traditional curriculums as part of a larger multicultural

curriculum. Multicultural curriculum, embedded in white settler state ideology is based

on notions of inclusion, egalitarianism, and equality. Thus multicultural curriculum

inclusion is framed in ways that meet these foundational tenets. These include the Great

Minority approach, which are inclusions of great figures of ‘minority’ groups. This

approach is limited by two main approaches: the propensity to see all nonwhite group as

minorities; and the egalitarian model of incorporating figures in same numbers into all

ready existing curriculum. Instead, curriculums such as the ILT and the IEFA

curriculums demand not only rejection of normative multicultural practices in

education, but of structural and ideological components of white settlerism, indeed

western metaphysics.

To be sure, classroom practices, including teaching and learning must be further

explored to assess how curriculum translates into teaching and learning.

324
II. Future Research

As described, the California social studies curriculum I examine along with the

Indian Land Tenure curriculum and the Montana IEFA curriculum demand further

research inquiry. Specifically two areas of research are required, including teacher

training and classroom practices. Concerning teacher training, specific research

focusing on how teacher-training programs/departments prepare pre-service teachers to

teach social studies is merited. Questions guiding this research would include: Does

pre-service teacher training maintain and promote white settler ideologies and

structures? The framework of western metaphysics is included within the ideological

and structural components of the settler state.

Concerning classroom practices research is required examining both teaching

and learning in the social studies classroom. For instance, research requiring classroom

observation of teaching practices in the social studies classroom. Questions framing this

type of research may include: How do teachers promote or challenge white settler state

ideologies and structures promoted in social studies materials? For teachers utilizing

ILT and IEFA curriculums, research would focus on teacher effectiveness in teaching

an indigenized version of these curriculums. Regarding learning practices, the use of

classroom observation and survey techniques, may provide insights into how students

engage the social studies curriculum.

325
 These research strategies may be employed to assess teacher-training and

classroom practices for a variety of populations. For example, American Indian specific

teacher-training programs and schools might provide different insights to the above

listed research. Likewise, assessing schools with diverse student and teacher

populations will provide important insights on the above-mentioned research. As such,

this dissertation represents one component of a critical research agenda focusing on

social studies curriculum. Such type of research is demanded if educators are serious

about encouraging and promoting diversity in curriculum and the classroom.

Furthermore, this dissertation poses that further serious inquiry of multiculturalism and

current discourses of inclusion must be critically reassessed if indigenous students’

needs are to be met.

326
 APENDIX 1

Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education Approved

High School Instructional Materials/Texts
2006

HISTORY/SOCIAL SCIENCE Revie

INSTRUCTIONAL TEXTS Publisher wed

COURSE:
UNITED STATES HISTORY & GEOGRAPHY AB, GRADE 11
Berkin, et al.: American Voices, 1865 to the Present Scott Foresman 
Boorstin, Kelley: History of the United States Prentice Hall 
Boyer, Stuckey: American Nation: Civil War to Holt, Rinehart
Present and Winston 
Holt, Rinehart
Boyer, Stuckey: American Nation in the 20th Century
and Winston

Glencoe/McGra
Bragdon, et al.: History of a Free nation
w-Hill

Cayton, et al.: America: Pathways to the Present,
Modern American History
Prentice Hall 
Danzer, et al.: The Americans: Reconstruction
Through the 21st Century (California Edition)
McDougal Littell 
Dibacco, et al.: History of the United States, Vol. 2,
Civil War to the Present
McDougal Littell 
Downey, et al.: United States History: In the Course Glencoe/McGra
of Human Events w-Hill

Jordan, et al.: Americans, A History McDougal Littell 
th
Nash: American Odyssey: The 20 Century and Glencoe/McGra
Beyond w-Hill 
Ritchie: American History: The Modern Era Since Glencoe/McGra
1865 w-Hill 
COURSE:
UNITED STATES HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY: CONTINUITY AND
CHANGE
IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, GRADE 11 (Adopted April 4, 2006)
Glencoe/McGra
Appleby, et al.: The American Vision: Modern Times
w-Hill 
Cayton, et al.: America: Pathways to the Present Prentice Hall 

327
Danzer: The Americans: Reconstruction to the 21st
Century (California Edition)
McDougal Littell 
ADVANCED PLACEMENT AMERICAN HISTORY, GRADE 11
Boyer, et al.: The Enduring Vision: A History of the
American People, 5th Ed.
McDougal Littell 
Thomson
Murrin, et al.: Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of
the American People, 4th Ed.
Learning/Wadsw 
orth
Norton, et al.: A People and A Nation: A History of
the United States, 7th Ed.
McDougal Littell 
W. W. Norton
Tindall, Shi: America: A Narrative History, 5th Ed. (Peoples 
Publishing)
ADVANCED PLACEMENT UNITED STATES HISTORY, GRADE 11
(Adopted April 4, 2006)
Thomson
Ayers, et al.: American Passages: A History of the
United States, 3rd Ed.
Learning/Wadsw 
orth
Hyser, Arndt: Voices of the American Past: Thomson
rd
Documents in U.S. History, 3 Ed., Volume 1 and Learning/Wadsw 
Volume II [Reader] orth
Kennedy, et al.: The American Pageant: A History of
the Republic, 13th Ed.
McDougal Littell 
Thomson
Murrin, et al.: Liberty, Equality, and Power: A
History of the American People, 4th Ed.
Learning/Wadsw 
orth
Newman, Schmalbach: United States History:
Preparing for the Advanced Placement Examination Amsco
[Test Preparation Aid]

328
 Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education Approved
High School Instructional Materials/Texts
2007

COURSE:
UNITED STATES HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY: CONTINUITY AND
CHANGE
IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, GRADE 11
Appleby, et al.: The American Vision: Modern
Times
Glencoe/McGraw-Hill 
Cayton, et al.: America: Pathways to the Present Pearson/Prentice Hall 
Danzer: The Americans: Reconstruction to the
21st Century (California Edition)
McDougal Littell 
COURSE
ADVANCED PLACEMENT UNITED STATES HISTORY, GRADE 11
Ayers, et al.: American Passages: A History of the Thomson
United States, 3rd Ed. Learning/Wadsworth 
Hyser, Arndt: Voices of the American Past:
Thomson
Documents in U.S. History, 3rd Ed., Volume 1 and 
Learning/Wadsworth
Volume II [Reader]
Kennedy, et al.: The American Pageant: A
History of the Republic, 13th Ed.
McDougal Littell 
Murrin, et al.: Liberty, Equality, and Power: A Thomson
th
History of the American People, 4 Ed. Learning/Wadsworth

Newman, Schmalbach: United States History:
Preparing for the Advanced Placement Amsco
Examination [Test Preparation Aid]

329
 Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education Approved
High School Instructional Materials/Texts
2008

COURSE:
UNITED STATES HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY: CONTINUITY AND
CHANGE
IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, GRADE 11
Appleby, et al.: The American Vision: Modern
Times
Glencoe/McGraw-Hill 
Cayton, et al.: America: Pathways to the Present Pearson/Prentice Hall 
Danzer: The Americans: Reconstruction to the
21st Century (California Edition)
McDougal Littell 
COURSE
ADVANCED PLACEMENT UNITED STATES HISTORY, GRADE 11
Ayers, et al.: American Passages: A History of the Thomson
United States, 3rd Ed. Learning/Wadsworth 
Hyser, Arndt: Voices of the American Past:
Thomson
Documents in U.S. History, 3rd Ed., Volume 1 and 
Learning/Wadsworth
Volume II [Reader]
Kennedy, et al.: The American Pageant: A
History of the Republic, 13th Ed.
McDougal Littell 
Murrin, et al.: Liberty, Equality, and Power: A Thomson
th
History of the American People, 4 Ed. Learning/Wadsworth

Newman, Schmalbach: United States History:
Preparing for the Advanced Placement Amsco
Examination [Test Preparation Aid]

330
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