Browsing by Subject "American Indians"
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Item The cross-cultural classroom in the context of radical language shift : humor, teasing, and the ethnolinguistic repertoire in the Blackfeet Nation(2013-05) Seifert, Nicole Rae; Woodbury, Anthony C.In this dissertation, I analyze classroom interactions between a White, nonlocal high school English teacher and American Indian students on the Blackfeet Nation in Montana. I focus on the participants' strategic use of humor and distinctive linguistic features in these interactions, particularly teasing as a cultural activity among the students, the teacher's immersion and adaptation to that culture, and the affective and sociocultural importance of the ethnolinguistic repertoire to the students. I argue that the main functions of the humor and teasing are threefold: (a) to build rapport, (b) to accomplish interactional goals in the classroom, and (c) to negotiate teacher-student power struggles in a socioculturally acceptable way. I show that the students' humor and discourse is constitutive of local culture and often counterhegemonic, implicitly and at times explicitly critiquing mainstream educational practices and the marginalized status of the students. My analysis considers the data from a discourse level as well as examines the indexical and patterned use of microlevel linguistic resources from the student's ethnolinguistic repertoire--specifically, distinctive interjections and scooped-accent intonation. The primary data is naturally occurring classroom discussions, complemented by individual and group interviews and ethnographic observations. This study points to the importance of sociocultural factors in language variation and change in communities undergoing or having undergone radical language shift. It thus adds to the literature that considers how cultural practices are disrupted and may be restructured as the linguistic code changes. This research also contributes to the research that details the difficulties nonmainstream students face in public schools when their home culture and language practices are at odds with those of the school, and it examines humor and teasing as student strategies to navigate these differences. This study aims to help paint a more complete picture of the contemporary social and linguistic contexts in which American Indian speakers live, with a mind toward how this understanding can be applied to the real-world circumstances of these youth.Item Psychological distress among two American Indian tribes(2010-08) Huyser, Kimberly Rose; Angel, Ronald; Hummer, Robert; Sakamoto, Arthur; Cox, James; Beals, Janette; Ross, CatherineAmerican Indians suffer disproportionately from mental disorders such as depression and substance abuse. American Indians have lower socioeconomic status than white Americans making them more vulnerable to mental health stressors and disorders, such as depression. Unfortunately, the causal processes and mechanisms producing negative psychological outcomes remain unclear. Despite the disadvantages faced by many American Indians, the Native American community offers cultural norms and values that facilitate treatment of and recovery from mental stressors. The Native American community offers its members an extended social support network as well as healing ceremonies, which could mitigate the effects of depression. In my dissertation, I compare the level of psychological distress between two tribal populations from a study from the Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health (CAIANH) at the University of Colorado at Denver. I use logistic regression to examine the relationship between the psychological distress score and tribal identity. The logistic regression analysis also explores the relationship between self-rated health and socioeconomic attainment. Finally, I compare the outcomes between the Northern Plains tribe and the Southwest tribe. The results suggest that individuals with a strong sense of cultural spirituality have lower psychological distress than individuals who do not have strong cultural spirituality. Also, individuals of the Southwest tribe who spent part of their lives off the reservation or near the reservation experience lower psychological distress compared to those who spent their entire lives on the reservation; in contrast, individuals of the Northern Plains tribe are disadvantaged in terms of mental health if they spent part of their lives off or near the reservations than those who stay on the reservation their whole lives. Members of either the Northern Plains tribe or Southwest tribe who feel socially isolated are very likely to experience severe psychological distress or rate their health poorly. The findings of the study indicate that resiliency factors among the tribes such as cultural-spirituality, reservation community and social support are protective, but the findings also encourage further understanding of mechanisms and utilization of the resources available.