The current study, which focuses on mentored research experiences of freshmen and sophomores at the tribal college of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, responds to the call by Ovink and Veazey (2011) for additional study of effective strategies for providing both mentoring and research experiences for minority undergraduates. We use qualitative…

A national research agenda focused on gifted/creative/talented Native American students is needed, as this population remains one of the least researched, most overlooked, and most underserved in the field. Literature-based assumptions surrounding Native American students' talent development, culture and traditions, cognitive styles and…

Background: We describe the prevalence of behaviors that put American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) high school students at risk for teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and the relationships among race/ethnicity and these behaviors. Methods: We analyzed merged 2007 and 2009 data from the national Youth Risk Behavior…

The authors examined the relations between two socially oriented dimensions of student motivation and academic achievement of Native (Navajo) American and Anglo American students. Using confirmatory factor analysis, a multidimensional and hierarchical model was found to explain the relations between performance and social goals. Four first-order…

Participation in Advanced Placement (AP) classes and AP test-taking are widely viewed as indicators of students' college readiness. We analyzed enrollment in AP courses and AP test outcomes in Arizona to document disparities in students' access to rigorous curricula in high school and outline some implications of these patterns for…

Office disciplinary referrals (ODR) and classroom exclusions among students from minority backgrounds have been a persistent concern for decades. The purpose of this dissertation was to assess disciplinary characteristics of American Indian students in special education. More specifically, the purpose was to determine (a) the rate at which…

A national sample of 647 Native American students who took the National Survey of Student Engagement was used to test a path model to predict learning for Native American students. Institutional support for students' success and a positive interpersonal environment contributed both to engagement and learning. Support for student success was…

Focus group interviews were conducted with educators and stakeholders for American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) students, including teachers, elementary and high school principals, tribal community leaders, and parents, to determine a global definition of culture and ways of infusing culture into curriculum to better educate AI/AN students. Focus…

A total of 366 American Indian students in grades 7 through 12 completed the PRIDE questionnaire. Recent alcohol use was reported by 31.9% of students, whereas 26.7% reported frequent episodic heavy drinking. One in three students felt it was harmful/very harmful to use alcohol and less than half felt alcohol was easy/very easy to obtain. A series…

In traditional tribal cultures, children are treated with great respect and eagerly learn from their elders. But in contemporary Western society, Native students have the highest dropout rates and are subjected to disproportionate school disciplinary exclusion, which becomes a pipeline into the justice system (Sprague, Vincent, Tobin, & Pavel,…

The disproportionate representation of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in special education programs is a complex issue that has long troubled practitioners, educational leaders, and researchers. This article reports on a mixed-method collaborative case analysis that examined local patterns of disproportionality in…

This report builds on a foundation of knowledge about the academic readiness of the ACT-tested high school graduating class of 2012 as presented in "The Condition of College & Career Readiness" (see ED534761). An important conclusion of the "Condition" report is that far too many high school graduates are not prepared for…

In the United States exclusionary discipline (suspension and expulsion) is commonly used to remove disruptive students from the classroom or school. While any disciplinary action should be applied fairly and consistently to all groups, for more than 35 years the research literature has highlighted a discipline gap between racial/ethnic minority…

This National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) First Look report introduces new data for two separate measures of 4-year on-time graduation rates as well as event dropout rates for school year (SY) 2010-11 and SY 2011-12. Specifically this report provides the following: (1) Four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate (ACGR) data reported by…

The Native American population is severely underrepresented in empirical test validity research despite being overrepresented in special education programs and at increased risk for psychoeducational evaluation. The structural validity of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV) was investigated with a sample of 176,…