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Dissertation Information for Julie L. Davis

NAME:
- Julie L. Davis

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- Arizona State University (USA) (2004)

ADVISORS:
- Peter Iverson

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- Noel J. Stowe
- Donald Fixico

MPACT Status: Fully Complete

Title: American Indian Movement Survival Schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul, 1968-2002

Abstract: This dissertation provides a history of two American Indian alternative schools, Heart of the Earth and Red School House, founded by American Indian Movement (AIM) organizers, Indian parents, and other Native people in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul in 1972. It explores why these "survival schools" were created, what they worked to accomplish and how, and what they have meant to Indian people, in the Twin Cities, in the upper Midwest region, and throughout the country. Tracing the schools' development over time, the author illuminates their most significant challenges, successes, and shortcomings. She argues that those who founded and sustained these schools have nurtured the identity development of Native youth and strengthened Indian families through an educational system grounded in traditional culture and spirituality and infused with political awareness and activism. The schools also have served as centers of community, and they have fostered movements for self-determination and cultural revitalizaton. Survival school people have resisted assimilation and worked for the survival of traditional cultural knowledge, skills, practices, values, and beliefs.

The research draws from oral history interviews conducted with survival school founders, administrators, teachers, students, and families; survival school informational booklets, curriculum materials, funding proposals, and yearbooks; and external studies, reports, and newspaper articles. The dissertation places the schools in the state and national context of the 1960s and 1970s, including the American Indian child welfare crisis; Indian students' struggles in the public schools; the socioeconomic and cultural conditions of Indian life in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and other urban communities; and the movements for bicultural, bilingual, community-controlled, and open education by American Indian, African American, and other educational activists in this period.

The author demonstrates the survival schools' connection to the long history of efforts to assimilate Indian people and eradicate distinct Native cultures, particularly in the federal Indian boarding school system of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. She also reinterprets the American Indian Movement, highlighting AIM organizers' commitment to revitalizing Indian families, cultures, and spirituality; demonstrating their engagement in community-based activism; and revealing their long-term impact on Indian people's lives.


MPACT Scores for Julie L. Davis

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-02-03 22:26:57

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Students under Julie L. Davis

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None