Volume 10 Number 1
October 1970

C. Thomas Brockmann

EDUCATION is becoming increasingly important in terms of economic position and is hence regarded as an extremely important topic as far as the poor and minority group members are concerned. Miller and Rein state that in the coming years graduation from high school will not be adequate to assure desirable secure employment. College or post-high school technical training is becoming increasingly necessary. In spite of this prospect, there are real difficulties in just having the offspring of the poor and minority groups complete high school. The reasons for this state of affairs are examined here for the Flathead Indian Reservation of western Montana.

As education is an important factor nationally in social class position, it is noteworthy that the educational level of the heads of the Indian households on the reservation does not correlate significantly with their social class position. There are many significant differences among the four reputational social classes of Indians on a variety of economic and social variables, but education is not one of them except for the lowest class. The lowest class has significantly less education than the next class but no significant difference is present among the top three classes. The reasons for this situation lie in two features of the cultural environment of the Indians on the reservation: Due to the limited employment opportunities, education, above a rather basic amount, is not particularly important; also, in the school situation the Indian children are often discriminated against, though usually in a rather subtle manner.

The Indian population of the Flathead Reservation is composed primarily of Flathead, Upper Pend d’Oreille, and Upper Kutenai, though many other bands and tribes, mainly from adjacent Columbian Plateau peoples, are represented. In early historic times these people were hunters and gatherers who made several trips annually east of the Continental Divide for bison and one trip each year to the west for salmon.

The Flathead Reservation, founded in 1855, occupies 1,242,969 acres with approximately 43% being tribally owned. Most of the Euro-American owned land is in the arable valleys while most of the tribal land is mountainous. The reservation population in 1960 was approximately 14,830--of which 13.3% were legally Indian—living in small towns (under 2,500) and dispersed on ranches. The economy is based on lumbering and ranching. Two large lumber mills are on the reservation and a number nearby.

The first formal education on the reservation was instituted by the Catholics at St. Ignatius Mission in 1864, ten years after the Mission was founded, and consisted of boarding schools for boys and girls. Discipline was stern, and minor corporal punishment was common. The academic portion of the curricula occupied three hours of the day.

The goal was to make good agricultural Christians of the Indians. The reason for having boarding schools rather than day schools was to isolate the Indian children from the culture of their parents. Despite the efforts made by the Catholics to "civilize" the Indians, the real movement in this direction started in 1910 with the influx of Euro-Americans under the Homestead Act. The reservation had undergone allotment of land to individual Indians in the previous decade. Within a few years the Indians were a minority on their own reservation. They were now in more direct, frequent, and intimate contact with Euro-Americans than previously.

Economically, 1910 marks the end of the subsistence economy based on reciprocity. Prior to allotment and homesteading, the reservation subsistence economy, which in pre-reservation times was based on bison, had been rather successfully transferred to cattle roaming the large unfenced reservation. Dividing and fencing the land put an end to the Indian cattle. Since then the Indians have, of necessity, been a part of the market economy of western Montana. The per capita income from tribal assets is quite small after being divided. (In the middle 1960s it was $120 per year, paid in semi-annual installments. )

In addition to being forced into the market economy and into daily contact with Euro-Americans, the Indians started going to public schools on the reservation, where, of course, Euro-American students predominated. Of all Indian students enrolled in 1915, 41.17% were attending public schools, while the remainder attended boarding schools. By 1920 the percentage had increased to 55.16. The boarding school theory of assimilation has been de-emphasized to the point where, in recent years, the only children who can go to boarding schools are those whose family life is a "social problem." Today most of the Indian children attend predominantly Euro-American primary and secondary public schools, and though the St. Ignatius Mission still has a grade school, it is now just a day school.

The social classes of the Flathead Reservation were obtained using the technique of "Matched agreements." The ranking was done by five people representing different segments of the reservation Indian population. Each judge was asked separately to rank a random sample of 202 household heads into the classes which they perceived. Some of the major characteristics of these four classes, derived from a questionnaire administered to the same 202 households (see Note 1), are summarized in Table I.

Table I

Major Characteristics of the Four Social Classes on the Flathead Reservation

Given this status system one does not have to be highly educated to have an occupation which will put him in the upper part of the local status system. Also, proportionately few jobs on the reservation require particularly high educational levels. Many in classes I and II are ranchers, a very prestigious occupation locally, but here the possibility of inheriting good land and having a good credit rating are primary. These are not in any very direct manner connected to formal education. Another industry employing a large number of Indians are the lumber mills. The mill occupations are permanent, not seasonal, but depending on the individual, he may work temporarily, as in the case of target workers, or permanently. The latter decisions correlate significantly with social class position. In the local status system and in the local employment market a high degree of education is not required.

In fact, except for a few professionals and Bureau of Indian Affairs specialists there is little demand for highly educated people on the reservation. On the whole, the highly educated have to leave the reservation, and many do. Of the 1,966 on-reservation Indian population, 13.97% were 15-19 years old while the percentage in the 20-24 age bracket was 9.37%. The people do not return permanently in any statistically detectable numbers at a later age. Presumably, for off-reservation employment, the more education one has the better the position in which he will be employed.

This is not the case for the immediate reservation community in which the child is raised. In that community he sees that there is no great immediate advantage in staying in school past the legal requirement of 16 years of age. That usually means somewhere in high school. By the time a student gets into high school he has had all the education he needs for the great majority of jobs he can legitimately expect, regardless of education. Under these circumstances it is hardly surprising that the chance to work at a mill or in some similar employment where he can be financially independent, cease to be an economic burden on his family, and/or assist the family income is a more reasonable alternative than staying in school a few more years.

Table II

Age and Educational Level of Household Head

Table III

Education of Household Head in Classes I through III-IV

Highest Educational Level

Table IV

Education of Household Head in Classes III through IV

Highest Educational Level

This situation is overtly recognized by at least some of the Indians on the reservation. An old, rather traditional woman stated, with reference to people in classes III and IV, that whether a person has a high school education or only a few years of school, he usually had the same seasonal employment in logging or ranching, though she cited a few exceptions. She regarded as quite unfortunate the fact that Indians usually have to leave their own reservation to have good employment opportunities. Economically the reservation environment does not select for more education than the legal requirement of being in school until 16 years of age. This lack of economic pressure to complete high school is coupled with a selective factor to leave school. The latter pressure is the discriminatory situation in the schools that is recognized by a large proportion, though, significantly, not by all of the Indian children and parents.

Prejudice and discrimination toward Indians on the part of school personnel on the reservation is mentioned frequently by the Indians. This discrimination comes from both the teachers and the Euro-American children. For example, a woman now in her twenties who is less than one-eighth Indian though enrolled was brought up in the least Indian town on the reservation, primarily among Euro-Americans. "I did not know that I was Indian till I started school." She soon learned in school that she was a "dirty Indian." "I was very quiet in school" because she was ashamed of being Indian. She concluded her discussion of school discrimination by stating that "I know a lot of kids feel the same way I did."

While the great majority of Indians feel discrimination in the schools, some do not. A quite prosperous woman, whose husband was a technician with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, stated that there was no discrimination in the St. Ignatius public schools although, phenotypically, her children look quite Indian. Many other Indians said discrimination was present in that town’s schools. The prosperous woman said that the discrimination was in the minds of the Indians and not in their treatment. She added that her children had no trouble in the St. Ignatius schools. These seemingly conflicting reports are resolved by the statements of a St. Ignatius primary school teacher. She stated that if the Indian child shows an interest in school work, he will be helped as all Euro-American children are, whether the latter bring an interest in class work with them to school or not. If the Indian child does not bring motivation for school work with him, no one at the school is too concerned. The Indian will be socially promoted. The children of the prosperous Indians are the ones who are more likely to bring this motivation with them for school work from home. The children of less prosperous and less educated parents are less likely to have this motivation.

On the Flathead Reservation there is, as noted in the table of characteristics of the social classes, a range of participation in non-religious voluntary associations. In class I almost all households have members who participate in these associations, while in class IV there are only a very few. Classes II and III are intermediate on this formal measure of acceptance and feeling of acceptability to the larger society. The differences between the classes concerning participation in voluntary associations is highly significant.

While only a few clear statements of self-prejudice were heard on the reservation there are many who are extremely sensitive to prejudice, particularly in the lower two classes. Where this is coupled with an extremely strong egalitarian attitude it is certainly indicative of uneasiness about their social position, if not self-prejudice. In classes I and II the people are not extremely sensitive concerning discrimination and they face considerably less of it since their position and behavior is acceptable to the middle-class Euro-Americans of the reservation.

The prejudice that the Indians face on the reservation is likely, particularly in classes III and IV, to lead to a lowered self-concept. More pertinent to this paper, it is also felt in the schools. Only the Indians of prosperous parents are likely to receive the same treatment as Euro-American children In the schools for the lower class children, the subtle discrimination on the part of the teacher and other students is likely to lead to a self-fulfilling prophesy situation. The patterns of discrimination towards Indians do not select for Indian children, particularly those in the lower classes, staying in school through high school.

Finally, the school personnel on the reservation frequently cite the poor home environment as the reason why Indian children do less satisfactorily, on the whole, than Euro-American children in school. Speaking of the Apache, it is stated that:

Under extreme conditions of poverty and unemployment, home life and schooling are bound to suffer . . . In such circumstances parental support of the school program is often overwhelmed by the size and complexity of the daily family trials. Some Anglos call this "apathy."

The Indians of the Flathead Reservation of western Montana live in an area in which the principal industries are ranching and logging. The Indians are divided into four reputational social classes which have many significant differences between them on a variety of economic and social variables. Education is not, however, with the exception of class IV, one of the variables that correlates significantly with social class. This is due to the fact that most of the employment opportunities on the reservation are open to anyone who has had more than a few years of formal education. This situation does not provide any selective pressure economically to go to school beyond the legal age requirement.

This lack of selective pressure to stay in school beyond the age of 16 is coupled with the negative selective pressure from the discrimination that the Indian student faces in school. The great majority of Indian students sense discrimination directed toward them. Some of the offspring of prosperous Indians do not, however, feel this discrimination. This is a reflection of the larger discrimination patterns found on the reservation. The Indians in the upper two classes, being in both economic position and style of life similar to the Euro-American middle class of the reservation, face little discrimination, and are not particularly sensitive to it. The lower two classes have a more marginal position in the economy, are more sensitive to discrimination, and face more discrimination than those in the upper classes.

Research reported by Rosenthal and Jacobson suggest that discrimination by teachers leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy. The minority group student senses the discrimination directed toward him and this leads to a lowered self-concept of himself. This can occur as a result of discrimination from the larger society; it need not be limited to teachers. In view of this state of affairs it would seem more appropriate for teachers of Indians to assist the Indian children more, particularly those in classes III and IV. This additional attention and assistance by the teachers would help to overcome the discrimination of the larger Euro-American society, as far as this discrimination influences self-concept detrimentally.