Volume 12 Number 3
May 1973

Allen Berger

An interdisciplinary in-depth study involving 40 children and nine families was conducted during the last half of 1971 and the greater portion of 1972. The part of the study (see Note 1) involving the children, who were in grades three and four, took place in the Ermineskin School on the Hobbema Reserve with the permission of the reserve’s Four Band Council. Following a battery of individually-administered tests designed to assess the cognitive strengths of the children, an intervention program, which was developed on the basis of the test results, produced significant gains in reading achievement from pre-test to post-test and in comparison with a control group of children (see Note 2).

The part of the study involving the families took place in or near their homes; five families live in the City of Edmonton (see Note 3), one lives about five miles west of the city on the Winterburn Reserve, and three live about 50 miles south on the Hobbema Reserve. Each family was visited on four separate occasions (with one exception) and the conversations, which ranged up to seven hours for each visit, were conducted in Cree and English.

Before inviting families to participate, discussions were held with representatives of the Alberta Indian Association to determine variables to be considered; the families were then invited with the following variables in mind: treaty, non-treaty, Indian (see Note 4), Metis, age of children, mixed marriage, and varying levels of income.

The work with the families incorporated a number of relatively unusual features, which included interviewing without using tape recorders, analyzing the data through content analysis, involving the families in organizing the data, and writing a significant portion of the final report in first person.

What follows here relates to the design and rationale, analysis, selected findings and conclusions involving the work with the nine families.

The general design of the study flowed from the question: "What are some of the views and feelings of Indian parents in regard to education, culture, and related matters?"

To answer this question, each family was visited on four separate occasions (with one exception) in or near his home. Information was gathered during the first three visits and organized during the final visit.

With nearly every family, except where transportation facilities were not available readily, the following pattern of visitations was followed: First visit—Berger; second—Berger and Trippe-de-Roche; third—Trippe-de-Roche; and fourth—Berger and Trippe-de-Roche.

Each visit lasted from one to seven hours, and an attempt was made to not interrupt the ongoing lives of the families. On the first visit the families were informed that immediately following each visit the recollections would be recorded, transcribed, and then returned to them, in written form, for them to organize on the final visit. To determine the accuracy of their recollections, the following exercise was conducted by the visitors at the start of the study.

There was a conversation with two Indians not connected with the families, and this conversation was recorded; immediately afterward, the recollections were recorded onto another tape: both tapes were transcribed and the typed transcriptions were given to three independent observers to assess the quality of the recollected conversations against the criterion of the running conversation which had been recorded. The results of the assessment made by the independent observers were extremely positive.

Of major influence on my thinking in designing this study was the brilliant work of James Agee (see Note 9) and the innovative work of Oscar Lewis (see Notes 10, 11, 12, and 13). Other useful research included that of Elliot Liebow (see Note 14), Donald Henry Holmgren (see Note 15), and Joseph E. Couture (see Note 16).

On the fourth visit, each family engaged in a series of intriguing sorting processes to organize the data obtained during the first three visits. The information obtained during the conversations with each family had been subjected to content analysis (see Note 17). The typed recollections were scrutinized to cull out each meaningful unit of expression (e.g., Harold Cardinal is a great man). Each of these units of expression was placed on a 3 x 5 card; each family had up to 75 cards. On the fourth visit, then, each family placed each of their own cards into categories of their own creation; that is, they looked at a card, said it was "religion" (for example) and then the card was slipped into an envelope and the word "religion" was written on the envelope. At the end, some envelopes contained many more cards than did other envelopes, some families had many more envelopes, representing categories, than other families.

The families engaged in a final sorting process. They took the envelopes bearing the categories and made two piles, one pile containing items of immediate interest and concern, and the other pile containing items of lesser interest and concern to them.

With permission of the two families involved, the cards that had been made into the fewest number of categories (e.g., six) were exchanged with the cards that had been made into the largest number of categories (e.g., 39). The intent was to see how many categories each family would make with the other family’s data. Family D made 39 categories with their own data and 37 categories with Family C’s data, and Family C made six categories with their own data and 10 categories with Family D’s data. This result was expected, the assumption being made that processing information is not largely affected by whose information is being processed.

Two people (see Note 18) scrutinized the typed recollections to see what was actually discussed during the conversational visits to determine if the families chose to discuss certain topics with the Indian visitor and other topics with the white visitor. Two people (see Note 19) also independently examined all of the cards in all of the envelopes to form common categories.

The upshot of the organized data appears in the table showing common categories of immediate interest and concern to the families. Of most immediate interest and concern for most families are education, heritage and culture, and family.

Contrary to the usual white stereotype of the Indian being unconcerned with education, the families in this study talked more about education than any other topic. They saw education as the way to a better life for their children, and they desperately wanted them to succeed in school. One family was terribly distressed about one of their sons who dropped out of school, and the only family that indicated "education" to be of "lesser interest and concern" is the only family with all children grown and employed.

In the Province of Alberta, which provides some of the best education on this continent, thanks in part to the province’s wealth from oil and natural gas resources, it is not legally possible for many Indians to sit on Boards of Education, according to a spokesman for the Edmonton Office of Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

While most reserves have school committees, many are largely ineffective, with Indians having little or no say in who will teach their children. As a result, one Indian family living on the Hobbema Reserve within sight of Ermineskin School sends their children to school in a nearby "white" community because, the husband explained, many of the children cannot understand some of the foreignborn teachers who speak broken English.

If Indians were permitted a little more involvement in their children’s education, they would be better able to point out the need for a useful orientation program to help prepare children who continue their education in the cities. They could also encourage teachers to visit the homes of their school children.

What happens in most communities--Indian, white, or black--is that most teachers tend to remain relatively ignorant about the daily lives of the parents and children with whom they are involved; on some reserves, teachers actually cluster together in motel units with only the braver ones daring to venture out into the culture and the homelife of the people.

During a classroom discussion about teachers visiting the homes of school children, incidentally, one teacher working in a northern Indian community said that teachers there tried to visit the homes but the parents refused them. On further questioning, though, it turned out that a carload of teachers came to each of the homes; most white parents might be filled with trepidation at the sight of a bunch of teachers piling out of a car parked in front of their home.

The influence of language on thinking and behavior is no secret. As long ago as the 1930s Rudolf Carnap (see Note 20) and B. L. Whorf (see Note 21) studied the influence of language, with the latter observing some of its effects on Hopi Indians. In our own study, the effects of language along with other factors were strikingly evident when two families processed each other’s data as well as their own. It is very important that fluency and flexibility of language behavior be encouraged.

There is much interest now in knowing more about the past and present lives of Indian people.

It is good for people to know their own heritage and culture as well as the heritage and culture of others. But the argument is sometimes put forth that, by knowing about one’s ancestors and customs, one becomes a better person; there may be a great deal of truth in that argument, but care must be taken that it does not cloud the fact that people feel good when they accomplish things successfully.

What I am suggesting is that while knowledge of one’s own roots is vital, the fact remains that young people must be able to perform well in school; and knowing one’s own culture, while comforting, is not going to be much help to the child who cannot read his books adequately. The books used in most classrooms on this continent are too hard for most children, and the educational problems are aggravated when there are additional potential hurdles like bilingualism and living away from home.

Hence it would be educationally beneficial for an interdisciplinary team to examine the data derived from this unique in-depth study of nine families and 40 children and then, after interviews with the children of the families, develop a meaningful language arts curriculum followed by an in-depth training program for teachers of Indian children.

1 The research reported was performed pursuant to a contract with the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Ottawa).

2 The children were using "simultaneous strategies" to solve problems requiring the use of "sequential strategies" (like reading), and vice versa; after the intervention program, their test scores increased dramatically. Other observations of educational interest reflect upon the Cree language which, in many ways, "interferes with," rather than builds upon, the English language. This is true of many other languages; in contrast are languages like Chinese. The point, of course, is that teaching reading through the widely-used language experience approach may be useful for many children but, if used without discretion, may not produce the desired effects. (This part of the study involving the 40 children was directed by J. P. Das, Professor of Educational Psychology, the University of Alberta.)

3 Edmonton is located approximately 350 miles above the Canada-United States border near the Rockies. With a population of 500,000 it is the furthest northern major city in the northern hemisphere, serving as the jumping off point for the Yukon and Northwest Territories.

4. For purposes of this study, a treaty Indian has a legal and formal connection with the federal government and is registered as a treaty Indian, hence "treaty," "registered," and "status" Indian have essentially synonymous meanings. "Metis" refers to a person born of a parent who is Indian and a parent who is white; "Metis" reflects a non-status Indian.

5 Lewis Anthony Dexter, Elite and Specialized Interviewing. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1970, 205 pp.

6 Alfred Benjamin, The Helping Interview. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968, p. 38.

7 Noted in Claire Selltiz, Marie Jahoda, Morton Deutsch and Stuart W. Cook, "Unstructured Observation," Research Methods in Social Relations. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1959, 622 pp.

8 David J. Fox, The Research Process in Education. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969, p. 427.

9 James Agee and Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families. New York: Ballantine Books (by arrangement with Houghton Mifflin), 1941, 428 pp. (paperback).

10 Oscar Lewis, A Study of Slum Culture: Backgrounds for La Vida. New York: Random House, 1968, 240 pp.

11 Oscar Lewis, La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty--San Juan and New York. New York: Vintage Books, 1966, 669 pp.

12 Oscar Lewis, Pedro Martinez: A Mexican Peasant and His Family. New York: Vintage Books, 1964, 507 pp.

13 Oscar Lewis, Five Families: Mexican Case Studies in the Culture of Poverty. New York: The New American Library, 1959, 318 pp.

14 Elliot Liebow, Tally’s Corner: A Study of Negro Streetcorner Men. Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1967, 260 pp.

15 Donald Henry Holmgren, Experiences of Indian Students Undergoing Acculturation in Urban High Schools: An Exploratory Study. Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Alberta, 1971, 179 pp.

16 Joseph E. Couture, Alberta Indian Youth: A Study in Cree and Blood Conflict. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Alberta, 1972, 213 pp.

17 Suggestions relating to content analysis were made by Thomas O. Maguire, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Alberta.

18 Miss Trippe-de-Roche and myself.

19 The first examination was made by Mrs. Pauline Hobbs, graduate research assistant, who is white, and the second examination was made by Miss Trippe-de-Roche.

20 Rudolf Carnap, The Logical Syntax of Language. New York: Humanities Press, 1937.

21 R. L. Whorf, "The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language," in Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (John B. Carroll, editor). MIT Press, 1956.

22 Now underway is the development of the basis of a computer-based language arts program for Indian children as a result of a grant from The Canada council.

Allen Berger is an Associate Professor of Reading in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta. He is editor of Reading Improvement, co-editor of Classroom Practices in Teaching English (NCTE), associate editor of Alberta English, and first editor of Elements. He has taught high school for five years in New York State, at Syracuse University while completing his doctorate, at the State University of New York, and at Southern Illinois University. Earlier he was a newspaper reporter-photographer in New York State and in Virginia.

Georgina Trippe-de-Roche, a treaty Indian, is from Fort Chipewyan, where her father is a trapper; she completed two years of college at Red Deer, Alberta. She speaks Cree, Chipewyan, and English. She is an attractive young woman with a keen sense of humor tempered with concern for her people. Her brother is completing his master’s degree at the University of Toronto.