Richard E. Carroll

THIS STUDY of cultural marginality is set within a framework of social processes which have gone on historically between Indian communities as a cultural entity and non-Indian communities as a cultural entity. Until relatively recently the relationship between these two cultures could be characterized as a state of conflict. In its severest phase the conflict took the form of actual armed warfare. In its lesser phases the conflict took the form of commercial and psychological exploitation.

Technology and population numbers were on the side of the non-Indian culture to the extent that the ultimate outcome of the conflict was the seemingly inevitable defeat of the Indians, a feat which appeared to anticipate ethnocide. At the historical point where the collapse of the Indian communities as independent political entities was indisputable, accommodation emerged as the successor to conflict: a modus vivendi worked out without otherwise resolving the differences between the two cultures.

Persons living in a cultural limbo of this nature develop some distinctive psychological and behavioral traits. They are likely to develop deep feelings of inferiority and to become psychologically subservient in the new society. They are likely to become over-conforming to one or the other of the two societies, and they are likely to manifest a loss of dynamic interest in life, demonstrated in anomie, and sometimes even in suicide (Stonequist, 1937).

The students at Haskell Indian Junior College at Lawrence, Kansas, seem in many ways to fit the description of marginality. They are indeed operating in a gray area between the Indian and the non-Indian cultures. Their language use reflects marginality. In filling out their American College Test Student Profile Reports, 27% indicated that English is their "second" language. Yet only a small proportion of these speak their "first" language fluently.

For many, religion reflects their marginality. For example, some students attend a Baptist campus chapel where the service is in English except for public prayers which are often spoken in one of the native American languages (often not that of the worshippers).

Marginality may be reflected in course work. Several students study both advanced electronics and beadwork, featherwork, and birch bark construction. In a way reminiscent of the marginal men in Stonequist’s description, some Haskell students have been taught never to speak disrespectfully and to look at the ground when talking to whites.

Many of these same students show marked conformity to peer norms. For example, some young people who have never drunk alcoholic beverages may stay drunk for days at a time during their first semester at Haskell. Also as Stonequist might have foreseen, psychological maladjustment and suicide among these young people are much higher than for the national average (Stonequist, 1937).

Marginality is evident not only in the students but in the educational setting itself. In non-Indian communities, a Haskell education, characterized as stressing Indian values, is viewed as not equal to that of most community colleges. Among many traditional Indian people, on the other hand, Haskell is seen as straying too far from traditional Indian values.

On the basis of this concept of marginality, one would expect that the students at Haskell would have academic and behavior problems expressed in high dropout rates, academic anomie and over-conformity. It would also be expected that these problems would be more pronounced among those coming from Indian communities where traditional values are stressed than among those coming from predominantly non-Indian communities. This general hypothesis is the basis for specific hypotheses which are developed later in the study.

Haskell Indian Junior College is an all-Indian student body junior college operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In the fall of 1975, 546 entering freshmen were enrolled and from this population the sample used in this study was drawn. The mean ACT score of this collectivity was 10.60, and the mean high school grade point average (GPA), 2.2 on a 4-point scale. This compares to national averages of 18.98 and 2.9 respectively for enrolled college freshmen. At the time of testing, the student stated on the ACT Profile form that he or she would expect to earn approximately the same GPA in college as he or she had earned in high school--2.2.

Those who have taught at Haskell for several years find that one of the most difficult problems in instruction springs from the tendency for there to be two distinct population groups at Haskell with widely divergent values and behavior patterns--the achievers and the nonachievers. A common belief among Haskell instructors is that the nontraditional native American students--usually those from urban areas--are the achievers, and the traditional students--usually those from reservations--are the non-achievers.

Literature on the American Indian and observation of Indian students at Haskell leads one to believe that the distinction between the traditional and non-traditional student is real and a reflection of different degrees of marginality. The non-traditional Indian is enculturated with many American middle-class values and may desire a degree of assimilation into middle-class society. This Indian’s values include a greater emphasis on future orientation, time consciousness, competitiveness and relative nonconformity to the extent that the individual is willing to reject peerdictated norms when he or she perceives that such norms are not in his or her own best interests.

The traditional Indian, on the other hand, rejects middle-class values as crass and materialistic, in favor of values such as present orientation, harmony with nature, non-competitiveness and conformity. This individual regards tribal allegiance and membership as being of greater importance than United States allegiance and citizenship. The traditional Indian regards the non-traditional Indian as an "apple"--red on the outside but white on the inside, and often harbors more resentments against this Indian than against whites.

This dichotomy presents a practical problem for the educational program at Haskell. If an instructor teaches to the abilities, interests and values of the non-traditional student, the needs of the traditional individual are not adequately served. The reverse is also true.

In this study an attempt is made to find out what, if any, significant differences exist between traditional and non-traditional Indian students in ACT and GPA performance and if sex differences within these groups are significant.

The hypotheses tested for first semester 1975 Haskell Indian Junior College freshmen are as follows:

There is no difference in GPA performance between:

The evidence gathered in this study does tend to support the idea that the behavior of Haskell students fits a pattern of marginality. The people studied seem to be operating in a limbo between two cultures, with ties both to a traditional past, and to a non-traditional, non-Indian dominated society.

The idea of an educational anomie seems to be supported. The correlational comparisons of ACT and GPA scores show that the expected relationship, i.e., higher and lower respective scores clustering together, does not exist. Indeed these indices appear to be virtually meaningless, as one might expect in an anomic situation.

The research hypotheses of no difference tested in this study support first of all the idea that Haskell students as a whole can be thought of as marginal. National students as a whole, operating within a familiar culture, have a significantly different profile of achievement from Haskell students as a whole, and it is not unreasonable to assume that his difference is related to marginality.

The research hypotheses that deal with traditional as compared to nontraditional behavior also support the idea of marginality. Throughout its history and into the present time Haskell as an institution has been dominated and administered by non-Indians and by non-traditional Indians. It can therefore be assumed that the social distance between the non-traditional Indian community and Haskell is less than the social distance between the traditional Indian community and Haskell. It follows that the behavior of traditional students at Haskell is more marginal than the behavior of non-traditional students. If this be true, one would expect that traditionals at Haskell would attain less academically than non-traditionals when the usual college standards of attainment are used. The research hypothesis tested supported this idea.

Essentially the same point was made by the hypotheses of correlation. Here also it was demonstrated that those who had to cross the widest social space (the traditionals) were the most marginal in their conduct. No direct measurement of conformity was made in this study. Nevertheless, some of the student behavior at Haskell can be interpreted as being partially the result of student conformity to peer pressure. It is reasonable to assume that students who rank very high on the ACT profile can perform above the mean.

In this writer’s opinion, these superior students are even more sensitive to peer norms than their less academically qualified classmates. Classroom experience is that it is frequently the better students who go on disruptive and extended sprees of drinking. Often these students have a noticeable degree of Caucasian ancestry and apparently they feel they must compensate by proving that they are really "Indian." Besides participating in drinking parties, which are a very important part of Haskell student life, these people, more often than others, feel they must prove their Indian-ness by not achieving too highly in the classroom and by vocal protests against "honkie" ways.

By way of example, the writer was well acquainted with one very intelligent Haskell student who had a significant degree of Caucasian ancestry. This student and the writer occasionally enjoyed playing chess together in the student union during the lunch hour. On one occasion an article written by this young man appeared in a newspaper. He stated specifically that he would be ashamed to be seen by an Indian while he was talking to a "honkie." He also stated that never in his life would he smile at a white person because of the history of Indian-white conflict. On the very day this article appeared in the newspaper, the writer, who is Caucasian, was walking through the student union. This young man approached the writer and in the presence of other Indian students asked, with a friendly smile, if the writer would like to play chess. Apparently, as a marginal person, he felt a deep need to conform but did not realize that his verbal conformity was inconsistent with his true actions.

As predicted in the introduction, dropout rates are high at Haskell. While not specifically foreseen, the dropout rates for traditional males, who are culturally designated as playing a key role in the preservation of tribal ways and traditions, are higher than the dropout rates for any other Haskell group.

Overall, the marginal behavior of traditional students was more pronounced than that of non-traditional students, reflecting the relative social distances between Haskell and the students.

Future studies could well carry this idea of marginality further. The actual nature of marginal behavior might be identified more clearly by designing a scale of key behavioral patterns beginning with behavior in the homes of traditional Indians and carrying through to institutions such as Haskell and ultimately arriving at the behavior modes of fully assimilated Indians.

It would also be useful to study the outcome of marginal experiences. In such a study one would follow up on Haskell students to learn if marginality becomes a way of life after leaving Haskell, if the person who leaves a marginal institution tends to become assimilated, or if such a person can return to his original way of life.

Park, Robert E. "Human Migration and the Marginal Man," in American Journal of Sociology, 33:893, May, 1928.

Stonequist, Everett H. The Marginal Man, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1937.

Population Reference Bureau. Interchange, 4, November, 1975.