Volume 6 Number 1
October 1966

Harland Padfield, Peter Hemingway
and Philip Greenfeld

The recognition of urgent problems in Indian Education is almost a cliche. Records of achievement, performance and stability, relative to dominant and more acculturated groups, reveal low achievement, serious age-grade lag and high dropout rates. With a 15 to 20 percent dropout rate, 65 percent behind grade and an average of five percent retained in grade each year, the Pima-Papago record for1965-66 is a case in point.

From the Indian point of view, the educational experience in Anglo-dominated school systems centered around Anglo, middle-class institutions is one of chronic frustration. The game is not his, the referees are not his, but the laws of the dominant society force him to play. The resulting frustration leaves its mark in the Indian performance records which educators view with increasing alarm. This alarm is manifested in a proliferation of books, articles and workshops about the "culturally deprived," the "culturally disadvantaged," and so on. Invariably, our responses to these difficulties, conditioned by Anglo logic systems founded solidly upon mid-Twentieth Century educational propositions, is to erect finer buildings, employ more ingenious teaching devices, and persuade more Indians to expose themselves longer to basically unchanged educational systems. It is indeed rare that one sees any formal recognition given to the consideration that it is not Indian performances which are inappropriate, but the basic tenants of the school systems seeking to enculturate them.

But before this proposition or any other can be advanced scientifically, before Indian performance patterns can have any precise meanings, the limits of Indian school-age populations must be fixed both with respect to their Indian identity and their enrollment status. It is permissible to speak of the enrolled population without a total population parameter. This can be established by school enrollment records. But what of the non-enrolled population? Studies of Indian school adjustment that cannot control the expelled, incarcerated, disabled, dropout, and truant--all crucially germane to educational maladjustment--are worse than limited: They are misleading.

In an effort to control a total school-age population so that more definitive statements about their problems can be made, the Bureau of Ethnic Research with its Pima and Papago Population Registers had been perfecting an annual educational census of the Pima-Papago school-age population. Spelled out more precisely, the objectives of this annual census operation are:

Thus, in addition to the development of an economical census system, a continuous record of a given Indian school-age population, both enrolled and non-enrolled, is made available for longitudinal analyses. Moreover, valid populations are available for random sampling and studies in depth.

The Pima and Papago school experience, to the extent that it is documented here, is not offered to draw attention to these tribal cultures or reservation systems. Rather it is addressed to the urgent and more general problem of Indian adjustment.

The basic resources in our design are the Bureau of Ethnic Research Pima and Papago Registers. The Bureau has constructed these registers by exhaustive field work conducted over a period of years. Definitions of the populations contained in the registers are given as follows:

The Pima population was constructed from a base of original land allotment owners, rather than house-builders, dating back to 1905. The Pima identity of the ancestors in this case did not rest upon being thought to be Pima by other Indians in the community, as in the case of the Papago. Pima identity was established by these original allotment documents and refers to members of Pima, Maricopa and Papago Tribes who occupied this reservation in 1905 (Hackenberg, 1960).

In the simplest terms our design is one in which we construct a universe of school-age children from our Pima and Papago Population Registers and discover, by means of a canvassing program, their school attendance status during a given reference period. Rather than sending this universal listing, containing thousands of names, of Pima and Papago school-age children to schools, we asked schools to provide us with lists of students they considered to be Pima or Papago. The validity of Pima or Papago status conferred by various school personnel was then established by the simple expedient of matching their lists with our population. Those enrollees who could not be identified in this manner were then traced by field contacts to see if Pima or Papago genealogy, missed by our register maintenance, did in fact exist. If identity could not be established by either matching with our universe or by field contacts, the student was not considered a Pima or a Papago.

The educational status of those school-age Indians in our universe who were not reported by any school was then determined by a special round of field work described below.

Last year an initial, less comprehensive census was undertaken. Only selected schools known to have Pima-Papago students were contacted, but this preliminary attempt suggested to us feasible procedures for determining the enrollment status of the total school-age population.

This year (1964-1965) 473 schools were contacted. It was agreed that due to their large number of Indian enrollees, schools on the Pima and Papago reservations would be contacted by a field worker. All others were at least initially approached through the mail. Individual letters of explanation with accompanying forms were sent to every "off-reservation" public, private and parochial school through the high school level in Maricopa, Pima, Pinal and Yuma Counties, which include and surround the Pima and Papago reservations. This correspondence was also sent to schools outside these counties, including some out-of-state, such as mission and boarding schools, if it was known that these schools had enrolled Pima or Papago students in the past.

As a result of our census effort last year, we possessed lists by school of Pima-Papago students for the academic year 1964-65. Copies of these individual lists were sent back to the corresponding schools for the purpose of discovering which students were still enrolled in the same schools, and of these students, their grade level and residence for this year, 1965-66. Along with these lists, we sent forms to be completed for students not found on the lists, such as new students this year or students that might have been missed in last year's census. Obviously, only the latter forms were sent to the schools that were surveyed for the first time this year since we had no lists of students from these schools for 1964-65.

Thus two canvassing formats were developed--one for the schools with students reported last year, and one for those schools not known to have had students last year. In this connection, two separate form letters were used. This correspondence was mailed during the week of Monday, October 18, 1965, and "follow-up" letters were sent to those schools that did not respond within a month of that date. All of the 132 schools on which we had records of their Pima-Papago enrollees for the previous year had responded to our requests by January 1, 1966. Of the other 341 schools contacted, 330 had also responded by the above date, and of those, 56 reported the presence of Pima-Papago enrollees. "Follow-up" letters, phone calls and personal visits by our field worker made this possible.

It should be noted here that of the 5,680 enrollees in the 6 through 18 age group reported to us this year, only 207 of them were reported from those 341 schools that were approached for the first time this year.

When the lists and forms were returned from these schools they were compared with the Bureau's population registers to validate the tribal identity imputed by the schools (see Design above).

A deck of IBM cards, containing one card for each student, was then punched directly from the lists and forms after they were sent back from the schools. Supplemental information was transferred into this deck from population registers (also coded and punched into IBM cards) through the implementation of electronic data processing equipment. The school IBM cards then contained the following categories of information:

According to our population registers there are 7,851 Pimas and Papagos in the school-age population. When the 5,680 individuals enumerated by our initial canvassing and validating procedures as members of the school population were subtracted from the school-age population, we were left with 2,171 individuals who were unaccounted for. Within this residue are other members of the school population, i. e., those who were actually in school but whom we failed to locate and identify by our canvassing procedures; and a group who were in fact non-enrollees. Using a table of random numbers, a 10 percent random sample of this residue, stratified by year of birth and tribe was drawn. These 217 individuals were then sought in the field in order to discover their school enrollment status so that projections could be made as to the actual school status of the entire school-age population.

The 5,680 Pima and Papago Indian children, found and identified through the use of the canvassing and validating procedures described, will be referred to as the enumerated school population. Although this figure is short of the total school population by an estimated 1,430 (see Table 14), we feel safe in generalizing from these data.

The following series of tables present a breakdown of the enumerated school population by tribe, residence, school system, grade, age, type of school and age-grade.

Assignment by tribe is based on our register parameters (see Design). The total populations are about equal in number. As Table 1 indicates, this is also true of the school populations.

The sharp decline in enrollment after grade eight is related to several factors. First, state law in Arizona requires only completion of a grammar school course of study. Second, ninth graders are at least 13 years old and Pima-Papago ninth graders are somewhat older. Third, high school standards are more rigid than elementary school standards. These factors naturally cause many students to drop out upon completion of eighth grade.

There are, therefore, two contrasting problems indicated here: A retention problem in the lower grades; and a dropout problem in the higher (ninth through twelfth) grades. These indications will be developed further in the analysis.

The distribution of the enumerated population by age shows a steady but decreasing enrollment from younger to older students, the largest decline coming in the teen years. This correlates with the distribution by grade (see Table 5).

Another variable is conceptualized at this point. This is a stratification by type and orientation of school. Types of schools are self-explanatory. "Indian Oriented" schools are those with predominately Indian enrollments; "Non-Indian Oriented" schools are those with predominately non-Indian enrollments.

It can be seen from Table 6 that the population is divided approximately evenly between Indian and Non-Indian Oriented schools.

The dichotomy of "Indian Oriented" and "Non-Indian Oriented" implies a dichotomy in the Indian school experience. That this dichotomy can be a useful variable in analyzing Indian school adjustment is supported both by deductive logic and empirical data. First, the social structure including patterns of peer relationships, student-teacher relationships and community-school relationships is profoundly different in a school with all Indians than a school with all Anglos, or, say, even Mexican-Americans. Second, the sharp cultural and social differences between Indians and Anglos will bear unavoidably upon the effective or real (as opposed to ideal) philosophies and rational hammered out by day-to-day exigencies arising in the school system. Setting aside these logics, which require deeper studies to fully explore, the factor of Indian vs. non-Indian orientation shows significant co-variation with tabulated performances (see Table 11).

Because this is only the second year that this census has been conducted, we do not have promotion data for all individuals in the enumerated population but we do have these data on 4,224 or 74 percent of them. Furthermore, of the 26 percent or 1,456 for whom we do not have promotion/retention data, more than 60 percent fall into categories where these data are not applicable (see below).

Breakdown of "Could Not Be Determined" Segment of
Pima-Papago Enumerated School Population

We are left with 580 students for whom promotion/retention is pertinent, but for whom grade information on two successive years is not available. The main reason for this lack of longitudinal record is our increasingly effective canvassing methods, which this year allowed us to locate and identify students who were missed in 1964. Considering the relatively small number (10 percent) of additions in this category, the bias of the general promotion/retention picture the lack of these data could cause would be minimal.

Table 8 presents the overall promotion/retention ratio which we have computed for our enumerated population. Compared with it are promotion/retention data for Arizona and for Tucson District Number One, both for the school year 1964-65.

Table 8
Promotion/Retention of Pima-Papago Enumerated
School Population Grades 2 - 12
Compared with State of Arizona
and Tucson District One School Population
(Superintendent of Public Instruction 1965:45-46;
Tucson District Number One 1965)

As noted above, our promotion/retention figure for the Pima-Papago enumerated population has been computed by comparing grade assignment in the fall of 1965 with grade assignment in the fall of the preceding year. By this means we have been able to record actual promotions and retentions. On the other hand, the state and district statistics are based on teachers' reports at the end of the school year and, depending on a number of factors, may not project the real situation the following fall. This difference between projected and actual situations could introduce a bias. Because of summer make up programs, we contend that the intervening variable of time in the case of the projected situation would tend to increase actual promotion figures of the control populations. Therefore, any differences between the Pima-Papago population and the Tucson Public School and Arizona Public School populations are conservative.

In Table 9, a more detailed analysis of the difference between the Arizona school population and Indian school population reveals that the variation between them shows a distinctive pattern by grade. It is commonly known that retention is more likely in the lower grades, but this fact does not fully explain the large difference between Pima-Papago promotion/retention and state promotion/retention in grades two and three. This difference of 6.08 percent between those promoted in the Indian and state school populations at this level indicates that Indian children are here experiencing especially difficult problems of adjustment. This is in spite of the fact that they have been in contact with the schools for at least one and sometimes two years.

The general increase in the promotion/retention percentages in grades four through eight for both Indians and non-Indians is to be expected. This increase in promotions is a function of school policy as is demonstrated by the fact that almost 100 percent of the state population at this level are receiving promotions. But there is still a significant difference between Indian and non-Indian promotion/retention at this level.

Table 9
Promotion/Retention by Pima-Papago and Arizona by Grade

It is not until the high school grades are entered that the Indian promotion/retention percentages approximate the overall state percentages. It is also at this level that there are large decreases in the enrollment by grade. This suggests that those students who have been at a loss to adjust by this time, have dropped out of school, thus reducing the need to be retained in grade. Therefore, at this level the rate of Indian retention equals or is actually less than that of the non-Indian population.

In Table 10 an analysis of promotion/retention by type of school is made. The Public and Federal schools in the Indian Oriented category are almost identical. They differ significantly from the Public in the Non-Indian Oriented. Catholic schools have the reverse pattern. Protestant schools have no comparison group in the Indian Oriented category.

Table 10
Promotion/Retention of Pima-Papago, by Type and Orientation of School

The Catholic, having no frequencies to speak of in the Non-Indian, and the Protestant, having none in the Indian, are sorted out. The Federal and Public schools in the Indian, having almost identical Patterns, are collapsed. This gives us a significant division in performance pattern between Indian Oriented and Non-Indian Oriented (Table 11) favoring Non-Indian Oriented or more "public" schools.

Table 11
Promotion/Retention of Pima-Papago
by Orientation of School
(Parochial Schools excluded)

This indicates two interdpendent causes neither of which can be tested by our data: one, that Indian students attending more "public" schools have successful educational experiences; two, that those more acculturated (adjusted to Anglo systems) tend to go to the more "public" schools, and those less acculturated tend to go to all Indian schools. These implications bear on the issue of "public" vs. "all-Indian" schools. This is a crucial and emotional issue (Navajo Times 1966) and deserves special research emphasis.

We have discussed in our statement on procedures how the sample of (217) individuals was drawn for the field search. Basically, they are a 10 percent random sample drawn from the 2,171 school-age (6 to 18) children in the Bureau of Ethnic Research Pima and Papago Population Registers who were not originally accounted for in the school canvass.

The field procedures were to contact schools near the residences or the families, relatives or neighbors of the sample. In the case of a report from school personnel or parents on a child's enrollment status, the case was closed. In the case of secondary sources, a consensus was sought. Two man months were spent making an exhaustive run-down on each individual. Information of some kind was secured on each of the 217. In 63 cases the information was not complete enough to establish, categorically, enrollment or non-enrollment. However, it was sufficient to determine that they were properly identified in our registers, that 54 of them had moved out of the state, and that the remaining nine were adopted or foster children.

By correcting the sample for over enumeration, estimating the enrolled and non-enrolled among the 63 Indefinites, and projecting these frequencies into aggregates, the percentage of enrolled and non-enrolled for the total school-age population can be estimated. Summarized below are our procedures:

Subtracting the 63 Indefinite from the 193 correctly enumerated, leaves 130 with known enrollment status. This 130 breaks down by age category as follows (see Table 12):

Table 12
Known Enrolled and Non-Enrolled by Age Groups

The ratios of enrolled to non-enrolled differ radically between the 6 to 13 and the 14 to 18 age groups. Knowing the age distribution of the 63 Indefinites allows us to impose these ratios as probabilities upon the corresponding age classes in that group (see Table 13).

On this basis then, we estimate that 50 of the 63 Indefinites are enrolled and 13 are not enrolled.

We are now prepared to integrate the enumerated school population of 5,680 with the unaccounted for segment of the school-age population of 1,930, which has been corrected for over enumeration. These two aggregates give us the total corrected school-age population of 7,610 (see Table 14).

Table 14
Total School-Age Population
(corrected for over enumeration)
by Enrollment Status

Thus, an estimated seven percent of the Pima-Papago school-age children between the ages of 6 and 18 are out of school. However, as shown below, four-fifths of them are in the legal age or "dropout" category.

Referring to Tables 13 and 14, the non-enrolled aggregates for the sample break down by age categories as follows: The 6 to 13 groups has 10 and the 14 to 18 group has 40. However, two in the 14 to 18 group are known to have high school diplomas. Therefore, we must reduce the 40 non-enrollees in the 14 to 18 bracket to 38. Projected, this 38 becomes 380 and computed against the total 14- to 18-year-old population makes Table 15.

Table 15
Enrollment Status of the 14 to 18 Population
(corrected for over enumeration)

Although not all non-enrollees between the ages of 14 and 18 can be termed "dropouts" in the sense of voluntarily quitting, the implication of maladjustment or cultural inappropriateness which is integral to the dropout concept is applicable to just about all reasons for non-enrollment except perhaps chronic illness. Even this symptom can be due to stress caused by the school situation.

The 15 percent figure for Pima and Papago Indians is less than one might expect, nevertheless we consider it valid. This contention is supported by comparing the estimated aggregate of 380 dropouts or non-enrollees with the accumulated decreases in school population from the eighth to the twelfth grades (see Table 4). This decrease of 320, which is also a permissible, though grosser, dropout estimate, compares favorably to our official estimate of 380.

Comparisons with dropout percentages for other populations are interesting. A study of dropouts from grades 9 through 12 (a different though comparable parameter than our age 14 to 18 population) among the Eastern Cherokee in North Carolina shows an average of 17 percent (Kutsche 1964:29). However, when compared to a predominately Anglo population it is a different story. A case in point is the dropout rate of 3.5 percent for the high schools in the Tucson area (Tucson Youth Board 1965). The Tucson data were compiled from age groups 14 through 20. In all probability, an even greater percentage difference would exist if data from the Pima-Papago 19- and 20-year-olds were obtained. For instance, given below are the projected aggregates and percentages for the Pima-Papago 18-year-olds only:

If this percent dropout rate were extrapolated to the 19- and 20-yearolds, and integrated with the 14 to 18 aggregates, a dropout rate something like 20 percent would be computed.

The expectation of high dropout percentages for 19- and 20-year-old Pima-Papagos is corroborated by an analysis of grade completed and school enrollment status of a random sample of Papago males who were interviewed for occupational and educational data in a 1965 study. Out of 21 19- and 20-year-olds drawn in the sample, 11 or more than 50 percent were neither enrolled in school nor had completed high school (Padfield 1966).

Our conclusions regarding the 1965-66 Pima-Papago school-age population 6 to 18 inclusive are summarized as follows:

These findings indicate adjustment problems in the Indian school experience. They are too general to indicate recommendations for educational policy, but can perhaps be used to urge somewhat new research tacks. First, the fact that these indices are based upon total tribal populations makes the cultural factor emphatic. However, to say simply that cultural conflict is the cause is not to say anything very useful. It is analogous to two men in a spaceship agreeing categorically that they are incompatible. We suggest pursuing the concept of cultural and social conflict underlying the two-culture abstraction to its pertinent institutional and organizational components. Both the BIA and public educational institutions as types, and various school systems in particular, must become focuses of study. To promulgate the assumption that American educational systems are the natural and inevitable outgrowths of American Culture is to cover a multitude of sins. It is quite possible that so called American style education can be more sensitized to non-Indian and other minority children and become better institutions for Anglos in the process.

It is not likely that this sensitivity will develop unless researchers and evaluators approach the Indian educational experience from the point of view of the Indian student himself. Variations in school organization and policy should be tested against his performances, health and attitudes. Specifically we urge programs of research and evaluation aimed at classifying and analyzing variations in degrees of Indian integration, in curriculums, in pupil evaluation procedures, in kinds of teacher backgrounds, in administrative practices, in recruitment and staffing policies, and in Indian community relations in terms of their differential effects upon Indian educational adjustment.

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