From our historical knowledge of Indians, it might be logical to expect differences in attitudes toward non-Indian ways of life among the tribes in different parts of the country. This would be a natural reflection of different past backgrounds of physical environment and culture, or in other words, different ways of life. Factors such as proximity to non-Indian urban society and economic level might be expected to further influence current attitudes. Thus, reservations closer to an urban society would tend to be more influenced by it than more remote ones, which would retain more of their original traditions

When Indian students come to boarding schools in different parts of the country, it might be expected that their original backgrounds would affect their attitudes toward the new culture they find themselves in. This, in turn, would be furthered by the different schools themselves since each varies in its educational program and way of teaching, which help create a difference in attitudes toward life in general.

The subjects were students from three boarding schools located in different areas of western States, namely, Stewart Indian School, Nevada; Sherman Institute, Riverside, California; and Phoenix Indian School, Arizona. From each school, approximately 30 students, half male and half female, in Grade Nine were selected at random to answer a questionnaire. This was administered to them twice at a two-week interval in order to test reliability. The answers were taken as an index of the students’ attitudes, bearing in mind the limitations mentioned earlier.

The questionnaire consisted of 30 items taken from Rev. John Ward’s thesis, "An Attitude-Evaluation Device for Use with Washoe Adolescents in the Douglas County Schools." With the consultation of Rev. Ward who works with Indian youth at Stewart, Nevada, 10 questions each were specifically selected to illustrate three general categories of attitudes. These are attitudes concerning school (questions 1-10), family relationships (11-20) and the law (21-30). (See sample of questionnaire following: )

Sex ______________________Tribe _______________________ Date_________________

Although not all non-Indians would be expected to endorse all of these values, in general they represent the normally accepted attitudes of non-Indian society in this country. Hence, disagreement with them was taken as indicating attitudes against non-Indian culture.

In all cases the number of agreements for each category of attitudes is expressed as the nearest whole percentage of total answers of all students for all items of the category.

As seen from Tables I - 111, reliability was found to be very high for the two test periods. This was also confirmed by an individual question analysis performed by a Sigma 7 Computer.

Table I gives a comparison of the different schools for the three different categories of attitudes. It is seen from this that the range of agreement with non-Indian attitudes is much greater than the disagreement, being between 68-84% for all categories. Allowing for individual variation it may be assumed that this is a comparable range to non-Indians who do not necessarily adhere to all of society’s rules. Variation among the different schools is slight, showing that the Indian students tend to react more or less homogeneously.

Although a total of 40 tribes, including mixtures, were represented in the study, only four, namely, Apache, Hopi, Papago, and Pima had sufficient numbers to represent an adequate sample for comparison. These are shown in Table 2. The data is a combination of students from all schools. However, the Apache data represents only two schools, since the three Apache students from Stewart all answered 100% affirmative. Such agreement is suspicious in terms of indicating true attitude but rather could imply either hostility or brain washing by society. This should form the basis of a further independent study but was omitted here.

It is seen from Table 2 that in general the agreement with non-Indian attitude is once more much higher than disagreement, being 66-85 %.

Agreement within the tribes is relatively high, with the greatest difference showing up in the Hopi attitude toward law. This could indicate a greater adherence to tribal customs and laws by the Hopis.

Table 3 gives the comparison of males and females from all the schools. As before, it is seen that the range of agreement with non-Indian attitudes is much higher than disagreement, being 78-82%.

Contrary to what one might expect, the difference between male and female is apparently not significant. This could be because being Indians in a non-Indian environment, a similar stress is created for both, leading to similar attitudes regardless of sex.

The somewhat higher percentage agreement (8%) of males shown in the family category might be accounted for by the fact that most of the questions deal with authority. This could reflect the dominant male role of Indians and their desire to perpetuate it as opposed to the tendency of the suppressed female to rebel.

Although these tests do not constitute an absolute proof of true attitudes of the students tested, the data provided shows several indications which are of interest.

Since the tests were conducted in a relaxed atmosphere void of overt threat, and since reliability was found to be high, we may assume that for the large part, an approximation of true attitudes was revealed.

The overall general agreement reveals that Indians, regardless of origin, tend to react similarly.

The fact that the majority of answers indicate an acceptance of non-Indian attitudes means that either these values are inherently universal enough so as not to drastically differ from accepted Indian values or that the majority of Indian students tend to accept the society they now live in and desire to integrate into it.

A look at some of the exceptions is perhaps more instructive.

Thus, the outstanding difference of response among the Apaches at Stewart, all of whom answered as a group in complete acceptance of the values of the questionnaire, appeared suspicious. Some light was cast on this by Mr. F. Forbusch, an Indian himself, who deals with education of Indians under the jurisdiction of the Nevada Indian Agency. According to him, the Apaches in Nevada are completely removed from their own environment, being concentrated mainly in Southern Texas, New Mexico, Southern Arizona, and Mexico.

Since, according to history, the Apache have never lived in Nevada, they probably find both the physical and cultural environment foreign. Consequently, the Apache students in Nevada are a minority group far removed from home. This could readily account for the increased hostility relative to other tribes which, according to Mr. Forbusch, they have always shown.

Another possibility to account for the 100% positive answers was given by Dr. W. Clapp of the University of Nevada. He feels that from his knowledge, the effect is largely due to brainwashing of society.

In two other tribes there were similar indications of hostility revealed by all positive answers, despite the fact that these tribes were within their own environment. However, these were shown by only one individual in each case and could indicate individual variation as opposed to a general unity of attitude in the Apaches.

The only other exceptions to the majority were a few individuals from tribes in their own environment, who showed predominant disagreement, with non-white values. The most outstanding were a single individual of the Washoe tribe (out of a total of five) showing 70% dissension and a single individual of the Ute tribe (out of four, the other three being only half Ute) showing 80% dissension.

These exceptions could indicate individual rebels, either as a result of stronger traditional background or individual variation, but caution must be taken in attempting interpretation without further investigation.

At best this study can be taken only as a starting point for further in-depth studies to try to understand the complexity that comprises Indian attitudes toward non-Indian society. The next step in this direction would be to establish personal contact in an attempt to probe the problem.

In this study it was found that the majority of students showed agreement with the attitudes of non-Indian society. The few exceptions who showed hostility were probably a result of removal from their own environment or of brainwashing by society.

Much more work remains to be done before we can hope to find constructive solutions. However, the fact that Indians are willing to participate in such tests, whether they answer according to how they really feel or are expected to feel by society, is in itself a big step in the interrelationship of Indians and non-Indians.

Tables and references follow:

Table 1
Comparison of Schools
Percentage of Answers Agreeing with Non-Indian Attitudes

* First administration of questionnaire in November, 1968.

** Second administration, two weeks later.

Table 2
Comparison of Tribes
Percentage of Answers Agreeing with Non-Indian Attitudes

* First administration of questionnaire in November, 1968.

* First administration of questionnaire in November, 1968.

Table 3
Comparison of Males and Females
Percentage of Answers Agreeing with Non-Indian Attitudes

* First administration of questionnaire in November, 1968.

** Second administration, two weeks later.

Clapp, W. F. Psychology Department, University of Nevada, Reno. Personal Communication.

Forbusch, F. Nevada Indian Agency, Stewart, Nevada. Personal Communication.

Ward, J. "An Attitude-Evaluation Device for Use with Washoe Adolescents in the Douglas County Schools," M.A. thesis, University of Nevada, 1966.