Do Cultural Differences Between Home and School Explain the High Dropout Rates for American Indian Students?
John Reyhner, cited in the Journal of American Indian Education in 1992, contends that the schools, teachers, and curricula ignore the needs of native Americans, thus explaining the present 35% drop out rate. Susan Ledlow, cited in the same journal that year, says that the data is sparse and possibly inaccurate, and that studies have ignored external pressures on native American students, such as employment needs. My conclusion: Cultural differences do contribute to the dropout rate. The history of the European conquest of the Americas is one of ambivalence toward cultures, self-serving agendas, or out and out genocide. The Christian conversion of the native tribes was for the glorification of the patriarchal priests, the Enlightenment brought biological warfare with smallpox-infested trading blankets, and the 19th century brought the likes of George Custer, who thought the wholesale slaughter of a people would get him elected to the White House. Now we approach the native Americans as
