What shapes Americans' attitudes toward and about Native Americans? Public opinion research acknowledges that race and ethnicity are a factor in shaping US public opinion. Native Americans have been almost entirely excluded from this research. But we do know that, despite being a relatively small population, the general public holds stereotypes and false narratives about Native Americans that have been perpetuated by popular culture, education curriculum, and national myths. In this paper, we use new and original data collected under the Reclaiming Native Truth project to examine the factors that shape attitudes toward Native Americans. More specifically, we examine individual and contextual factors that shape views of discrimination against Native Americans and resentment toward Native Americans. We find that political ideology (liberal versus conservative) and the reliance on Native American stereotypes are factors most consistently associated with resentment and attitudes about Native American discrimination, although direct personal experiences and factual knowledge also matter. Our findings contribute to conversations about attitudes toward racial and ethnic minority groups and emerging scholarship on the role of political attitudes in settler-colonial societies.
Objectives
What explains (1) the adoption of these inclusive educational policies, and (2) the timing of the passage of these educational policies? The objective of this study is to examine two competing hypotheses: the first has to do with descriptive representation; the second has to do with Native American nations acting as interest groups.
Methods
We use a newly constructed data set to estimate logistic regression, difference in difference, and Cox proportional hazards survival models.
Results
We find evidence that both descriptive representation and campaign contributions can explain whether there is adoption, but that only the latter can account for when there is adoption.
Conclusions
These findings demonstrate that Native American nations are becoming increasingly mobilized within U.S. state politics, and are finding ways to influence state policies—a pattern that is not just about policies that pertain to indigenous governance and sovereignty, but about policies with broader implications for non‐Native Americans.
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