Communication Gatekeeping: A Response to Mediating Conditions in American Indian and School Personnel Interactions

Abstract

The findings reported in this paper indicate the need for a more robust explanation of communication failure between American Indian parents and school personnel than cultural discontinuity provides. According to the data, conditions that constrain interactions between American Indian families and educators in one consolidated school district lie within the bounds of politics, economics, and social circumstance. The conditions of distrust, racial tension, maintenance of tribal identity, dependence, and isolation inform the perceptual frame that influences the ways American Indian people interact with school personnel. Through “gatekeeping,” American Indian parents act to control the dilemma they face in American public education. Proposed solutions to problematic American Indian educational issues suggest that transformative school leaders must create inclusive learning communities in which American Indian students have opportunities to thrive.

Policy as the Transformation of Intentions: Making Multicultural Education Policy

“…However, micro-level, contextualized studies of policy processes need not be atheoretical (Hall, 1995). Our study portrays a process in the context of a specific school district, and it exemplifies ways of thinking that multicultural theorists have identified (Banks, 1994;Hoffman, 1997;Sleeter & Grant, 1994) and researchers have observed in other contexts (Borman, Timm, Al-amin, & Winston, 1992;Cockrell, 1996;Cornbleth & Waugh, 1995;Foster, 1990).…”

“…As Hoffman (1997) notes, "the voices of those who are best qualified to reflect on diversity are in effect outside, simply because they are, ironically, too different or unconnected to the mainstream" (p. 388). Historical and social frameworks lying "beneath the surface layer of cultural difference," Cockrell (1996) observes, inform parent-school interactions, and conditions constraining interactions "lie squarely within the contested bounds of politics, economics, and social circumstances" (p. 394). The process in our study manifested real divisions between the district and community, with the committee chair acting as boundary manager.…”