Secondary School, Family, and Educational Risk: Comparing American Indian Adolescents and Their Peers

Abstract

Adolescent self-reports of family connectedness, educational commitment, and education-related risktaking behavior were examined from a sample of over 6,000 public school students, with a focus on American Indians. Findings indicate that low family connectedness is associated with decreased educational commitment and an increased risk of absenteeism, substance use before and during school hours, and the purchase of alcohol or drugs on campus. American Indian youth report lower levels of connectedness to family and poorer educational performance than African American and Caucasian peers and engage in higher rates of risk taking. American Indian adolescents residing outside of the reservation may be vulnerable to increased familial stress and encounter cultural conflicts in mainstream educational settings. ver the past 3 decades, American Indians have been 0 progressively moving off reservation lands. As a result, over 70% of American Indians live in non-Indian communities. Movement from reservation to nonreservation settings can attenuate family relationships and increase the likelihood of risk-taking behaviors that endanger health and well-being. Because educational behaviors and attitudes may be the cause or result of other stresses in a student's life. offreservation Native adolescents may be even more vulnerable to educational problems than on-reservation peers.In this study, we examined the relationship between family connectedness, educational commitment, and educationrelated risk taking in adolescent American Indians and their African American and Caucasian peers. The existing literature on these areas is diverse in theory, method, and population studied, but several common criticisms can be made ahout the literature as a whole. Most of the studies focusing on American Indians use small samples from one tribal group that may not make findings generalizable to other tribes or native groups. Often, comparison groups are not used. making it impossihle to put findings into ;I larger context. On the other hand, studies on randomly selected samples from the general population rarely have enough American Indian participants to make the findings attributed to them reliable. For our purposes, most relevant studies focus on one or two key areas of the family-education-risk-taking configuration; few address all three issues. We examine each thematic area separately and then review their known interrelationships in American Indian populations.

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