Youth Culture and Indian Boarding Schools

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristine Alexander
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Premature Death ◽  
Boarding Schools ◽  
The United States ◽  
Indigenous Populations ◽  
Indigenous Students ◽  
Youth Cultures ◽  
Death State ◽  
Indian Boarding Schools

Because of their perceived malleability, young people have been central to efforts by modern settler states to erase and displace Indigenous populations in order to control land and resources. In Canada and the United States between the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, these efforts (which were always contested) focused largely on Indigenous child removal and assimilatory schooling. Well-known as sites of abuse, hunger, disease, and premature death, state-funded and state-run Indian boarding schools in both countries were also shaped by the development of distinctive peer cultures. This chapter uses secondary literature, archival sources, memoir, and oral history to better understand the lived experience of Indigenous young people at these carceral and genocidal institutions. At Indian boarding schools on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border, Indigenous students used language, labor, performance, mischief, and sport to invest in and support distinctly Indigenous youth cultures characterized by imagination, resistance, solidarity, and critique.

Youth Cultures and Contexts

Making Change ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 49-56
Author(s):  
Tina P. Kruse
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Young People ◽  
The United States ◽  
Frame Of Reference ◽  
Cultural Narratives ◽  
Youth Cultures ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Limiting Parameters ◽  
The Individual

This chapter examines the most relevant youth contexts in the United States at this socio-historical point in time. To do so with any accuracy requires drawing on multiple fields of inquiry—youth contexts are not solely the study of developmental scientists. Thus, this chapter reviews prominent theories of cultural theorists, sociologists, educational researchers, and political scientists to establish a depiction of the contemporary American youth context. The aim is a macro-level view of the policies and practices influencing the individual youth micro-level, including the reader’s frame of reference. A brief examination of current cultural narratives about young people can inform analysis about limiting parameters: youth who lead social change are often portrayed as either “cute” or “dangerous,” with both views disparaging their efforts and undermining their credible power.

Troubling the ‘troubled teen’ industry: Adult reflections on youth experiences of therapeutic boarding schools

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-63
Author(s):  
Sarah Golightley
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Substance Misuse ◽  
Boarding School ◽  
Boarding Schools ◽  
The United States ◽  
Residential Facility ◽  
Surveillance Culture ◽  
School Students

In the United States, thousands of young people reside in private schools aimed at reforming ‘troubled teens’. These ‘troubled teens’ are young people who are considered to have emotional, behavioural and/or substance misuse problems. Therapeutic boarding schools are programmes that combine educational classes and group therapy in a self-contained residential facility that runs year-round. Case study interviews with former US-based therapeutic boarding school students demonstrate the role of sanism, adultism and epistemic injustice in constructing and regulating the ‘troubled teen’. The schools’ strict structure and surveillance culture could not override students will and their ability to find means to resist. The article’s central aim is to centre the perspectives of former students and critique social control of young people in therapeutic boarding schools.

Gender and Sexuality in Street Youth Cultures in the United States and Canada

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Stiegler
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Young People ◽  
The United States ◽  
Street Youth ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Making Meaning ◽  
Youth Cultures ◽  
Trans Youth

Young people’s experiences with spaces commonly called “the streets” are greatly influenced by gender and sexuality. Because queer and trans youth are policed in specific ways because of their identities and presentations and because queer and trans youth are more likely to experience homelessness than their peers, it is vitally important to understand the ways these young people are making meaning, knowledge, and culture from their experiences on “the streets” within the contexts of the United States and Canada.

scholarly journals Sports and the Politics of Identity and Memory: The Case of Federal Indian Boarding Schools During the 1930s

1988 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-70
Author(s):  
John Bloom
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Boarding Schools ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Official ◽  
Politics Of Identity ◽  
Mixed Emotions ◽  
Cultural Autonomy ◽  
Oral History Interviews ◽  
Indian Boarding Schools

The federal government of the United States developed a complex System of boarding schools for Native Americans in the 19(th) century. This effort was generally insensitive and often brutal. In spite of such brutality many students managed to negotiate and create new understandings of traditions and cultural autonomy while in such schools. Now, however, some former students remember their lives as students with mixed emotions. Drawing on oral history interviews and public official documents, the author examines the recreational and athletic life at the boarding schools and finds that students were, nevertheless, able to experience pleasure and pride in creating new ways of expressing their identities as Native Americans.

Creating a ‘Masala’ Self: Bicultural Identity in Desi Young Adult Novels

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Superle
Keyword(s):  
Young Adult ◽  
Young People ◽  
Identity Development ◽  
Small Body ◽  
The United States ◽  
Young Adult Fiction ◽  
Bicultural Identity ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Institutional Forces ◽  
Cultural Identity Development

In the past two decades, the previously silent voices of diasporic Indian writers for young people have emerged, and a small body of texts has begun to develop in the United States and the United Kingdom. One of the major preoccupations of these texts is cultural identity development, especially in the novels published for a young adult audience, which often feature protagonists in the throes of an identity crisis. For example, the novels The Roller Birds of Rampur (1991) by Indi Rana, Born Confused (2002) by Tanuja Desai Hidier, and The Not-So-Star-Spangled Life of Sunita Sen (2005) by Mitali Perkins all focus on an adolescent girl coping with her bicultural identity with angst and confusion, and delineate the ways her self-concept and relationships are affected. The texts are empowering in their suggestion that young people have the agency to explore and create their own balanced bicultural identities, but like other young adult fiction, they ultimately situate adolescents within insurmountable institutional forces that are much more powerful than any individual.

Indian Boarding School Gothic in Older than America and The Only Good Indian

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-27
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Kella
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Boarding School ◽  
Boarding Schools ◽  
Spiritual Values ◽  
Feature Films ◽  
Native North American ◽  
Indian Boarding School ◽  
Visual Sovereignty ◽  
History Of ◽  
Indian Boarding Schools

This article examines the appropriation and redirection of the Gothic in two contemporary, Native-centered feature films that concern a history that can be said to haunt many Native North American communities today: the history of Indian boarding schools. Georgina Lightning’s Older than America (2008) and Kevin Willmott’s The Only Good Indian (2009) make use of Gothic conventions and the figures of the ghost and the vampire to visually relate the history and horrors of Indian boarding schools. Each of these Native-centered films displays a cinematic desire to decenter Eurocentric histories and to counter mainstream American genres with histories and forms of importance to Native North American peoples. Willmott’s film critiques mythologies of the West and frontier heroism, and Lightning attempts to sensitize non-Native viewers to contemporary Native North American concerns while also asserting visual sovereignty and affirming spiritual values.

People and Climate Change

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Community Inclusion ◽  
Global Issue ◽  
Political Challenge

Climate change is a profoundly social and political challenge with many social justice concerns around every corner. A global issue, climate change threatens the well-being, livelihood, and survival of people in communities worldwide. Often, those who have contributed least to climate change are the most likely to suffer from its negative consequences and are often excluded from the policy discussions and decisions that affect their lives. This book pays particular attention to the social dimensions of climate change. It examines closely people’s lived experience, climate-related injustice and inequity, why some groups are more vulnerable than others, and what can be done about it—especially through greater community inclusion in policy change. A highlight of the book is its diversity of rich, community-based examples from throughout the Global South and North. Sacrificial flood zones in urban Argentina, forced relocation of United Houma tribal members in the United States, and gendered water insecurities in Bangladesh and Australia are just some of the in-depth cases included in the book. Throughout, the book asks social and political questions about climate change. Of key importance, it asks what can be done about the unequal consequences of climate change by questioning and transforming social institutions and arrangements—guided by values that prioritize the experience of affected groups and the inclusion of diverse voices and communities in the policy process.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document