On "Open School vs. Traditional School: Self-Identification Among Native American and WhiteAdolescents"Author(s): Russell ThorntonSource: Sociology of Education, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Jul., 1976), pp. 247-248Published by: American Sociological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2112236 .

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COMMENTS

On "Open School vs. Traditional School: Self-Identification Among Native

American and White Adolescents"

(COMMENT ON COCKERHAM AND BLEVINS) SOE, APRIL 1976)

We would like to share with the Sociology of Education readership some thoughts on a recent paper, by Cockerham and Blevins (1976) in this journal.

The study reported in the paper compared self-identification scores on a variant of the "Index of Self-Derogation for the TST" of Arapahoe students in an open school with those of Arapahoe and Shoshone and white students in separate traditional schools. The data show that Arapahoe students in the open school have a more positive self-identification than the Arapahoe and Shoshone (analyzed together) or white students in the traditional schools examined. (In a footnote, data were also reported showing that a small group [N = 8] of white students in the open school sam- ple also had a more favorable self-identifica- tion than any traditional school group.) The interpretation is then offered that:

These data suggest that open school In- dian students have a more positive level of self-identification than students attending traditional schools, either Indian or white. Therefore, open schools may be an es- pecially viable educational approach for In- dian youth if our findings are confirmed by more extensive research, particularly of a longitudinal nature. Characteristics of open school education seem to clash less with Indian customs and practices than those of traditional schools (Cockerham and Blevins, 1976:168).

Our comments on this study and its inter- pretation will be limited to the logical and theoretical structure underlying it, and not to possible additional issues (For instance, we

will not comment on whether the enhanced self-identifications stemming from open schools is sufficient rationale for the authors' suggestion that Indian students should be edu- cated in such settings.)

At the outset, we note that existing knowl- edge prior to their paper indicated that non- Indian students in open schools tend to have considerably higher self-identification (and self-concept) scores than their counterparts in traditional schools. The authors themselves re- port both some of the literature and data of their own attesting to this. No reliable data, however, are offered that address either the issue of whether open schools are more con- gruent with Indian cultures than traditional schools or the issue of whether Indian stu- dent's self-identifications fare better in open schools than do those of other students. The only data reported are those mentioned above showing that Arapahoe (and not all Indian) students in open schools have more positive self-identifications than Arapahoe and Sho- shone or white students in traditional schools. To document this for Arapahoe students ex- tends the generality of our knowledge about open schools. To generalize this finding too far to include all Indians may not be advis- able.

Cockerham and Blevins then undergener- alize and suggest a theoretical explanation of their data peculiar to American Indian stu- dents in spite of the empirical regularity that encompasses students of other races as well. There is a problem, we feel, in Cockerham and Blevins' apparently self-felt necessity to ex- plain differently for Indians what is likely true for both Indians and non-Indians. While it is surely possible that different factors may pro- duce these same results for Indian and non- Indian students, the authors report no evi- dence that this is the case. In light of this, the prudent and parsimonious conclusion is that the same characteristics of open schools pro- duce enhanced self-identifications for Indian and non-Indian students. Whether these char-

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248 COMMENTARY AND DEBATE

acteristics are representative of characteristics of all American Indian cultures is to our knowledge an unanswered, empirical question.

Russell Thornton University of Minnesota

Joan Marsh-Thornton

References

Cockerham, William C., and Audie L. Blevins, Jr. 1976 "Open school vs. traditional school: Self-

identification among Native American and white adolescents." Sociology of Education 49 (April):164-169.

REPLY TO THORNTON AND MARSH-THORNTON

We welcome the comments by the Thorn- tons which provide us with an opportunity to clarify our position. They seem, however, to attribute conclusions to us which we simply did not make. We did not feel, for example, a "self-felt necessity to explain differently for Indians what is likely true for both Indians and non-Indians." Quite the contrary. We stated (p. 167) that the open school most like- ly affects a positive self-identification on the part of both white and Indian pupils but that our small sample (N = 8) of open school whites precluded us from making a more de- finitive statement concerning whites.

Nor did we state that all Indian students should be educated in the open school. What we suggested (p. 168) is that open schools may be an especially viable educational ap-

proach for Indian youth, pending more exten- sive research. We realize that widespread vari- ability exists among Indian tribes in regard to specific norms and values (see Cockerham, 1975), but nevertheless certain core values can be identified as common to many (perhaps most) Indian cultures (see Spindler and Spind- ler, 1957). The responses in our study make us tend to agree with Foerster and Little Soldier (1974) that such values may be better expressed in the open school.

The focus of our study was not whether there are universal Indian values, but whether the open school's approach to education tends to foster a positive self-identification for In- dians as the literature suggests it does for oth- er pupils.

William C. Cockerham University of Illinois, Urbana

Audie L. Blevins, Jr. University of Wyoming

References

Cockerham, William C. 1975 The Interactional Implications of Studying

American Indians. Paper presented to the Society for the Study of Symbolic Inter- action meetings, San Francisco, August 26, 1975.

Foerster, Leona M., and Dale Little Soldier. 1974 "Open education and Native American

values." Educational Leadership 32 (Oc- tober): 41-44.

Spindler, George D., and Louise S. Spindler. 1957 "American Indian personality types and

their sociocultural roots." American Acad- emy of Political and Social Sciences 311 (May): 147-57.

ERRATUM

In the reply to Gaston, Wolinsky, and Bohleber by Diana Crane (April, 1976) on page 187, the acknowledgement footnote was ommitted. The footnote is as follows:

* I am grateful to H. M. Blalock, Jr., Nancy Geller, and Donald Ploch for their advice on the appropriate use of tauc.

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