Chapter 4: Colonization Continued: Disproportionate Discipline of American Indian Students in K–12 Schools

Though the terms Native American, American Indian, Indian, and Indigenous do have certain sociocultural nuances and political overtones, for the purposes of this chapter, they will be used interchangeably to refer to the First Peoples and the original inhabitants of American soil precolonization. Additionally, though American Indian people have certain similarities and histories that bind them, there are hundreds of tribes that are distinctive and unique. This chapter will expound upon some experiences in education that are common in many of their histories.

Education has long been wielded as a tool of assimilation against American Indian people (Churchill, 2004; Gregg, 2018). Hamlin Garland remarked during his 1902 speech at the Indian Department of the National Education Association that “they [American Indians] must change slowly and suffer in change” identifying school as the necessary weapon in this centuries-long process. Today, American Indian students suffer similarly, facing some of the most harrowing statistics of all racial demographics, with the lowest levels of educational attainment, highest poverty levels, high rates of placement into special education programs, and disproportionately high rates of expulsion, suspension, and corporal punishment (Brown & Di Tillio, 2013; Faircloth, 2018). Additionally, though American Indian students occupy discipline data disproportionately, literature on the topic typically focuses on African American students, erasing Native students from the narrative (Brown & Di Tillio, 2013; Skiba et al., 2002; Townsend, 2000; Whitford, 2017). Schools with zero-tolerance policies further conflate the issue and are particularly dangerous for American Indian students as they further traumatize and alienate them from schools, situating them instead onto the school-to-prison pipeline (Pane & Rocco, 2014). The issue of discipline, therefore, cannot be understood in silos or only within the context of modernity; they are, rather, historically-bound and multidimensionally-situated and must be understood from varying lenses.