Native American Family Research Paper

661 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Traditional beliefs of American Indians

Mooradian, J. K., Cross, S. L., & Stutzky, G. R. (2006). Across generations: Culture, history, and policy in the social ecology of American Indian grandparents parenting their grandchildren. Journal of Family Social Work, 10(4), 81-101. Approximately 5.5 million grandparents are raising their grandchildren and one percent of that is Native Indians. It is important to note that this is just Native Indians who have legal rights to raise their grandchildren. The basis of this study is the social ecosystem framework. Social ecosystems are based on the interconnectedness and the hierarchical connection between people and their environment. This study was conducted through interviews with American Indian grandparents who decided to raise their grandchildren. …show more content…

Some limitations of this study include the small sample size (n=31). This study also focuses specifically on one culture, so the findings may not be able to be applied to other cultures. This study does however provide information about American Indian culture that may not have been available otherwise. Mutchler, J. E., Baker, L. A., & Lee, S. (2007). Grandparents responsible for grandchildren in Native-American families. Social Science Quarterly (Wiley-Blackwell), 88(4), 990-1009. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6237.2007.00514.x Grandparents play an important and unique role in American Indian families. Strong relationships between grandparents and grandchildren is highly encouraged so that grandchildren may learn important cultural values and practices cross-generationally. This study focused on persons who identify as American Indian or Alaskan Native (AIAN). This study looked at grandparents age 45 to 78 in attempt to find grandparents who were still actively taking care of their grandchildren. This study was conducted using information from the 2000 census. Through analysis of the census information, it was concluded that persons who identify as American Indian or Alaskan Native are most likely to take responsibility for a …show more content…

Grandparents also provide support, financial or emotional. There is not a lot of information out there focused on American Indian grand-parenting. Five different grand-parenting styles in American Indian culture are discussed: ceremonial, fictive, custodial, distanced, and cultural conservator. The difference between grandfathers and grandmothers is also discussed. This study was performed through interviews with twenty American Indian grandparents. Questions were asked to gather information about grandparents’ roles in their grandchildren’s lives and the relationship between grandparents. Through the interviews, it was concluded that contemporary American Indian grand-parenting was very comparable to grand-parenting roles in general. It was also concluded that the cultural aspect of American Indian life is an important aspect in

Show More
Related

  • Black, White, and Indian:Race and the Unmaking of an American, by Claudio Saunt

    1111 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Tracing a single Native American family from the 1780’s through the 1920’s posed a number of challenges,” for Claudio Saunt, author of Black, White, and Indian: Race and the Unmaking of an American Family. (pg. 217) A family tree is comprised of genealogical data that has many branches that take form by twisting, turning, and attempting to accurately represent descendants from the oldest to the youngest. “The Grayson family of the Creek Nation traces its origins to the late 1700’s, when Robert Grierson, a Scotsman, and Sinnugee, a Creek woman, settled down together in what is now north-central Alabama. Today, their descendants number in the thousands and have scores of surnames.” (pg. 3)

    Read More

  • Seeing Red By Ines Talamantez Summary

    1022 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the text “Seeing Red: American Indian Women Speaking about their Religious and Cultural Perspectives” by Inés Talamantez, the author discusses the role of ceremonies and ancestral spirituality in various Native American cultures, and elaborates on the injustices native women face because of their oppressors.

    Read More

  • Analysis: Intergenerational Interview: Interviewing An Elder: David Latta

    1289 Words  | 3 Pages

    On the night of Saturday, February 1, 2014, I sat down with my grandfather, David Latta, to conduct an interview with him. He currently lives in Clarkston, Michigan, in the newly refurbished basement in my mother's house, along with my step-father, sister, and her son. One could say that my mother's household is quite the crowded nest, with four generation living under one roof. The perspective my grandfather obtains from living in such an atmosphere, is not only something I kept in mind while conducting this interview, but something that guided my questions.

    Read More

  • Adam Robinson Acquires Grandparents And A Little Sister Analysis

    1235 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mills, Terry L., Zenta Gomez-Smith and Jessica M. De Leon. "Skipped Generation Families: Sources of Psychological Distress Among Grandmothers of Grandchildren Who Live in Homes Where Neither Parent Is Present." Marriage & Family Review 37.1-2 (2005): 191-212. Web. 18 July 2014.

    Read More

  • Examination of The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978

    2838 Words  | 6 Pages

    The history of Indian Child Welfare Act derived from the need to address the problems with the removal of Indian children from their communities. Native American tribes identified the problem of Native American children being raised by non-native families when there were alarming numbers of children being removed from their h...

    Read More

  • Native Americans and Cultural Assimilation

    1945 Words  | 4 Pages

    There are consistent patterns or themes regarding Native American world views and the differentiation of cultural elements and society. Native Americans retained control of institutional and cultural orders against the assimilation effort because all aspects of Native American societies are interrelated, guided by the broader cultural world views. Each cultural or institutional element is, in fact, overlapped with other elements, so change in one element inevitably affects the broader cultural and social complex. While adopting to a new environment and small changes was possible in the West, where social and cultural elements are separate from each other, Native Americans were faced with conflicts and a potential, large disruption of the existing social orders.

    Read More

  • Doing What's Best For The Tribe Summary

    984 Words  | 2 Pages

    "Doing What's Best for the Tribe" is an article written by Marcia Zug about a young girl whose life was destroyed by those who overlooked the laws and procedure place by the systems in matters of adoption of native children. The full author names is Marcia A. Yablon-Zug , a professor of law. She has published many articles covering American Indian Law, Immigration Law and Policy and family law. Her work focuses on the intersection of immigration law and family law. On this article, she makes it clear

    Read More

  • Sexual Assault of Native American Women

    1464 Words  | 3 Pages

    Native Americans have undergone a horrific past of genocide, discrimination, forced acculturation, miscommunication, and misunderstanding. They were frequently dehumanized and stripped of basic human rights. Treated as “savages” they were herded into areas of confinement and robbed of their language, culture, and way of life. In many instances of genocide, experts have noted a type of historical trauma that may be passed down through families, known as generational trauma. While the potential effects of this concept are not proven, the stories, images, and memories of thousands of Native Americans continue to be shared with their children, thus perpetuating, and never forgetting the pain and embarrassment that their people have experienced.

    Read More

  • Essay On Native American Gangs

    1634 Words  | 4 Pages

    American Sociological Review, 3, 672-682. "Native American Youth 101." Aspen Institue. Aspen Institues, 24 July 11. Web.

    Read More

  • An Interesting Connection

    717 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the story Reclaiming Culture and the Land: Motherhood and the Policies of Sustaining Community, the author describes just some of the challenges of working while being a Native American living on and off within a normal Caucasian society. One of the issues brought up in the story is that the author does a poor job in raising her children while they are at the most important stages in their childhood. In this Indian community, everyone knows each other and it is a close, tight knit community throughout. One of the principals which backs this up is that one or more mothers in the community take care of all of the children of the community, kind of like a daycare center. The author is indeed one of these caretaker mothers that would spend a lot of time with all the children. As a result, outsiders look at her and believe that she is doing a poor job at what she considers to be a fine parenting job. And other hardship that she has is trying to understand her place in society because she is a woman. In the story, she describes how things are constantly being taken from her and assumed by the male sex. These and more are some of the problems that she has to deal with in the story.

    Read More

  • The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) Of 1978

    2553 Words  | 6 Pages

    The history of Indian Child Welfare Act derived from the need to address the problems with the removal of Indian children from their communities. Native American tribes identified the problem of Native American children being raised by non-native families when there were alarming numbers of children being removed from their h...

    Read More

  • Funds of Knowledge and Outcomes Among Native American Students

    2663 Words  | 6 Pages

    Pewewardy, C., & Fitzpatrick, M. (2009). Working with American Indian students and families: Disabilities, issues, and interventions. Intervention in School and Clinic, 45(2), 91-98.

    Read More

  • Cultural Affiliations: Indian Americans In The United States

    1621 Words  | 4 Pages

    Indian Americans refer to themselves as Indian Americans, East Indians, or Indo-Americans in the United States. They originate from the East and South India, where traditions and cultural practices are passed down from generation to generation. According to Dupree, Bhakta, and Patel (2013), most Indians move to the United States for better education, lifestyle, and job opportunities (pg. 314). After arriving in the United States, some Indian Americans start to abandon their cultural beliefs regarding dating, dress, and dietary habits and begin accepting American cultural practices. This is disappointing to the older generations of an Indian American family, who still believe in abiding by their own cultural beliefs (Dupree,

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Two Cultures

    1206 Words  | 3 Pages

    Every culture has several similarities and differences that impact the way they do things. Several of these cultures have distinct traits and traditions that make them differently from other cultures. I believe these differences make each culture different and unique. The two cultures that I have chosen to compare and contrast with each other is Kenya and India. In this paper I will discuss the similarities and differences in each of the culture’s families in context, marital relationships, and families and aging. These are important aspects of these cultures and to examine them will give me a better knowledge of both of these cultures.

    Read More

  • Unraveling My Complex Family Dynamics

    1260 Words  | 3 Pages

    We became good family friends with a women in Yellowknife, so good that I know call her my aunt, she comes to dinners all the time, and I would go to her for anything. When living in Yellowknife I also got a deeper understanding of the Dene culture, in Close Relations An Introduction to the Sociology of Families, it is stated that “Aboriginals viewed kinship, the basis for assigning rights and duties, more flexibly than did European settlers. For example, their kinship rules included adopted children and adults, friends and people engaged in mutual aid”. (McDaniel & Tepperman, 2011, p. 30) I believe that we have as a white society have changed toward this but that in my family this way of thinking has become very

    Read More

More about Native American Family Research Paper

Open Document