Being American: traditional, bicultural, and assimilated: the American Indian dilemma

The major questions involved in this research center around the relationship between three self-identified subgroups of American Indians: (a) traditional, (b) bicultural, and (c) assimilated. This is an important issue because of this relevancy to college success for American Indian students. Four hypotheses were asked regarding perceived cultural values and reported perceived ego identity, self-efficacy and social distance and traditional, bicultural and assimilated American Indians. The participants completed a brief Demographic Questionnaire and a self-identified cultural checklist as to whether they identified themselves as traditional, bicultural or assimilated American Indian. In addition, they completed a Semantic Differential for Native Values, Erickson's Ego Identity Scale and Coppel's Perceived Self-Efficacy as well as the Modified Social Distance Test for American Indians. It was proposed that self-identified traditional American Indians would score significantly higher in American Indian cultural values, stronger ego strength, with higher levels of perceived self-efficacy as well as report less social distance than would self-identified bicultural and assimilated American Indians. The results of one-way ANOVA and LSD post hoc test found no significant difference in the three groups for American Indians values; however, traditional American Indians reported significantly higher ego-strength and perceived self-efficacy but lower social distance which was not significant. It was concluded that it might be that bicultural and assimilated American Indians experience cultural needs, while traditional American Indians experience the luxury of cultural distance. Some of the differences found here may suggest that not all individuals classified as American Indian have the same educational problems. Educators might better plan for the American Indian student if they become aware of how these differences affect learning style, classroom performance, and a sense of competence.