CULTURALLY RELEVANT TEACHING

American Indian Education/indigenous education is still faltering today and is not producing significant differences in results where school practices follow those for the dominant culture. Inroads have been made in some classrooms/schools where Culturally Responsive/Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) is practiced. However, the drop-out rates for American Indian/indigenous populations are still extremely high in comparison to other ethnically diverse groups of students. There are two factors that can make or break indigenous students' abilities to be resilient in the face of many educational negatives in their lives and enable them to continue on to graduate from high school and in many instances, go on to complete undergraduate and graduate degrees in institutions of higher learning.