American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Although there is now a sizeable body of substantive knowledge concerning the political socialization of children in the United States, until recently research in this area focused primarily on white, suburban, middle-class children or on sex or social class differences in the political learning process. In addition to providing a foundation for later research these earlier studies point to the need for investigation of the political socialization process among children from other subcultural backgrounds. In the past few years race has emerged as the principal new area of socialization research. However, this research has been concerned largely with differences in the political socialization of Black and white adults (Olsen, 1970; arum, 1966; Sears, 1969) or Black and white children (Green, 1972; Greenberg, 1969, 1970a, 1970b, 197Oc; Jaros, 1967; Orum and Cohen, 1973). With the exception of one study involving Mexican-American high school students (Messick, 1970), other racial-ethnic groups have been ignored. The prese nt study increases our understandin g of childhood political development through an investigation of aspects of the political learning process among a sample of Native American children.

The past two decades have seen over 200,000 American Indian people migrating from rural areas - primarily reservations - to the nation's cities. This population shift has been so marked that nationally nearly half the Indian population now dwells in cities and the number is increasing daily. Undoubtedly, this urban migration has become a major, if not the dominant, influence determining attitudes, values, and behavior of Indian Americans. The magnitude of this migration suggests that the cultural and social consequences generated by it will in the long run overshadow the consequences of earlier government policy of forced removal to reservations. The 1970 census documents the migration, but very little is known of the assimilation of this culturally distinct group of people. Government policy makers and the general public have tended to assume that on ce an American Indian receives vocational training and is relocated in the city he or she is quickly assimilated into middle-class America. In other words, those Indians who "leave the blanket" and go to the city leave their Indianness on the reservation . Bahr (1972), in a review of studies dealing with urban Indians, contends that one unanticipated and unintended consequence of federal relocation programs has been the fostering of pan-Indian activities and a greater emphasis on Indian identity as a mechanism of adjustment to urban life. In addition, Vogt (1957), in an article summarizing the level of acculturation for groups of Indians in various sections of the United States, argues that the acceptance of white material culture is often mistakenly equated with total acculturation. Just because Indians move to the city, live in modern houses, or watch color television does not guarantee that they give up important aspects of their culture, such as native religion, ties to the land, core values, kinship ties, or language. This caution is especially applicable to urban Indians who appear to accept some material aspects of middle-class culture but who may maintain significant portions of their traditional culture. Given the concern about Indian assimilation to urban life, the purpose of this paper is to compare levels of adjustment of samples of Indians and Anglos living in a large metropolitan area (Seattle, Washington) to assess how well Indian migrants have adjusted to urban society.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the nature and varieties of stereotyping of Blacks and Native Americans which occurred in the first twenty years (1954-1973) of the popular magazine Playboy and to identify any changes in the content and frequency of that stereotyping over time. A similar but less ambitious study was done by Houts and Bahr using selected volumes of the Saturday Evening Post. The present study was done, at least in part, to accumulate a corpus of data for use in comparison with the Houts-Bahr findings. As with that study, content analysis was the device used to extract the information from the cartoons. Houts and Bahr were interested in the comparison of data from two widely separated historic periods, 1922-1931 and 1958-1968, and so selected the Saturday Evening Post for study as it was a widely read magazine of some longevity. Different considerations led to the selection of Playboy for this study. First, cartoons are an integral part of Playboy; more so than they are in other magazines where they often are of secondary importance. Secondly, and due in large part to the first, the cartoons are selected primarily on the basis of "quality". Less subjects appear to be taboo, i.e ., motherhood may be assailed outrageously and pubertal girl scouts may show up pregnant; and the principal criteria for selection obviously is whether or not it is humorous - at least to the cartoon editor(s). Schoenfield's' observations concerning the "vast number of 'taboos'" facing cartoonists appears to be much less applicable to Playboy than to other magazines. It may well tie in with the fact that Playboy magazine itself is an organ born out of controversy and iconoclasm. At any rate, Playboy was chosen because it was felt that the relative lack of taboos would make the cartoons therein less restrictive in terms of varieties of stereotypes.

American Indian Literature: Current Condition and Suggested Research Kenneth Rosen The National Council of Teachers of English has recently approved a resolution supporting the study of Native American literature, both oral and written. The resolution proposed "that Native American literature and culture be taught kindergarten through college, and be it further resolved that programs in teacher preparation be encouraged to include resources, materials, and methods of presenting Native American literature and culture." The quantity of contemporary American Indian literature available to today's teachers and students is limited but steadily increasing; the quality of such work is, fortunately, quite high in many instances. The poems, short stories, and novels written by American Indians in the last decade or so will be considered here, as will some of the journals and chapbooks in which this material regularly appears. But of at least equal importance, I believe, are the suggestions made in this essay concerning the needs and opportunities for scholarly and critical research in the field of American Indian literature. It is my assumption here, of course, that a sound critical apparatus can only help to legitimize (in the eyes of those who approve public school curricula and university courses) the study of an important body of material which, until only recently, has been generally ignored. While at least nine other novels had been written by American Indians and published in this country prior to 1969, it was in that year that the Pulitzer prize for fiction was awarded to N. Scott Momaday's House Made of Dawn (New York: Harper and Row, 1968) and in the decade since that award we have seen at least seven additional novels published which demand our serious attention.