-
Alaska's Urban Boarding Home Program
Judith Kleinfield
In Alaska's Boarding Home Program, rural students from small villages without high schools attend secondary school by living with a boarding home family. Most rural students in this program are Eskimo or Athabascan Indian, and the majority are placed with white families in urban areas. This study attempts to describe the subtle interpersonal tensions that develop in the boarding home parent-student relationship. It also attempts to identify the characteristics of successful and unsuccessful boarding home parents and ways of matching parents to students in a manner that maximizes mutual satisfaction. The focus on the characteristics of boarding home parents who develop satisfactory relationships with students, rather than a focus on the characteristics of rural students who successfully adjust to the urban environment, was chosen because it seemed likely to be most useful to the program staff. Since the program accepts almost all applicants and other options are unavailable, little selection of students can occur. Selection of parents, however, is a major and routine program activity. It should be underscored, however, that rural students differ widely in their capacity to adjust to an urban boarding home, and some students have severe psychological problems that probably would prevent them from adapting to any urban home. The method of obtaining information consisted primarily of interviewing boarding home parents and students. A detailed description of the methodology may be found in Appendix II.
-
Effective Teachers of Indian and Eskimo High School Students
Judith Kleinfield
The focus of this study is upon analyzing effective and ineffective teachers in terms of their behavior in the classroom, not in terms of their personalities or attitudes. It is suggested that 2 fundamental characteristics distinguish effective from ineffective teachers of American Indian and Eskimo students: (1) a high level of personal warmth, especially warmth communicated nonverbally through facial expression, body distance, and touch; and (2) a high level of active demandingness in the classroom--demandingness expressed as an aspect of the teacher's personal concern for the student, rather than a concern for subject matter. This study also suggests the need for pre-service and in-service training for teachers to acquire the type of interpersonal behavior that facilitates learning among the Indian and Eskimo students. Teachers of Indian and Eskimo students were observed in 2 boarding schools and in 5 integrated urban high schools during the 1970-71 school year. The focus was on teachers of 9th grade Indian and Eskimo students. The teachers were videotaped to permit a more intensive analysis and interviewed to discuss problems of village students and effective teaching methods. The "Supportive Gadflies," who exhibited personal warmth and active demandingness, appeared to be successful with the Indian and Eskimo students as compared to the other types of teachers (traditionalists, sophisticates, and sentimentalists). (FF
-
Instructional Style and the Intellectual Performance of Indian and Eskimo Students
Judith Kleinfield
Three 1970-71 studies concerning the styles of instruction that lead to higher intellectual performance among village American Indian and Eskimo high school students are presented in this final report of observations of teachers and students in several Native boarding schools and/or integrated urban high schools in Alaska. The first study, an ethnography, describes the problems of these students and their teachers, and suggests a typology differentiating effective and ineffective teachers. This ethnography suggests that the teachers degree of personal warmth versus professional distance, and degree of active demandingness versus passive understanding, are fundamental dimensions separating successful from unsuccessful teachers. The second study, empirically j a major hypothesis derived from the ethnography, found that socioemotional climate of the integrated classroom is significantly related to the verbal participation of the village students, who are typically silent and withdrawn. The third study found that teacher warmth, communicated through nonverbal channels, leads to higher intellectual performance among village Indians and Eskimo students. Suggestions are made for implementing the secondary school instruction of Indian and Eskimo students through teacher selection methods and training programs which take into account the importance of personal -4armth and active demandingness in cross-cultural teaching success. A bibliography and copies of the Teacher and student questionnaires used in the studies are included
-
Processes and Costs Imposed by Environmental Stress
Arlon R. Tussing
A useful distinction is made between internal and external costs of human activity in polar environments. Until I very recently, external costs have been reduced as negligible because of low population densities and a narrow spectrum of alternative uses for polar resources. Polar wilderness is now coming to be regarded as an asset to non-polar mankind, but the value of this asset has yet to be specified in a manner that allows it to be used in cost-benefit analysis. We do not know much about the direct, internal costs of economic activity in polar areas, except that they tend to be high. Much of the differential in costs between the Arctic and the temperate zones is not directly related to climate and other physical factors and may reflect these factors at al I only through the influence of low population densities and low levels of economic development. Equipment, materials, and techniques used in the North were typically designed for a different physical environment; high rates of labor turnover and low manpower efficiency in the North probably result largely from the absence of cultural. amenities that people in the United States, Canada or the U.S.S.R. normally expect. In the United States' Subarctic (Southcentral Alaska), cost structures are normalizing rapidly with the growth of population and economic activity. It is possible that settlement and economic development. in the polar regions would bring similar results, but the necessary population and economic densities are not now foreseeable.
-
Alaska's Agriculture An Analysis of Developmental Problems
Wayne E. Burton
The U.S. Department of Agriculture through the Economic Research Service, the State of Alaska through the Department of Economic Development, and other federal and state agencies contributed data and financial support for studies of Alaska agriculture that provided a partial basis for this report. Ors. Leigh H. Hammond and Harold 0. Carter served as consultant to the Economic Research Service and provided technical consultation to the University of Alaska staff during the early stages of a preliminary study regarding data and procedures on farm types, demand projections, and economies of scale in processing agricultural products. Dr. Robert C. Haring was the principal investigator on an earlier ISEG R economic evaluation of potentials for agricultural development in Alaska. While the present report is in part based upon his earlier work and other sources, its authorship is strictly that of Dr. Wayne E. Burton with appropriate assistance provided by ISEGR editor, James D. Babb. Technical consultation was provided the author by a number of persons including: Mr. Blaine 0. Halliday, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Soil Conservation Service, on soil capabilities and production potential; Mr. Duane Skow, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Statistical Reporting Service, on agricultural statistics and geographic regions; Ors. Dana Myrick, Charles H. Rust, Walter G. Heid, Clarence W. Jensen, and William Lassey, Montana State University, on preparing his doctoral thesis "Alaska's Agricultural Production Potential: An Economic Analysis;" and Dr. Donald H. Dinkel, on horticulture and floriculture possibilities. Dr. Burton's work in preparing this report was in major part supported by the Institute of Agricultural Sciences, previously the Alaska Agricultural Experiment Station. The conclusions and recommendations are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the State of Alaska, or the University of Alaska.
Printing is not supported at the primary Gallery Thumbnail page. Please first navigate to a specific Image before printing.
