IINII

Culturally Responsive Mental Health Interventions (www.iinii.org)

One research team argues that culturally responsive principles has crossed-over into successful prevention models that connected cultural identity, and self-esteem by braiding traditional culture, parenting/social skill-building, and strengthening family relationships into the intervention (Goodkind et al., 2012). The authors learned that American Indian adolescents benefited from participated in culturally-based mental health interventions that incorporate the development of problem-solving skills, positive intellectual reprogramming, and seeks social supports (Goodkind et al., 2012). The outcomes support the conclusions represented in a study that identified support-seeking coping strategies are related to decreased depression and anxiety symptoms among U.S. adolescents (Wright et al., 2010). Other studies acknowledge the importance of the inherent strengths of tribal communities for Native youth and suggests that future interventions integrate tribal culture and the healing traditions of ancient times (Pavkov et al., 2010).

Hodge, Limb, & Cross (2009) linked colonization to mental health within Indigenous communities and suggested abandoning Western mental health remedies in exchange for healing processes that rely on Indigenous knowledge foundations. Some studies contend that traditional cultural practices that use cultural values to heal intergenerational trauma may help American Indian students reduce suicidal thoughts (Hill 2009; Yurkovich, Hopkins, & Rieke, 2012), and suicidal ideation may be reduced by participating in spiritual activities (Garroutte et al., 2003). The influence of cultural factors, such as a sense of belonging to one’s culture, strong tribal spiritual orientation, and cultural continuity, can be protective factors against su***de among American Indian youth (Pharris, Resnick, & Blum, 1997).

Wexler and colleagues (2016) claim that American Indians suffer from lack of culturally appropriate mental health interventions, and argue for the development of partnerships between scholars and Native communities that permit Indigenous peoples opportunities to draw their own conclusions about what constitutes important societal issues, as well as permitting them to craft remedies that reveal community preferences. Increasing access to culturally responsive interventions, development and implementation of school- and community-level interventions, educating and increasing awareness of su***de, and connecting young people to their culture are all identified in literature (Goldston et al., 2008; Pharris, Resnick, & Blum, 1997; US Department of Health and Human Services, 2010).

IINII uses a revolutionary Design Thinking process to help your school community gain an understanding of one’s sense of self, as well as developing an understanding of students’ and parents’ values; having an understanding of one’s values matters because research has shown that it is linked to better well-being, less stress, and increased confidence in one’s ability to succeed. IINII has extensive experience in building and using an Indigenous research paradigm.

Understanding students’ values can be developed with culturally sustaining practices that reflect a student’s identity and experience. Particularly helpful is focusing efforts on cultural competence and relevance and providing opportunities for students to practice bridging differences between diverse identities in a safe environment. To learn how you can create a dynamic youth-centered environment that honors the unique values of your students and parents, visit our website at www.iinii.org, or contact us at [email protected] or 1800-507-2502.

Indigenous Capital Impacts Higher Education (www.iinii.org)

American Indian children are at a distinct disadvantage as they must learn to navigate school systems crafted to subjugate their culture, values, and languages in order to advance to higher education which is even less likely to honor the capital Indigenous students bring to their learning. Scholarly literature indicates that academic accomplishment is more related to cultural capital than aptitude and meeting academic benchmarks (Swartz, 1998). The definition of capital is understood to include both utility and power (Pidgeon, 2008). Bourdieu offered three types of capital (social, cultural, and economic) to explain the structures of the social world (Pidgeon, 2008; Mills, 2008). The offer of cultural capital is especially significant for American Indians who are led to believe that their way of knowing is primeval and their languages are believed inferior to the dominant culture (Battiste, 2009).

American Indians have experienced a multitude of atrocities propagated by the dominant cultures’ desire to maintain a power imbalance that fortifies their world-building desires. Likewise, many Indigenous students have fallen victim to school systems based on a colonial mindset designed to assimilate them through the dominant cultures’ values and experiences, which in turn, begins to set the schema of the habitus to mimic the values that the school seeks to legitimize and transfer willfully (Mills, 2008). One scholar suggests that public education uses cognitive imperialism as a devious method of mental maneuvering to disrepute other people’s values and knowledge in order to substantiate another groups’ knowledge. To be stripped of one’s knowledge and identity is to be separated mentally and spiritually from one’s ancestors. Therefore, decolonization is not merely a political mechanism, but rather a cognitive imperative that allows the spirit and minds of the colonized to be set free. (Battiste, 1998).

Indigenous communities frequently have a very diverse set of questions that outlines the key instructive issue as being essentially around epistemic self-determination that incorporates dialect and culture and the challenges of creating academic approaches from a distinctive epistemological basis (Smith, 2005). One scholar indicates that Indigenous belief systems or habitus are founded on the notion that one must be able to comprehend one’s connection to the world and is rooted in the individual’s geographic origin and the culture of that place (Pidgeon, 2008).

IINII uses a revolutionary Design Thinking process to help your school community gain an understanding of one’s sense of self, as well as developing an understanding of students’ and parents’ values; having an understanding of one’s values matters because research has shown that it is linked to better well-being, less stress, and increased confidence in one’s ability to succeed. IINII has extensive experience in building and using an Indigenous research paradigm.

Understanding students’ values can be developed with culturally sustaining practices that reflect a student’s identity and experience. Particularly helpful is focusing efforts on cultural competence and relevance and providing opportunities for students to practice bridging differences between diverse identities in a safe environment. To learn how you can create a dynamic youth-centered environment that honors the unique values of your students and parents, visit our website at www.iinii.org, or contact us at [email protected] or 1800-507-2502.

Children Learn Bullying Behaviors (www.iinii.org)

Bandura’s (1977) Social Learning Theory posits that people learn from observing the behaviors of others as well as the outcomes of those behaviors. According to this theory, children can acquire aggressive behaviors by observing models (e.g., parents, peers) who engage in similar aggressive acts and are reinforced for this behavior. Bandura, Ross, and Ross (1961) provided initial support for this assumption by demonstrating that children learn and imitate aggressive behaviors they have observed in adult models. Some of the children in the study watched a male or female adult behaving aggressively toward a toy called a Bobo doll. Later on, when these children were allowed to play in a room with a Bobo doll, they began to imitate the aggressive behaviors they had previously observed from the adult model. In general, children who observed the aggressive models engaged in significantly more aggressive behaviors than children who were exposed to a non-aggressive model or no model.

Bandura (1977) asserts that in order for observational learning to be successful four conditions – attention, retention, motor reproduction, and motivation – must be present. First, the observer must pay attention to the model and be able to remember the behavior that was observed. Second, the observer has to be able to replicate the behavior that the model has demonstrated. Lastly, the observer must be motivated to imitate the behavior that has been modeled. Thus, the likelihood that children will imitate bullying behaviors they observe depends on whether they attend to the person’s behaviors, remember the behaviors that are observed, are physically capable of replicating the bullying behaviors and are motivated to engage in the bullying behaviors. Reinforcement, punishment, and self-efficacy play an important role in motivation (Bandura, 1978; Okey, 1992). For example, children are more likely to engage in aggressive behaviors (i.e., bullying) if they result in positive outcomes and/or if they have high self-efficacy for aggressive behaviors and low self-efficacy for alternative coping strategies (Bandura, 1978; Okey, 1992).

IINII uses a revolutionary Design Thinking process to help your school community gain an understanding of one’s sense of self, as well as developing an understanding of students’ and parents’ values; having an understanding of one’s values matters because research has shown that it is linked to better well-being, less stress, and increased confidence in one’s ability to succeed. IINII has extensive experience in building and using an Indigenous research paradigm.

Understanding students’ values can be developed with culturally sustaining practices that reflect a student’s identity and experience. Particularly helpful is focusing efforts on cultural competence and relevance and providing opportunities for students to practice bridging differences between diverse identities in a safe environment. To learn how you can create a dynamic youth-centered environment that honors the unique values of your students and parents, visit our website at www.iinii.org, or contact us at [email protected] or 1800-507-2502.

Moral Disengagement Harms Children (www.iinii.org)

Children lacking empathy typically have difficulty interpreting visual cues regarding others’ emotions, and also express difficulty relating to others and understanding how others might feel (Bossenmeyer, 2010). Research has shown that some children who bully show little empathy (Bullock, 2002). One study has demonstrated that low levels of empathy have been related to more frequent involvement in bullying (Gini, Albiero, Benelli, & Altoè, 2007). Furthermore, it has been shown that students who bully tend to display less empathic awareness than their peers who do not engage in bullying behaviors (Warden & Mackinnon, 2003).

Some researchers argue that students who bully are actually adept at reading social cues; these students use their ability to engage in perspective-taking to prey on other students (Olweus, 1999). However, a lack of empathy has been found to be common among those who fail to appropriately react when witnessing the distress of others. Watching others in pain appears to serve as a reward for those who bully others, thus suggesting that a lack of empathy leads to inappropriate responses when a student is being victimized (Decety, Michalska, Akitsuki, & Lahey, 2010).

Students generally engage in bullying behaviors because they either have strong needs for power and dominance or find satisfaction in causing injury and suffering to other individuals (Olweus, 1999). An additional characteristic that may set those who bully apart from their peers is moral disengagement; individuals will act aggressively in order to achieve what they perceive as morally right and will subsequently consider any aggressive actions take to obtain such a goal to be justifiable (Alvarez & Bachman, 2008).

Numerous studies have advocated for the role of moral disengagement, especially high levels of moral disengagement, in the development and maintenance of bullying behaviors (Gini, 2006; Gini, Pozzoli, & Hymel, 2013; Hymel, Schonert-Reichel, Bonanno, Vaillancourt, & Rocke Henderson, 2010; Pozzoli, Gini, & Vieno, 2012). In a study looking at the moral emotions experienced by bullies, compared to victims and bystanders (Menesini, Sanchez, Fonzi, Costabile, & Feudo, 2003), results showed that bullies endorsed higher moral disengagement and displayed more egocentric reasoning. Specifically, one form of moral disengagement is indifference, which is expressed by the lack of emotions in response to a harmful behavior towards victimized students (Menesini, Sanchez, Fonzi, Costabile, & Feudo, 2003). This lack of empathetic feelings has been found among many children who bully others, thus strengthening the connection that low levels of empathy appear to be a contributing factor for children’s engagement in bullying behaviors.

IINII uses a revolutionary Design Thinking process to help your school community gain an understanding of one’s sense of self, as well as developing an understanding of students’ and parents’ values; having an understanding of one’s values matters because research has shown that it is linked to better well-being, less stress, and increased confidence in one’s ability to succeed. IINII has extensive experience in building and using an Indigenous research paradigm.

Understanding students’ values can be developed with culturally sustaining practices that reflect a student’s identity and experience. Particularly helpful is focusing efforts on cultural competence and relevance and providing opportunities for students to practice bridging differences between diverse identities in a safe environment. To learn how you can create a dynamic youth-centered environment that honors the unique values of your students and parents, visit our website at www.iinii.org, or contact us at [email protected] or 1800-507-2502.