The lessons of American Indian education—a grand experiment in standardization—can lead to a more equitable educational system for all U.S. citizens. While masquerading as a tool for equal opportunity, standardization has marginalized Native peoples. We argue for diversity—not standardization—as a foundational value for a just multicultural democracy, but diversity is feared by some as a threat to the nation’s integrity. Critical historical analysis of the apparently contradictory policies and practices within American Indian education reveals a patterned response to cultural and linguistic diversity, as the federal government has attempted to distinguish “safe” from “dangerous” Native practices. Examples of the contest between Indigenous self-determination (rooted in internal sovereignty) and federal control illustrate the profound national ambivalence toward diversity but also the potential to nourish “places of difference” within a healthy democracy.

The inherent power dynamic between academic researchers and those they study is the focus of this article. Author K. Tsianina Lomawaima analyzes the shift in the balance of power between scholars and American Indian tribes that has occurred over the last four decades. She argues that issues such as access to subjects, data ownership, analysis and interpretation, and control over dissemination of findings all reflect what amounts to a struggle for power and tribal sovereignty. Lomawaima maintains that understanding the historical relationship between Native communities and academia, as well as the relatively new research protocols developed by various tribes, is necessary for responsible and respectful scholarship.

This study of off‐reservation boarding schools for Native Americans illustrates how Indian students contested federal authority. Analyzing domesticity training and notions of proper dress for female students, it sheds light on the relations of power within the schools as the U.S. government tried to train Indians for subservience according to 19th‐century racist theories of their circumscribed physical and mental development. Archival records document federal practice; narratives by alumni of the Chilocco Indian Agricultural School in Oklahoma provide student perspectives. The bloomer story, an important shared narrative, symbolizes student cooperation within (and competition between) gender‐defined peer groups. [American Indians, education, women, boarding schools, power relations, resistance, ethnicity]

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