Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1996
Abstract
Adams makes a number of important contributions, including raising several significant topics deserving further investigation: the local consequences of tension between centralization and decentralization in the boarding school system, the connections between the movement for compulsory education for Indians and for the U.S. school-age public at large, and the relationship between the schools' project of Indian assimilation and American nationalism of the time, particularly the drive to make citizens out of the immigrant "melting pot." In addition, Adams's research, building upon that of many other scholars, demonstrates that the Indian boarding school experience offers rich ethnographic and historical material for refining theoretical notions of resistance and accommodation. Overall, Education for Extinction contributes to the growing literature on the Native American boarding school experience and will be particularly useful to students and scholars seeking an engaging introduction to and overview of this critical chapter in Indian-white relations.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly 16:3 (Summer 1996). Copyright © 1996 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.