THE HIDDEN HALF - A HISTORY OF NATIVE-AMERICAN WOMENS EDUCATION

In this article, Deirdre Almeida presents an overview of Native Americ an education since the Europeans' arrival in the Americas, with a focu s on its effect on Native American women in the United States from 187 8 to the present. Until recently the history of Native American women has only been touched upon, but over the past decade, Native American women scholars have emerged to present their perspectives on the influ ence of both traditional learning and formal Western-based educational programs on Native women. Almeida examines the educational experience s of Native American women resulting from U.S. government policies, fo cusing in particular on the off-reservation boarding school program of 1878-1928. Throughout her study, Almeida demonstrates how education w as, and still is, connected to the political power of Native American women. Traditional learning has been the means by which Native America n women have established and maintained their voices and empowered the mselves through gender roles. However, Western-based education, under government control, has been used as an instrument to destroy the trad itional power of Native American women, through the shifting of these roles. The voices of the Native American women presented in this study illustrate their resistance to the breakdown of traditional political standing and the use of education to reclaim and protect it.