A Culturally Responsive Math Program: A Case Study in a Rural Tribal College in the United States

For many Native American students, the thirty-seven existing tribal colleges improve their access to post-secondary education, especially for those living in reservation communities and surrounding rural areas. They also support tribal nations’ goals of offering accredited degree programs, as well honoring Indigenous knowledge. This is important for students enrolled in STEM courses since Native Americans are under-represented in these fields. In the early 2000s, Chief Dull Knife College (CDKC), the tribal college of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, was supported by National Science Foundation funding in developing a new math program to meet the unique cultural and instructional needs of its students. In this case study of a culturally responsive math program, we hypothesize that students participating in the new developmental math program attempt and earn more credits compared to cohorts participating in previous math programs and take less time on average to reach college-level math. We present information on the math outcomes of the participants in two variations of the math program reforms that have addressed the obstacles to student retention and achievement. The panel data available include students’ demographic characteristics, placement test scores, and math course grades and the credits for all students enrolled from 2006 to 2019. While the number of credits attempted or earned did not differ statistically across the cohorts, the qualitative data further show that the students appreciate the culturally responsive aspects of the program. Ultimately, we have found that these aspects resulted in increased confidence of the students in their academic skills, stronger Native identities and engagement as students, as well as an improved sense of belonging in this higher education environment, all of which were important goals of the developmental math program.