UC Berkeley

In this study, I examined relationship among social identity and attitudinal variables and academic achievement in a group of 128 American Indian (AI) high school students. Analyses were first conducted in order to explore whether AI students differed from European American (EA) students on measures of ethnic identity, school identification, perceived barriers, perceived discrimination, and abstract, concrete, and ambivalent educational utility. With the exception of school identification, statistically significant differences and large effect sizes between the AI and EA participants were found on all major variables, with the AI participants reporting higher scores on all measures except GPA. EA participants reported a higher GPA. Additional analyses explored the contribution of ethnic identity towards the variance of AI students' GPA and school identification beyond the contribution from perceived barriers, perceived discrimination, and abstract, concrete, and ambivalent educational utility. Ethnic identity was a significant predictor of school identification. None of the variables, including ethnic identity, was a significant predictor of GPA. Final analysis explored the existence of clusters of AI participants based on ethnic identity and school identification. Two groups of AI students who varied on their level of school identification were identified. These groups did not differ on all major variables. I suggest that many of the statistically in-significant findings are due to the ethnically homogeneous context in which the AI participants come from. I argue that ethnicity-related attitudinal and social identity variables are more important predictors of achievement in contexts in which ethnicity is more salient, and are less important in heterogeneous populations.