Effects of Boarding School on Navajo Maternal Attitudes and Behavior.

An investigation of long term effects of boarding school education was conducted among Navajo women who had attended boarding school on the reservation during the 1950's. Subjects were 23 Navajo mothers and, for 17 mothers, their preschool children; all lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. A series of open-ended interviews obtained information on each mother's life history, school background, and childrearing practices. An in-home testing session included a variety of self-image and attitude measures for the mothers and systematic observations of mother-child interactions during structured and unstructured activity. Women who had spent at least 1 full year of middle childhood (ages 7-14) at home without school experience (i.e., neither boarding school nor day school) scored significantly higher than their boarding school counterparts on self image instruments and on a maternal competence scale independent of the mother's age, the age of her first child, or her feelings toward her parental home. Observations of mother-child interactions showed no difference in the overt child care behaviors of the mothers; however, the dimension of "self satisfaction" displayed in children's behavior was significantly associated with the mother's background; mothers with at least one year at home during middle childhood had children who appeared more content. (JH)