Disjunction to Higher Education: American Indian Students in the Southwest.

Frameworks have been established to organize those factors thought to explain minority student attrition. An important question is whether these frameworks are reasonably complete and therefore posed for theoretical synthesis, or whether additional, as yet undefined, factors must also be taken into account. A research strategy based on the null hypothesis addressed this question drawing on samples of minority and Anglo students (N = 660) attending a state college in the Southwest. A ""disjunction" was noted when select groups of Indian students were found to be about equally likely to succeed or fail, while Anglo students with equivalent academic backgrounds were about twice as likely to be successful. The unexplained attrition of American Indian students was found to be on the order of 50% relative to the Anglo population, this despite rigorous controls for differences in academic preparation, financial resources, and cultural backgrounds by ethnic group. The existing frameworks are therefore far from complete. Theories of social reproduction and resistance offer a perspective on this unexplained variation and serve to inform future research. AMERICAN INDIANS, MINORITY ATTRITION, HIGHER EDUCATION