Keith James - US grants

The PI seeks to investigate culture-based reactions of Native Americans to technological innovations. The argument, well based on fact, is that Native Americans have not adapted to our highly technological society as have other citizens of this country. The question is, Why not? The investigator will also examine whether cultural and social differences among tribes help account for differences between them in their success at integrating technology into existing ways of life. Another important question is why some technologies fit Native American cultures while others do not. In this planning grant the investigator will conduct a thorough literature review, discuss the proposed research with selected Native American community leaders and scientists, and conduct a pilot project based on questionaires to test attitudes towards technology.

This project examines how the values of American Indian students, along with their perceptions of societal, family and peer norms, relate to their success in scientific and technological training. Scientific and technological education achievement and skill attainment is poorer among American Indians (Native Americans) than among other groups in U.S. society. This project will provide further information about the influences that contribute to this problem, in order to help to promote increased involvement of Indian people in science and technology in ways that can improve their lives and communities and allow the larger society to benefit from their contributions. The project consists of two studies of norms and values that influence the educational performance of American Indian students. One experimental study with college students tests the effect of priming ethnic identity on attitudes toward technology and science. Comparison of the primed and unprimed groups will provide causal evidence of the effects of Indian identity on manifest ability, knowledge and attitudes towards science and technology. The other study is a survey of high school students of ethnic attitudes to technology and science and their effects on choices in education. This study will examine how different patterns of values and family and peer norms affect course selection and achievement. Results will be published in the academic literature and shared with American Indian organizations, including the American Indian Science and Engineering Society.

This project involves a conference on social science disciplines and American Indian peoples. The conference (a) integrates existing knowledge of Native psychology and develops a research agenda for advancing such knowledge, (b) exchanges information on strategies and tools for teaching Native social science and developing a model for such courses and curricula, (c) examines ways to better integrate social research, teaching and practice with the needs and goals of Native communities, and (d) plans strategies for enhancing links between social science and Native communities.

Native communities and individuals face a variety of unique problems and opportunities. Effective scientific assistance is needed to help address those problems and opportunities. Skills and expertise from social science could play a critical role in assisting with such important issues as Native economic advancement, educational attainment, community and individual health, and management of tribal resources and services. The potential value of psychological science to these outcomes especially exists because many past efforts to execute applied projects in Native communities have floundered as much or more due to human factors (such as factional infighting, poor planning, poor leadership, or inadequate skills) as because of financial or technological inadequacies to the projects. Social science has only scratched the surface in investigating the unique dynamics of Native cultures, Native social patterns, and Native psyches. This project will 1) summarize the state of social science knowledge of Native individuals and communities. 2) Develop a social science research agenda. 3) Promote exchanges and development of collaborations among social science researchers who focus on Native issues. 4) Plan a curriculum to teach Native Psychology and create an educational pipeline and an educational structure to develop Native Psychology scientists.

Decision making regarding climate and the environment on Alaska Native and Native American lands is complicated by a variety of unique social-cultural, legal, and other factors, such as limited information technology infrastructures. Moreover, mainstream climate and environmental sciences have a growing interest in the traditional knowledge and traditional environmental management approaches of Native groups. There are some obstacles to researching traditional knowledge, however, as well as some barriers to effectively integrating it with mainstream environmental science. Relative to Native lands and Native communities, there are unique climate-decision research topics that require investigation. No systematic agenda of priorities and plans for climate-decision research and application in Native lands currently exists. This award supports a workshop and related activities that will bring together Native and non-Native environmental and social scientists to examine goals, needs, and approaches for such research, and ultimately to develop a list of priorities and recommendations for advancing the science of Native-lands climate decision-making. In addition, the plan will detail an approach to researching the integration of traditional ecological knowledge with mainstream climate and environmental science.

Alaska Native and Native American lands are varied and sizable. Natural and human forces that do not respect boundaries on a map affect the environments and climates of Native lands. Those forces often either come from or extend to related non-Native lands. Native environmental decision making therefore has important implications for non-Native communities, and vice versa. Native environmental decision making is poorly understood, though, as are strategies for effectively integrating Native and non-Native environmental decision making. This project will help to advance understanding of both issues. In addition, mainstream environmental science has a growing interest in traditional Native knowledge of the environment and traditional Native approaches to managing it. Native people are interested in systematizing such traditional knowledge and using it to help revitalize their cultures, but they are also often suspicious of the motives of mainstream researchers. This project will yield a set of priorities for research on traditional environmental knowledge and management, as well as recommendations of strategies for overcoming potential Native resistance to that research. This developmental award was supported as part of the Fiscal Year 2003 Human and Social Dynamics priority area special competition on Decision Making Under Uncertainty (DMUU).

This award is funded by the Ethics and Values Studies component of the Science and Society Program and by the joint SBE/BIO Science and Society Initiative. The sustainability of earth's physical environment and the sustainability of local communities are intimately intertwined. In the face of growing climate change and ecological strain, research is needed on influences on successful development of plans for sustainable communities. Alaska Native communities and First Nations communities in British Columbia are currently experiencing profound changes due to climate change, population increases, natural resource demands and other physical and social pressures. Science has the potential to make important contributions to the sustainability and wellbeing of indigenous communities; Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) could help advance climate/environmental science; and collaborative sustainability planning between mainstream scientists and Native communities could provide important templates for the sustainability of other communities. Unfortunately, however, a number of obstacles stand in the way of achieving that goal. The project proposed here is focused on researching strategies for creating effective science and Native community collaborations for sustainability in the face of climate change. It will use a foundation of previous qualitative and quantitative studies by the Principal Investigator and others. Focus groups, cognitive mapping of concepts and principles of sustainability, and validated quantitative value inventories will be used to explicate the worldviews that both mainstream scientists and Native American community members bring to efforts at collaboration. All of that information will then be feed back to both groups who will use it as the basis for developing: 1) a common framework to guide joint planning efforts; 2) plans for the sustainability of Native communities in two regions (Copper River Alaska and Vancouver Island, British Columbia) and; 3) action steps for executing sustainability plans. Scientific outcomes will include documentation of TEK within and across (e.g., comparatively) communities; comparative data on Native community members, and mainstream scientists' values and norms; and tests of the strategy and process of facilitating Native-community/scientist collaborations. The results of this project will be used to inform effective collaborations of scientists and a broad range of communities for effective planning of community sustainability. This project provides a rich model that other Native communities might be able to learn from and adapt to guide their own assessment and planning activities. Moreover, planning in both indigenous and non- indigenous communities throughout North America and around the world will profit from access to the knowledge and approaches that the study will produce. Because climate change effects are hitting earlier at higher latitudes and in areas that are already environmentally fragile, approaches to dealing with them now in Alaska and British Columbia can provide models for planning that may be needed in most other parts of North America within a relatively short period of time. Thus, both the scientific and the applied results will be of relevance to science/community collaborations on a range of issues, and to sustainability planning in a broad range of communities and regions. Our model approach to environmental planning and action in Native communities will be fully documented in terms of contents, operating approaches, and lessoned learned. Information about those outcomes will be distributed through multiple means: lay and scientific publications, a website, conference presentations, and efforts to ensure its use in formal and informal education of scientists, students (Native and non-Native), and the general public.

Organizations in the U.S. and Canada collaborate extensively in collecting and sharing various types of cyberdata for purposes of border security, environmental management, economic production, health protection, and other shared goals. Organizations of all major types--governmental, private-sector, and non-profit (or NGO)--have responsibilities that involve major coordination with cross-border network partners. Recent revelations about privacy breaches have led to concerns on both sides of the border about cyberdata privacy and security. The extant turmoil over cross-border cyberdata privacy makes this project a fit with the timeliness key element of the RAPID program. This research aims to examine how Canadian and U.S. workers in all major types of cross-border organizations handle cyberdata in their efforts to achieve both cyberdata privacy and security, and important inter-organizational (especially cross-border) goals. The study provides information about data privacy and security strategies useful to organizations, governments, and individuals.

The results of the study have broad implications for theory and research, not just for knowledge of influences on cyber data privacy, but also for the broader national- and organizational culture, identity, and values lines of scholarship. On the practical side, the findings have bearing on education, policy-decision making, and training about cybersecurity practices and privacy protections at the cross-national, national, and organizational levels. The results may provide security, border-management, and border-spanning organizations with information and ideas relevant to creating technologies and systems that successfully integrate cyber-data collection and sharing by organizations, with privacy concerns and rights of individuals.