Native American Children and Youth Well-Being Indicators

eservation, is an enrolled member of the NavajoNation, and has a large extended family livingboth on and off the reservation. She has about30 years of experience as a social worker andthree years of direct experience with research onNative American well-being indicators. Residingin Flagstaff, Arizona, in a “border town” communitynear the boundaries of the Navajo and HopiNations in northern Arizona, she also has knowledgeand practice experience with AmericanIndians/Alaska Natives and works as an educatorwith American Indian undergraduate and graduatesocial work students. In addition, she conductedher dissertation on the ethnic identity ofyoung Navajo women living off the reservation.As is commonly done in qualitative research, allof these personal and professional experienceswere utilized to filter the documents.Data CollectionThe selection of data that are purposeful inaddressing the research question is important.Documents such as professional articles andbook chapters were selected for review; theyprovided the narrative, words, or concepts foranalysis. In qualitative research, the production of“rich description” is one of the primary goals. Thedocuments selected present the “reality” ofNative American life, beliefs, values, worldviews,and cultural norms. The positive aspects ofselecting professional articles are that they arein the public domain and are free to the user. Thelanguage is accessible, and the method savesthe time and expense of transcription (Creswell,1994).Whenever possible, documents written by NativeAmerican authors who are considered well-publishedscholars in their disciplines were selectedfor this review. Some of the authors were chosento indicate their own “lived-experience” of beinga Native American or having experiences in theirown tribal culture. Of course, not all of theauthors are Native American, but many havewritten and worked with Native individuals, families,groups, and communities.Two primary processes that influence qualitativeresearch are the “reduction” of data and the“interpretation” of material (Marshall & Rossman,1998, p. 114, cited in Creswell, 1994, p. 154).As Creswell (1994) stated that, “data analysisrequires that the researcher be comfortable withdeveloping categories and making comparisonsand contrasts” (p. 153). Creswell (1994) statedthat “the researcher takes a voluminous amountof information and reduces it to certain patterns,categories, or themes and then interprets thisinformation by using some schema” (p. 154).This research project follows these basic tenets.The analysis process utilized in the evaluationof the documents consisted of the followingfour steps:25