Helping Native American Indian and Alaska Native Male Youth (From Handbook of Counseling Boys and Adolescent Males: A Practitioner's Guide, P 117-136, 1999, Arthur M. Horne and Mark S. Kiselica, eds. -- See NCJ-181846)

• NCJ Number: 181850
• Author(s): Roger Herring
• Date Published: 1999
• Length: 20 pages
• Sale Source: Sage Publications, Inc
• Publication Format: Book (Softbound)
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article describes the major content and process issues of Native American Indian and Alaska Native male youth and suggests appropriate strategies for helping interactions.

Abstract

Helping Native American Indian and Alaska Native male youth can be very challenging. Achievement of separation from the biological family and development of an independent identity are complicated by factors such as experiences of oppression and discrimination, low socioeconomic status, limited access to publicly funded services, incongruity between traditional and mainstream cultures, influences of culturation, and consequences of these factors. Effective counseling with Native male youth is predicated on adopting a proactive developmental perspective. This view would include acquiring a thorough knowledge of past and current Native culture and history, and having an expanded understanding of these youth, rejecting the stereotype of Native male students as passive, withdrawn, and unexpressive. In school settings, it is imperative that counselors collaborate with Native parents in the child’s learning process and respond to the bilingual needs of Native male children.