ABSTRACT
The literature on Native-American culture abounds with descriptions by social scientists of how various Indian cultures differ from mainstream American culture. Characterizations of differences between Indian and non-Indian ways on the part of Indians themselves are rare but are needed to balance the generally stereotyped and ethnocentric views. Although the linear research approach has given us valuable information on certain aspects of minority child development, the single vision focus has left us with many unanswered questions as well as generalizations that fed into a variety of negative stereotyping. Havighurst further speculated that an Indian "tribal philosophy of sharing and cooperation" stands contrary to the competitive, individualistic motivation used in the mainstream US education program. The histories of American Indians and Native Hawaiians have been impacted by a series of political, economic, social, and cultural forces emerging from within as well as from without.
