ABSTRACT
By the late 1960s ethnicity had become a substantive issue in American intellectual circles, in the media, at social gatherings, and among European ethnics. Until the period of black and ethnic self-affirmation, homogeneity was the cultural goal of United States education policy. An impact study of national proportions coming several years after the program had been in operation would be a valuable source of determining the extent to which America had become aware of its multiethnic/multiracial heritage and had assimilated ethnicity into public consciousness as well as public policy. Federal Indian policy in education reflects the same struggle for Anglo-American dominance over land and culture, but with an additional veneer of righteousness that sensitized ethnic perceptions currently find abhorrent: the "aborigines" were uncivilized, their language therefore "barbarous." Information on the status of Indian education was also of concern. During the Kennedy administration a task force specifically addressed bilingualism in Indian education.
