“My culture, my family, my school, me”: Identifying strengths in the lives and communities of American Indian youth

The majority of research with American Indian (AI) youth and communities focuses on vulnerabilities, problems, and needs rather than resiliency, strengths, and assets. Adding to the limited research which has examined AI youth and communities using the strengths perspective, this approach holds the basic assumption that humans are capable, competent, adaptive, and resilient. Via open-ended survey questions, we examined community assets and personal strengths in addition to community challenges and personal hardships as perceived by reservation-based, Northern Plains AI youth. The present study was conducted at a Tribal school in the Northern Plains (N = 95; n = 37 males; n = 58 females; aged 14.4-20.95 years; M = 17.3, SD = 1.47 years). A majority of youth self-identified as solely AI (85.3%), with small percentages reporting additional ethnic backgrounds. Not surprisingly, analyses revealed that the people in their lives, especially their families, are significant sources of strength for AI youth. Findings also indicate that AI youth have a positive orientation toward themselves and their communities, which was evidenced by the fact that youth identified more strengths than challenges. Somewhat unexpectedly, when asked what aspects of their lives and communities they would most like to change, a significant number of the youth identified they wanted to change “nothing” about their personal lives or their communities. Reasons for these responses are discussed in terms of the role of power and influence on AI youth's perceptions of their capacity to identify things in need of change and participate in the change process.