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Native American schools

In the late 19th century, the United States government undertook a policy of educating Native American youth in the ways of the dominant Western culture so that Native Americans might then be able to assimilate into Western society. At these boarding schools, managed and regulated by the government, Native American students were subjected to a number of tactics to prepare them for life outside their reservation homes.

In accordance with the assimilation methods used at the boarding schools, the education that the Native American children received at these institutions centered on the dominant society's construction of gender norms and ideals. Thus boys and girls were separated in almost every activity and their interactions were strictly regulated along the lines of Victorian ideals. In addition, the instruction that the children received reflected the roles and duties that they were to assume once outside the reservation. Thus girls were taught skills that could be used in the home, such as "sewing, cooking, canning, ironing, child care, and cleaning" (Adams 150). Native American boys in the boarding schools were taught the importance of an agricultural lifestyle, with an emphasis on raising livestock and agricultural skills like "plowing and planting, field irrigation, the care of stock, and the maintenance of fruit orchards" (Adams 149). These ideas of domesticity were in stark contrast to those existing in native communities and on reservations: many indigenous societies were based on a matrilineal system where the women's lineage was honored and the women's place in society respected in different ways. For example, women in native society held powerful roles in their own communities, undertaking tasks that Western society deemed only appropriate for men: indigenous women could be leaders, healers, and farmers.

While the Native American children were exposed to and were likely to adopt some of the ideals set out by the whites operating these boarding schools, many resisted and rejected the gender norms that were being imposed upon them.