Use of Documentation with a Native American Child to Support the Construction of Tribal Identity
Runtime - 37 minutes
 
Rockey Robbins, Ph.D. presents at the 2011 Teachers College Annual Winter Roundtable at Columbia University.

This presentation documents the planning and implementation of a project that ends in the naming ceremony of a Choctaw boy. It delineates a community-based program involving collaboration with Choctaw elders. The intent of the program is to foster the participant’s understanding of themselves as well as to nourish the vitality of traditional meanings and tribal/social practices among Choctaw people. Specifically, its purpose is to investigate the possible value of a Choctaw naming ceremony as a way of promoting tribal identity for an eleven year old Chotaw boy and in promoting family connectedness between him, his mother and uncle, as well as Choctaw people in general. The presentation offers a step by step guide on how a core project team was put together as well as participant enactments that led up to the naming.