Essay Sample: Higher Education Opportunities and Advancements for Alaska Native Women

The higher education system in Alaska has helped to promote equality and mobility throughout human history. Again, the National Commission for women was started in 1992 to enhance the implementation of the constitutional and protection of women's rights such as right to education especially in marginalized places like Alaska. The current growth in the gender gap at Alaska University, mostly for Alaska Indigenous students tends to give statistical documentation where we get that Alaska indigenous females are attaining degree credentials at relatively three times the rate of men (Robbins, Lillian, and Robbins, 2006). Nevertheless, the gender gap seems to favour women more between 1998 and 2004. The experience at Alaska University reveals that increasing access and facilitation are among the factors that engage men in postsecondary education. Moreover, historically, Alaska women activists had for a long time criticizes the discrimination against women that for a long time caused the women to lag behind regarding the education. Elementary education has been essential in enhancing women to sail against the social and cultural barriers that for a long time have hindered their progress.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

New 2000 census figures, revealed that men are reducing the female population in Alaska and this has been viewed essential issue to the women. The female population has been relatively higher at the age of 25 and above as men tends to die prematurely due to various reasons such as accidents, homicide, smoking and alcohol; this leaves women in Alaska as the majority thus the higher probability of getting enrolled for higher levels of education as compare to men.

Over the decades many of the American Indian and Alaska Native women and men have experienced educational struggle in their quest to attain education at higher level in their lifetime, and more than one in three experienced do not get a chance to attain or achieve their degree qualifications in the past year, according to a new report by from an NES-funded study. Due to the report having presented several recommendations to the government, it leads to the White House Initiative on Alaska Native Education resulting to President's Executive Order that was signed in 2001.

The primary directive mission was to promote and improve the Alaska Native Educational opportunities and support activities that are likely to strengthen the state by enhancing education. This was to see into it that the Alaska population including women had favorable access to higher education. Currently, there have been noticeable trends concerning the higher education of the Alaska men and women, for instance, in 2006.there were 32 colleges and universities that were tribalistcally controlled and one was located in Alaska and again,the number of degrees awarded to Alaska Natives doubled by the period of 1976-77. Moreover, in 2007, approximately 40% Alaska Natives who were 25 and above had an opportunity to enroll to some college or finished an undergraduate. However, the state of the higher education opportunities and advancement for Alaska women is relatively lower as compared to that of men due to various obstacles that such women have to face in their strive of education with some researchers arguing that this may be due to an increased population in the number of Alaska women (Freeman, Catherine, and Mary 2005).

Regardless of the various effort by the government and the activists to enhance higher education for the Alaska people ,women tend to be facing particular challenges some of which are attributed to the culture and community that they come from since Alaska Natives have some of the wealthiest cultures which may at point pose threats from mainstream society and impact on women, for instance, the women are considered to be the custodian of the culture and tradition and are obliged to stay back at homes and bear children; this, however, significantly compromise the education achievement of most Alaska women. On the other hand, the NCAI has embarked to overcome these threats by providing education to non-Native people and eliminating retrogressive cultural practices and protect favorable Native cultures.

The inherent barriers along with obstacles facing the state of higher education opportunities and advancements for Alaska native women

Most of the Alaska females tend to devote and commit to the family, and thus their academic goals and aspirations were very much linked to family, and that academic success meant gaining the skills essential to improving the circumstances of their specific families. This focus on the victory of the family unit as a whole over personal achievement seems to compromise the academic aspirations of a woman. When enrolling for higher education one has to register for English classes, and this may mean that one has to miss other essential classes like sciences while learning a second language and thus one may find it challenging in catching up with the peers. Moreover, most of the Alaska women at the university level might find it challenging to identify with and relate to others based on privileges and life experiences while in school thus they may find it complicated to continue with their endeavor for higher education.

However, as the population growth increased it favored women who happened to grab more of the chances into university enrollment. The number of women as compared to men, due to such population shift women chances and the probability of joining universities and colleges increased dramatically; and thus resulting to the three women to one person chances of accessing higher education. The ratio of male-female ratio in higher education has been actively shifted in favor of the women for decades and has increased the numerical advantage of them, and the population of the woman is relatively more significant than that of the male in most of the higher levels of education like the universities.

Alaska's 18-26 year of age men-women ratio is 3-1, as compared to Utah's 1-1 equal ratio; thus indicating that Utah's men and women who were college-aged tend to join colleges and universities that almost matched college to their population spread, but on the other hand, the number of Alaska's women tend to attain a higher level of education and the males rarely achieve the expected level of education. Moreover, in 2000, more females enrolled and represented 54% and males46% of total Alaska undergraduate enrollment. This, since more emphasizes, is put on the native woman and more population of females is enrolled yearly into the higher education programs.

Bibliography

Kleinfeld, Judith, and Justin J. Andrews. "The gender gap in higher education in Alaska." Arctic (2006): 428-434.

Lenney, Ellen. "Women's self-confidence in achievement settings." Psychological bulletin 84, no. 1 (1977): 1.

Lopiano, Donna A. "Modern history of women in sports: Twenty-five years of Title IX." Clinics in sports medicine 19, no. 2 (2000): 163-173.

Olson, Wendy. "Beyond Title IX: Toward an Agenda for Women and Sports in the 1990's." Yale JL & Feminism 3 (1990): 105.

Sadker, David. "Gender equity: Still knocking at the classroom door." Educational Leadership 56 (1999): 22-27.

Schiebinger, Londa. "Getting more women into science: knowledge issues." Harv. JL & Gender 30 (2007): 365.

Starace, Megan K. "Reverse discrimination under Title IX: Do men have a sporting chance." Vill. Sports & Ent. LJ 8 (2001): 189.

Kleinfeld, Judith, and Maria Reyes. "Boys left behind: Gender role changes in Alaska." Boyhood Studies 1, no. 2 (2007): 179-190.

Deyhle, Donna, and Karen Swisher. "Chapter 3: research in American Indian and Alaska Native education: from assimilation to self-determination." Review of research in education 22, no. 1 (1997): 113-194.

Freeman, Catherine, and Mary Ann Fox. "Status And Trends In The Education Of American Indians And Alaska Natives. NCES 2005-108." National Center for Education Statistics (2005).

Wingo, Phyllis A., Jessica King, Judith Swan, Steven S. Coughlin, Judith S. Kaur, Julie A. ErbAlvarez, Jeannette Jackson Thompson, and Teshia G. Arambula Solomon. "Breast cancer incidence among American Indian and Alaska Native women: US, 1999-2004." Cancer: Interdisciplinary International Journal of the American Cancer Society 113, no. S5 (2008): 1191-1202.

DeVoe, Jill Fleury, and Kristen E. Darling-Churchill. "Status and Trends in the Education of American Indians and Alaska Natives: 2008. NCES 2008-084." National Center for Education Statistics (2008).

Wright, Bobby. "American Indian and Alaska Native Higher Education: Toward a New Century of Academic Achievement and Cultural Integrity." (1991).

Lewin, Tamar. "At colleges, women are leaving men in the dust." The New York Times 9 (2006).Clark, Tom. "Attitudes of higher education faculty toward distance education: A national survey." American Journal of Distance Education 7, no. 2 (1993): 19-33.