The long-term effects of American Indian boarding schools

Matthew Gregg

Journal of Development Economics, 2018, vol. 130, issue C, 17-32

Abstract: This paper explores some long-standing questions of the legacy of American Indian boarding schools by comparing contemporary Indian reservations that experienced differing impacts in the past from boarding schools. Combining recent reservation-level census data and school enrollment data from 1911 to 1932, I find that reservations that sent a larger share of students to off-reservation boarding schools have higher high school graduation rates, higher per capita income, lower poverty rates, a greater proportion of exclusively English speakers, and smaller family sizes. These results are supported when distance to the nearest off-reservation boarding school that subsequently closed is used as an instrument for the proportion of past boarding school students. I conclude with a discussion of the possible reasons for this link.

Keywords: Education; Development; Assimilation; American Indians (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I25 J15 N30 O15 Z10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:deveco:v:130:y:2018:i:c:p:17-32

DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2017.09.003

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