North America

This qualitative storytelling and exploratory research design investigated the barriers, enhancers, and coping strategies to education experienced by adult Native American Indians from various Native American Indian Nations. In addition, differences between the sexes, Native American Nations, and/or languages spoken, and/or participation in cultural activities regarding barriers, enhancers, and coping strategies of Native American Indians were examined. The study with 23 adult Native American participants revealed a main theme of identity both passive and aggressive that permeated all of the thematic areas: barriers, enhancers, and coping strategies. The barriers ranged from reinventing the Native American Indian to language barriers caused by forcing Native American Indians to speak Eurowestern languages in order to survive. The educational enhancers themes described by the participants revolved around themes of people, culture, community, and the environment. Elements of Garrison' s Model (1997) on self-directed learning emerged in this study under the thematic area of coping strategies. Self-directedness was evident in the coping strategies; which included self-management (control by acknowledging the social environment in which the participants were interacting), cognitive responsibility (self-examination), and motivation (assuming personal responsibility). The role of a Native American Indian as a researcher was noted in enhancing the depth and breadth of the research.

The purpose of this paper is to break through the complexity of the NAFTA negotiations in order to reveal some of the contentious issues from three stages of the NAFTA bargaining process: the fast track agreement, the negotiations under President Bush, Sr., and the side payments under President Clinton. Putnam's two-level game theory will help describe how the interests of business, environmental groups, and labor unions influenced the outcome of the NAFTA through their respective win-sets, domestic and international power relations, and side agreements. Extrapolating from Putnam's model and the success in NAFTA bargaining, we can predict that the ongoing Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations are more likely to succeed if international representatives strategize to create favorable conditions for domestic ratification through understanding the domestic constituencies and win-sets of the players.