a loss of one's identity. As noted earlier, this dilemma can have disastrous personal, communal
and larger societal consequences.
The Tribal Colleges, which are funded in part by the tribes themselves and the federal
government, can be viewed as a unique organizational structure that attempts to bridge the
institutional worlds of mainstream society and Native American nations. The Tribal Colleges
face a struggle of trying to retain the strong bonding social capital of the tribe but, at the same
time, try to help students and community members develop bridging social capital to connect
with opportunities in the larger American society and the global economy.
In order to meet the goal of strengthening bonding ties in the Native American
community the Tribal College must remain accessible to Native American community members.
This means being open to requests from the community for various kinds of services associated
with community social service needs and cultural retention. At the same time, however, in the
process of becoming accessible to the Native American community, the Tribal College may not
have the resources left to develop bridging ties to the funding and job opportunity sources in the
larger American society.
One of the goals of our project is to empirically identify which "mixes" of resource
allocation in the Tribal Colleges will produce the optimal strengthening of indigenous bonding
social capital, bridging ties within the Native American community and bridging ties to the
larger American society. A technique of social network analysis is being used to identify these
different mixes.
The social network methodology is based on asking personnel in the Tribal Colleges and
persons identified as leaders in the Native American community to name individuals in the
college and the community with whom they work on projects that affect either the college or the
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