Leadership self-efficacy in Native American students: examining the impact of collective racial esteem, environmental experiences, and resilience

Abstract

This paper utilizes a structural equation modeling approach to explore the relationship between collective racial esteem, discriminatory campus climate, sociocultural conversations with peers, resilience, and leadership self-efficacy for Native American students. As a result of the 500 years of colonization, Native American communities identify resilience as one of their core values and promote leadership development as a mechanism to advance their communities. Survey results revealed that for Native American students, discriminatory campus climate has a significant, negative relationship with resilience, and resilience has a significant, positive relationship with leadership self-efficacy. White and Asian students were also surveyed to act as a control and comparison group. Results revealed that a discriminatory campus climate was only detrimental to leadership development for Native American students. Implications and recommendations for improving campus climate to promote leadership development in Native American students are discussed.