School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications

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Indian time for nature? A multi-level approach to American Indian outdoor time in everyday life

Orr, R ; Ruppanner, L (Taylor, 2016)

Social scientists have utilized daily time use studies as one method of understanding everyday lives. The bulk of this research, usually quantitative, identifies broad racial, ethnic and gender differences. Yet, certain groups and questions are typically excluded in daily time use research. One such group is American Indians. To address this lacuna, we look at the deeply discussed view that American Indians are closer to nature than other US ethnic groups. We use a nationally representative sample of individual daily time use (American Time Use Survey; n = 136,960) to look at leisure time outdoors. Our results show that American Indians report greater time spent outdoors but that this is only statistically significant for those who identify as exclusively American Indian (not for American Indians that are multi- and bi-racial). This study confirms previous qualitative research that suggests American Indians have a distinct relationship with nature.