A study investigated factors supporting innovation in American Indian education by comparing data from two separate studies. One was a followup study of 25 Indian educators' implementation of cooperative learning and whole language techniques, which sought to identify: (1) the impact of the innovations on student achievement; and (2) factors that enable or constrain sustained pedagogical change. The second was a long-term ethnographic study at Rough Rock, on the Navajo Reservation in northern Arizona. The investigation's focus was on institutional and other structural barriers to educational reform, beyond what occurs in the classroom. It is argued that analysis of reform efforts must address factors both within the instructional setting and in the school's organizational structure and sociopolitical context. It is proposed that such analysis is essential to understanding and transforming the historically disempowering experiences of this population. (MSE)