Description

The Indian Culture Scale (ICS) is a structured measure designed to assess the extent of cultural affiliation and identity with American Indian traditions and practices. It was originally developed to examine cultural ties among American Indian alcohol users (Westermeyer & Neider, 1986). The measure includes items on frequency of contact with Indian relatives and friends, presence of Indian community members nearby, language comprehension, reservation ties, and participation in cultural activities such as powwows, religious practices, and traditional crafts. Higher scores indicate stronger cultural affiliation.

AI/AN Communities where the measure has been used

Native American communities in Minnesota; Native American reservations in the United States (unspecified, in genetic and cultural studies)

Demographics of AI/AN participants where the scale has been used

  • Native American adults treated for alcoholism in Minnesota (Westermeyer & Neider, 1986)
  • Native American adults (ages 18–82) recruited from multiple reservations, with varying degrees of Native American ancestry (Norden-Krichmar et al., 2014)

Notes on adaptations or modifications

  1. Norden-Krichmar et al. (2014) adapted the ICS by adding six additional items related to reservation life:
    • Ever lived on the reservation
    • Currently live on the reservation
    • Years of living on the reservation
    • Parents ever lived on the reservation
    • Parents currently living on the reservation
    • Days per year spent on the reservation

With these items, the scoring range was extended up to 24.

Modality and administration

Self-report; the ICS was administered as part of structured  interviews

Scoring

  • Original: 10 items; first six scored 0–2, last four scored 0–1; total range 0–16.
  • Adapted version: 16 items; total range 0–24. Higher scores indicate greater cultural affiliation.

Psychometric evidence

Although the study does not explicitly mention reliability metrics like Cronbach’s alpha, the scale demonstrated consistent scoring distributions across samples from 1970-71 and 1980-81. A Pearson correlation was performed with other scales, showing significant relationships.

Citation(s)

  • Westermeyer, J., & Neider, J. (1986). Cultural affiliation among American Indian alcoholics: Correlations and change over a ten-year period. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 472, 179–188.
  • Norden-Krichmar, T. M., Gizer, I. R., Libiger, O., Wilhelmsen, K. C., Ehlers, C. L., & Schork, N. J. (2014). Correlation analysis of genetic admixture and social identification with body mass index in a Native American community. American Journal of Human Biology, 26(3), 347–360. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.22521

Disclaimer: The included citations are not exhaustive, but represent the examples we had access to. If you are an original author or have other work that could be included here, please contact us.