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Measuring What They Value: Exploring The Meaning Of Student Success For Community College Students Of Mexican Origin, Destiny M. Quintero

Dissertations

accountability, Latino, Mexican, Phenomenology, Photovoice, Student success

How Does The Classroom Teacher Promote Academic Success In The Spanish Native Speaker Class: A Study Of Classroom Teachers' Perceptions Of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy In The Spanish Native Speaker Course At The High School Level, Michael Angelo Ayala

Dissertations

The achievement gap between Latino and White students is a significant problem, prompting the need to address the cultural conflicts that hinder relationships and compromise learning opportunities for Latino students in the United States. This exploratory qualitative study focused on Spanish Native Speaker (SNS) teachers' perceptions and use of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) at the high school level. Framed with theory related to CRP, data were collected through interviews and classroom observations with four SNS teachers who teach a SNS class at various high schools in the suburbs of Cook County. A thematic analysis and an analysis using Herrera's (2010) …

Counter-Narratives Of Latino Men And Machismo In Higher Education, Hiram Ramirez

Dissertations

This dissertation study addresses the gaps in research concerning the gendered experiences of successful Latino men in higher education. As Latino men in postsecondary education continue to enroll and persist in low numbers, new lenses are needed to consider their educational experiences. This study attempts to add a gendered lens, in the form of machismo, to consider ways in which successful Latino men are persisting. Machismo, a construct with both positive and negative attributes, has the potential to influence Latino men's navigation of higher education. Research documents the negative ways in which machismo has hampered Latino men in education, however …

Men As Caregivers: Latino Fathering Of Children With Cancer, Noe Mojica

Dissertations

Although women are often viewed as primary caregivers of children, the twenty-first century social conditions are challenging men in the Latino community to assume an increasingly active role in raising children. This study explored the relationships between Latino fathers' masculine identity, caregiving and coping when faced with the demands generated by having a child diagnosed with cancer. The study pursued to inquire the relationship between Latino fathers’ masculinity, their caregiving activities, and how they cope with pediatric illness. Results indicated no significant relationship between masculinity and caregiving or coping. However, there was a significant relationship with conflict between work and …

Measures Of Acculturation And Relations To Weight Among Mexican-Origin Youth, Dorothy L. Mcleod

Master's Theses

Risk for obesity increases dramatically for Mexican-origin immigrants and their children among upon arrival in the United States. Many studies have shown that acculturative factors play a role in this process for adults, which suggests that this could also be the case for children and adolescents. The significance and directionality of this relation may differ based on many factors, including the multitude of methods currently used for the purpose of measuring acculturation. This study examines the relations between several measures of acculturation and child weight in a sample of 6 to 11 year old, Mexican-origin youth, cross-sectionally and longitudinally over …

The Relation Of Exposure To Community Violence To Self- Efficacy Based On Neighborhood, Family, And School Effects In A Community Sample Of Latino-American Youth, Arie Zakaryan

Dissertations

Community violence is considered a “public health epidemic” in the US. Latino youth and families are a burgeoning population in the United States, and many of whom live in neighborhoods exposed to community violence. Multiple contexts should be assessed identifying developmental assets youth use to adjust positively when exposed to violence. This study examines how different environmental contexts, i.e., home, school, neighborhood and acculturation, influence the relationship between exposure to community violence and self-efficacy for Latino youth. The current study uses an archival dataset of a larger longitudinal study (Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods). A confirmatory factor analysis …

Teacher Retention And Student Achievement: Environmental Factors, Social Capital And Interventions In Urban, Pre-Dominantly Latino Schools, Luis Xavier Benavides

Master's Theses

The quality of education in high poverty areas is often blamed on a number of factors - poor teaching, inadequate resources, an environment of hopelessness and mediocrity, lack of perseverance in the learner, lack of social programs and social capital. These factors are often compounded by effects of systemic racism in the student’s surrounding environment and in education system. This study focuses on one aspect of investigation: the impact of increased social capital for teachers on students’ school performance and interventions focused on building social capital between students, parents and teachers in urban, pre-dominantly Latino schools. Improving links between students, …

Latino Students In Suburban High Schools: An Examination Of School Malleable Predictors Of High School Graduation, Kira Jean Hicks

Dissertations

Despite recent gains, Latino students drop out of high schools in the United States at a higher rate than their peers and at a significant cost. As more Latino students move to the suburbs, it is important for suburban high schools to meet their needs and solidify their path to graduation. Practices that appear to be promising in keeping students on track to graduate have been developed and studied in urban education settings and need to be validated with other populations and settings. The purpose of this study was to investigate the indicators that are predictive of on time graduation …

Neighborhood Attachment Among Latinos In Low-Income Communities, Kathleen Bachtell

Dissertations

Neighborhood attachment, defined as an individual's feelings about their social commitment to a particular community, has been a central focus of studies involving space and place (Smith 1975) and community activism (Guest and Lee 1983, Crenshaw and St. John 1989) in the U.S. Yet despite the advancement of this work and a growing body of qualitative research exploring the dynamic experiences of immigrants and their descendants in particular communities, it is not clear how being born in the U.S. versus Mexico or Latin America impacts the formation of neighborhood attachment among Latinos. This limits our understanding of urban renewal, as …

The Holy Ghost Beyond The Church Walls: Latino Pentecostalism(S), Congregations, And Civic Engagement, Norman Eli Ruano

Dissertations

In what ways is Pentecostalism a catalyst or an inhibitor of congregational and congregant civic engagement among U.S. Latinos? And how does this compare to other religious traditions, specifically Latino Catholicism, Evangelicalism, and Mainline Protestantism? The dissertation argues that Latino Pentecostal congregations, depending on a variety of reasons such as demographics, and pastor's education, can either be very conservative, inward-looking, and otherworldly, or progressive and this-worldly--in addition to other options along this continuum. Such findings are particularly important given the common social scientific research assumption that Latino Pentecostal congregations are generally conservative, inward- looking, and otherworldly.

After surveying a representative …

School Factors That Promote Academic Resilience In Urban Latino High School Students, Christine Michelle Fallon

Dissertations

The purpose of this ex post facto quantitative study was to examine the relationship between the academic optimism of schools and academic resilience in urban Latino high school students attending those schools. This study sought to address three research ideas. First, it was hypothesized that, consistent with previous research, student achievement is related to the level of academic optimism of schools. A second purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between academic achievement with academic resilience for students with multiple risk factors, specifically, Latino students from low SES backgrounds attending an urban high school. Thirdly, it was hypothesized …

A Multi-Model Assessment Of Stereotype Content Of Three Latino Groups, Sandra Villalpando

Master's Theses

The proposed research study deals with Latino groups' stereotypes, the content that makes up those stereotypes, and the effects the stereotypes have on Latinos' general well-being. This project investigates the origins of stereotype content using a general theory of stereotype content that is composed of two theories: social role theory (Eagly et al., 2000) and the stereotype content model (Fiske et al., 2003; Fiske et al., 1999). Short questionnaires on three different Latino groups in American society were completed by non-Latino respondents in the Chicago area, and an extended questionnaire on Latino groups was completed by Latino respondents in the …