Palliative Care Commons^™

United States Acculturation And Cancer Patients’ End-Of-Life Care, Alexi Wright, Heather Stieglitz, Yankel Kupersztoch, M. Elizabeth Paulk, Yookyung Kim, Ingrid Katz, Francisco Munoz, Rachel Jimenez, Jan Mutchler, Lorna Rivera, Anthony Back, Holly Prigerson

Lorna Rivera

Background: Culture shapes how people understand illness and death, but few studies examine whether acculturation influences patients’ end-of-life treatment preferences and medical care.

Methods and Findings: In this multi-site, prospective, longitudinal cohort study of terminally-ill cancer patients and their caregivers (n = 171 dyads), trained interviewers administered the United States Acculturation Scale (USAS). The USAS is a 19- item scale developed to assess the degree of ‘‘Americanization’’ in first generation or non-US born caregivers of terminally-ill cancer patients. We evaluated the internal consistency, concurrent, criterion, and content validity of the USAS. We also examined whether caregivers’ USAS scores predicted patients’ …

A Review Of The Literature On Bilingual Education, Lorna Rivera

Lorna Rivera

Changes in bilingual education will have an important impact on the future well-being of the growing Latino community in Massachusetts. This report summarizes some of the major research findings regarding the purposes and effectiveness of bilingual education. Questions that will be addressed include: What are the existing bilingual education models? Which bilingual education models work best? Should there be time limits for bilingual education? Do immigrants resist learning English? Does speaking another language interfere with learning? Should bilingual students be exempt from state-mandated testing? Are bilingual teachers qualified? Are bilingual education students more likely to dropout? It is hoped that …