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Volume 8 (2025) The Spanish Language, Language Variations, Cultures And Responsibility

International Journal on Responsibility

This issue reflects an intentional and profound commitment to linguistic inclusion, cultural diversity, and the shared responsibility of scholars to broaden the scope of academic dialogue beyond the boundaries of English. The essays collected here invite us to reimagine bilingualism not only as a communicative skill but also as a moral, social, and institutional responsibility.

Esta edición representa un compromiso intencional y profundo con la inclusión lingüística, la diversidad cultural y la responsabilidad compartida de ampliar los horizontes del diálogo académico más allá de los límites del inglés. Los ensayos aquí reunidos nos invitan a reimaginar el bilingüismo no solo …

El Maya Yucateco En El Paisaje Lingüístico De Cancún (México): Entre Invisibilidad Y Comodificación De Autenticidad, Jannis Harjus, Benjamin Peter, Linda Yoksulabakan-Harjus

Journal of Maya Heritage

The goal of this contribution is to analyze the presence of different languages in the linguistic landscape of Cancún, Quintana Roo. Cancún has a population of about 650,000 inhabitants. As a main tourist destination, the city also remains a top migration destination for Mexicans from other (rural) Mexican areas. Therefore, in addition to autochthonous speakers of maya yucateco, speakers of other indigenous languages, e.g., tzotzil and chontal, also migrate to the Cancún metropolitan area. In this paper, we analyze to which extent Cancún’s linguistic superdiversity is reflected in its urban landscape. In order to achieve that, we first created photo …

Public School Districts Should Close Their “Alternative” And “Continuation” High Schools, Sean J. Drake

Center for Policy Research

Public school districts across the country funnel academically struggling students into "alternative" or "continuation" high schools designed to help them catch up on credits and graduate on time. However, these schools often reproduce more inequality than they alleviate. This brief summarizes findings from a two-year ethnographic case study of an alternative high school in suburban Los Angeles, California. The author finds that these schools offer limited curricula and no extracurricular opportunities, while Black, Latino, and low-income students are vastly overrepresented compared to district averages. Students transferred to alternative schools are also more likely to drop out than low-performing peers who …

Designing Research With Care: A Critical Race Nepantlera Methodological Approach To Rural Latinx College Access, Mayra Puente, Lupita Romo-González, Marlene López Torres, Melissa Romero

The Rural Educator

Research has widely documented the lack of educational resources and opportunities available to rural communities. Cognizant of the structural and spatial barriers facing rural communities, this study intentionally employed a critical race nepantlera methodology (CRNM) to mitigate the adverse effects of living in geographically isolated, systemically underinvested rural areas. Rather than perpetuating a false notion of objectivity in research, the research team actively supported rural Latinx students in accessing higher education through a CRNM research design, which prioritizes the well-being of research collaborators over the study. In enacting a CRNM approach, the research team demonstrated care while increasing students’ access …

A Descriptive Study Of Black College Students’ Perceptions Of Law Enforcement After Police Brutality, Alisia L. Collins

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

Police brutality is a social issue that has tormented the mental health of the Black community for decades. Seeing brethren battered and bruised countless times has taken an emotional toll on the relationship of the Black community with the American justice system and the officers meant to uphold it. Previous research has shown that the Black community primarily has a negative perception of law enforcement because of factors like police brutality, unjustified shootings, and legal policies within the justice system. Compounding experiences can occur for people with disabilities within the Black community. Specifically, autistic people have a higher risk of …

Casar Public Lecture: The Fierce Battle For The 2024 Us Presidency: Race, Gender, And The Power Of Identity Politics, The Prince Alwaleed Center For American Studies And Research Casar

Performances, Events, and Presentations

In light of the upcoming 2024 US Elections, we hosted this lecture on SUNDAY OCTOBER 27TH - 1-2 pm titled: "The Fierce Battle for the 2024 US Presidency: Race, Gender, and the Power of Identity Politics." Speakers: CASAR guest speaker Dr. Sherri McFarland - moderated by CASAR Assistant to Director and Adjunct Faculty Yasmeen El-Ghazaly. Dr. Sherri Lynn McFarland's academic and professional careers demonstrate her passionate desire to contribute to the economic, social, and political progress of African and Middle Eastern North African (MENA) countries and their diasporic communities. Her keen interest in the people of these regions led her …

Latino Or Hispanic-Owned Businesses In The Mountain West, 2017-2022, Anthony Arroyo, Cason Noll, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Economic Development & Workforce

This fact sheet examines the growth of Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses in the largest metropolitan areas in the Mountain West between 2017 and 2022. The data are derived from the Brookings Institution’s “Charting the surge in Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses in the US” report, which highlights data on Latino or Hispanic-owned businesses in metropolitan and micropolitan areas across all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. This fact sheet focuses on data for the following metropolitan areas in the Mountain West: Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ; Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO; Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas, NV; Albuquerque, NM; and Salt Lake City-Murray, UT.

9th Gsep Research Symposium - 2025

GSEP Research Symposium

The Ninth Annual GSEP Research Symposium, themed "Building Bridges to Elevate Humanity: Innovations and Insights in Education and Psychology", was hosted by the Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology (GSEP) on June 19–20, 2025, at the historic Château d’Hauteville in Switzerland and virtually via Zoom.

This hybrid symposium convened a vibrant global community of students, alumni, faculty, and scholars to share research that addresses real-world challenges, advances scholarly inquiry, and builds pathways for inclusive collaboration and leadership. Spanning a wide array of topics—from artificial intelligence and mental health to trauma-informed practices, educational equity, social justice, and cross-cultural leadership—the …

Native American Tribes And Federal Grant Funding In The Mountain West, Fy2023-2025, Isabelle G. Graham, Maisoon Faris, Dre Boyd-Weatherly, Olivia K. Cheche, William E. Brown Jr.

Elections & Governance

This fact sheet presents state-level data on the impact of a federal government-wide funding freeze affecting Native American Tribes, focusing on the Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The data are derived from the Brookings Institution’s “A federal grant freeze could disrupt over $24 billion to Native American communities and undermine US obligations to Tribes” brief, which reports data from USAspending. The original report provides data on the federal government’s obligations, outlays, and remaining balances owed to Native American Tribes for all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

Engagement By Design: Belongingness, Cultural Value Orientations, And Pathways Into Emerging Technologies, Daisuke Akiba, Michael Perrone, Caterina Almendral, Rebecca Garte

Publications and Research

This theoretical article examines how belongingness, defined as the sense that one’s participation is legitimate and valued, interacts with cultural value orientations to help explain persistent disparities in U.S. technology engagement, including emerging technologies, across racial and ethnic groups. While structural barriers (e.g., racism, poverty, linguistic bias, etc.) remain essential to understanding such inequity, we argue that engagement patterns in technology also reflect how different cultural communities may define and experience belongingness in relation to digital domains. Drawing on Triandis and Gelfand’s framework, and focusing specifically on educational contexts, we propose the Belongingness through Cultural Value Alignment (BCVA) model, whereby …

Reimagining Civic Education In The United States: Integrating Research, Policy, And Practice For Democratic Renewal, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

Civic education in the United States faces persistent challenges, including inequitable access, curricular fragmentation, and reluctance to address controversial social and political issues. This paper presents a comprehensive synthesis of research, policy analysis, and practice-based case studies to reimagine civic education for the 21st century. Drawing on core scholarship supplemented with additional peer-reviewed studies on school segregation, charter school demographics, and race-conscious student assignment policies, the study examines the historical evolution of civic education, structural inequities, political avoidance, and promising innovations. Using a qualitative synthesis approach, the findings highlight five thematic areas: structural inequities, curricular misalignment, sanitized narratives, limits of …

Diabetes-Related Foot Complications And Socioeconomic Influences Among Hispanic Males In South Texas: A Scoping Review, Mariana J. Rodriguez, Demian Rodriguez, Amanda L. Killeen

School of Podiatric Medicine - Student Research

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus is the 7^th leading cause of death in the United States and is 6^th in the state of Texas. Counties from South Texas are primarily affected with higher rates of diabetes than both the state and national average. Diabetes mellitus is a complex and progressive disease which can affect multiple systems of the body, leading to serious complications if untreated, especially in the lower extremities. Uncontrolled diabetes is often associated with diabetic foot ulcers (DFU), foot infections, and lower extremity amputations (LEA). South Texas is a region predominantly populated by Hispanic Americans who are disproportionally …

Diabetes-Related Foot Complications And Socioeconomic Influences Among Hispanic Males In South Texas: A Scoping Review, Mariana J. Rodriguez, Demian Rodriguez, Amanda Killeen

School of Podiatric Medicine Publications

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus is the 7th leading cause of death in the U.S. and 6th in Texas. South Texas counties have higher diabetes rates than state and national averages. This complex, progressive disease affects multiple body systems and can lead to serious complications, especially in the lower extremities. Uncontrolled diabetes is often associated with diabetic foot ulcers (DFU), foot infections, and lower extremity amputations (LEA). South Texas, predominantly Hispanic American, is disproportionately affected. This demographic faces clinical barriers due to a lack of cultural understanding, highlighting the need for culturally sensitive healthcare workers such as promotoras. This study aimed to …

Digital Learning And Healing: Impacts Of Ai In Art Therapy, Cassandra E. Buffington-Bates

Journal of Human Services: Training, Research, and Practice

Art therapy, a creative approach to mental and emotional healing, is evolving with digital technologies to improve accessibility and care. This paper explores how artificial intelligence (AI) enhances art therapy by fostering emotional intelligence, collaboration, and personalized interventions. It highlights AI’s potential to support therapy while addressing challenges like empathy, data privacy, and training gaps. Through a literature review, the study offers insights into integrating AI with human-centered practices, providing innovative solutions for emotional and cognitive well-being.

English-Spanish Bilingual Speech Language Pathologists’ Experiences Evaluating English Language Learner Students: Incorporating Conceptual Scoring, Barbara De Jesus Rivera, Raul Prezas

Journal of Human Services: Training, Research, and Practice

The number of multilingual/bilingual students has increased across schools in the United States. Assessment in both the native language and English is considered the standard for evaluating bilingual children referred for language testing. Conceptual Scoring is an evaluation approach for bilingual students that considers the students’ responses in both languages to obtain an overall language score; however, there is variability among practitioners on best practices for multilingual assessment.

Purpose: The current study (a) sought to explore the decision-making process of bilingual SLPs when evaluating bilingual students, (b) to gain a deeper understanding of how bilingual SLPs incorporate conceptual scoring in …

Appropriate Blackness: Feminism, C.R.T, Marxism & Boxing, Olene Togiailua

Journal of the Symposium of University Research and Creative Expression

Project Mentor(s): Cynthia Pengilly, PhD

Black people of the Progressive era were concerned with how to regulate their behavior to better their position in society. This research will examine the synthesis of gender performativity, critical race theory, Marxism, and psychoanalysis to create an assimilation identity strategy called “Appropriate Blackness” and how it is demonstrated through the sport of Boxing. The case study subject of all these different frameworks is the first Black Heavyweight champion of the world, Jack Johnson, who was the premier Black celebrity during the Progressive Era and thus an example for a specific gender strategy many working-class …

Catholic Jesuit Evangelisation In India: The Successes And Challenges Of Cultural Accommodation And Inculturation, Sajit U. Kabadi

eJournal of Catholic Education in Australasia

Since its inception as a Catholic religious order in 1540, the Society of Jesus continues to be the prominent instrument of Catholic Mission evangelization in the world. There is no bigger example of this than in the country of India. Given that India is a predominantly Hindu nation, Jesuit Catholic evangelization efforts is remarkably successful as well as revealing of complexity. These successful missionary efforts (in terms of number of conversions and Jesuit influence) have not been without its challenges, questions, controversies, and sacrifices of both the Jesuits and the local Indian people. This manuscript presents a historiography of Jesuit …

Roots Of Justice: A History Of Race And Racism In Nebraska, Kevin Abourezk, M. Dewayne Mays, Paul Olson, Gabriel Bruguier, Preston Love Jr., Adam Fletcher Sasse, Heather Fryer, J.S. Onésimo (Ness) Sándoval, Sharon Ishii-Jordan, Emira Ibrahimpašić, Julia Reilly

Zea E-Books Collection

There is much to understand about the history of Nebraska and how the past shapes the present. This book attempts to bring into clearer focus the triumphs and trials of five broad groups whose lives have often been overlooked when the state’s history is told. The authors know some of this history of racism firsthand: Most of them have lived as people of color in Nebraska. They’ve experienced “the good, the bad and the ugly” that makes up our state story. We encourage educators, scholars and family historians to continue to dig, to document and to tell these stories. And …

Review Of: Practical Radicals: Seven Strategies To Change The World, Bill Droel

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Review Of: Nos Escuchó: Un Testimonio Maya Sobre El Beato Stanley “Apla’S” Rother, Brian Larkin

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Review Of: Spreading Hate: The Global Rise Of White Supremacist Terrorism, Sachal Jacob

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

On The 25th Anniversary Of The Political Assassination Of A Human Rights Hero From Minnesota, Fr. John Kaiser, Ron Pagnucco, Peter Kimeu Ngui, Elizabeth M. Brown, Mary Wangari Sebastian

The Journal of Social Encounters

We here at St. John's University (SJU) in Minnesota, a co-publisher of the JSE, share a special connection with Fr. John Kaiser, the subject of these articles in his honor. Fr. Kaiser was born in a parish in the Diocese of St. Cloud in 1934, in which the university is located, and graduated from SJU's preparatory high school and matriculated at SJU for two years before leaving to join the U.S. Army in 1954. He later entered the seminary and in 1964 was ordained a priest in the Mill Hill religious order, which sent him to Kenya. In August 2000, …

Dalit And Tribal Women As Ecological Victims, Dhinakaran Savariyar

The Journal of Social Encounters

The essay examines the ecological marginalization of Dalit and tribal women in India, especially by analysing the three points of intersection, namely, caste, patriarchy, and gender. Though it starts with a global outlook on the African water crisis, it substantiates the argument with Indian realities of water inequality and resource depletion. While showing caste as the root cause of water discrimination in the country, it exposes the abetting roles of patriarchy and gender in keeping the Dalit and tribal women at the lowest position in the Indian social fabric. Environmental casteism and exclusion from decision-making processes add to the invisibility …

Practitioners’ Perspectives On Preventing Environmental Gentrification In Chicago, Illinois, Usa, Tania Schusler, Amy Krings

School of Environmental Sustainability: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Pollution cleanup, green space creation, and other improvements to environmental quality in cities are important to urban sustainability. However, because they occur within a political economic context characterized by structural racism, urban greening initiatives can intentionally or unintentionally reproduce racial, economic, and social inequities through environmental gentrification. We explored possibilities for improving environmental quality without displacing or excluding long-term residents including people of color, the poor, and members of other marginalized groups. We conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with community organizers, environmental justice advocates, urban planners, housing specialists, and others who held deep expertise through their lived and professional experience in …

Black Somatic Liberatory Practices: The Africanist Aesthetic In Psychotherapeutic Movement Observation, Ebony Nichols

Counseling and Psychology Dissertations

This critical ethnographic qualitative study explored Black body-based healing practices and coping strategies used to resist and titrate the impact of racism and oppression. It also examined how Black individuals use their bodies to regulate their nervous systems to heal and cultivate liberatory practices. Grounded in theoretical frameworks such as Black Psychology, African Indigenous Healing Systems, Liberation Psychology, and Critical Race Theory, this research investigated the intersections of Black Aesthetics, Psychology, and the body through the lens of the Africanist Aesthetic. The study employed interaction analysis and reflexive thematic analysis to analyze non-verbal and verbal data collected from two focus …

Hmongcentric Niche Charter Schools: The Role Of Social Capital On Students’ Perceived Academic Competence, Zha Blong Xiong, Ting Xu, Kyle Nickodem, Malina Her

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Using Coleman’s (1988) social capital theory, this study investigated the connection between family and school social capital and the perceived academic competence of students enrolled in Hmongcentric niche charter schools. The study analyzed 124 participants consisting of third, fourth, and fifth-grade students residing in Minnesota, with 93% identifying as Hmong. Results of structural equation modeling showed that school social capital, as measured by school attachment and school connection, is significantly linked to students’ perceived academic competence. Further analyses suggested that school attachment, especially in charter schools that focus on culture and language, plays a more crucial role in shaping students’ …

The Italian Colony Of São Paulo: Race, Class, And Cultural Capital In Brazil, Giulia Riccò

Race & Ethnic Studies

WINNER, 2024 ALDO AND JEANNE SCAGLIONE PUBLICATION AWARD FOR A MANUSCRIPT IN ITALIAN LITERARY STUDIES, MODERN LANGUAGES ASSOCIATION

Introduces a way to study migration that privileges literary analysis over and against sociological data and insists on the importance of culture in the production of political identities

This book argues that Italians first became racialized as white in São Paulo, Brazil, at the turn of the twentieth century. Whereas Italians in the United States struggled with xenophobia and were often not fully acknowledged as white, in São Paulo, due to a series of social, economic, and cultural fac­tors, Italians became closely …

Flotsam And Jetsam: The Role Of Mlb Integration In The Wreckage Of The Negro Leagues, Nastasia Pollas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“We are the ship, all else the sea.” Adapted from a Frederick Douglass speech, this quote by Rube Foster became the slogan of the Negro Leagues, illustrating the resolve and determination to prosper alone during a time of segregation. Setting aside long-standing rivalry and strife, Black baseball teams united under a shared vision of forming the first professional Black baseball league.

This paper examines how Giddens' structuration theory, connecting social structures with individual actions, can explain both the development and success of the league under segregation and its eventual demise during integration.

Structured Discussions About Linguistic Diversity: Student Voices And Campus-Based Cultural Mapping, Adrienne Jankens, Nicole Guinot Varty, Anna Elise Lindner, Linda Jimenez, Marni Lorenz, K. M. Begian-Lewis, Colleen Hart, Anita Mixon, Ma'idah Shiekh, Lena Hakim

English Faculty Research Publications

The study presented in this chapter foregrounds student voice research and students as participants in identifying locations on our urban research campus where linguistic diversity can be acknowledged and developed as a tool for knowledge-making. Beyond acknowledging the presence of diverse languages and linguistic practices on our urban campus, this study takes steps toward ensuring that linguistic diversity is recognized by faculty and administrators as a rich and active feature of campus life that crosses academic boundaries.

The study asks the following questions:

● How do Wayne State University (WSU) students experience diversity on campus?

● How do they experience …

Latinos In Massachusetts Selected Areas: Boston, Phillip Granberry, Florita Coto Tristán

Gastón Institute Publications

The City of Boston Planning Department has found that Boston’s population was undercounted in the 2020 Census by as many as 25,000 people and that subsequent population estimates continue to understate the population.1 The Planning Department’s Research Division has developed a tool to display limited demographic data, but these population estimates are insufficient for purposes of this report.2 Therefore, this report uses 2019-2023 American Community Survey and may therefore undercount Boston’s population. Boston, the largest city in the Commonwealth, is home to an estimated 126,647 Latinos. This is the largest Latino population in the state, though other smaller cities (Lawrence, …