Digital Commons Network^™

Anasazi (Pre-Columbian Native-American) Migrations During The Middle-12th And Late-13th Centuries – Were They Drought Induced?, Larry Benson, Kenneth Petersen, John Stein

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Severe droughts in the middle-12th and late-13th centuries appear to have affected Anasazi (pre-Columbian Native American) populations. During the first drought most of the great houses in the central San Juan Basin were vacated; the second drought resulted in the abandonment of the Four Corners region. During the first drought, villages may not have been completely abandoned. The multi-year drought periods probably were characterized by reductions in both winter and summer precipitation. Maize is dependent on winter precipitation for its germination and initial growth and on summer (monsoonal) precipitation for its continued growth. Reductions in precipitation are hypothesized to have …

Acculturative Stress, Social Support, And Coping: Relations To Psychological Adjustment Among Mexican American College Students, Lisa J. Crockett, Maria I. Iturbide, Rosalie A. Torres Stone, Meredith Mcginley, Marcela Raffaelli, Gustavo Carlo

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

This study examined the relations between acculturative stress and psychological functioning, as well as the protective role of social support and coping style, in a sample of 148 Mexican American college students (67% female, 33% male; mean age = 23.05 years, SD = 3.33). In bivariate analyses, acculturative stress was associated with higher levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms. Moreover, active coping was associated with better adjustment (lower depression), whereas avoidant coping predicted poorer adjustment (higher levels of depression and anxiety). Tests of interaction effects indicated that parental support and active coping buffered the effects of high acculturative stress on …

When Quantity Trumps Number: Discrimination Experiments In Cotton-Top Tamarins (Saguinus Oedipus) And Common Marmosets (Callithrix Jacchus), Jeffrey R. Stevens, Justin N. Wood, Marc D. Hauser

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

The capacity for non-linguistic, numerical discrimination has been well characterized in non-human animals, with recent studies providing careful controls for nonnumerical confounds such as continuous extent, density, and quantity. More poorly understood are the conditions under which animals use numerical versus nonnumerical quantification, and the nature of the relation between these two systems. Here we test whether cotton- top tamarins and common marmosets can discriminate between two quantities on the basis of the amount of food rather than on number. In three experiments, we show that when choosing between arrays containing different numbers and sizes of food objects, both species …

Houses Great And Small: Reevaluating The 'House' In Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, Carrie Heitman

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

In recent years, a growing number of archaeologists have explored the potential of expanding Lévi-Strauss’ concept of house societies to better understand specific archaeological contexts. Looking specifically at the classificatory distinction between “great houses” and “small houses” within Chaco Canyon (A.D. 850–1180), I suggest this theoretical model might yield new insights with regard to four symbolic dimensions of house construction: the use of wood, directional offerings, resurfacing practices, and the bones of ancestors. Using Puebloan ethnographic literature and cross-cultural comparisons, I suggest a house model analysis may serve to integrate anomalous “ceremonial” dimensions of house construction in an effort to …

Visual Design, Order Effects, And Respondent Characteristics In A Self-Administered Survey, Michael J. Stern, Don A. Dillman, Jolene D. Smyth

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Recent survey design research has shown that small changes in the structure and visual layout of questions can affect respondents’ answers. While the findings have provided strong evidence of such effects, they are limited by the homogeneity of their samples, in that many of these studies have used random samples of college students. In this paper, we examine the effects of seven experimental alterations in question format and visual design using data from a general population survey that allows us to examine the effects of demographic differences among respondents. Results from a 2005 random sample mail survey of 1,315 households …

Culture-Related Strengths Among Latin American Families: A Case Study Of Brazil, Gustavo Carlo, Silvia Koller, Marcela Raffaelli, Maria Rosario De Guzman

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

We provide an analysis of culturally-specific strength characteristics associated with families in Brazil. The focus is on familism and familial interdependence, the role of the extended family, cooperative and prosocial tendencies, a collective orientation, and the closing gender gap. The article is divided into four sections. First, we provide some background information on the demographics and history of Brazil. Second, the family strength characteristics are discussed. Third, case studies are briefly presented to illustrate the protective role of the characteristics. And fourth, we discuss the implications of the strengths-based approach to studying families for theories, research, and program development.

The Language We All Understand, Schrag Schrag

Laurus: Undergraduate Literature Journal of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln

An essay examining the importance of language in identity and the creation of individual language in Judith Ortiz Cofer's "A Love Story."

Examining American Indians' Recall Of Cultural Inclusion In School, Scott Freng, Adrienne Freng, Helen A. Moore

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

This research examined American Indians' recall of cultural inclusion from their elementary through high school education. Sixteen American Indians described their experiences of schools to peer interviewers. Analysis of interviews revealed three themes: the nature of cultural inclusion, factors influencing cultural inclusion, and recommendations for ideal cultural inclusion. Most participants recalled very little cultural inclusion. However, when cultural inclusion was experienced, it could be categorized into five types ("Indian pride," mismatched specific tribal information, negative/ stereotypical, student initiative, and inclusion due to parental, familial, and/or community involvement). Participants' experiences most closely resembled Charleston's (1994) pseudo or quasi Native education. However, …

Learning Languages In A Digital World, Aleidine Kramer Moeller, Janine M. Theiler

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Aleidine J. Moeller, Editor
Janine Theiler, Assistant Editor

I. Embracing Technology: Tools Teacher Can Use to Improve Language Learning — Introduction to the section: Frauke Hachtmann, Katie Hayes, Leyla Masmaliyeva, Malia Perkins

1 Rich Internet Applications for Language Learning — Dennie Hoopingarner and Vineet Bansal

2 Leveraging Podcasting for Language Learning — Dan Schmit

3 Using PowerPoint Templates to Enhance Student Presentations — J. Sanford Dugan

II. Teacher Education and Professional Development: Agents of Change — Introduction to the section: Silvia Betta and Janine Theiler

4 Preparing for the ACTFL/NCATE Program Report: Three Case Studies — Susan Colville-Hall, Bonnie Fonseca-Greber, …

Student Experiences Of A Culturally Sensitive Curriculum: Ethnic Identity Development Amid Conflicting Stories To Live By, Elaine Chan

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This study examines ways in which students’ experiences of a culturally sensitive curriculum may contribute to their developing sense of ethnic identity. It uses a narrative inquiry approach to explore students’ experiences of the interaction of culture and curriculum in a Canadian inner-city, middle-school context. It considers ways in which the curriculum may be interpreted as the intersection of the students’ home and school cultures. Teachers, administrators, and other members of the school community made efforts to be accepting of the diverse ethnic, linguistic, and religious backgrounds that students brought to the school. However, examination of students’ experiences of school …

Court Review: Volume 42, Issue 3-4 - Judges, Law, Politics & Strategy, Frank B. Cross

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

In law, we commonly presume that judges reach decisions based on legal materials, such as precedents. In political science, researchers typically presume that judges do not reach decisions based on such legal materials. They maintain that the apparent reliance on precedent to reach decisions is simply a hoax designed to provide cover for a particular outcome. These researchers traditionally argued that judges reach their personally preferred outcome in the case and then rationalize it after the fact with references to precedent, conveniently supplied them by the attorneys for their preferred side.

Much of the empirical research on judicial decision making …

Corruption And Democratic Performance, Levente Littvay

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This dissertation introduces new quantitative methods to comparative politics. These include an approximately unbiased missing data treatment, a first order autoregressive multilevel model for the analysis of cross-sectional longitudinal data, approaches for the separation of cross-sectional and longitudinal predictor effects to identify aggregation bias and a model for the empirical analysis of causal direction. Methods are demonstrated on a model replicating past research on the causes of corruption adding democratic performance as a predictor, than a new model of democratic performance is developed to test Warren’s theoretical propositions that corruption is by nature undemocratic, and finally the causal direction between …

Writing The Nation: Ignacio Manuel Altamirano's Romantic Vision And Porfirian Development, Jason C. Denzin

Department of History: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

As articulated in Ignacio Manuel Altamirano’s Romantic novel El Zarco (1888) and the accounts of contemporary travelers, various interpretations about the pace and course of the country’s development abounded in Mexico during the late nineteenth-century. The current project evaluates El Zarco as a historical text and uses it as a window into the Porfirian nation-building project. By comparing the vision outlined in the novel with the published accounts of contemporary travelers this project demonstrates the contested nature of development among Mexico’s national elites during the Porfiriato. This thesis argues that from the competing visions of national development specific categories for …

Acculturation Status And Heavy Alcohol Use Among Mexican American College Students: Investigating The Moderating Role Of Gender, Byron L. Zamboanga, Marcela Raffaelli, Nicholas J. Horton

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

We examined whether gender moderates the association between acculturation and heavy alcohol use. The sample consisted of 126 Mexican American college students (Mean age = 24.7 years; 57% female) who completed self-report measures of heavy alcohol use, acculturation status (global acculturation and ethnic identity), and relevant control variables (age, peer alcohol use). Multivariable regression revealed that higher levels of ethnic identity were associated with greater frequency of heavy alcohol among men. Conversely, neither measure of acculturation was associated with heavy alcohol use among women. These findings suggest that interventions for Latino/a students should consider the role of culturally relevant variables …

Ethnoprimatology: Toward Reconciliation Of Biological And Cultural Anthropology, Erin P. Riley

Ecological and Environmental Anthropology (University of Georgia)

One of the hallmarks of the discipline of anthropology is its holistic approach to the study of what it means to be human. A perennial challenge to the discipline, however, is the question of whether biological and cultural anthropology can truly coexist given their traditionally disparate epistemologies and methodologies. In this paper, I argue that the emerging field of ethnoprimatology, which focuses on the ecological and cultural interconnections between human and nonhuman primates, has real potential to bridge these two subfields. I support my argument by discussing the theoretical rationale of an ethnoprimatological approach with regard to the notion of …

Scarab Beetles In Human Culture, Brett C. Ratcliffe

University of Nebraska State Museum: Entomology Papers

The use of scarab beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) by primarily pre- and non-industrial peoples throughout the world is reviewed. These uses consist of (1) religion and folklore, (2) folk medicine, (3) food, and (4) regalia and body ornamentation. The use of scarabs in religion or cosmology, once widespread in ancient Egypt, exists only rarely today in other cultures. Scarabs have a minor role in folk medicine today although they may have been more important in the past. The predominant utilization of these beetles today, and probably in the past as well, is as food with emphasis on the larval stage. Lastly, …

Judgments About Cooperators And Freeriders On A Shuar Work Team: An Evolutionary Psychological Perspective, Michael E. Price

Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium

Evolutionary biological theories of group cooperation predict that (1) group members will tend to judge cooperative co-members favorably, and freeriding co-members negatively and (2) members who themselves cooperate more frequently will be especially likely to make these social judgments. An experiment tested these predictions among Shuar hunter-horticulturalists. Subjects viewed depictions of pairs of workers who varied in the extent to which they had contributed to, and benefited from, a team project. Subjects were then asked to judge which worker deserved more respect, and which deserved more punishment. When judging between unequalcontributors, all subjects tended to favor more cooperative (i.e., higher-contributing) …

Evolutionary Model Of Racial Attitude Formation Socially Shared And Idiosyncratic Racial Attitudes, Thomas Craemer

Department of Political Science: Hendricks Symposium

A growing body of research in political science has uncovered evidence of a “split personality” among Americans when it comes to racial attitudes, whereby people express different attitudes in public than they personally hold. A common assumption is that people adjust their personal attitudes to conform to dominant social norms. At present, however, there is no theoretical model that could account for the emergence of racial norms that are at odds with people’s personal attitudes. This paper proposes a simple neural model of racial attitude formation that makes an important distinction between socially shared and idiosyncratic racial attitudes. Socially shared …

Annual Report To The Nation On The Status Of Cancer, 1975–2003, Featuring Cancer Among U.S. Hispanic/ Latino Populations, Holly L. Howe, Xiao-Cheng Wu, Lynn A. G. Ries, Vilma Cokkinides, Faruque Ahmed, Ahmedin Jemal, Barry A. Miller, Melanie Williams, Elizabeth Ward, Phyllis A. Wingo, Amelie Ramirez, Brenda K. Edwards

United States Public Health Resources

BACKGROUND. The American Cancer Society, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Cancer Institute, and North American Association of Central Cancer Registries collaborate annually to provide U.S. cancer information, this year featuring the first comprehensive compilation of cancer information for U.S. Latinos.

METHODS. Cancer incidence was obtained from 90% of the Hispanic/Latino and 82% of the U.S. populations. Cancer deaths were obtained for the entire U.S. population. Cancer screening, risk factor, incidence, and mortality data were compiled for Latino and non-Latino adults and children (incidence only). Long-term (1975– 2003) and fixed-interval (1995–2003) trends and comparative analyses by disease …

Court Review: Volume 43, Issue 3 – Jailing Ourselves: Standards Used For Declaring United States Citizens To Be Enemy Combatants, Joseph Carl Storch

Court Review: Journal of the American Judges Association

On a clear, blue September morning in 2001, nineteen men hijacked four commercial airplanes headed toward the West Coast. They crashed two into the World Trade Center in New York City, one into the Pentagon in Northern Virginia, and one into a Pennsylvania field. In the wake of the shocking attack, Congress authorized President Bush to use military force against those who committed the attack, commencing a “war on terror” that still rages today.

The government has fought the “war on terror” on many fronts. The military is engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq; diplomatic overtures have been made to Libya …

“Sweeping The Heavens For A Comet”: Women, The Language Of Political Economy, And Higher Education In The United States, Ann Mari May

Department of Economics: Faculty Publications

The importance of increased levels of education in improving the status of women throughout the world is well established. Higher levels of education are associated with lower birth rates, higher incomes, and greater autonomy for women. Yet, women’s struggle to have a voice in higher education has been fraught with difficulties in the US and worldwide, particularly in overcoming widely held perceptions that limit their entrance into certain academic fields, tenured positions, and elite universities. This essay examines the role political economy has played in providing narratives that rationalize women’s limited participation in higher education. By examining the representation of …

Pensando En Cynthia Y Su Hermana: Educational Implications Of United States–Mexico Transnationalism For Children, Edmund T. Hamann, Victor Zuniga, Juan Sanchez Garcia

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

We use 3 brief educational biographies of students in Mexico who have previously attended public school in the United States to introduce this literature review on United States–Mexico transnational students. This article is also the first of several planned articles stemming from a currently ongoing, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia-supported research study. As such, the purpose here is to highlight some of the dynamics faced by students who need to negotiate 2 educational systems (the United States and Mexico) and who fit neither a classic United States immigrant typology nor the typical premises around which schooling in Mexico is …

Individual And Familial Stressors Among Rural Nebraskan, Bilingual, Paraprofessional Educators, Rochelle L. Dalla, William E. Lopez, Vicky O. Jones, Yan Ruth Xia

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Individual (e.g., depression, learning styles) and familial (e.g., social support) factors affecting the psychosocial well-being of bilingual, rural Nebraska, paraprofessional educators were examined. Of 26 participants, 15 were first and 5 were second generation Hispanic immigrants. All were currently (n = 20) or formerly (n = 6) involved in an online, distance education, bachelor’s degree program in elementary education, with English as a second language certification. Results from data analyses are presented, as are suggestions for working with unique populations.

Mean Length Of Utterance In Children With Specific Language Impairment And In Younger Control Children Shows Concurrent Validity And Stable And Parallel Growth Trajectories, Mabel L. Rice, Sean M. Redmond, Lesa Hoffman

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Purpose: Although mean length of utterance (MLU) is a useful benchmark in studies of children with specific language impairment (SLI), some empirical and interpretive issues are unresolved. The authors report on 2 studies examining, respectively, the concurrent validity and temporal stability of MLU equivalency between children with SLI and typically developing children. Method: Study 1 used 124 archival conversational samples consisting of 39 children with SLI (age 5;0 [years;months]), 40 MLU-equivalent typically developing children (age 3;0), and 45 age-equivalent controls. Concurrent validity of MLU matches was examined by considering the correspondence between MLU and developmental sentence scoring (DSS), …

Factors That Influence Mathematics Attitudes, Natalie Jenkins

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Master of Arts in Teaching, Summative Projects

In this action research study conducted within my sixth grade High Ability Learner (HAL) classroom, I investigated the current mathematics attitudes of my students and how these attitudes correlated to personal mathematics achievement and identified intelligence domains. I discovered that most of my nineteen students held a negative attitude toward the subject of mathematics. Consistent low ratings were also found in the logical/mathematical domain of most of my students’ ALPS Multiple Intelligence Profiles. Regardless of this dominant affective data (indicating little mathematics interest or potential from student perspectives) surprisingly, most of my sixth grade HAL students scored above the 90th …

Mother–Child Bookreading In Low-Income Families: Correlates And Outcomes During The First Three Years Of Life, Helen Raikes, Barbara Alexander Pan, Gayle Luze, Catherine S. Tamis-Lemonda, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Jill Constantine, Louisa Banks Tarullo, H. Abigail Raikes, Eileen T. Rodriguez

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

About half of 2,581 low-income mothers reported reading daily to their children. At 14 months, the odds of reading daily increased by the child being fi rstborn or female. At 24 and 36 months, these odds increased by maternal verbal ability or education and by the child being fi rstborn or of Early Head Start status. White mothers read more than did Hispanic or African American mothers. For English-speaking children, concurrent reading was associated with vocabulary and comprehension at 14 months, and with vocabulary and cognitive development at 24 months. A pattern of daily reading over the 3 data points …

Digging A Little Deeper: Coverage Of Archaeology From The U.S. From 1950 To 2000+ In Discipline-Specific And Subject-Oriented Online Indexes, David C. Tyler, Katharine C. Potter, Susan M. Leach, Jennifer M. Kreifels

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Faculty Publications

Librarians, faculty and professional researchers, and students often encounter difficulties in locating pertinent journal articles for the field of archaeology. This article examines the coverage given to ninety-three archaeology journals originating in the United States over a fifty-year interval by twelve discipline-specific and subject-oriented indexes available online. The coverage provided by the individual indexes and some of the larger issues surrounding the coverage of the field itself are discussed, and several recommendations are offered.

Authentic Communication For Japanese Language Learning: A Single Case Study Of Midwestern University Students, Yuki Ozawa

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Theses and Other Student Research

The purpose of this single case study was to explore authentic communication for Japanese language learning in second-year Japanese classes at a small, private university in the Midwest. Types of authentic Japanese communication and materials in and outside of Japanese class were studied from four learners’ and one professor’s perspectives.

Data were collected throughout one academic year, the first semester of 2004 through the second semester of 2005. Multiple methods of data collection were used in this study including personal interviews, casual conversations, participant observations of classes and related events, and studying relevant documents including the textbook, students’ study sheets, …

Allusive Mechanics In Modern And Postmodern Fiction As Suggested By James Joyce In His Novel Dubliners, Kynan D. Connor

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

James Joyce in his novel Dubliners conducts a series of narrative experiments with allusion, and in doing so suggests a new literary criticism based upon the allusive process. This new criticism of allusive mechanics considers the text in terms of its allusive potential for character—that is, the character is treated as capable of signification. Because Joyce can mimic the process of signification, it repositions the author to the act of writing and the reader to the act of reading. Character is greatly expanded through allusive mechanics because narrative elements like allusion in a text are treated as having a character-oriented …

A Preliminary Review Of Neotropical Primates In The Subsistence And Symbolism Of Indigenous Lowland South American Peoples, Loretta Cormier

Ecological and Environmental Anthropology (University of Georgia)

This article provides a review of selected literature of nonhuman primates in the subsistence and symbolism of indigenous lowland South American groups. While few works have focused specifically on the relationship between human and nonhuman primates in Amazonia and the surrounding areas, a number of ethnographic works do incorporate information about the roles of monkeys in varied groups. The section on subsistence focuses on the use of primates as food, including preferences, avoidances, and taboos. The section on symbolism focuses on the role of monkeys in myths, folklore, and in delineating the humanity/animality divide.