Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring Organizational Culture And Leadership Styles In El Paso Nonprofit Organizations, Milena Murta

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study focuses on two non-profit organizations in the El Paso region to document the communication processes by which they maintain their culture across their units. The study also explores leadership styles, both what are they and how they are employed in these organizations. This study involves three research methods, including: content analysis of organizational documents, interviews with leaders, and ethnographic observation. The findings of this study suggest that managing non-profit organizations is a challenge but yet rewarding duty. Moreover, managers explained that mission management is facilitated through four major ways: through documents, through the delivery of services, through training …

Dual Language Programs And Reforming Education In The El Paso Independent School District, Richard Varela

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

My thesis is a work dealing with dual language education and the current bilingual programs that are ineffectively currently implemented throughout the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD). My work calls for the reforming of bilingual education and equity in curriculum, effective programs and equity in usage of primary language.

Beyond Accomodations: Perceptions Of Students With Disabilities In A Hispanic Serving Institution, Neelam Agarwal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed method study was to explore perceptions of students with disabilities in a predominantly Hispanic serving institution. Factors of transition from high school to college, campus involvement, engagement in student organizations and their perceptions of campus climate were investigated through both a survey with 104 participants and in-depth interviews with 11 participants. This study also explored how undergraduate students with disabilities perceive their academic success and what are influential factors that impact their college experiences. Data were analyzed and interpreted through Tinto Interactionalist Theory of Student Departure, a Social constructivist perspective, Attribution theory, Rendon's model of …

The Role Of Cross-Language Activation In Syntactic Ambiguity, Li-Hao Yeh

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

There is much evidence demonstrating that bilinguals activate lexical representations from both of their languages in a non-selective manner even in sentence context. Comparatively less research has examined the extent to which bilingual lexical representations interacts with syntactic processing in sentence context. The purpose of this study is to examine whether bilinguals' cross-language lexical activation could influence their resolution of syntactic ambiguity (e.g. relative clause attachment). Proper attachment of relative clauses (RC) to noun phrases is critical for accurate interpretation of syntactically ambiguous sentences. For instance, the sentence The robber shot the secretary of my husband who goes to work …

Dispositions, Propensities And The Change Of Conditions, Alejandra Olivas-Davila

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this paper is to draw a clear line that allows us to thoroughly differentiate dispositions from propensities as well as the big problem that clouds both views. I will attempt to offer an account of the main issues that this properties face. I start by offering a general account of dispositions. In this account I offer a brief analysis of what it is to be a disposition. The distinction between categorical and dispositional property is explored. I move on to explain the evolution of the conditional analysis, as well as the problems it faces. The next point …

Exile In The Gramola: A Jewinican (Re)Collection, Roberto Alejandro Santos

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Exile in the Gramola: A Jewinican (Re)Collection is a poetic attempt at navigating the multicultural landscapes of the ethnic hybrid. It is a collection of poetry that aims to reveal how we ourselves become acculturated in the process acculturating others, and which also aims at promoting opportunities of cross-cultural dialogue, cross-cultural negotiation, cross-cultural overstanding, and cross-cultural endorsement.

Through the themes of exile, divorce, familial separation, and the mixing of the cultural movements of hip-hop and bachata, Exile reaches beyond ideas of ethnicity and cultural norms in order to reveal the hardships we share in our only commonality--our humanity.

E-Quality: Using Dimensional Index Values Towards Improving Classification Accuracy, Prashanth Devaram

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

E-quality is a process through which inspection of the process and quality of the part produced is done online resulting in the improvement of the process and reduction in the amount of time consumed for the overall process. Automated quality control involves using a methodology to classify the parts based on the dimensions of the features on a part. However, achieving 100% classification accuracy is not an easy task, especially in area of quality control where small differences in dimensions result in part fall into a different category. In this study, a novel approach for modifying the data before being …

Mestizaje: Piro Indian And Spanish Vecino In Socorro, Texas From 1744 To 1813, David Camarena

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This research examined culture on what is now the U.S./Mexico border, among Piro Indians and Spanish citizens (vecinos) in the community of Socorro, Texas between 1744 and 1813. The purpose was to better understand the process of mestizaje as experienced by Piro Indians as they participate in larger hegemonic Spanish civil and ecclesiastical institutions. Using archival materials along with secondary sources, this thesis reconstructs the antecedents that ultimately led the primary Indian community to transform into a Hispano settlement along the banks of the Río Grande. Pressured by vecino encroachment, participation in the Spanish wage-labor system, several environmental catastrophes in …

Protean Storytellers: Journalists' Identities In An Uncertain Future, Lourdes Miriam Cueva Chacón

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Journalism is undergoing a crisis period and, even though publishers, journalists and scholars do not agree about the future of news media industries, certainly they agree that what was once the dominant model of journalism is now changing drastically. Journalists are facing dynamic and changing environments that demand from them to develop new skills and to perform new roles. This is the environment where the new generation of journalists is forming, forcing them to rethink their future careers. For this research students' narratives where collected to determine the rhetorical ways in which students articulate their identity as journalists, what were …

Developmental Variation In Children's Acquisition Of Metrical Structure: How Early Treatment Of Stressless Syllables Can Inform Phonological Theory, Clifford S. Jones

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The present study uses 26 color photos to elicit a total of 14 words conforming to a very specific pattern: a stressless syllable word-initially, followed by a stressed syllable, and at most one more stressless syllable. This was found to be a particularly difficult metrical structure for the two- and three-year old participants to produce in an adult-like manner. Based on the findings that a fairly reliable (if language-particular) order of acquisition is observable for contrasts of both place and manner of articulation, the case is made for a system of six emergent features, which may be characterized as combinable …

Border Physician: The Life Of Lawrence A. Nixon, 1883-1966, Will Guzmán

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation centers on the life of Dr. Lawrence Aaron Nixon, an African American physician and civil rights activist who lived in El Paso, Texas from 1910 until his death in 1966. Born in Marshall, Texas in 1883, Lawrence Nixon graduated from Wiley College in 1902 and Meharry Medical College in 1906. He then established a medical office in Cameron, Texas in 1907, but due to the racial climate and violence of central Texas he moved west to El Paso in hopes of a better life.

Although several historians have mentioned Dr. Nixon in their works, they have tended to …

Cross-Cultural Composition 2.0: Mapping/Remapping Spaces Of Language Minority Students In The Contact Zones, Marohang Limbu

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

My dissertation "Cross-Cultural Composition 2.0: Mapping/Remapping Spaces of Students in First-Year College Composition Courses" examines the curricula, syllabi, course materials, pedagogy, and theories and practices of first-year composition courses. Having traced issues, I theorize cross-cultural composition 2.0 (CCC 2.0) in my dissertation, which is a construction of inclusive and democratic spaces in first-year composition courses. CCC 2.0 includes multicultural materials, Web 2.0 tools (wikis, facebook, blogs, MySpace, Google group/sites, Flickr, twitter, podcasting, and YouTube), critical pedagogy, students' prior academic and cultural literacies, and contemporary theories of composition studies. I incorporate these elements/theories to create spaces for varied student populations in …

Cracked Spaces And Body Acts, Maria Miranda Maloney

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Poetry of resistance, political, dealing with topics of identity, geography, forms and language.

An Investigation Of The Individual Differences In Cognitive Factors That Contribute To Bilingual Lexical Disambiguation, Ana B. Areas Da Luz Fontes

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of working memory capacity, access to subordinate meanings of L1 homonyms and degree of cross-language activation on the access to subordinate meanings of L2 homonyms. In Experiment 1, Spanish-English bilinguals completed a word recognition task which assessed how quickly and accurately they accessed subordinate meanings of English homonyms that were either noncognates (e.g. fast/rápido) or cognates (e.g. letter/letra) with Spanish. In Experiment 2, another group of Spanish-English bilinguals read sentences while having their eye-movements recorded for measures of lexical access. On the critical trials, sentences contained a homonym that was …

The Acquisition Of Colloquial Speech And Slang In Second Language Learners Of English In El Paso, Texas, Patricia Brannon Bradford

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Colloquial and idiomatic speech seem to be some of the more difficult areas for achieving native-like language competence in the acquisition of a second language (L2), though very few studies have been performed on this topic. Acquiring the colloquial speech of a community is crucial for second language learners who wish to achieve native-like proficiency in the target language. The majority of studies done on this area have focused on the attitude towards the teaching of colloquialisms in a formal classroom setting, or the attitude that native speakers have towards non-native speakers' use of colloquial speech and slang. Typically, L2 …

The Effectiveness Of The University Interscholastic League One-Act Play Competition As An Extracurricular Activity, David Christopher Rout

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In Texas the University Interscholastic League has had a significant impact in Theatre Education through their annual competitive One-Act Play Competition. In educational climates dominated by No Pass-No Play and TAKS Testing some schools may question the effectiveness of the UIL competition as an effective activity. This paper addresses this concern, a measurement of how effective UIL One Act Play is how FERPA is impacting research into UIL events.

Disclosure Of Hiv Serostatus In Latinos As A Function Of Acculturation: The Role Of Attitudinal Components And The Theory Of Reasoned Action, John Andrew Sauceda

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

.

Bilingual Education - A Historic And Programmatic Overview, Jens Tillmanns

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study is an archival research for historical understanding documenting historical trends in bilingual education in the United States. Relevant documents and literature were reviewed, analyzed, and coded to form the themes that examine the historical and programmatic development of bilingual education in the United States since its formation. It is particularly important to examine these roots of bilingual education in light of the ongoing political tensions around immigration issues. What historical events have impacted the emergence and shaping of and the resistance to bilingual education in the United States? What political and social forces have impacted the emergence and …

Politics Of Hegemony And Denial In The Rhetoric Of Language And Education Policy In Nepal: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Policy Documents And Government Sponsored Textbooks (1960-2009), Phanindra Kumar Upadhyaya

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

My dissertation analyses the power dynamics of policy documents and government sponsored text-books in Nepal since the 1960s making use of critical applied discourse analysis as its theoretical lens. It looks into the rhetoric of language policies and planning in Nepal and shows how such rhetoric has shaped the overall linguistic, ethno-linguistic, ethno-religious and educational scenario, both overtly and covertly. Drawing on Antonio Gramsci's "notion of hegemony" and Teun A. van Dijk's "theory of denial," I have shown that there are groups and individuals in societies that try to keep language under control for the promotion of their political, social, …

Closing The Achievement Gap: Impact Of Inclusion Upon Achievement Rates Of Students With Special Needs, Kathleen Black

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this research study was to examine the relationship between the amount of time a student with special needs spends in the inclusive classroom and their achievement passing rates in mathematics and reading. TAKS passing rates for mathematics and reading for third graders in 2007-2008, and the same cohort of fourth graders in 2008-2009 were analyzed to determine the strength of relationship between the predictor variable of TAKS achievement passing rates, and the independent variables of amount of time included (PEIMS Instructional Setting) and socioeconomic status.

Logistic regression was utilized to analyze the relationship between amount of time …

A Survey Of Variables Influencing Speech-Language Pathologists' Use Of Evidence-Based Practice In Clinical Settings, Ailbhe Tressan Cormack

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Although the need for evidence-based practice (EBP) in speech-language pathology has been well attested, multiple barriers hamper its implementation. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare variables influencing the use of EBP by practicing speech-language pathologists (SLPs). Method: Eighty-five SLPs based out of different primary work settings in El Paso, Texas responded to a survey addressing: 1. attitudes and perceived barriers toward EBP, 2. exposure to EBP, research methodology and statistics in graduate courses, 3. time in practice, 4. practice setting(s), 5. amount and nature of support for EBP in work settings, and 6. use of research literature …

Repeated Measures Of Impact Verbal Memory Scores Of Concussed And Non-Concussed Individuals, Deshea Davis Gornowicz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study compared ImPACT verbal memory scores of concussed and non-concussed athletes (n=6). This purpose of this study was to determine stability of verbal memory scores with repeated measures. Stability was determined using the ImPACT normative data for university of men and women published in the ImPACT manual. Based on visual inspection of the data, differences between groups was observed. All concussed participants demonstrated scores that were not stable according to the operational definition. All non-concussed participants were demonstrated stable verbal memory scores.

Empirical Evidence On Regulatory Burdens And International Income Performance, Enedina Licerio

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This paper analyzes the effects of regulatory burdens on per capita national income (GNI) and the potential increases in GNI that can result from deregulation. Previous research indicates that a rigid regulatory environment hampers income performance. The availability of more recent data and the addition of several new indices by the World Bank now permits a broader analysis of regulatory burdens and income performance to be undertaken. Simulations are conducted to quantify potential impacts of deregulation and greater transparency on income performance. Results show that sizeable income gains can result from deregulation.

Perception And Identification Of Voice Disorders: A Comparison Study Between Hispanic And Non-Hispanics, Jacqueline Nicole Lopez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The extent of public education in the Hispanic population regarding voice disorders has been unidentified thus far, motivating the current study to assess knowledge and perception of functional and organic voice disorders among Hispanic individuals in the El Paso region. The project involved an experimental research design to investigate whether demographic variables influenced the accuracy of knowledge of voice disorders in the general population residing in the Greater El Paso Region. Results indicate that the majority of the participants perceive articulation, fluency, and voice disorders as interchangeable and are unaware of the role of medical and rehabilitation professionals in the …

The Literary Fictioning Of John Gregory Bourke's Imperial Nostalgia, Toni K. Mcnair

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Nineteenth-century Army Captain and American ethnographer John Gregory Bourke (b. 1846 - d. 1896) meticulously described and documented a vast amount of information on military life, geography, ecology, and people on both sides of the Mexican-American border, offering observations and opinions of American, Mexican, Mexican-American, Apache, Pueblo, Zuni and Plains Indian cultures. Because of his ethnographic studies of Mexican-Americans along the Rio Grande, cultural studies scholars, José E. Limón and José David Saldí­var have identified John Gregory Bourke as complicit in the U.S. government's imperialist project. Referring to Renato Rosaldo's anthropological theory of imperialist nostalgia, These authors declare Bourke's work …

Embodied Cognition As Refutation To Langer's "Illusory Powers": "I Move, Therefore, I Know", Ruby Amanda Montana

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Thesis Objective: To refute Susanne Langer's notion within her philosophy of dance which holds that emotional forces in dance are solely "virtual" and thus illusory. I plan to do so by means of the growing research in the branch of cognitive science known as Embodied Cognition.

In Brief: Susanne Langer, one of the most prominent philosophers of Aesthetics, contends that dance is able to express emotions as an external force, while creating what she calls a "primary illusion". Langer attributes gesture as the basic abstraction whereby the dance illusion is made and organized. Furthermore, she contends that dance is not …

A Revolution In Rhetoric: Recycling The Language Of Control Through Rhetorical Activism, Jerien Elizabeth Rausch

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The English language, with its infinite space and possibility, is and can be recycled to recreate authority of voice and representations of the past. Where once language was used for creating and maintaining colonial control, now, with its careful study and critical (re)applications through fictions written as alternative versions of colonial events, it can be a source of power for the reclamations of identity, culture, religion, history, story, context, and imagination. This study (re)examines an iconic exploration and colonial narrative to highlight the rhetoric used to capture and create Indigenous Peoples and places. Additionally, this study explores how works of …

Health Risk And Health-Seeking Behaviors Of Migrant And Seasonal Farmworkers On The Us-Mexico Border, Claudia Delilah Saenz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Background and Significance

The estimated 1–3 million migrant and seasonal farmworkers (MSFW) employed in the U.S. play a crucial role in assuring the success of the multi-billion dollar agricultural industry and the nation's access to a safe and nutritious food supply. This predominantly Mexican immigrant occupational group is documented to be at–risk for chronic and infectious disease morbidity and premature mortality but published studies are limited which describe their reproductive/sexual health, mental health, substance abuse, and workplace violence situation. Prior studies are especially scant regarding U.S.–Mexico border MSFW.

Objectives and Hypothesis

The major objective of the pilot study was to …

Dominant Discourses Embedded In Popular Culture: An Analysis Of Brazilian Teachers` Consciousness, Luciene Soares Wandermurem

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Many scholars believe that popular culture is part of students` identity and a symbol of subordinated groups` resistance to cultural domination, therefore they support the use of popular culture in the classroom as a way to value students` identity. However, scholars also recognize that often times popular culture is manipulated by elites so as to convey discourses that oppress people of color as an strategy to maintain the status quo. In Brazil, country where this research was conducted, white male individuals are the ones who have historically held power and money, utilizing the media as an instrument of social control. …

/Ae/ And /E/ In El Paso English, Lance Levi Williams

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The production and perception of front vowels /ae/ and /e/ by El Paso residents was examined in a pilot study to begin to establish linguistic variables in an understudied yet dynamic speech community and explore the question of the unity of the speech community and possible influence of L2 English speakers on L1 English speakers. 25 subjects, males age 19 to 34, were given both tests of perception and production, and these results were analyzed with respect to their social and linguistic backgrounds. In general, subjects in the Anglo group appeared to be more united in their production and perception …