Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Assessment Of Affirmative Action In Business, Jordan A. Kennedy

Honors Scholar Theses

Affirmative action has become an inevitable aspect of the employment hiring process. It has been put into place to assist in eradicating the institutionalized discrimination that inherently exists in such practices. On the surface, affirmative action may appear to be something that is beneficial to both the hiring institution and the individual; it seems to be a win-win situation because the business is creating a more diverse workplace and the individual is getting a job that they desired. However, the way that affirmative action is practiced may prevent its overall effectiveness. For example, there are several fundamental flaws with this …

Border X-Ing, Alicia A. Castro

SURGE

The sun out-stretched its bright arms in an embrace with the mesquite trees that beckoned upwards. The wind greeted the clothes drying upon delicate wire while my mother meticulously placed white towels in the light and the jeans under the shade of the Arizona Ash. The washboard sits upright in the bucket full of suds and other assorted laundry. Inside the shed there is both a working dryer and washer only a few years old, but she has chosen to do this chore outside. Here she can close her eyes and be back in Mexico with the dry heat and …

Young People's Attitudes Towards Inter-Ethnic And Inter-Religious Socializing, Courtship And Marriage In Indonesia, Lyn Parker, Chang Yau Hoon, Raihani Raihani

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper presents the attitudes of high school students in Indonesia towards inter-ethnic and inter-religious socializing, courtship and marriage. It also explores how different personal characteristics and social conditions such as gender, ethnicity, type of school and community affect these attitudes. The basic findings come from a survey of more than 3,000 students in senior high schools in five provinces of Indonesia: Jakarta, Yogyakarta, West Sumatra, Central Kalimantan and Bali. Survey data were supplemented with data from interviews and focus group discussions with students and from participant observation in and around the same schools. The authors found that most students …

Examining The Influence Of Race, Class And Gender Inequalities On Perceptions Of The American Dream Since The 2008 Economic Recession, Scarlett D. Marklin

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

America has a national ethos embodied in the moniker “land of the free” and defined by a set of ideals in which being free means all men and women have an equal opportunity for prosperity, the pursuit of happiness and success. In essence, simply having access to upward social mobility achieved through one’s own perseverance and hard work, the quintessential American Dream. The first use of the phrase American Dream was by James Truslow Adams to characterize the ideal that every man should live a richer and fuller life than his ancestors based on opportunity according to ability or achievement …

Parenting Behaviors, Adolescent Depressive Symptoms, And Problem Behavior: The Role Of Self-Esteem And School Adjustment Difficulties Among Chinese Adolescents, Cixin Wang, Yan Ruth Xia, Wenzhen Li, Stephan M. Wilson, Kevin Bush, Gary Peterson

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

Cross-sectional data from 589 Chinese adolescents were used to investigate whether parenting behaviors are directly or indirectly (through self-esteem and school adjustment difficulties) associated with adolescent depressive symptoms and problem behavior. Structural equation modeling results showed that school adjustment difficulties fully mediated the relations between two parenting behaviors (parental punitiveness and paternal monitoring) and adolescent problem behavior and partially mediated the relation between maternal monitoring and adolescent problem behavior. Adolescent self-esteem partially mediated the relations between maternal punitiveness and adolescent depressive symptoms and fully mediated the relations between parental support and adolescent depressive symptoms. Parental love withdrawal was not significantly …

Crossing Boundaries To Education: Haitian Transnational Families And The Quest To Raise The Family Up, Tekla Nicholas

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nearly 175, 000 Haitian immigrants have settled in South Florida since the 1970s. Their lives are often lived transnationally with persistent connections and obligations to family members in Haiti. Yet, traditional theories of immigrant assimilation focus on the integration of immigrants into host countries, giving little consideration to relationships and activities that extend into migrants' countries of origin. Conversely, studies of transnational families do not explicitly address incorporation into the receiving country. This dissertation, through the experiences of Haitian immigrants in South Florida, reveals a transnational quest “to raise the family up” through migration, remittances, and the pursuit of higher …

Fearless Friday: Elena Perez-Zetune, Elena Perez-Zetune

SURGE

Consistently involved in programs and initiatives addressing social issues related to children, migrant communities, and education, Elena Perez-Zetune ’14 fearlessly allows her assumptions to be challenged, her time given in service, and her energy spent on encouraging younger generations.

Elena has served with several different programs on campus run by the Center for Public Service, such as El Centro, Immersion Projects, Heston Internships, Casa de la Cultura, and the LIU Migrant Education Program. Growing up in Gettysburg, Elena has had the unique opportunity to run and organize some of the same programs she participated in as a …

Still Unconstitutional: Our Nation's Experiment With State-Sponsored Sex Segregation In Education, David S. Cohen, Nancy Levit

Faculty Works

Since federal regulations authorized single-sex education in 2006, there has been an explosion of single-sex schools and classes. Although the Supreme Court has not ruled, three federal court decisions have addressed the constitutionality of single-sex classes, and the issue will percolate toward Supreme Court review soon. The arguments are that parents should have choices and “diversity” of educational options, that “brain research” shows that boys and girls are so biologically different to need sex-specific educational environments, that educational outcomes are better, and single-sex learning environments allows boys and girls to break through gender stereotypes. This article dissects these arguments within …

Diverging Destinies Redux, Amy L. Wax

All Faculty Scholarship

My recent “where to live” conversation with a newly hired colleague yielded an unsurprising list of “possibles”: selected blocks of Mount Airy and Germantown, plus the Main Line towns of Bryn Mawr, Ardmore, Haverford, Villanova, Gladwyne, and so forth. Despite my colleague’s professed open mind about potential neighborhoods, Jenkintown — my own somewhat obscure and distinctly unfashionable (but much more affordable) suburb — drew a blank stare, as did a dozen other solidly middleclass areas I mentioned. By my calculation, there are over 400 zip codes within a thirty-mile radius of Rittenhouse Square, which is in the center of downtown …

Fearless (Saturday): Michael Hannum, Michael W. Hannum

SURGE

In celebration of Alumni Homecoming Weekend and Hispanic Heritage Week, we proudly feature Michael Hannum, member of the Class of 2011, for his fearless commitment to fighting for social justice issues and his continued involvement in serving the Adams County community. Currently working with the Lincoln Intermediate Unit’s Migrant Education Program as a Recruitment Coordinator, Michael began finding his passion for helping identify families in the migrant community who need extra educational support when he was a first-year student just looking for something to do. [excerpt]

From Toxic Tours To Growing The Grassroots: Tensions In Critical Pedagogy And Community Development, Celina Su, Isabelle Jagninski

Publications and Research

Structural inequalities in American public education are inextricably tied to deep-seated patterns of racial and economic segregation. Children in poor neighborhoods are less likely to have the household resources, neighborhood institutions, or school amenities necessary for a good, challenging education. In response, a growing number of organizations have launched initiatives to simultaneously revitalize neighborhoods and improve public education, emphasizing youth participation as an essential component in their efforts. We draw upon ethnographic data from two such organizations to examine their practice of place-based critical pedagogy in community development. We focus on how they engage marginalized, “hard-to-reach” youth via (1) experiential …

How Porous Are The Walls That Separate Us?: Transformative Service-Learning, Women’S Incarceration, And The Unsettled Self, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

In this article, we refine a politics of thinking from the margins by exploring a pedagogical model that advances transformative notions of service learning as social justice teaching. Drawing on a recent course we taught involving both incarcerated women and traditional college students, we contend that when communication among differentiated and stratified parties occurs, one possible result is not just a view of the other but also a transformation of the self and other. More specifically, we suggest that an engaged feminist praxis of teaching incarcerated women together with college students helps illuminate the porous nature of fixed markers that …

Critical Race Theory And Education: Mapping A Legacy Of Activism And Scholarship, Kafi D. Kumasi

School of Information Sciences Faculty Research Publications

This chapter explores the intellectual origins and historical precursors of Critical Race Theory (CRT), a lively branch of critical social theory. One of the goals of this work is to help novice educational scholars learn more about the history of CRT and to specifically see how it is used by contemporary scholars in the field of education to address a range of equity issues. The chapter begins by contextualizing contemporary discourse on race and education. It then chronicles the life work of key individuals whose antiracist, anti- colonial ideas and actions helped lay the foundation for the body of legal …

Facing Up: Managing Diversity In Challenging Times, Carol Hardy-Fanta, Paige Ransford

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

Since its launch in 2008, Commonwealth Compact has grown steadily, employing several strategies to promote diversity statewide. The Benchmarks initiative has collected data, analyzed in this report, on a significant portion of the state workforce. Guided by Stephen Crosby, dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at UMass Boston, Commonwealth Compact has conducted newsmaking surveys of public opinion and of boards of directors statewide. In addition, it has convened ongoing coalitions with its higher education partners, and established a collaborative of local business schools aimed specifically at increasing faculty diversity. The Compact has sponsored or co-sponsored …

Affirming Difference, Chang Yau Hoon

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Elite Christian schools in Indonesia can become places where religious, ethnic and class identities are heightened, particularly in relation to the nation’s ethnic Chinese. Exceptional academic performance, faith education, strict discipline and a safe environment are some of the factors that attract ethnic Chinese to enrol their children into elite Christian schools in Indonesia. In fact, these schools have become a thriving business across major cities, generating handsome profits from the provision of high quality education. They are generally attended by Chinese Indonesian students from a middle and upper class background. The schools are equipped with much better facilities than …

Racial Microaggressions: The Schooling Experiences Of Black Middle-Class Males In Arizona’S Secondary Schools, Quaylan Allen

Education Faculty Articles and Research

The literature on Black education has often neglected significant analysis of life in schools and the experience of racism among Black middle-class students in general and Black middle-class males specifically. Moreover, the achievement gap between this population and their White counterparts in many cases is greater than the gap that exists among working-class Blacks and Whites. This study begins to document the aforementioned by illuminating the racial microaggressions experienced by Black middle-class males while in school and how their families’ usage of social and cultural capital deflect the potential negative outcomes of school racism.

What Should We Be Doing To Reduce Or End Campus Violence?, Jason A. Laker

Faculty Publications

Over the last several years, there have been a number of high-profile incidents of violence on college and university campuses. These have precipitated discussions and new initiatives on campuses and within our professional organizations intended to prevent and respond to violence.

Stepping Up: Managing Diversity In Challenging Times, Carol Hardy-Fanta

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

Since its launch in 2008, Commonwealth Compact has grown steadily, employing several strategies to promote diversity statewide. The Benchmarks initiative has collected data, analyzed in this report, on a significant portion of the state workforce. Guided by Stephen Crosby, dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at UMass Boston, Commonwealth Compact has conducted newsmaking surveys of public opinion and of boards of directors statewide. In addition, it has convened ongoing coalitions with its higher education partners, and established a collaborative of local business schools aimed specifically at increasing faculty diversity. The Compact has sponsored or co-sponsored …

Stereotype Threat: A Case Of Overclaim Syndrome?, Amy L. Wax

All Faculty Scholarship

The theory of Stereotype Threat (ST) predicts that, when widely accepted stereotypes allege a group’s intellectual inferiority, fears of confirming these stereotypes cause individuals in the group to underperform relative to their true ability and knowledge. There are now hundreds of published studies purporting to document an impact for ST on the performance of women and racial minorities in a range of situations. This article reviews the literature on stereotype threat, focusing especially on studies investigating the influence of ST in the context of gender. It concludes that there is currently no justification for concluding that ST explains women’s underperformance …

Status Of Latino Education In Massachusetts: A Report, Nicole Lavan, Miren Uriarte

Gastón Institute Publications

Educational reform has brought great improvements in educational outcomes for Massachusetts students. In the past decade, achievement scores have risen for all students in Massachusetts; today the Commonwealth ranks first among all states in the overall National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores. However, it also ranks among the five states with the widest “gap” in achievement between white and Latino students in both NAEP Math and Reading. These gaps in achievement show that the benefits are not reaching all children. Latinos especially, but also African American children, are often left behind in a state with excellent academic institutions. Examining …

Who Joins The Military?: A Look At Race, Class, And Immigration Status, Amy Lutz

Sociology - All Scholarship

This article discusses the history of participation of the three largest racial–ethnic groups in the military: whites, blacks, and Latinos. It empirically exa-mines the likelihood of ever having served in the military across a variety of criteria including race–ethnicity, immigrant generation, and socioeconomic status, concluding that significant disparities exist only by socioeconomic status. Finally, the article offers an in-depth look at Latinos in the military, a group whose levels of participation in the armed services have not been thoroughly investigated heretofore. The findings reveal that, among Latinos, those who identify as “Other Hispanic” are more likely to have served in …

Ua1c7 Departmental Photos, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Images showing everyday activities of university departments.

International Education Week 2007

Diversity Programs

Lectures during International Education Week, November 2007.

Cracking Silent Codes: Critical Race Theory And Education Organizing, Celina Su

Publications and Research

Critical race theory (CRT) has moved beyond legal scholarship to critique the ways in which “colorblind” laws and policies perpetuate existing racial inequalities in education policy. While criticisms of CRT have focused on the pessimism and lack of remedies presented, CRT scholars have begun to address issues of praxis. Specifically, communities of color must challenge the dominant narratives of mainstream institutions with alternative visions of pedagogy and school reform, and community organizing plays an important role in helping communities of color to articulate these alternative counter-narratives. Yet, many in education organizing disagree with CRT's critique of colorblindness. Drawing on five …

International Education Week 2006

Diversity Programs

Lectures during International Education Week, November 2006.

Private And Public School Attendance Patterns Among New York City’S Racial/Ethnic Groups And Latino Nationalities In 2000, Cecilia Salvatierra

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines demographic and socioeconomic factors concerning New York City racial/ethnic groups in 2000 – particularly private and public school attendance rates.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: Data indicated that total White educational enrollment for all grades was evenly divided between public and private education, with 49.6% of all students enrolled in public educational institutions and 50.4% enrolled in …

Multiple Disadvantages Of Mayan Females: The Effects Of Gender, Ethnicity, Poverty, And Residence On Education In Guatemala, Kelly Hallman, Sara Peracca, Jennifer Catino, Marta Julia Ruiz

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Although access to primary education in Guatemala has increased in recent years, particularly in rural areas, levels of educational attainment and literacy remain among the lowest in Latin America. Inequalities in school access and grade attainment linked to ethnicity, gender, poverty, and residence remain. Age trends show that Mayan females are the least likely to ever enroll, and, if they do enroll, start school the latest and drop out earliest. Innovative programs for girls that combine instruction with social interaction in safe local community spaces may increase their educational attainment and their social networks and means of social support. In …

International Education Week 2005

Diversity Programs

Lectures during International Education Week, November 2005.

Religious Schools: For Spirit, (F)Or Nation, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this paper I draw attention to the study of 'unofficially sacred' sites in geographies of religion, which provide significant insights into the construction of religious identity and community, and the intersections of sacred and secular. I show that such sites deserve as much attention as places of worship (the more conventional focus in the geographical study of religion) in our understanding of the place of religion in contemporary urban society. In particular, using the case of Islamic religious schools in Singapore, I examine how Muslim identities and community are negotiated within multicultural and multireligious contexts, and particularly within one …

Leadership And Nonverbal Behaviors Of Hispanic Females Across School Equity Environments, Helen A. Moore, Natalie K. Porter

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Nonverbal behaviors of Hispanic elementary school students and their peers were examined in a small-group cooperative task with a total of 202 subjects. Thirty-five randomly selected groups were videotaped in ten desegregated schools, each group was gender-homogeneous, with three Hispanic and three Anglo students. Analysis of the videotapes revealed that Hispanic females used less vertical and horizontal space than Anglo females, and were also less likely to verbally interrupt or physically intrude on other group members They had similar rates of handling the group resource cards and were given similar leadership scores by multi-ethnic trained observers. Among males, Hispanics are …