<p> This thesis examines the ways in which ancestral Dena&rsquo;ina Athabascans, who once inhabited the <i>Ch&rsquo;u&rsquo;itnu</i> Archaeological District of Alaska, incorporated quartz into multiple aspects of their lithic technology. The <i>Ch&rsquo;u&rsquo;itnu</i> Archaeological District is in western Upper Cook Inlet, north of the community of Tyonek, an area in which quartz was available in the glacial till, along river and creek banks, and the Cook Inlet shoreline as a raw material for stone tools. Research methods included documenting qualitative and quantitative attributes of d&eacute;bitage, splintered pieces and cores, groundstone tools, flaked tools, other lithic artifacts, and evidence of thermal alteration. Results show that 87 percent (n=1677) of the 1930 lithic artifacts comprising the <i> Ch&rsquo;u&rsquo;itnu</i> Archaeological District lithic assemblage were made of quartz, and that d&eacute;bitage was the most common artifact type. Results indicate that the ancestral Dena&rsquo;ina who once occupied the <i> Ch&rsquo;u&rsquo;itnu</i> Archaeological District, used quartz throughout their lithic technology, which included tools and boiling stones, in a process by which thermal alteration blurred the lines between distinct artifact types. </p>

abstract: ABSTRACT Diné Education is equal and is as valid as this nation's mainstream education, yet it does not share the same ideas, processes or goals as its counterpart. It is more complicated because it is based on oral traditions and the philosophies of Hózhó, a construct that requires a learner to embrace one's surroundings, actions, interactions, and being. A central part of Diné education focuses on spirituality and self awareness which are intertwined with every dimension of this universe. In order to become educated in the Diné world a learner must first learn to "walk in beauty" and have a positive self image. Being Diné, this researcher sought to capture his own childhood memories, including the special teachings and teachers that have guided his learning, as a way to document the process of acquiring a Diné education. The methods of inquiry for this research included self-reflection documented in a journal and an extensive literature review. The literature review was guided by three research questions: 1. What is Diné Education? 2. How important is it to today's Diné people? 3. What are the future prospects for the existence of Diné education? / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Curriculum and Instruction 2010

<p> The search for effective teaching methods of Chican@/Latin@ students reached a new level of complexity when it was found that Chican@/Latin@ students who participated in the Mexican American/Raza Studies program (MARSD) in Tucson, Arizona were outperforming their White counterparts in academic achievement measures (Cabrera, Milem, Jaquette, &amp; Marx, 2014). Rather than praise the MAS program and direct educational researchers to learn and replicate the effective teaching strategies of the program, powerful educational stakeholders sent lawyers and passed legislation HB 2281 which created the legal rationale to terminate the program (Cabrera et al., 2014). This raises the question: How serious are we as a society, including the field of Education, about closing achievement gaps and learning about effective teaching strategies of Chican@/Latin@ students? History may have the answer. </p><p> We know that the field of Education has historically failed Chican@/Latin@ students and other working class students of color in general (Duncan-Andrade, 2005b; Ladson-Billings, 1998; Noguera, Hurtado, &amp; Fergus, 2013). Research in education of Chican@/Latin@/Chicano studies has extensive data illustrating school failure in the form of &ldquo;drop out&rdquo; or &ldquo;push out&rdquo; rates, low graduation rates, and low performance on academic achievement measures, for Chicano/a students (Luna &amp; Revilla, 2013; Yosso, 2006). When you add that in places like California, Chican@/Latin@ students represent more than 53% of students enrolled in public schools, understanding how to effectively teach the largest demographic population becomes an ethical concern (California Department of Education, 2013-2014). </p><p> This study examines effective teaching of Chican@/Latin@ students in Hope Valley (pseudonym). I use survey instruments to ask Chican@/Latin@ college students from Hope Valley Community College to identify the most effective teachers in their K-12 experience. This form of community nomination is unique in the educational research in that it honors the pedagogical knowledge of young adults, rather than the conventional sources of knowledge (e.g., teachers, parents, scholars, and other educational researchers). The results of the survey lead me inside the classroom of these community nominated teachers, where I use ethnographic methods to learn about their efficacy as identified by their former students. This study asserts that a strengths-based community responsive approach to understanding effective teaching of Chican@/Latin@ students increases local capacity for community members and educational stakeholders to build on the unique pedagogical strengths of their own community.</p><p>

Engine Burning Through is a collection of poems.

<p> This research is on the ways Puerto Rican women fought for their reproductive justice. It covers the years 1930 through to the 1980s on the island of Puerto Rico and the city of New York. The fight was not always won in the streets or in the courts but also through everyday struggles to survive. There were multiple forms of resistance used in order to fight for control of their own bodies and for the lives of their children. Reproductive justice is not limited to the right to have or not have children but also the ability to exercise choice and freedom over the children you have, over your own body and sexuality. The resistance led by these women was in all the ways they fought against oppressive forces which limited their ability to exercise reproductive freedom. The research was conducted through archival records, secondary sources and an interview conducted with my mother to learn the stories of the women in my own family and how they reflect the history I had researched. Puerto Rican women dealt with overcoming a high rate of sterilization, migration to the United States where they were met with racism and hostility and the ability to rise up and organize to demonstrate their voices as a collective. None of this could have been gained without the drive to survive.</p><p>

<p> According to the disciplinary section of State of Ohio Department of Education&rsquo;s annual Ohio State Report Card (OSRC), African-American students have continuously led the student population in exclusions (suspensions and expulsions), particularly regarding ambiguous, subjective offenses. The disproportionate exclusion of these students has been an obstacle to receiving valuable education time, and opportunities to learn to navigate and thrive within the educational system. The over-exclusion of these students has also created a population of youth with decreased psychological, emotional, and community supports. The purpose of this study was to examine trends of school disciplinary exclusions following a state-wide change in the behavioral system used to discipline students (shifting from Zero Tolerance policies [ZT] to Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports [PBIS]). A cross-sequential study design was used to evaluate secondary data from the OSRC. Implementing PBIS produced a trend of lowered exclusions for African-American students, but no statistically significant differences were found. Statistically significant differences were discovered when examining the rates of the overall (total) exclusions and objective exclusions for Caucasian students. A trend of lowered rates, but no statistically significant differences were found for students with additional risk factors (disability status, male sex, low Socioeconomic Status [SES] and poor academic performance) for exclusion. A correlation analysis identified that both African-American and Caucasian students who were identified as low SES tended to be associated with more risk factors; thus, a stronger likelihood of being excluded.</p><p>

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR) plays a role in facilitating multilateral security mechanisms among its members. The central question of this work asks whether regional integration results in the establishment of cooperative security mechanisms. The dependent variable involves multilateral security initiatives within the MERCOSUR, in the present context of inter-American relations. The independent variables include regional transitions to democracy, the regional strategic consequences of the ending of the Cold War, and regional integration experiments. This work departs from the stated central question to the particular case of international involvement in the Paraguayan political crises of 1996 and 1999. The active intervention of Paraguay's largest MERCOSUR partners, Brazil and Argentina, in the course of these developments is analyzed. The evidence demonstrates that economic integration does not necessarily result in the establishment of formal cooperative security mechanisms. In the present context of inter-American relations, however, there exists a tendency toward multilateral regional responses to internal threats to democracy as witnessed in the Paraguayan case. This project shows that membership in a regional economic organization, as seen by the ASEAN, European Union and MERCOSUR, enhances the establishment of common security measures.

abstract: In this dissertation, I engaged the doctrine of cultural sovereignty to demonstrate that an operational paradigm of cultural sovereignty exists at Taos Pueblo, a federally-recognized Indian tribe in New Mexico, which was capable of application to contemporary decision-making practices and policy. I turn to the knowledge, history, and principles of my people of the Taos Pueblo for creating such a model. To be clear, I am not advocating for a wholesale return to a pre-European existence. Rather, I am advocating for the development of a culturally-grounded approach to evaluating the various aspects of modernity to determine what to embrace and/or continue to adapt. I produced an evaluative model that answers what is Taos epistemology, ontology, methodology, and axiology (EOMA)? And, what does Taos EOMA mean for Taos sovereignty, self-determination, and self-governance? What is the Taos pedagogy of sovereignty, self-determination, and self-governance? And, third, what is the Taos praxis of sovereignty, self-determination, and self-governance? By constructing a Taos sovereignty model that continues, repatriates, or reclaims our history, tradition, and cultural identity, we are in a better position to integrate and align the Taos way of life and our political sovereignty. My hope is that this model can help not only the Taos people but Pueblo people of New Mexico imagine a collective future that balances modern/contemporary non-Pueblo practices and systems with our own rich traditions and heritage. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Liberal Studies 2015

abstract: This thesis will examine the novels and poetry of Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna) and Luci Tapahonso (Navajo), exploring how they are working to maintain, control, protect and develop their spiritual Indigenous identities. I link their literary work to Article 31.1, from the United Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which states that “Indigenous people have the right to maintain, control, and protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies, and cultures, including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, literatures, designs, sports and traditional games and visual and performing arts. They also have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions.” I argue that both Silko and Tapahonso create narratives and characters that illustrate how indigenous identity is self-determined and maintained through resistance to colonization and assimilation. I examine how these stories and characters incorporate new knowledge, about modern lifeways, into traditional Indigenous oral traditions and histories. Both Silko and Tapahonso connect nature and history, as they illustrate how oral traditions are passed down through the continual sharing of inter-generational stories and ethnobotanical information about plants, animals and food. This study will track how oral stories help the characters (re)connect with the land, and with foodways, by re-establishing a relationship of resistance against the exploitation, assimilation, and colonization of indigenous peoples, lands, and resources and the maintenance of spirituality through oral traditions. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis English 2016

<p> Measuring spouses&rsquo; ages allows us to explore larger sociological issues about marriage, such as whether narrowing gaps signal gender progress or if a rise in female-older unions reveals a status change. Using Census and American Community Survey data, I test the merits of beauty-exchange and status homogamy theories as explanations for how heterosexual marital age gaps changed over a 40-year period of social and economic revolution. Analyses address questions about how age gaps compared for people with different characteristics, whether similarly aged couples exhibited greater educational and socio-economic homogamy than others, and if the odds of being in age-heterogamous marriages changed. </p><p> Chapter 4 provides the historical context of U.S. marriages from 1910 on, and shows that while disadvantaged groups retreated from marriage, the percentage of individuals with greater education and income who married remained high. Age homogamy rose over 100 years due to a decline in marriages involving much-older husbands rather than increases in wife-older unions. </p><p> Results in Chapter 5 show that mean age gaps decreased significantly over time for first-married individuals by most&mdash;but not all&mdash;characteristics. Gaps narrowed for those who were White, Black, other race, or of Hispanic origin; from any age group; with zero, one, or two wage earners; with any level of education; and from most types of interracial pairs. One exception was that mean age gaps increased between Asian wives and White husbands, and Asian women&rsquo;s odds of having a much older husband were higher than the odds for racially homogamous women. Those odds increased over time. </p><p> Findings lent support for status homogamy theory, since same-age couples showed greater educational homogamy than others in any decade, but showed mixed support for beauty exchange. In 2010&ndash;14, the median spousal earnings gap was wider in husband-older marriages than age-homogamous ones; however, the reverse was true in 1980. Women-older first or remarriages exhibited the smallest median earnings gaps in 1980 and 2010&ndash;14, and women in these marriages contributed a greater percentage of the family income than other women in 2010&ndash;14 (43.6% vs 36.9%, respectively). </p><p> The odds of being in age-heterogamous unions were significantly higher for persons who were remarried, from older age groups, from certain racial backgrounds, in some interracial marriages, less educated, and from lower SES backgrounds. Age and remarriage showed the greatest impact on odds ratios. While age homogamy increased overall, the odds of being a much older spouse (11+ years older) increased dramatically for remarried men and women between 1970 and 1980, and then remained high in 2010&ndash;14. Remarried women&rsquo;s odds of being the much older wife versus a same-age spouse were 20.7 times that of the odds of first-married women in 2010&ndash;14. Other results showed that Black men&rsquo;s odds of being with a much-older wife compared to one around the same age were about 2.5 times that of the odds of White men in each decade. Hispanic men&rsquo;s odds of being in a first marriage with a much-older wife versus one of the same age were also twice the odds of White men in 1980 and 2010&ndash;14. </p><p> Analyses demonstrated that marital age gaps have, indeed, changed significantly since the second-wave women&rsquo;s movement, and that while age homogamy increased, the odds of being age heterogamous also shifted for people with different characteristics.</p><p>