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<p> This study aims to understand Asian American students&rsquo; postsecondary STEM education pathways. It examined Asian American students as a whole and as geographical and generational subgroups. It studied postsecondary STEM education as a whole and as five different fields. It examined STEM pathways through six research topics. And, it explored factors that related to Asian American students&rsquo; STEM education pathways. This study contributes to the current research body by focusing on an important matter that needs more exploration, by offering justifiable definitions and classifications of Asian Americans and STEM education, and by suggesting related factors of STEM education. </p><p> An US national representative and longitudinal data set, Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS: 2002), was utilized in this study to explore the intended research topics. SPSS, R, and AM were used for the analyses. Missing data imputation was applied. When analyzing the data, the nested structure of ELS: 2002 was considered. And, both descriptive and inferential analyses were carried out. The descriptive analyses were used both as a preparation for inferential analyses and as ways to answer the research questions. The inferential analyses were realized through stepwise logistic regressions. With three regressions for Asian Americans as a whole and three regressions for Asian Americans as subgroups, six stepwise regressions were conducted for the research topics of postsecondary enrollment, STEM choice as a whole, and STEM completion as whole. Due to the limitation of the analytic sample sizes, the research topics of STEM as an individual major choice, STEM individual major completion, and STEM individual major persistence were not examined by using regressions. </p><p> This study found that Asian American students were generally more likely to receive postsecondary education and major in STEM fields than White students. Among the five STEM fields, Asian American and White students both favored the fields of biological/agricultural sciences and engineering/engineering technologies. Both Asian American and White students were likely to obtain STEM degrees and persist in the same STEM fields they originally chose. More importantly, examination of the within-Asian American differences indicated that basically no difference was found among Asian American subgroups at certain stages of STEM education: receiving postsecondary education, choosing a STEM major, obtaining a STEM degree, and persisting in the same STEM fields. Nevertheless, Asian American subgroup disparities were found in choosing and obtaining a degree in different STEM fields. On the other hand, different stages of Asian American students&rsquo; postsecondary STEM education pathways did not involve the same related factors. Moreover, the same factors did not exhibit the same relative status at different pathway stages. The results imply the importance for future research to examine the within- Asian American and STEM education differences. Also, they have implications for ways to increase postsecondary enrollment, STEM major choice, and STEM degree obtainment.</p><p>

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<p> This dissertation explores language as a resource for the formation and expression of ethnic identity among the members of an Asian American college sorority. As a community of practice organized around ethnicity, the sorority provides an excellent site to examine the mutually constitutive relationship of language and ethnic identity. Two features of the sorority members' speech are analyzed in detail: their pronunciation of the mid-back rounded GOAT vowel, and their prosodic rhythm. For both variables, the behavior of the sorority members is compared with that of college peers of both Asian and non-Asian descent. The results indicate that both segmental and suprasegmental features are available as markers of Asian American ethnicity, and that the association of linguistic features with ethnicity is mediated by group membership and region, among other factors.</p><p> The community of study is an Asian-interest sorority at a large public university in New Jersey. The data are drawn from two main sources: participant observation of sorority activities and one-on-one sociolinguistic interviews. The ethnographic observations allow the behaviors and beliefs of the sorority members to be situated in the local context of the school, the state, and the region. The interview data, meanwhile, provide high-quality spontaneous speech data for phonetic analysis. It is argued that it is only through an understanding of the particular social context in which speakers exist that their linguistic behavior can be understood; conversely, examining linguistic behavior can illuminate how identity categories such as "Asian American" are construed and enacted within a given social setting.</p><p> The segmental variable analyzed in this study is the realization of the mid-back rounded vowel in the GOAT class of words. A quantitative analysis shows that the sorority members produce a more backed and monophthongal GOAT vowel than their non-Asian peers. In previous work, the fronting of GOAT has been noted as an ongoing change in certain regional dialects in the United States; however, the present analysis shows that sorority members tend to produce backer GOAT vowels than non-Asian speakers regardless of region.</p><p> The suprasegmental variable analyzed is prosodic rhythm, which refers to the relative length of adjacent syllables in speech. English is typically described as a stress-timed language, with stressed syllables being much longer than unstressed syllables. However, the sorority members' speech shows characteristics of syllable timing, with stressed and unstressed syllables being of roughly equal length. This finding coincides with those for other varieties of English, including Hispanic English and Singapore English. It is argued that syllable timing in English is likely a substrate effect from syllable-timed heritage languages, including Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean. Individual differences in prosodic rhythm are also examined with respect to age of acquisition and other inter- and intraspeaker factors.</p><p> This dissertation draws on multiple research traditions in the study of language and identity: it is an ethnographic description of a community of practice as well as a sociophonetic study of regionally and ethnically linked variables. It is also a study of young women's language at a critical stage of identity formation&mdash;the college years. Additionally, this dissertation is part of a growing body of sociolinguistic research on Asian Americans, a group that until recently has been drastically understudied. As a group with tremendous internal diversity, Asian Americans present both challenges and opportunities for the study of language and ethnicity. This dissertation thus advances sociolinguistic research in two ways: one, by shedding light on the language practices of this rapidly growing population, and two, by contributing to our overall understanding of how language interacts with various facets of identity, including ethnic identity.</p>

<p> This thesis highlights a method of representation that is critical of both images of Chinese powerlessness and images of Chinese power. In <i> Chan is Missing</i> and <i>The Princess of Nebraska</i>, two films by Chinese American director Wayne Wang, representations of Chineseness and Chinese identity are always determined through the discursive context in which they are enunciated. The films each employ the device of a missing subject, in order to show that its meaning does not refer to the subject itself but rather is determined through the context in which it is talked about. This creates different and often conflicting versions of the same subject, which can only be resolved by seeing that the subjects of Chineseness and Chinese identity are always a response to the contexts out of which they are discussed.</p>

<p> The purpose of this project was to locate a potential funding source and write a grant proposal to fund a support group for Japanese American women survivors of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in Los Angeles County. This grant outlines a program non-shelter-based support group for survivors. The goals and objectives of the support group will be to optimize the mental health and social well being of the survivors. It is critical that this support group be located within Little Tokyo in the greater Los Angeles area to provide a degree of familiarity and comfort for the survivors. The best source of funding for the program is the Weingart Foundation because of its expertise in this field and for its ongoing work in this community. Actual submission or funding of this grant was not required for the successful completion of this project.</p>

<p> This dissertation addresses the formation of scholar identity as informed by an identity- conscious approach to doctoral student socialization, doctoral student development, and racial identity as expressed through the critical narratives of Asian American and Pacific Islander doctoral students in the field of higher education. The study explored the intersections of race, doctoral student socialization, and doctoral student development &mdash; three areas that have been approached as separate entities in existing literature. By using life history methodology and narrative inquiry, this study contributed to a more thorough understanding of racialized experiences in doctoral studies. Critical narrative was used as a methodological approach concerned with power and language in society where individuals can concretely question their own realities and identify the socio-ideological influence of systems on their practices and beliefs (Souto-Manning, 2012). Rather than use terminology of counter-narrative, which positions a narrative as counter to an existing dominant narrative, the use of critical narrative is highlighted as a way to position the stories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders as their own central story. This inquiry advances our understanding of ways to create and sustain more inclusive and engaging learning environments that support racial diversity in higher education and to better understand the barriers that have socially and historically marginalized Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders both in general and in doctoral education. Recommendations for practice include developing identity-conscious approaches to scholar formation, including but not limited to inclusive pedagogy and curriculum; mentoring and advising; culturally affirming networks; program and organizational orientation; and doctoral student support. A model of identity-conscious scholar formation is presented in which socialization, development, and racial identity must be operationalized as bidirectional and interactional processes.</p>

<p> Cambodian Americans graduate from college at a lower rate than most Asian American groups. This qualitative study involved interviewing five current Cambodian American college students. This study examined how participants' high school experiences contributed to their decisions to go to college and to study STEM fields, how parental influences guided participants to college, and how college experiences influenced their decisions to stay and succeed in STEM fields. Findings from this study suggest: having supportive teachers in high school may have been important in motivating participants to go to college and to study STEM Fields, Cambodian parents tell stories of their lives in Cambodia to motivate their children to go to college, and Cambodian club on campus was a socially and academically supportive place. </p>