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Teachers of English to students of other languages in the United States face complex teaching realities. The students themselves come from diverse social, economic and political backgrounds and their needs and demands vary widely from context to context. Teachers face external pressures from the institutions in which they teach and struggle with the impact of their own visible and invisible identities on the students' learning. This thesis is a participatory inquiry into the challenges of six women teachers, all with very diverse and extensive linguistic and intercultural experiences. Over the course of six years, these teachers, in conjunction with the author, searched themselves and discussed as a group the impact of their diverse backgrounds on their approaches to teaching. Data used as the basis for the inquiry includes extensive initial individual interviews and conversations among the women, subsequent workshops given for other teachers on the topic by the group and papers and theses written with regard to their approaches to teaching for their Master's Degree theses. The literature review includes references to the sociopolitical dimensions of ESL teaching, intercultural communication, research in identity, and gender issues in education. Conclusions point to the impact of extensive intercultural experience and reflection on teacher confidence, skill building and resilience.

This qualitative study investigated how White student affairs practitioners described and reflected on the practice of race awareness education. The methods of data collection included semi-structured, in-depth interviews and some field observations with ten White student affairs practitioners from diverse university and college settings throughout the United States. The principal focus of this study was to acquire knowledge as to: (1) what informs practitioners about their practice; (2) why they make the decisions they do regarding their approach to race awareness education; and (3) how has their practice changed over time. Practitioners were also asked to reflect on what it meant to be doing this work as a student affairs practitioner. The findings suggested emergent themes related to the relationship between the practitioner, the practice, and their reflection. Themes regarding the practitioners' background centered on their intrinsic motivation; reliance on experiential learning; and the importance of tracking their own White identity development. In their narratives about the practice, themes emerged regarding the range of interventions utilized in the field; pedagogical issues related to impacting students' learning at the cognitive, affective, and behavioral levels; the use of self as a teaching tool; and viewing practice as an art form. In their reflections, practitioners spoke of the challenges inherent in evaluation; their desired changes; minor shifts that occurred with their practice; and the need for processes to insure reflective thought. The study concludes with a discussion of the implications for further research.

During the past two decades, out-of-country development assistance training programs have emerged in response to the need to promote peoples' self-determination through increased participation at the community level. Participatory training based on an empowerment ideology has been advanced by some practitioners. Yet, little emphasis has been placed on evaluating the efficacy of this strategy as it pertains to applying training experiences in program participants' home setting. When this is attempted, the traditional evaluation procedures typically used render information which is of limited value to planners, practitioners, and program participants themselves. Thus, the development field operates with a distorted understanding of the complexity involved in applying empowerment training principles in actual community settings. The study investigates the possibilities and limitations of participatory evaluation (PE), and alternative evaluation approach, as a research strategy. A training case for Guatemalan community development workers referred to as the Central American Peace Scholarship Project sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development provides the program background. The PE strategy is based on a theoretical perspective rooted in critical theory and a methodological perspective derived from a participatory research paradigm. By focusing the PE process on participants' questions critical insights that might not appear in traditional evaluation findings are revealed. Further, PE increases the possibilities for evaluation to serve a developmental role for program participants and an informational role for program planners. In application, the process moves through three key stages: (1) a collaborative assessment of the Guatemalan research context, (2) the emergence of participants' evaluation questions through a series of informal interview encounters, and (3) critical reflections, the creation of alternative solutions and action-taking. PE provides participants with training reinforcement in their home setting while informing program planners of the efficacy of a particular training methodology from a Guatemalan perspective. Findings challenge policy makers, planners, practitioners, and researchers to acknowledge multiple field realities as well as contextual and structural impediments to applying an empowerment based methodology in various socio-political contexts.

The purpose of the study was to identify and analyze strategies used by successful, goal-oriented Hispanic high school students. This study sought to suggest ways that school personnel can be more deliberate and effective in promoting these strategies to increase the number of Hispanic students attending college. It sought to explore the impact of social class, income, and teacher expectations on mobility for Hispanic high school students. A survey was conducted on one hundred twenty-one Hispanic high school students who attended the 1988 Chicano Latino Youth Leadership Conference. Interviews used a retrospective format. The overall approach for the study was ethnographic, since it provided greater opportunity to generate observations. Ogbu's (1986) minority typology identifying minorities as caste, immigrant, or autonomous was adapted and used to analyze and explain variations in the sample. The study identified four dominant themes that were mobility strategies for these students. The first strategy was shared values, i.e. believing that success was possible for them and that education was a means to obtaining that success. Second, the students all identified a period of time when they made their decision to achieve. For the lower income and lower class student, school personnel had a major impact on this decision to achieve. Last, these students all had strategies for avoiding distractions and managing the demands of school life that enabled them to stay focused on their goal. The study found that class, culture, and school do affect mobility. The lower the class and income, the more difficult the mobility process. The minority typology adopted in this study was useful for describing within group differences among Hispanics. Autonomous students are those whose parents' education and family income levels are in the middle to upper class range. Immigrant students are foreign born or have foreign born parents, and income levels range in the lower to middle class range. Caste students are born in the United States and parents' education and income levels are underclass or lower class. Teachers and counselors need to be aware of the critical importance they have in the lives of caste students. Caste students are the most at-risk of not having a challenging curriculum nor mentors who hold high expectations for their learning potential. They can be influenced by positive teacher expectations, such as high track placement, and mentoring relationships. In addition, community leaders and parents must step in and promote high academic standards for Hispanics, especially when peer pressure not to excel in school exists.