A food desert is defined as "a low-income census tract where a substantial number or share of residents has low access to a supermarket or large grocery store," (USDA, ERS, 2011). The purpose of this study was to examine how African-American residents of a rural food desert navigate their nutrition environment to obtain the foods they eat. Twenty-four in-depth interviews with 17 African-American men and seven African-American women were conducted in Alexander County and Pulaski County, Illinois. The interviews ascertained ways in which individuals navigate the nutrition environment. A quantitative assessment of the availability, price, and quality of African-American culturally-preferred dried legumes (beans), fresh fruits, and fresh vegetables was conducted with the customized Nutrition Environment Measurement Survey-Stores (NEMS-S) in 27 food venues (stores) (Glanz et al., 2007). The qualitative data was coded, categories were established, and themes were derived. The qualitative data analysis software, ATLAS.ti, 7.0 was used in the study. The quantitative data analyses were completed using SPSS 17.0 software (SPSS Inc, 2009). The availability and quality of food items were measured with a customized NEMS Scoring Sheet for Stores. The prices of food items were compared among the food venues (stores). Data obtained from interviews and food venues (stores) data were triangulated. Culturally-preferred foods remain a dietary staple. Fruit was often given as a snack to children. Changes in diet to address health problems were described as well as specific modifications to diet were made to traditionally southern and African-American food preparation. Family history and food practices that maintained the same flavors in childhood were important. Cultural traditions like gardening were also important. The respondents often settled for the convenience of food available in the area. The mean availability score was highest in the "Big Box Stores" and lowest in the gas stations-convenience stores-food marts. Prices were generally the lowest in the "Big Box Stores" and highest in the grocery stores. The "Big Box Stores" had the best quality food items. Coordinating shopping trips, carpooling, and gardening, community sharing, were ways challenges in the nutrition environment were managed. Limits of the nutrition environment were further managed through roadside markets, mobile sources, and pantries or give-a-ways. Health educators can better plan, implement, and administer culturally-appropriate interventions and strategies as well as strengthen social, environmental, and political factors that empower residents of the rural nutrition environment.

<p> This qualitative research study offers a new model through which to examine Black motherhood as resistance to institutionalized racism, being driven in part by the current mortality rate of Black children in the United States of America. Six mothers who self-identify as Black and activists were interviewed about how they resist racism through how they raise their children. Two major findings emerged and are discussed at depth within this study: Critical Race Socialization and Countering Mis-education. The Critical Race Socialization process is a new way to examine a critical, intentional process of racial socialization towards liberation taken on by Black mothers. The Critical Race Socialization process combines key components of Critical Race Theory, Pedagogies of the Home, Oppressed Family Pedagogy and Harro&rsquo;s cycles of socialization and liberation. Recommendations provided in the conclusion of this study encourage new Black mothers to center race and other sites of oppression in their pedagogy, utilizing age appropriate material for children when speaking about the truths of the world and Blackness. The study also calls for a village of support to be built around Black children, and for educators working with Black children to develop a critical repertoire of the lived experiences of Black people and trauma.</p><p>

This study looks at how National Football League Draft Magazines represent players of different racial groups and, in turn, the part these magazines play in maintaining a legacy of racist knowledge. A content analysis is used to qualitatively evaluate how black and white players are described and divided through the use of language and how historically-endowed ideologies are translated and maintained through current professional football discourses. The results reveal that the representations of white and black athletes conform to roles that were derived out of historically racist knowledge and that white superiority shapes the evaluation and representation of athletes in professional football, supporting and essentializing traditional racist notions of black and white males.

This project describes the work of three contemporary British novelists as they explore the possibility of self-identifying as black and British in contemporary Britain, despite the prevalence of racist attitudes that hold that these two identities are mutually exclusive. The three novels examined -- The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi, White Teeth by Zadie Smith, and Brick Lane by Monica Ali -- present black protagonists who self-identify as British. While other characters in the novels either conform to assimilationist or diasporic models of identity, where the subject seeks to expunge all "black" characteristics in favour of conforming to stereotypical "white" cultural norms, or retreat from "white" characteristics into an essentialized version of the values of their "home" countries, Karim, Irie, and Nazneen establish spaces for themselves within British society that allow them to try on different identities. By acknowledging the variability of identity, all three protagonists are able to self-identify as being both black and British.

African refugee children in the US public school system struggle with adjusting into the main stream school culture. Their troubling life experiences and cultural background are different from their U.S. peers as well as school personnel. Given the case of African refugee high school students' (ARHSS) cultural backgrounds, their diverse learning experiences are different from that of U.S. school system. These students struggle to understand what is taught and even the norms of the school system. The lack of adequate understanding of the cultural differences, learning needs of the ARHSS, and appropriate skills to work with these students will affect their learning and possible career paths. Therefore the purpose of this study is to investigate the implications of the cultural factors and how the ARHSS learning needs could be appropriately addressed. Using a phenomenological approach, ARHSS, individual professionals, and parents were investigated to gain insight into learning how cultural factors influence ARHSS' learning, and how to use approaches working with these students. This research produced a number of key findings: the data confirmed that due to the cultural factors, there are significant differences in terms of ARHSS' placement in grade levels based on age while their educational background is very limited; lack of students' accountability in order for students to be responsible for their own actions and learning; lack of cultural balance to improve the teaching and learning preference and approaches; language barrier also presented miscommunications, and a subsequent vacuum of relationship among ARHSS, parents, teachers, and school staff; lack of parental involvement because of their illiteracy issue and cultural perceptions of parents not to interfere in teachers business; cultural misunderstandings that take place in the classrooms; lack of academic need fulfillment that is relevant to ARHSS; and the need of separate programs for the ARHSS to learn basics for onward courses. The main conclusions drawn from this research were that current approaches to educating ARHSS are underprovided. The public school system failed to comprehend these students' needs which demand finding appropriate approaches to help them adjust and learn. Sadly, premium is placed on maintaining the status queue of the main stream cultural emphasis, and this enhances a lack of communication between students, parents, U.S. teachers, and administrators. This view reflects a hold up to finding relevant approaches to help the ARHSS academic and probably social development. Given this background, this research suggests several approaches to reduce ARHSS struggle in U.S. school system. These approaches would involve in assisting them first to learn their own language to succeed learning second language; to be provided a curriculum relevant to their abilities; assign a specific time to acquire and comprehend U.S. culture to ease their adjustment; and schools must find a way to reach out parents in order to connect parents to their children's education.

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The major purpose of this study was to investigate the question: Do the usual and traditional criteria for judging admissions to medical school, principally traditional academic criteria, in fact, provide the best predictors of success for Blacks or are there other factors, characteristics or variables, non-traditional in nature which are better predictors of Blacks' successful completion from medical school? Specifically this study attempted to determine the impact of the following factors on the successful completion of medical school for Blacks: (1) Demographic factors such as race, religion, cost or medical school indebtedness. (2) Family income. (3) Factors influencing the decision to pursue a medical education. (4) Barriers obstructing their pursuit of a medical degree. (5) Factors contributing to the successful completion of medical school for Blacks. The findings of this study suggests the following factors, characteristics and variables do contribute to the successful completion of medical school for Blacks. (1) Exposure to the field of medicine. (2) Personal characteristics, i.e., having a high degree of self-confidence and self-esteem, motivation, having an unyielding sense of determination, perseverance and endurance, being able to delay one's rewards or gratification, discipline and being able to withstand racism. (3) Support systems: (a) parental and family support; (b) peer support; (c) minority affairs office; (d) mentorship program; (e) church support. (4) Financial resources. (5) Specially designed medical school programs. (6) Non-traditional approaches used by medical school admission committees.

This dissertation addresses questions of the body that is imagined within contemporary Puerto Rican literature. Specifically, I focus on how the Afro-Puerto Rican body, as a site of artistic representation, articulates particular conceptions of history and narration in contemporary Puerto Rican culture. I have examined the texts of Luis Palés Matos, Isabelo Zenón, Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá and Beatriz Berrocal. In this study I argue that the literary embodiment of the Afro-Puerto Rican self is the crucial site where conflicting national discourses have been written and read, and as such demonstrates its ambivalent role in the struggles towards emancipation, citizenship and autonomy in the twentieth-century. Ultimately, the ways in which these texts construct relations based on the Afro-Puerto Rican experience have highlighted the inconsistencies, irregularities and upheavals that have characterized Puerto Rican literary, social and political history. Given the extent to which my approach is intertwined with other mainstream and marginal literary traditions, I have explored the historical and conceptual links of the chosen Puerto Rican texts with Caribbean, Latin American, and African-American literary traditions. By highlighting the Afro-Puerto Rican body and its cultural development, my examination reveals that one of the main intentions of this literary trend is to socially organize in the world of fiction the consciousness of the racial group. Stories of escape from bondage, redemptive suffering, and struggles of the weak against colonizing powers have led writers to particular ways of creating pseudo-autobiographical dramatizations of the Afro-Puerto Rican self. In fact, a consideration of Afro-Puerto Rican literature beyond just being about black themes can provide a reorientation for the analysis of contemporary Caribbean literary aesthetics. These are issues that my work will advance in the field of Afro-Hispanic and Latin American literatures.

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No description available.