Master of Science / Department of Marriage and Family Therapy / Joyce Baptist / Universities around the country are consistently focusing on increasing diversity among the student population, yet little is known about how minority graduate student populations fair academically and personally in predominately White institutions, specifically African American graduate students. This qualitative study examines the lived experiences of six African American graduate students. Participants were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide on their experiences in a predominately White graduate program. The findings support previous research that indicates that social conditions have not changed and minority students are still not well integrated into their programs. Findings also suggest that although Berry’s (1987) model of acculturation can be used to conceptualize the experience of African American undergraduate students, the experience of graduate students is more complex, and only partially supported by this model. Suggestions for how universities can better improve the environment for African American graduate students are included.

The purpose of this study was to clarify what particular types of parental involvement (Achievement Values, Home-Based, School-Based, & Intellectual) were most important in predicting achievement outcomes in high school African American adolescents. In doing so, the current study also examined how perceived teacher support and family contextual variables influenced parents' level of involvement with their high school adolescents. The participants were 145 African American parents/guardians of high school students from two large urban southern and southwestern cities. Results indicated that home-based involvement was the most important involvement measure for predicting school achievement. However, actual adolescent school achievement was dependent on perceived teacher support above and beyond that of the parental involvement measures. Also, parental education was the most important family contextual variable in determining if parents engaged in behaviors that promoted student learning. Implications for how school psychologists can help improve parental involvement and the school achievement of African American adolescents are discussed / acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation addresses how retaliation norms develop within adolescent subcultures in schools. Social accounts of violence that are shared amongst peers are examined as natural-setting processes, and are hypothesized to increase group consensus about the appropriateness of face-saving violence. A survey utilizing video vignettes included 139 rural Alaska Eskimo and Black New Orleans high school students. Participation in violence-related social accounts predicted perceived peer violence norms, dependent upon peer relationship variables; and anticipated account-sharing predicted self-reported willingness to use violence, especially for students with pro-violence friends. Post-survey interviews allowed students themselves to assess the study validity and conceptual models, which they generally identified with as common school experiences. Interviews also produced student-generated hypotheses not initially tested by the researcher. These emphasized how perceived violence norms are affected by past violence exposure, peer ridicule, and household violence and alcoholism; the role the student tends to take as either account-giver or account-receiver, and general sociability as a predictor of violence-related account sharing. Second-round quantitative tests analyzed these student propositions, some confirming relevant associations. A broader theoretical perspective discusses why violent subcultures tend to arise in the context of structural-level variables associated with crime, such as poverty, community disorder, and lack of police presence; and lack of escape resources. These factors influence violent subcultures by shaping the objective consequences of violent offending, which only become meaningful as normative violence prescriptions through social account sharing about incident outcomes / acase@tulane.edu

This project is an examination of the novels O Mulato (Aluisio Azevedo, 1889) and Cecilia Valdes (Cirilo Villaverde, 1882) and their call for social reform and a re-examination of the place of blacks in the emerging republics of Brazil and Cuba. Both novels question and criticize social constructs of race while pressing for an improved treatment of both free and enslaved blacks This project provides an intellectual history of eighteenth and nineteenth century rac(ial)ist theories that exerted a pronounced influence on Azevedo and Villaverde. Specifically, this section examines physiognomy, phrenology, and craniometry in addition to sociological and anthropological approaches to racial hybridism, the evolutionary theories of Darwin and Spencer, and the geographical determinism of Buckle. Finally, the chapter provides a close reading of Comte's positivism and its reception by the intelligentsia in Cuba and Brazil Azevedo's O Mulato purports to discredit racial discrimination by white society and the destructive influence of the Catholic clergy in Brazil's northern province of Maranhao during the 1870s by deploying the metaphor of an unsuccessful, interracial relationship involving a wealthy and educated mulatto and his white, aristocratic cousin. Although Azevedo endeavored to illustrate the problematic nature of racial discrimination and the social compartmentalization of blacks in Brazil---both relics of Portuguese colonialism---he nevertheless succumbed to the racialist ideologies of the nineteenth century and imbued his protagonist with stereotypical characteristics. Although blacks were rising socially via education and the military, Azevedo nevertheless envisioned a future, positivistic republic necessarily led by a white elite In Cecilia Valdes, Villaverde deploys an unsuccessful, interracial relationship involving a poor but beautiful, nearly-white mulatta and her aristocratic, half-brother as agents of the policy of whitening. As in O Mulato, the metaphor of an unsuccessful, interracial relationship reveals the difficulty in crossing racial and social castes and thus uniting different socio-economic sectors of the imagined community. Only one intraracial romance involving whites proves to be successful in the novel. This relationship serves as a metaphor indicating that only enlightened whites are capable of leading Cuba out of colonialism and into independence / acase@tulane.edu

<p>I två analyser av filmerna; <em>Do The Right Thing</em> av Spike Lee (1989) och <em>Hemligheter och lögner</em> av Mike Leigh (1996), har jag undersökt  hur och varför samhällsproblematik  som berör klass- och rasfrågan presenteras på film utifrån hur cultural studies teoretiskt förhåller sig till problematiska relationer mellan kulturella identiteter i USA och Storbritannien. Jag kom fram till att identifikationen av den kulturella identiteten var olika i respektive länder; USA och Storbritannien. I USA var rastillhörigheten utgångspunkten för den kulturella identiteten och i Storbritannien var det klasstillhörigheten utgångspunkten för den kulturella identiteten.</p>

I två analyser av filmerna; Do The Right Thing av Spike Lee (1989) och Hemligheter och lögner av Mike Leigh (1996), har jag undersökt  hur och varför samhällsproblematik  som berör klass- och rasfrågan presenteras på film utifrån hur cultural studies teoretiskt förhåller sig till problematiska relationer mellan kulturella identiteter i USA och Storbritannien. Jag kom fram till att identifikationen av den kulturella identiteten var olika i respektive länder; USA och Storbritannien. I USA var rastillhörigheten utgångspunkten för den kulturella identiteten och i Storbritannien var det klasstillhörigheten utgångspunkten för den kulturella identiteten.

<p> This dissertation examines how poor black South African women in rural areas organize themselves to address their poverty situations and meet their practical needs &ndash; those that pertain to their responsibilities as grandmothers, mothers, and community members &ndash; and assesses their organizations' effectiveness for meeting women's goals. My research is based on two groups that are members of the South African Rural Women's Movement. They are the Sisonke Women's Club Group (SSWCG) and the Siyabonga Women's Club Group (SBWCG). A majority of these women are illiterate and were <i>de jure</i> or <i> de facto</i> heads of households. Based on interviews and participant observation, I describe and analyze the strategies that these women employ in an attempt to alleviate poverty, better their lives, and assist in the survival of their families, each other, and the most vulnerable members of their community. Their strategies involve organizing in groups to support each other's income-generating activities and to help each other in times of emergency. Their activities include making floor mats, beading, sewing, baking, and providing caregiving for members who are sick and for orphans. I conclude that, although their organizing helps meet practical needs based on their traditional roles as women, it has not contributed to meeting strategic needs &ndash; to their empowerment as citizens or as heads of households. </p>

This study examines the perception of K-12 principals about school social work consultation, collaboration and program development in a large urban school district in Georgia. The primary survey participants consist of one hundred eight K-12 school principals selected using non-probability sampling. Twenty seven school social workers in the same school district also selected by convenience sampling responded to the survey questionnaire which is designed using a four point Likert scale. The fmdings of the study indicate that responding principals and school social workers perceive consultation, collaboration and program development as expected activities. Responding principals also perceive that it is the responsibility of the principal to ensure that these activities occur. A greater percentage of principals in schools with special education and/or homeless enrollments expect consultation with the school social worker. Principals in schools with special education and homeless enrollments are more likely to 1 include the school social worker as an integral partner in school leadership and decision making than principals in schools with Title I or English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) student enrollments.

Spousal abuse has been a phenomenon that has been explored widely by many disciplines, yet few studies have included adequate samples of African-American people. The purpose of this study was to explore spousal abuse from an African-American female perspective. This ethnographic study was guided by Brofenbrenner's ecological model and Neuman's system model. These models provided a view of the social, political and economic constraints that contribute to spousal abuse as well as a view of the interpersonal and intrapersonal interactions that occur because of the abuse. Narratives of six African-American abused females were transcribed and coded. Then, patterns and themes were abstracted to form domains which described the experience of abuse. The narratives revealed three major findings: (1) five stages of abuse and coping that described a process of abuse; (2) three cultural themes; (3) a holistic view of spousal abuse based on the Brofenbrenner's ecological model and Neuman's system model. The five stages identified in the process of abuse were: stage 1--transference of rules, where the victim learned rules of behavior for intimate relationships from the family of origin; stage 2--beginning abusive period--occurring after the couple start to live together and violence begins; stage 3--rage and reality--when all attempts to stop the abuse have failed and anger is predominant; stage 4--transistion--the victim leaves the relationship and stage 5--stabilization and integration--when the victim stabilizes her life and begins to integrate the abusive experience. Three cultural themes were abstracted from the narratives. Patterns of Independence--the cultural message of the importance of being independent and not relying on anyone was consistent. The Family as a Resource was also a underlying theme among the victims. Although the abuse was kept a secret from the family of origin during the abuse, the family was seen as a source of nurturance and support after the abusive experience. A holistic view of spousal abuse was obtained revealing that the political, social, and economic constraints as well as the intrapersonal and interpersonal factors that victims faced everyday were factors in how they perceived and intervened in the abuse.

<p> This thesis seeks to reorient the ideological foundations of restorative justice through feminist epistemologies to explore possibilities of how the movement might more fully actualize its values. The <i>Three Pillars of Restorative Justice,</i> conceptualized by Howard Zehr, offer an alternative process to the punitive recourse of the criminal justice system and serve as the foundation of mainstream restorative practices. However, the praxis and analytical discourse have stalled due to the limited binary of criminal and restorative justice frameworks. My thesis uses methodologies prominent in Black and Native feminisms-- such as critical thinking, contextual intelligence, and imagining futurity-- to complicate assumptions embedded in the criminal/restorative justice relationship. I establish the framework of restorative justice and briefly summarize the essential paradoxes to make clear the parallels and limits of the relationship. I then use feminist methodologies to reinterpret the pillars' values and introduce how some activists have begun to reimagine justice.</p>