<p> Women&rsquo;s movements and feminisms in Brazil have taken various forms throughout the years, contributing significantly to socio-political actions that favor gender justice. However, Brazilian feminisms remain on the margins of American academic discourse. In the United States, conceptualizations of feminism are often complicated by epistemological practices that treat certain political actions as feminist while dismissing others. The invisibility of Brazilian feminisms within feminist scholarship in the United States, therefore, justifies the need for further research on the topic. My research focuses on feminist articles published by <i>Revista Estudos Feministas</i>, one of the oldest and most well known feminist journals in Brazil. Using postcolonial, postmodern, and critical race feminist theories as a framework of analysis, my thesis investigates the theories and works utilized by feminists in Brazil. I argue that Brazilian feminisms both challenge and emulate the social, economic, and geopolitical orders that divide the world into Global North and South. </p>

<p> This study examines how Vietnamese Americans perform identities that acknowledge their statuses as diasporic Vietnamese to construct and maintain specifically Vietnamese American communities. I argue that music, especially public forms of musical expression within mass media and locally staged cultural performances, is a crucial way for Vietnamese Americans across the diaspora to transmit markers of cultural knowledge and identity that give them information about themselves and the "imagined community" constructed through their linked discourses.</p><p> The argument is organized around two main ideas that focus on broad cultural patterns and locally situated expressions, respectively. First, music produced by the niche Vietnamese American media industry is distributed across the diaspora and models discourses of Vietnamese identity as different companies provide different visions of what it means to be Vietnamese and perform Vietnamese-ness on stage. I analyze the music variety shows by three different companies (Thuy Nga Productions, Asia Entertainment, and Van Son Productions) to argue that Vietnamese American popular media should not be seen as representing a single monolithic version of Vietnamese-ness; rather, each articulation of Vietnamese identity is slightly different and speaks to a different formulation of the Vietnamese public, producing a discursive field for diverse Vietnamese American identity politics.</p><p> Secondly, I show how identity is always performed in particular places, illustrating that Vietnamese Americans performing music in different places can have vastly different understandings of that music and its relationship to their identities. Using a Peircian semiotic framework, I articulate a theory of place-making in which places become vehicles for the clustering of signs and meaning as people experience and interpret those places and make meaning there. As people's experiences imbue places with meaning, people coming from similar cultural backgrounds may gain different attachments to those places and one another and thus different understandings of their identities as Vietnamese. I use two contrasting examples of Vietnamese American communities in Indianapolis and San Jose to show how people in each place construct entirely different discourses of identity surrounding musical performance based upon their positionality within the diaspora.</p>

While Quality of Life (QOL) among aging populations has been attracting more and more attention in the last few years, little QOL research has been carried out among the elderly Chinese minority. This is a cross sectional study aimed at estimating the Quality of Life (QOL) and exploring QOL indicators among the elderly Chinese people living in Montreal. Forty-one volunteer study participants, 65 years or older were recruited from 12 Chinese community centers in Montreal. Their QOL was measured by the Ferrans and Powers Quality of Life Index (1985). The study results showed that participants generally described a very high level of life satisfaction. Living arrangements, gender, education and social support were found to be important QOL indicators. This study has important implications for health service and policy and raises the need for further future research using a larger random sample.

There is a paucity of research literature on the relationship between acculturation and positive indices of mental health for migrant populations. The objective of this study is to investigate the nature of this relationship for the Iranian migrant community of Canada. / Eighty-six Iranian migrants living in Montreal and Toronto filled a self-report questionnaire. Acculturation was measured through an acculturation attitude, overt behavioural and self-report Canadian contact scales. Positive mental health was measured through WHO's cross-culturally validated subjective quality of life (SQOL) scale and the level of psychological distress was measured with the SCL-25. Pertinent demographic variables were considered to control for intra-group differences. / Moreover, since data collection for this project occurred just after the events of September 11 we partially modified our research plan to include specific questions on the impact of this even. Because of its overt politicization and its salience to Iranian ethnicity we also sought to explore the effect of religiosity on mental health of this group. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

<p> As the workplace has diversified with the inclusion of women and minorities holding positions throughout all levels of the organization hierarchy, the question remains if gendered racism exists in the 2014 workplace for women managers with minority group background. Gendered racism, described by Philomena Essed in her 1991 book, <i>Understanding Everyday Racism: An Interdisciplinary Theory,</i> is a unique female experience due to their race and being a woman. Visible at this intersection of race and sex, women of color may experience the sexist and racist stereotypes dually assigned to women and minorities. This research provides a qualitative view of the experiences of gendered racism using Moustakas' transcendental phenomenology method. Data were collected from eight women who self-identified as Hispanic (<i> n</i>=2) and Black (<i>n</i>=6). All the women with the exception of one were college graduates, managers in an organization of 50 or more employees, between the ages of 35 to 62 years old. The study findings validated the experiences of gender racism in the workplace through the lived experiences of women interviewed. The women revealed their experiences with gendered racism, which affected their workplace interactions with others, manifest psychological stressors, and tainted the vision of themselves. Additionally, all of the women developed coping skills to combat gendered racism, which allowed them to pivot their careers to higher levels in their organizations. The emerging themes revealed from the study's participants experiences of gendered racism are psychological effects, feeling discounted, acceptance or justification, disrespect, and self-confidence. This research provides a phenomenological description of the lived experiences of the gendered racism and the impact of these experiences in the workplace as reveal by women of color.</p>

<p> This quantitative study explored the perceived value of mentoring among mentors and mentees in the Partners for Success Program at California State University, Long Beach. Aspects of academic success were compared between mentees and randomly selected undergraduates not in the program. The sample size was 271 (27 mentors, 136 mentees, and 108 other undergraduates). A self-administered online survey measured values of mentoring, social support, and self-efficacy. GPAs were self-reported. Mentees valued career help significantly more than mentors. Both groups rated teaching, career counseling, and trust most highly. European Americans had significantly higher social support scores than Latino/Hispanics. Among mentees, self-efficacy was positively correlated with academic performance. It is recommended that academic mentoring programs focus their efforts on fostering trust and providing advisement. Special attention should be paid to the availability of social capital, especially among ethnic minorities. </p>

<p> L'&eacute;tude pr&eacute;sente se contre sur la question identitaire aux sujets de la langue et de la culture cadienne au sud de la paroisse Lafourche ; un paroisse du sud-est de la Louisiane. Donnant qu'il y avait peu de recherches venant de cette r&eacute;gion de la Louisiane fran&ccedil;aise, cela serait in&eacute;ressant de voir des avis aux sujets de la langue et la culture cadiennes de vue des gens de cette petite partie.</p><p> Des questionnaires a &eacute;t&eacute; distribu&eacute;s aux lyc&eacute;ens de South Lafourche High School, et des entrevues a &eacute;t&eacute; faits avec des locuteurs natifs du fran&ccedil;ais cadien de la meme r&eacute;gion. </p><p> Avec les r&eacute;sultats, l'auteure examine les r&eacute;ponses des questionnaires des jeunes lyc&eacute;ens et les r&eacute;ponses des entrevues avec les locuteurs du fran&ccedil;ais cadien sont consid&eacute;r&eacute;es s&eacute;par&eacute;ment. Aussi, les r&eacute;ponses des deux groupes sont consid&eacute;r&eacute;es ensemble pour trouver s'il y a des similarit&eacute;s ou des diff&eacute;rences.</p><p> Ce projet cherche de parler des sujets ou de r&eacute;pondre aux questions suivants : Pour les jeunes, Quel est leur niveau de contact avec le fran&ccedil;ais hors de la salle de classe, et Quel est le role du fran&ccedil;ais dans leur vie ? Quelles id&eacute;es et quelles connaissances ils ont du fran&ccedil;ais cadien ? Quels sont les aspects saillants de l'identit&eacute; et de la culture cadiennes pour ces lyc&eacute;ens ?</p><p> Pour les locuteurs natifs de fran&Atilde;&sect;ais cadien, quel est le role du fran&ccedil;ais dans leur vie pr&eacute;sente et pass&eacute;e ? Quels sont les aspects de l'identit&eacute; et de la culture cadiennes qu'ils trouvent le plus importants ? Et qu'est-ce que ces locuteurs pensent de l'enseignement du fran&ccedil;ais par rapport aux plus jeunes g&eacute;n&eacute;rations de la r&eacute;gion ?</p>

<p>This research examines racially biased crimes across US cities, utilizing social threat and a general criminality perspective based on social disorganization and strain theories. Racially biased crime is compared to violent crime in general and to unbiased racially disaggregated homicide to further examine the effects of social threat and general crime variables on different forms of violent crime. Data is compiled mainly from the 1990 and 2000 US Censuses, the 1996&ndash;2000 Uniform Crime Reports and the 1996&ndash;2000 Supplemental Homicide Reports. The research shows bias crimes cannot be explained utilizing general crime predictors. In particular, anti-Black violent bias crimes committed by Whites are mainly driven by economic forces, though not necessarily economically threatening conditions. Anti-White violent bias crimes committed by Blacks are more similar to homicides of Whites committed by Blacks, which is consistent with prior research. Additionally, the research shows the importance of complying with hate crime reporting requirements and region, again consistent with prior research. That is, the more frequently a city reports data, the higher the counts of bias crimes. Cities located in the South are less likely to have high counts of bias crimes, suggesting a lack of compliance with reporting requirements. These findings pertaining to reporting compliance offer support for social constructionist perspectives in the study of bias crimes. </p>

<p> From the perspective of acculturation stress theory, the historical background of Iranian immigrants is visited in this dissertation, as well as different types of acculturation strategies that are being utilized by immigrants. This research study addresses the impacts of inadequate access to and underutilization of mental health services on the psychosocial wellbeing of Iranian families, and the lack of appropriate interventions due to ongoing stress, such as economic hardships. Furthermore, the usefulness of several inexpensive and accessible stress-reduction techniques in reestablishing psychophysiological relaxation is examined. It is noted that, in spite of their long history, such techniques are not widely recognized as effective coping skills in response to stress-inducing immigration experiences. In addition, the relaxation qualities of music are reviewed, revealing consistent therapeutic effects and significant relaxation responses elicited in the listeners. The purpose of this applied research study was to develop a proposed Hindustani music-assisted multimodal guided relaxation intervention designed to lower stress and particularly, acculturation stress experienced by Iranian families. An evaluation of the program's efficacy by validity judges concluded that this program is potentially effective for inducing relaxation responses in the listeners.</p>

<p> The purpose of this descriptive, case study was to explore how servant leadership influenced employee engagement within the United States offices of an international engineering consulting firm. An additional purpose of the study was to determine the extent to which the factors of race, gender, or tenure were related to employee engagement. Leaders in the firm completed the Revised Servant Leadership Profile (RSLP). The Revised Servant Leadership Profile (RSLP) 360&deg; was then administered to the staff of self-identified servant leaders. Once identified, servant leaders were then compared against the engagement scores of divisions and units within the firm under investigation, based on results from their biannual employee engagement survey. The second part of this research involved structured, survey interviews with self-identified servant leaders and their staff. Results showed partial support for servant leadership effect on employee engagement and no support for matching perceptions of servant leadership between leaders and their employees. Structured survey interviews revealed that both leaders and followers were unfamiliar with the term, servant leadership. However, both groups reported employee empowerment, employee development and a strong sense of teamwork in the organization, indicating some similarities in the perceptions of the two groups. There was partial support for claims that gender and ethnicity were relevant to servant leadership and employee engagement. Conclusions drawn from this research were that servant leadership was not conclusively linked to employee engagement. Further research is recommended.</p><p> <i>Keywords</i>: Employee Engagement, Servant Leadership, RSLP. </p>