<p> Student retention is considered a complex human behavior. Adding to the complex nature of student retention is the ever changing landscape of higher education due in large part to the growth of Hispanic undergraduate student enrollment on college campuses. While notable gains have been made increasing the number of Hispanic students graduating from high school and going on to college, little progress has been made in increasing the college graduation rate of this group. Narrative inquiry and autoethnography methods were used in this study to explore the family background and lived experiences of the researcher along with those of a sample population of 19 current and former Hispanic undergraduate students of a private Christian university. Tinto&rsquo;s Theory of Student Departure (1993) served as a theoretical framework for this study because it was well suited for exploring student persistence as longitudinal process impacted by a multitude of institutional factors, external influences, family background characteristics, and student attributes. Primary data was collected using demographic questionnaires, individual interviews, focus groups, and reflective journaling. Several common themes emerged from data analysis and interpretation which shed light on the topic of Hispanic undergraduate retention at a private Christian university. The emerging themes from this study were comprised of: family, family support, motivation, religion, transition, institutional support, and supportive relationships. These themes point toward a connection between a student&rsquo;s family background, individual skills and abilities, and pre-college academic readiness to the development of initial academic goals and commitments to earn a college degree. This study provided evidence that the cultural beliefs, values, and language reflected in the emerging themes converge with the cultural elements of the university in a way indicating connections between students and institutions were important determinates of student success. The findings revealed that a university&rsquo;s ability to effectively engage and retain Hispanic students may be a function of a broad and supportive network of persons dedicated to the success of minority students throughout the university. This study provided evidence that supportive relations provided by agents of the institution and sources external to the university played a major role in a participant&rsquo;s educational journey. </p>

<p> Health literacy among the elderly Hispanics is a problem for 44% who read at the lowest level due to issues with recognition, cognition, or vision. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent that elderly Hispanics have problems with medication adherence due to health literacy. The social cognitive theory was the framework for this study. Inclusion criteria consisted of being 65-75 years of age, and speaking and/or reading English and/or Spanish. Questionnaires from 156 individuals were completed in Cobb County/Atlanta GA and analyzed using multiple regression to determine the relationship between health literacy and medication usage. Medication adherence was the dependent variable and independent variables were gender, age, Hispanic origin, education, income, income means, health insurance, health literacy, and medication usage. Statistical significance was noted in medication adherence, health literacy, and working full-time. Results were based on the correct answers from health literacy questions, which showed an association between medication adherence and health literacy and a reduction in medication adherence problems among elderly Hispanics who worked full-time. These findings showed a significant association between medication adherence and health literacy level among elderly Hispanics. No medication adherence problems were noted among participants who had good health literacy, unlike participants with poor health literacy. A larger ethnic group may show a variation of problems in future studies. Implications for social change could include recommendations for the use of Spanish language hotlines and reading materials to provide care, knowledge, and medication information assistance.</p>

<p> This study examined the role of guilt among Latino first generation college students and their educational journey as they leave their family and community to pursue higher education. For first generation college students, going to college is breaking away from the norm of not going to college, which for many family members who have no college experience, they cannot understand the reason why their loved one is separating themselves from their close nit family and community. This notion of leaving their family and community behind can elicit feelings of guilt for not being physically available due to distance or the demands of being a college student. This study looked at the lived experience of six participants and their feelings of guilt. The conceptual framework used was a combination of Critical Race Theory and Survivor Guilt to fully understand the stories of the six participants. This qualitative study used was a narrative design to fully understand the lived experiences. </p><p> The findings revealed that guilt was caused when the participants put their needs before the needs of their family and attended college. Another significant finding was that for the females in the study, they all stated that guilt was brought on due to the physical distance between them and their families. As for the males who left home to go to college, they felt financially guilty for either causing financial problems at home or not being able to support their family with the bills. This study is intended to bring forth the guilt that Latino first generation college students face from leaving home and how colleges should be aware. This study also address recommendations for policy and practice that can better support Latino first generation college students and their families at home and in a college setting.</p>

<p> The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine Latinas' access to Advanced Placement/Honors courses in a Catholic female single-sex high school and to examine their experiences and perspectives when they are granted or denied access into an AP/Honors course. This study also aimed to explore how the Catholic single-sex high school is aligned with the Catholic, single-sex, and Advanced Placement advantage for Latina students who have been granted or denied access to an Advanced Placement/Honors course. The case study focused on one Catholic all-female high school in the Western United States and participants included Latina current students and alumnae (n=11), the high school principal (n=1), and teachers (n=2) from the school. Data was collected via document review, the gathering of descriptive data, as well as participant interviews. The theoretical framework used to analyze this data was a blend of Critical biculturalism, Chicana feminist theory, as well as the principles of Catholic social teaching. Findings highlight a fairly exclusive AP/Honors placement process with unclear guidelines to be followed in order to appeal a decision. Latinas' experiences range from feeling like outsiders and being made to feel not good enough, to feeling competitive and being resilient. Their perspectives on why they decided to appeal the decision of their placement had to do with their feeling that they had the capacity for advanced work, their driven nature, and their desire to be exposed to more learning. Further, perspectives also emerged concerning the school's sisterhood and its influence on issues of race and class. In regards to alignment with the Catholic, single-sex, and AP advantage the data illustrates that while participants seemingly agree that there are advantages, they are also cognizant of other factors that overshadow these advantages.</p>

<p>This dissertation is a variationist sociolinguistic analysis of the variable word order and prosody of copular constructions (<i>Nicol&aacute;s es </i> <i><b>feliz</b></i> versus <i><b>Feliz</b></i> <i> es Nicol&aacute;s</i>, <i>Es Nicol&aacute;s</i> <i><b> feliz</b></i>, <i>Es</i> <i><b>feliz</b></i> <i> Nicol&aacute;s</i>, &lsquo;Nicolas is <b>happy</b>&rsquo;) in the Spanish of first- and second-generation Spanish-English bilinguals in New York City (henceforth NYC). The data used for the study come from a spoken corpus of Spanish in NYC based on 140 sociolinguistic interviews (details of the corpus will be presented in Chapter Three). This dissertation addresses the question of whether second-generation bilinguals have a less flexible word order in Spanish as a result of their increased use of, and contact with, English, where a more fixed order prevails. </p><p> We will show that the informants in the present study, like their peers in Los Angeles and other parts of the US, exhibit a more rigid word order compared to their first-generation peers. We have established that this increase in rigidity of word order among the second-generation can be attributed in large part to their increased use of and contact with English. The studies mentioned above have interpreted their results to mean that these speakers are losing or have lost the discourse pragmatic constraints that govern word order. However, the data here show that the first- and second-generation speakers in the present study share many of the same conditioning variables and constraints for word order, although these variables appear to account for a smaller amount of variance among the second-generation. In this way, we have established that the second-generation is not losing the discourse pragmatic constraints that govern word order, but that they are differently sensitive to these constraints. In fact, we show that second-generation speakers are very capable of communicating the pragmatic functions that the first-generation speakers do using word order because they maintain the prosodic details of their first-generation counterparts. In other words, the second-generation communicates these functions in ways that are slightly different from the first-generation, relying more on prosodic resources than syntactic ones. Furthermore, the data indicate that their prosodic patterns are not modeled after the prosody of English. In general terms we show that the second-generation does not have a different grammar from their first-generation counterparts, as is claimed by other researchers. Instead we show that these speakers favor certain first-generation strategies over others. </p>

<p> At a critical time in educational transformation, NCLB incorporated the notion that parents would assume power and engage with schools around this monumental shift for accountability concerning the success of all students. Now the Every Student Succeeds Act, which reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, upholds this task and calls for parent and family engagement in district and school improvement processes and the development of parent and family engagement policies. Traditional notions of parental engagement have rarely addressed partnerships for educational reform and policy change (Cooper, 2009). Furthermore, narratives regarding parents of color are dominated by a deficit discourse of what families &ldquo;lack,&rdquo; described as, &ldquo;empty vessels&rdquo; that need to be &ldquo;filled&rdquo; with knowledge to be able to engage in schools like their White middle-class counterparts (Lightfoot, 2004).</p><p> This qualitative study examines a counternarrative definition of parental engagement according to Latino parents in a particular community in which White privilege contributes to and perpetuates the marginalization and continued exclusion of particular groups. I employed a critical race methodology to focus on the lived experience of Latino families through counterstory that challenges the dominant narrative created and sustained by White privilege and traditional White educational discourse.</p><p> Findings in this study centered on Latino families&rsquo; limited access to the school, school programs, and institutional knowledge and power; systemic barriers maintained by White privilege; the cultural funds of knowledge and expertise of Latino parents as educators and advocates; a critique of the system from participants&rsquo; perspectives; and recommendations participants had for change in current practice. Through the findings, major implications for practice surfaced, including an examination and elimination of systemic barriers, the use of counterstory to disrupt deficit narratives of families of color, and educators&rsquo; and educational leaders&rsquo; utilization of practices to structure venues for authentic dialogue for reform.</p>

<p> Of the research on work-life balance and on the challenges facing women in the workplace, few studies have focused on the impacts of professional business trade associations on career outcomes and the development of work-life balance strategies with a Latina population. This phenomenological study explores the life experiences of Latinas to understand the challenges they encounter in their careers and in their aspirations for career advancement. The study applied the life-story framework (Giele, 2008), which offered questions from the four life course dimensions: identify, relational style, motivation and adaptive style. A question was added to this framework for this study with the intent to explore the strategies that women employ to achieve work-life balance in their life (Weber, 2011). Additionally, the study sought to obtain insight into how professional business trade associations, such as the Association of Latino Professionals For America (ALPFA), facilitate forming relationships that create support systems and strategies for managing careers, families and the demands of their communities. The participants (15) were selected from career Latinas who are currently employed or self-employed and actively engaged in leadership roles within the professional business trade association ALPFA. NVivo software was utilized to perform the analysis. The findings indicate that as Latinas they identified with their family and culture. They relied on their family support and that of mentors and networks for learning how to navigate their career choices beginning with college. Career goals were driven by their family socioeconomic situation, family feelings about education, and a strong desire to be successful. Active engagement in leadership roles is attributed to providing opportunities for growth, mentorship, and career advancement. Lastly, the women shared several strategies such as exercise, earning trust in the workplace, support circles, and setting priorities for coping with work-life balance.</p>

<p> This study focused on the perceptions of 16 Latina students regarding their cultural school climate as well as the thoughts of two administrators and six teachers at an all-female Catholic high school. Students revealed that, while they felt very supported by the school&rsquo;s faculty and administration, they revealed that their culture was not fully embraced and/or represented in their educational curriculum and school&rsquo;s practices. Students also alluded to deliberately choosing and valuing to spend their free time with their family over their classmates. Further, they felt disconnected from their school&rsquo;s mission, which emphasized sisterhood among students. Furthermore, bicultural students provided a unique perspective often not fitting the Latina and/or dominant culture at the school.</p>

<p> This study compared and contrasted product placements found in two different pop music markets in the United States: the American Hot 100 Billboard charts and the American Hispanic Hot Latin Billboard charts. It determined there are numerous product placements in the current music video market. Also, differences were found between the types of products in a video and the artists and record labels using those products in videos. A majority of the videos had male artists performing in them. Artists were analyzed based on their genders, ethnicity, and the number of performers in the ensemble. Product placements were also analyzed by the way the products were placed in the music video: background, in use by a character, or connected to the story shown on screen. The study related the theory of the social construction of reality to the product placements present in popular music videos.</p>

<p> Low-income Hispanic women are the fastest growing minority population in the United States, and they have increased risks of obesity and secondary health issues, such as diabetes, related to their obesity. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the barriers to lifestyle change among obese, low-income Hispanic women (OLHW). A health belief model lens was used. The study sample consisted of 15 OLHW who were clinic patients and ranged in age from 20-59. Recruitment occurred in a low-income, Southern California, outpatient clinic setting through volunteer participation from recruitment flyers. Fifteen women took part in 1-hour, in-depth interviews, which were digitally audio-taped with their consent. All interviews were transcribed and analyzed using both NVivo 11, and hand coding to identify common themes after word frequency and concept frequency analysis. Common themes identified included barriers of cost, time, physical health, family care, location, knowledge and education, depression and stress, and sleep issues. These findings contribute to the existing literature by increasing public health researchers&rsquo; and program planners&rsquo; knowledge of the experiences and obesity-related barriers to health behavior change within this underrepresented minority group, which can provide guidelines for future public health interventions in addressing these barriers. Obesity reduction efforts may help increase quality of life and create a new paradigm of public health interventions based on the stated needs of OLHW.</p>