ABSTRACT In the United States, Hispanics have the same prevalence of mental illness as any other group however researchers have found that they are less likely to seek mental health services. This population’s lack of mental health utilization is due to various barriers hindering the population’s need for help, a substantial for social work practitioners. To better understand the factors that lead up to that, the current study explored and identified perceptions toward seeking and receiving mental health services among Hispanic members. Using a qualitative data collection, ten participants were interviewed to elicit their perceptions about mental health services ranging from what they believed addressed their lack of seeking services and what they thought about services. Data analysis revealed five core themes among the participants’ responses: Closeness to Family as a reason for people not seeking professional help. Another theme found was environment as a reason for Mental Illness making them feel that there is no need to seek services since they can simply remove the environmental stressor and the illness will seize to exist. Existing support systems were found such as involvement in church as a form of therapy, they talked about their faith providing them a form of support for stressors. Shared culture was a theme that was found to be a necessity for therapy, they felt they did not seek services because they felt mental health practitioners would not validate their culture. The final theme was access and that theme encompassed : not knowing mental health services existed in their community, to lack of Spanish speaking clinicians. The recognition of these themes could potentially guide social work practitioners’ when they are trying to engage the Hispanic community to receive mental health services. Social workers can be aware of the obstacles toward engaging this population into professional therapy, by having an understanding of what they believe about therapy and helping to alleviate or use some of those perceptions as a form of engagement and validating existing strengths that the population has causing them to feel professional services are not needed.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 2008. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-102). Also available on the World Wide Web.

A social issue of great importance in contemporary society is the involvement of youth in gangs. Youth involvement in gang activity has dominated the national media and the minds of public policy makers in contemporary society. In this thesis I examine how Latino and Chicano youth sub-culture, language, dress, and style, has been first, misinterpreted and secondarily reconstructed, as a criminal subculture by public policy makers, local law enforcement officials, public school administrators, and the general public. The construction of Latino and Chicano youth subculture as criminal has occurred through the process of labeling. In this process culture and crime have become intertwined where specific cultures and their members are perceived and then reclassified as criminal subcultures. This thesis provides a case study of the process of labeling in a community located in the Pacific Northwest. The community where this research project was conducted has undergone tremendous fluctuations in its population demographics. These changes have led to underlying tensions and conflicts between the various ethnic and linguistic groups represented in the community. It is within this context that the issue of youth gangs must be analyzed. The specific purposes of thesis are to: provide the theoretical framework to view the social discourse of youth gangs; document and analyze the community context which has contributed to the emergence of the social discourse of youth gangs; to document how culture, style, and crime have become intertwined to inaccurately characterize Latino and Chicano youth sub-culture as gang culture; to document and analyze how the social discourse of youth gangs has been constructed as a moral panic; and to provide possible solutions from applied anthropology. / Graduation date: 2002

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Full text release at OhioLINK's ETD Center delayed at author's request

Thesis (M.A.)--Bowling Green State University, 2009. / Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 166 p. : 1 map. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Kent State University, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Oct. 29, 2009). Advisor: Steve Michael. Keywords: Hispanic Faculty; Predominantly White Universities; Sense of Place; Hispanic Faculty Retention. Includes bibliographical references (p. 438-454).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Arlington, 2009.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Supervisor: Jill Dolan. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also avialble from UMI.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2003. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-78). Also available on the Internet.