Within the broader context of the representation of Latinas in higher education, the purpose of this study is to investigate the post-secondary aspirations of Latinas who were involved in a community-based folklórico program. In addition, this study seeks to understand how participating in folklórico programs can influence the college and career aspirations of Latinas, if at all. Finally, this study examines the skills developed by participating in folklórico programs that are transferable to education and career goals or life in general. The theoretical framework of this study was Yosso’s (2005) concept of community cultural wealth and included the expansion of community cultural wealth by Rendon, Nora, and Kanagala (2014). The method of this study was an instrumental case study using individual semi-structured interviews, a focus group, and document analysis to collect data. The findings of this study described the influence of participation in community-based folklórico programs for Latinas, and the development of transferable skills. This study informs educational leaders about the importance of developing pathways to college for folklórico participants that are equipped with the skills, qualities, and capital necessary to be successful in higher education.

Latinas are at risk for not engaging in optimal exercise and are at greater risk than other ethnic groups for being overweight and suffering deleterious health consequences. The current study’s researcher utilizes pedometers, exercise logs, surveys, and participatory photography to determine exercise motivators and barriers to exercise among Latinas. The specific aims of the presented research were to identify predictors of exercise, to investigate the relationship between motivation types, self-determination and acculturation among Latinas, and employ participatory photography methodology to better understand Latina’s exercise motivators and barriers. The methodology included both quantitative and qualitative methods. Exercise motivation types (Amotivation, Extrinsic, Intrinsic) using the Behavioural Regulation in Exercise Questionnaire-2 (BREQ-2), an exercise log and pedometer step counts were collected from 169 Latinas. Acculturation and demographic variables including income, education, and number of children were also collected. Each Latina met with the researcher to complete the BREQ-2, receive her exercise log and pedometers and to return her exercise logs. A sub-sample of 19 Latinas responded to semi-structured questions about exercise and photographed their exercise motivators and barriers. Results showed that the more acculturated to American culture, the fewer steps on average per day were recorded by participants. Demographic variables were not significant predictors of exercise. Motivation type was not found to predict exercise (recorded steps per day). The Intrinsic regulation subscale, ‘I value the benefits of exercise,’ of the BREQ-2 had the highest mean score (m = 3.28, SD = .83). Participants in the qualitative phase of the study defined exercise as physical activities done for the purpose of exercising involving a set of physical and emotional effects. Exercise motivators identified through qualitative semi-structured interviews were classified as either Extrinsic or Intrinsic with the most frequently commented on being the Extrinsic category. Exercise barriers that emerged from the data were classified into a) competing obligations, b) personal limitations, c) environmental limitations, and d) competing diversions. Cultural aspects influencing Latinas’ exercise also emerged from the data classified into the following categories: a) job stress, b) changing family roles, c) fast food availability, and d) transportation. The findings of this study suggest avenues for interventions that are family-centered and culturally-tailored based on education of what constitutes exercise. Exercise motivation is a complex issue for Latinas, and future researchers need to examine the mechanisms of becoming more Americanized that may adversely affect Latinas’ activity levels. The concept and measurement of Identified regulation may need to be revised before its further use among Latinas in addressing the significant health disparity attributable to sub-optimal exercise.

Quantitative and qualitative data from the 2002 Latino Adolescent Transition Study were used to explore differences in acculturative stress and gang involvement between foreign-born and U.S.-born Latino middle school students. Regression analyses showed significant interactions between discrimination stress and immigration status as well as adaptation stress and immigration status. U.S.-born youths were significantly more likely to be gang-involved if they experienced discrimination stress. They were also less likely to be gang-involved if they experienced high adaptation stress. A minority of primarily foreign-born youths identified economic inequality and prejudicial attitudes as factors that differentiated them from Americans. Those reporting economic inequality were more likely to be gang-involved than those who did not. These findings suggest that the origins of gang involvement could differ between the two immigrant generations. Whereas U.S.-born Latinos may be more negatively affected by discrimination, foreign-born Latinos may be more sensitive to their comparatively low economic status.

Latina survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) experience IPV at similar rates as other ethnic groups. However, the intersection of multiple cultural factors, including acculturation, can greatly influence a woman’s experience of IPV. For example, research suggests that Latinas experience unique forms of control and unique barriers to service in addition to positive coping. Nevertheless, a scarcity of culturally relevant interventions plagues the IPV field. Moreover, evaluations of such programs are remarkably scarce in the research literature. The current study evaluates an innovative peer leadership intervention, the Líderes program, which is grounded in a self-empowerment framework. The Líderes program is a peer education leadership initiative that taps into the natural leadership skills of Latinas. Although the effectiveness of similar peer leadership models addressing public and occupational health concerns, education outcomes, and nursing leadership can be found in the literature, this is the first documented attempt to include survivors of IPV as participants in such a program. The study used a mixed methods design. The quantitative component included a multiple baseline research design including nine participants. The survey measured variables related to leadership development and a facilitator rating was utilized to measure behavioral change. The qualitative component included analysis of journals written by the participants documenting their experience of the program. Results revealed that the Líderes curriculum was effective in influencing the self-empowerment of participants across the intrapersonal, interactional, and behavioral domains of leadership. The qualitative results supported this finding and provided evidence for the important role of a supportive environment for this change to occur. The Líderes training program is the first training program for Latina community leaders who are also survivors of IPV. This study highlights the advantages of a peer-intervention training program as a way to develop existing strengths among Latina survivors of IPV.

This dissertation presents the results from an empirical study of the perspectives of Latina students who were underperforming in an early college high school (ECHS), regarding their academic performance and school experiences. These students' perceptions were used to assess the viability of the ECHS as a policy intervention to prepare first generation and students of color for college. Qualitative methods were employed specifically interviews, prolonged engagement, document analysis, observations and student journals. Freedoms to achieve, unfreedoms, and deformed choices were used as the conceptual frameworks guiding the analyses of the study. Analyses revealed a school which promoted meritocratic notions of achievement, despite social justice foundations. These meritocratic ideals suggest that students are largely responsible for their academic performance and achievement. That is, the school discourse promotes a stance of a level playing field-such that opportunity to achieve is available and all students should be free and able to take advantage of these opportunities. However, interviews with the students and prolonged engagement in the setting revealed elements of the students' lives (such as outside employment and/or responsibilities) which work to derail student performance, despite individual effort. These unfreedoms often disallow students from taking advantage of freedoms, or opportunities to achieve, that the school provides. Unfreedoms may force students to make deformed choices-that is, choices they would not make if unfreedoms did not exists. Results suggest without consideration of the real lives of students and families, and without consideration of how students perceive their performance and school experiences, schools can expect little change in student outcomes. Moreover, as a social justice policy intervention, early college high schools have a greater obligation to consider students' authentic lived experience. My findings suggest the early college program was designed with good intentions, however, as a policy intervention it is not as effective as it could be. The program comes from the perspective that opportunities (or freedoms) to achieve-which the school provides-are accessible to all students. Unfortunately, this limited perspective naively ignores the constraints (or unfreedoms) students face in their lives. Unfreedoms are often unavoidable, and tend to undermine students' progress toward high academic performance. Recommendations include suggestions to increase students' authentic freedoms to achieve through policy, practice and research.

Research on differences in STEM outcomes for females and students of color has been an ongoing educational research imperative, but Latinas continue to be under-represented in high school and college science classes and majors (National Science Foundation, 2011; Riegle-Crumb & King, 2010). The aim of this study was to investigate how Latina adolescents seek to establish themselves as future scientists within their environments and how others help sustain these developing identities. I used a mixed method procedure called an exploratory sequential design that starts with a qualitative stage followed by a quantitative stage (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007). In the qualitative stage, 32 college-aged Latinas in science majors participated in focus groups with an additional 12 in interviews. Using Interactive Qualitative Analysis (Northcutt & McCoy, 2004), eight factors of science identity development were identified: home environment, teacher influences, school experiences, environmental factors, media influences, using your brain, emotions, and career planning. Participants saw the first four factors as drivers of their development, with media as an irregular contributor. These social factors were filtered through the individual factors of using your brain and emotions, with career planning as the outcome. The qualitative results were used to develop a survey given to middle school students in the next stage. The majority of the survey consisted of previously validated scales that corresponded in content to the qualitative factors. One new measure was developed to address science-related experiences. In the quantitative stage, 90 middle school Latinas from two central Texas school districts participated in the survey study. Univariate analysis showed differences in science-related experiences by demographic variables of parent occupation, parent nativity, first language spoken, and school district. Multivariate regression analysis found positive emotions about science to be the best predictor of science career related outcomes, and that emotions act as a mediator between science experiences and career outcomes. These results are discussed in light of current career theories. / text

En la etapa post-independista (hispano)americana, momento en que comienzan a gestarse las naciones principalmente bajo el modelo republicano francés y estadounidense, emergen los primeros embates al latín y a su uso en el ámbito pedagógico. En este marco de profundos cambios, la cuestión educativa –como instrumento cívico– se convierte en un asunto estatal y los estudios clásicos, en particular de la lengua y la literatura latina, se resignifican en el marco de complejos enfrentamientos políticos e ideológicos. A lo largo de los distintos períodos históricos que se suceden en la construcción de las Estados-nación durante el siglo XIX en (Hispano)américa, la cultura clásica se perfila como un referente con el cual se establece una dinámica selectiva e intencionada, que oscila entre la persistencia y el cambio, en el proceso de configuración de una tradición cultural y discursiva. Asimismo, los grupos políticos y letrados a cargo de la organización del Estado sostuvieron, en el marco de un orden político y económico liberal, un sistema educativo secundario, que tuvo como función básica la formación de los individuos de la futura élite dirigente que accederían a una carrera universitaria y, desde esta plataforma, a cargos políticos y administrativos. En tal sentido, la producción de manuales escolares, y de gramáticas latinas en particular, como así también la inscripción en una tradición selectiva de cuño clásico, se encuentran sobredeterminadas por el valor simbólico que el latín comporta en el imaginario de los grupos letrados de la comunidad imaginada.

Quantitative and qualitative data from the 2002 Latino Adolescent Transition Study were used to explore differences in acculturative stress and gang involvement between foreign-born and U.S.-born Latino middle school students. Regression analyses showed significant interactions between discrimination stress and immigration status as well as adaptation stress and immigration status. U.S.-born youths were significantly more likely to be gang-involved if they experienced discrimination stress. They were also less likely to be gang-involved if they experienced high adaptation stress. A minority of primarily foreign-born youths identified economic inequality and prejudicial attitudes as factors that differentiated them from Americans. Those reporting economic inequality were more likely to be gang-involved than those who did not. These findings suggest that the origins of gang involvement could differ between the two immigrant generations. Whereas U.S.-born Latinos may be more negatively affected by discrimination, foreign-born Latinos may be more sensitive to their comparatively low economic status.

The purpose of this study is to provide a theoretical overview of how Latina gender-role beliefs are developed through cultural transmission and to review the components of the construct of Marianismo and its impact on gender-role beliefs. Marianismo is used to illustrate the influence of traditional Latino cultural beliefs on the gender-role identity of women and helps shape how they behave in private and social settings. Latinas (a term used throughout this manuscript to refer specifically to females of Hispanic or Latin American origin), who have stronger traditional values, potentially disregard their health, safety, and educational needs, which can have a serious impact on mental health and service use. To measure this phenomenon, a scale measuring Marianismo beliefs was created to assess how traditional Latina women behave in terms of their gender-role beliefs. This author aimed to revalidate that scale on an international sample in Mexico. The sample for this study included 454 women from different parts of Mexico. Confirmatory factor analysis of the MBS items supported the original five-factor loading. Consistent with the initial validation study, the MBS-I demonstrated high levels of reliability and validity. All five Marianismo dimensions exhibited convergent validity with the traditional gender role dimension of the Mexican American Cultural Values Scale (MACVS). The scale also demonstrated convergence with the overall score for enculturation as measured with the Latino/a Values Scale (LVS) instrument. Implications and recommendations for embracing cultural competence, improving help-seeking behaviors, and treatment suggestions are provided.

The purpose of this study was to 1) identify the pathways and strategies by which Latina administrators reach their positions within student affairs, 2) examine how the intersection of gender and ethnicity influence their leadership and 3) describe their leadership styles utilizing traditional models, or something unique to Latinas. As the number of Latinas enrolling in higher education continues to rise and outweigh those of their male counterparts, this knowledge can help inform current student affairs administrators about ways to recruit and increase the pipeline of Latinas prepared to assume administrative positions within higher education, particularly in student affairs. A naturalistic inquiry research method was employed utilizing both a feminist and Chicana feminist lens. The author interviewed 12 Mexican American women in the state of Texas who were employed at both public and private four-year institutions in the division of student affairs. Their positions ranged from that of Director to Vice President. Family and personal influences, education, university environment and external influences were identified as factors leading these administrators to their positions. Both gender and ethnicity were intertwined in who they are and how they lead. Components of the leadership styles employed by the women studied included those of constructed knowledge for effective leadership. Additionally, these women’s Latinidad shaped their leadership styles, operating from a collectivist orientation as experienced in the typical Chicana/o family versus an individualistic orientation typically espoused in an Anglo family. As our campuses experience Latino students enrolling in greater numbers, particularly women, it is important to ensure suitable numbers of Latina administrators who are able to advocate for these students.