The purpose of the study was to describe perceptions toward schools held by black parents of students granted racial balance transfers for 1978-1979 school year by Fort Wayne Community Schools administration officials. An attempt was made to discover if parental support for schools changed when children transferred from one school to another using racial balance transfers.Personal interviews were held with six randomly selected black parents of elementary students granted racial balance transfers for the purpose of generating questions for a parent questionnaire. Information secured from the interviews was compiled and placed into categories relative to administration, curricular offerings, quality of teaching, student progress, school environmental, school climate, and parental involvement. A questionnaire was developed from data gained from interviews with the parents. Black parents, two doctoral committee members, students enrolled in the doctoral seminar for research, and a selected jury for final editing examined the questionnaire for clarity, simplicity, and consistency in language. A Likert five-point scale labeled "strongly agree," "agree,"' "undecided," "disagree," and "strongly disagree," was utilized so parents could express strength of agreement or disagreement with questionnaire items. The questionnaire was mailed to the total Population of 232 black parents representing 337 elementary school students granted racial balance transfers. One-hundred twenty-four parents completed questionnaires.A computer program, Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), was chosen to generate raw data from returned questionnaires. Data were analyzed in an attempt to answer eleven research questions relative to black parent perceptions toward school.Parents perceived that predominantly black schools previously attended by black students equalled predominantly white schools in certain respects, such as, teacher expectation of students and fair dealings of principal and teachers with parents and students. Parents perceived that previous schools offered certain benefits over present schools, such as, more teachers were able to teach subjects so children could understand. Parents were generally favorable toward present schools attended by black children. Parents wire generally satisfied with previous school environments, but perceived present school environments as more desirable for black children.Black parents of students granted racial balance transfers did not become more involved in school activities. Slightly more than one-fourth of responding parents were active in present school PTAs; about 50 percent were active in previous school PTAs.About one-third of the respondents regarding previous schools and about one-half of the respondents regarding present schools did not feel encouraged to help plan and develop school programs and activities. Fewer than one-fourth of the respondents reported actual participation in planning and developing school programs and activities.Based on the findings and conclusions of the study, the following implications seem warranted:In view of the need for parent support for and financing of school programs, gaining support for schools from all parents seems imperative. School personnel should seek information about how black parents perceive schools and the administration of schools. Knowledge of parental perceptions about schools may be helpful to school authorities in the evaluation of racial issue postures and the handling of problems related to effective instruction.School principals and teachers need to be well grounded in sociology and psychology of various racial groups. While psychological effects of integrated school settings are important, black parents seem most concerned about the effects of integrated school settings on the academic success of black children.How well black students do in school may be directly related to how much teachers expect of students. When teachers set reasonably high expectations for students, students may conform to these high expectations. The selection of teachers and the attitudes of teachers toward students are important aspects to consider where black students are expected to do well.

At the end of the nineteenth century, Canada sought “desirable” immigrants to “settle” the Northwest. At the same time, nearly eight thousand members of the Dukhobori (commonly transliterated as “Doukhobors” and translated as “Spirit Wrestlers”) sought refuge from escalating religious persecution perpetrated by Russian church and state authorities. Initially, the Doukhobors’ immigration to Canada in 1899 seemed to satisfy the needs of host and newcomer alike. Both parties soon realized, however, that the Doukhobors’ transition would prove more difficult than anticipated. The Doukhobors’ collective memory of persecution negatively influenced their perception of state interventions in their private affairs. In addition, their expectation that they would be able to preserve their ethno-religious identity on their own terms clashed with Canadian expectations that they would soon integrate into the Canadian mainstream. This study focuses on the historical evolution of the “Doukhobor problem” in Russia and in Canada. It argues that the “problem,” commonly misunderstood by political and legal authorities as a law-and-order issue, was actually an extended identity struggle, both among Doukhobors of opposed factions, and between Doukhobors and state authorities in Russia and in Canada who insisted on conformity to social, economic, legal, and political “norms.” It uses the Doukhobors’ historical experience in Canada to showcase a wide spectrum of possible “newcomer” responses to the Canadian “host” society, drawing attention to subtleties which may be missed in the study of less extreme cases. Using orally articulated collective memory narratives and print journalism sources to access Doukhobor and Canadian identity perceptions, this study argues that newcomers’ impact on Canadian identity definitions predated the multicultural shift of the late 1960s and early 1970s. By pointing out the way in which immigrants such as the Doukhobors did, or did not, conform to (Anglo-) Canadian “norms” in public discourse, Canadians articulated their national identity perceptions in the early decades of the twentieth century. This study concludes that the “Doukhobor problem” could only be solved when the contested identity narratives and collective memories which were at the root of the Doukhobors’ discontent were publicly addressed in “truth and reconciliation” style symposia called in the 1970s and 1980s.

School connectedness, encompassing positive feelings toward teachers and peers and a sense of belonging at school, has been touted as a critical factor in promoting student achievement and reducing youth risk behaviors. The literature has been mixed in terms of understanding the relationship between race, racial congruence and school diversity’s influence on school connectedness, particularly for youth of color. The current study examines the effect of these variables on self reported feelings of school connectedness in a sample of 8,787 seventh grade students from 56 middle schools in one racially diverse school system. Multi-level modeling revealed that socioeconomic status and school racial diversity accounted for a significant portion of the variance in school connectedness. Controlling for these school level effects, race had a moderating effect on the relationship between racial congruence and school connectedness. Implications of these preliminary results on promoting school connectedness for youth of color are discussed.

This thesis argues that French Canada did not simply fragment into regional and provincial identities during the 1960s and 1970s, but was also kept afloat by the simultaneous emergence of a francophone supranational reference. In order to demonstrate this argument, I have studied the archives of the Richelieu movement, a French Canadian society founded in 1944 in Ottawa, which was internationalized in the hopes of developing relationships amongst the francophone elite around the world. This thesis also considers the process of democratization and the evolution of conceptions of altruism within the movement, signalling again the degree to which the global project of the Francophonie captivated the spirits of Francophones in North America, but also in Europe, the Caribbean and Africa. ~ Cette thèse démontre que le Canada français ne s’est pas seulement fragmenté en identités régionales et provinciales durant les années 1960 et 1970, mais qu’il a également été revitalisé par la constitution simultanée d’une nouvelle référence supranationale francophone. Afin de démontrer cette thèse, nous avons fait appel aux archives du mouvement Richelieu, une société canadienne‐française fondée à Ottawa en 1944, qui s’est internationalisée en vue de développer des rapports entre les élites francophones du monde. Cette thèse fait également quelques détours par la démocratisation et l’altruisme au mouvement pour illustrer à quel point le projet mondialisé de la Francophonie a captivé les esprits des francophones de l’Amérique du Nord, mais aussi ceux de l’Europe, des Antilles et de l’Afrique.

Medicare is vital to the health and well-being of many American seniors. However, due to its complexity, beneficiaries often need assistance navigating the federal health insurance system. GeorgiaCares, Georgia’s State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP), provides free and unbiased Medicare information and counseling. The aims of this thesis were to evaluate GeorgiaCares outreach events to discern the social and demographic characteristics of participants and decipher how to best market the events. Participants of nine GeorgiaCares outreach events (n=81) completed anonymous surveys; mixed-methods data analysis revealed the typical participant to be a 71-year-old African American female. Findings suggest an effective way to assist beneficiaries in Medicare-related decisions is through the formation of community partnerships. Suggestions to market outreach events include partnering with churches and grocery stores to disseminate information and enlisting the support of community leaders to overcome barriers of distrust.

After transformed, most scholars in Germany emphasized on Chinese political and economic issues, but they were deficient in Chinese minority ethnic issues. Professor Thomas Heberer works hard in the researches of Chinese politics and economics and he also focuses on the research of minority. In addition, he went to the area of Chinese minority earlier than other West Germany scholars. However, his research is not only witnessing the transformation of Chinese study of Germany but also creating another Chinese image. In the article, I will introduce the history of the development of Sinology in Germany firstly, and then discuss the development of Chinese study transformed. I will take Thomas Heberer as a case in this part, and then analyze his cultivation of Chinese study and how he created his agenda in the transition of environment. Third, I will figure out how he constructed his Chinese image and discuss his influence in Chinese research of Germany by analyze his publications. Finally, I will reconsider the role and evaluation of Thomas Heberer in the transition of Chinese research in Germany, and unfolded the meaning of Chinese research of minority ethnic study by his publications.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 196-204). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis--PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 1998. / Description based on microfiche version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Toronto, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 152-162).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 203-209).