Resource dependency arguments bring IT businesses and their strategic efforts to recruit, hire, train and retain women and minorities into the center of this study's analysis. In essence, organizations, like IT businesses, depend on their ability to control and solve external and internal resource dependencies (Pfeffer & Salancik 1978). In the case of IT businesses attempt to attract, develop and retain women and minority IT talent, this ability is dependent on the firm's link to the outside world. In this effort, IT businesses must interact with other organizations given the critical need for human resources. Hence, the environment is thus the critical factor in which IT businesses become dependent. Building on the works of Pfeffer and Salancik (1978) and DiMaggio and Powell (1983), considerable attention has been devoted to understanding organizational structures and behaviors and their responses to the environment in terms of resource dependencies. Grounded in institutionalists, interorganizationalists, neoinstitutionalists and bureaucratic control theorists' arguments, this dissertation provides evidence of four imperatives underlying the business of diversity : (1) enforcement imperative; (2) business imperative; (3) moral imperative and (4) pluralistic imperative. The multiple and distinctive imperatives determine, at least in part, whether and to what extent IT businesses adopt and implement strategies. Data collected for this study involved two phases. First, a mail survey of a random sample of 600 U.S. IT businesses stratified by employee sizes of equal proportion was conducted. The second phase of this study involved in-depth interviews with twenty-five human resources managers and executives focusing on factors that contribute to a firm's decision to implement a diversity strategy and structure as well as how they enter into and negotiate relationships with other organizations in order to obtain their diversity goals. Together, this multi-method approach provides data that predicts how environmental and organizational factors predict how IT businesses adopt and implement strategies and structures to recruit, hire, train and retain women and minority IT professionals.

The purpose of this study was to access a research population of self-identified student perpetrators of ethnoviolence in order to learn more about their motivations, their perspectives of self and others, and their considerations for making moral decisions. The study design was quantitative and qualitative in nature and relied on both statistical analysis and ethnographic field study methods. The research procedures consisted of three basic phases: theoretical applications, perpetrator sample identification, and in-depth interview administration and analysis. A perpetrator screening survey was developed based on an Ethnoviolence Severity Scale Model and administered to a class size sample of 340 students of which 306 responded. Survey findings indicated a surprisingly high percentage of students (27.2%) admitted to committing ethnoviolent behaviors across the severity model. A significant number of students also admitted to both verbally (36.3%) and physically threatening (18.0%) others on the basis of race or ethnicity. In addition, 15.0% were physically involved in an actual hate fight and 6.0% injured someone over an issue of race or ethnicity. The survey also yielded several statistically significant relationships based on gender as well as Greek membership and the perpetration of both multiple and individual acts of ethnoviolence. Using a weight-based scoring system, 8 survey respondents were selected for in-depth interviewing (6 perpetrators and 2 non-perpetrators). Using two schemes for coding responses developed by Lyons (1983), the predominant Relational Component for self-definition among perpetrators was Separate/Objective (91.4%). As a group, perpetrators were 11 times more likely to use this mode, whereas, non-perpetrators were 18 times more likely to use the Connected one. These findings indicate that the majority of perpetrators see themselves as separate versus connected to others and view relationships as part of obligations or commitments with societal duty and principles to uphold. In addition, the perpetrator subjects were found to consistently use (greater than 80%) the Morality as Justice versus Care construct when considering moral problems. Across conflict types, perpetrators were 3.3 times more likely to use the moral ideological concepts of rights and fairness versus the concepts of situational response and interpersonal relationships in their considerations for making moral decisions.

This dissertation examines the sexual dimensions of miscegenation and the effect that it had on the lives of three slave women, their children, and their white slave masters. Chapter 1 explores the historical dynamic concerning the issue of cross-racial relationships in the slave South. Chapter 2 will examine the black female experience under slavery and the dynamics that helped to shape their lives including the issues of race, class and gender. Although we are well aware of the exploitation of slave women, we will also examine how these women used “agency” to resist and to control their day-to-day lives. Chapter 3 revisits the lives of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, which continue to ignite questions concerning their relationship, despite the revelation of the DNA study published in 1998. We will explore Jefferson's behavior, not as a politician, but as a man confronted with issues and choices, as most men are, particularly when the choices concern affairs of the heart. Chapter 4 concerns the dynamics of love, miscegenation, and murder in the lives of George Wythe, Lydia Broadnax, his freed slave woman, and Michael Brown, Lydia's mulatto son. Equally as important is the relationship between Wythe and his closest friend and confidant, Thomas Jefferson, which causes us to question how much Wythe really knew about Jefferson's personal life, particularly with Sally Hemings. Chapter 5 explores the lives of Richard Mentor Johnson, Vice President under Martin Van Buren, his slave Julia Chinn and their two daughters, Imogene and Adalaine. By all standards, their relationship was unusual. Richard lived openly with Julia, his slave, and their children in defiance of the South's social customs and laws. Chapter 6 will conclude with a look back at the significance of resistance in the lives of slave women and how the issue of public vs. private helped to shape relationships that crossed the color line in the slave South. It will show how America historically looked at race and sexuality, and why the color line and cross-racial relationships continue to be a problem in the twenty-first century.

The study takes a grounded theoretical approach to the study of conflicted communication among adolescent youth in an inner city middle school. Ethnographic field methods were utilized over an eighteen month period in an inner city middle school and the surrounding neighborhoods. Conflicted communication is concerned with the use of patterned forms and content of conflict behaviors to both maintain and transform the youths' social world. It arises out of the social construction of adolescence, the institutional and community settings and familial practices. Three questions are posed: What are the patterned forms and content of adolescent conflicted communication? How does the school, community, and family make an impact on conflicted communication? What does the enactment of conflicted communication reveal about the social world of adolescent youth? Audiotapes of mediation sessions between youth, interviews with youth, school personnel, community members and families, as well as field notes comprise the primary data sources. Analyses of these data necessarily cross traditional boundaries to explore these research questions. Descriptive analyses reveal the presence of overarching patterned processes and particular repeated content in conflict situations. An interpretive analysis of 'face,' an often-mentioned symbolic theme, reveals the importance of taking the symbolic dimension into account in order to understand the hidden values inherent in conflicted communication practices. Lastly, a critical analysis examines the interplay between conflicted communication practices and the influence of the inner city institution and neighborhoods on such practices. Framing these three analyses is a meta-theoretical proposition regarding the social world of adolescent youth which suggests that adolescent youth engage in conflicted communication because it provides the means to re-organize social groupings, to experiment with displays and exercise of power, and to test the strength of socio-familial alliances. The study concludes with the suggestion that conflict resolution/mediation programs in schools consider the socio-cultural dimensions and functions of conflict in the lives of adolescents. Rather than striving to eliminate institutional conflict, school personnel need to encourage critical reflection about conflicted communication and help youth identify junctures within conflict situations where less destructive actions might be chosen.

This study assesses the family and social conditions that shape adults' interaction with siblings, emotional closeness among siblings, the nature and amount of their help exchange, and the compatibility of adult views on their shared sibling relationship. Analyses are based on three data sets: the 1986 version of the General Social Survey; an original study of caregiving, which included a follow-up telephone interview; and a mail questionnaire sent to adult siblings. Original respondents in the caregiving study who had at least one sibling (N = 198) were recontacted to determine the amount of help, level of closeness and frequency of interaction with all siblings in their family (N = 607). We received 248 return questionnaires out of 462 mailed from these "target siblings." In the GSS, we found that contrary to popular opinion, affectionate components of sibling ties do not inevitably eclipse practical ones. We also found that race significantly shaped the extent to which adults felt close and gave help to adult siblings. In our regional data, we learned that adults varied widely in their emotional closeness to siblings within their family; women exhibited greater range in closeness than did men. Adults' perceived compatibility of life views was a significant determinant of closeness with individual siblings. Adult siblings are also far more "practically present" in each other's lives than previously thought. While adults provide more help to parents than they do to siblings, they give relatively equal amounts of help to siblings as they do friends. Research findings also expanded our understanding of the role of parents, early in childhood and later in adult life, both ill and well. Adults who recalled a more cohesive early family life, and a parental emphasis on sibling unity, were closer to adult siblings than those who did not recall such emphases. Sibling favoritism bore no relationship to adult sibling closeness. Siblings with ill parents visited and telephoned each other less often, and felt less close, than sibling dyads with parents in good health. Finally, we observed that there is a striking amount of disagreement among sibling pairs on nearly every relationship dimension we measured.

This dissertation examines the ways that pollution taboo affects the life experience of Romany Gypsy women. A cultural analysis is made upon ethnographic data gathered from the Romany Gypsy community in Boston, Massachusetts, combining theories of embodiment with the Scheper-Hughes and Lock (1987) "three bodies" critical-interpretive model. Marime, as this taboo is known locally, is experienced as fear, shame and disgust and conceptualized in terms of top/bottom or inside/outside body symbolism which categorizes by analogy the sacred from profane, e.g., Gypsy and Gajo or non-Gypsy. This understanding leads to social praxis which is shown to affect the quality of Gypsy women's lives in personal, social and political domains. Since marime is a bodily experence which is predicated upon pre-existing cultural discourses and results in social action this analysis supports the theoretical view that the body is the ground of culture.

Citizenship education is a traditional tool for establishing the roles that newcomers are expected to take on as citizens. As such it is shaped by assumptions of what defines "good citizenry." Although it is commonly assumed that a good citizen participates in the political and social life of the community, notions of narrowly defined citizen participation such as voting have frequently prevailed in citizenship education programs. Opposing this restrictive tradition are empowerment-oriented citizenship education programs emphasizing a citizen participation that encompasses a view of citizenship as personal and community empowerment. This study examined the definitions, skills, and contexts of citizen participation in the words of the directors, facilitators, and participants of a Massachusetts community-based citizenship education program. Examples of how citizen participation was promoted through the curricula are offered. Internal and external challenges to the full participation of newcomers in their new society are also identified. Research strategies included multi-site case studies and historical and theoretical literature review. Data collection techniques included participant observation, interviewing, and document analysis. Research participants were found to be collectively creating varied and meaningful definitions of citizen participation. The citizenship education program examined was found to be contributing to the development of rationale, motivation, and skills for citizen participation by (a) providing opportunity for newcomers to investigate and connect historical and contemporary events; (b) facilitating the acquisition of critical tools including literacy, English, and information collecting and sharing skills; (c) providing support for the development of greater self esteem; and (d) offering opportunities to interact and act collectively within their local and greater communities. In the final chapter, the concept of critical civic literacy is discussed in the context of the research findings. Suggestions for empowerment-based citizenship education program development are offered. Citizenship education programs can make constructive use of participants' backgrounds as they begin the process of social, collective construction of the meaning of participatory citizenship.

This is a study of the social, cultural, political, and economic factors that shape the experience of HIV infection among a group of Latina and African American women living in the inner-city. By focusing on women's goals, the coping strategies and behaviors they adopt, and their perception of inner-city barriers the attempt is to delineate the broader interconnections between poverty, stress, disease, and coping among minority groups. A sample of 87 HIV+ Latina and African American women living in Hartford (CT) were interviewed. The research methods included semi-structured interviews, case study interviews, and ethnographic observations. With the majority of participants being single, unemployed, welfare-dependent, and living far below the poverty line, being infected compounded the economic marginalization they were experiencing. The contextualization of participants' lives within the inner-city revealed the synergistic presence of drug use, violence, poverty, and HIV/AIDS. After an HIV diagnosis, women described a process consisting of an initial phase of escalated drug use which was most often followed by a resolution to quit drugs. In coping with HIV/AIDS, women articulated goals and strategies that centered around reunification with their children and quitting drugs. But in attempting to achieve some of their goals, women were faced with a multitude of inner-city barriers. Foremost among them were the lack of money and the temptation to use drugs in neighborhoods replete with drug-distribution. Women utilized the coping resources at their disposal, namely religion, perceived support, self-esteem, and the support derived from partners. Important ethnic and generational differences were revealed in women's use of these coping resources, with African American women relying more on religion, perceiving and actually receiving more support, and having higher self-esteem, compared to the Latinas. Overall, women regarded their partners as the most important source of HIV-related emotional support. But in seeking this support, it became obvious that women's psychological and physical health was compromised because of the partner's drug use, violent behavior, and oftentimes HIV+ status. Finally, by focusing on women's access and experience with existing health and social services, it was clear that the nexus of class, gender, and minority status produced daily injustices that undoubtedly exacerbated women's HIV-related ill-health.

This study focuses on understanding the impact of the Cultural Identity Group (CIG) program on the racial/ethnic identity development of students who were involved in a sixteen-week program in an ethnically diverse middle school in New England. The program began in October 1996 and ended in May 1997. The cultural identity groups met once a week except during school holidays and vacation. This study was part of a larger project funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The Cultural Identity Group model on which this study is based was jointly developed and piloted in a Western Massachusetts Elementary School by Phyllis C. Brown, MMHS, Ernest Washington, Ed.D., Allen Ivey, Ed. D. and Mary Bradford-Ivey, Ed.D. Qualitative and quantitative measures were used to gather information about the impact of the Cultural Identity Group on the racial/ethnic identity development of the students as well as on their attitudes toward people from different racial/ethnic backgrounds. The Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure developed by Jean Phinney (1989) was used to assess students' ethnic awareness. Interviews conducted with a racially/ethnically diverse sample from the Cultural Identity Group provided evidence of the impact of CIG on the racial/ethnic identity of participants. The findings in this study demonstrated that students who participated in CIG gained a heightened sense of their racial/ethnic self as well as an increase in interethnic awareness. There was an emerging awareness of the pervasiveness of racism among participants in this study. Participants also gained skills to help them deal with and interrupt injustice. These skills included recognizing ethnic jokes and developing constructive, practical solutions for confronting racist behavior directed toward adolescents. The implications of this study concern students, and educators, as well as theories of adolescent development and racial identity development. Providing students structured environments in which to talk and learn about their own ethnic background, race and racism may have a positive impact on their racial/ethnic development which may promote better interethnic relationships in school. Any study of adolescent development must consider differences as well as similarities in adolescent development based on racial/ethnic factors. Future and current educators need to learn about theories of racial/ethnic identity and understand how it plays out in adolescents' lives and in school, in order to create school culture that affirms all students.

In an effort to increase our understanding of the experiences of multicultural caregivers, this study investigated factors that might be associated with depression among Black, Anglo, and Latino Alzheimer's Disease (AD) caregivers and analyzed how primary and mediating factors affect each group. Thirty Black, thirty-two Anglo, and thirty Latino participants were asked to report on their experiences as caregivers of Alzheimer's Disease patients. Income levels, size of households, size of social networks, elders' level of impairment, and use of formal services were characterized as primary factors. Participants' attitudes towards caregiving, their levels of competence and confidence in their caregiving roles, and their appraisal of the elders' problems were characterized as mediating factors. MANOVAs and ANOVAs were calculated to compare caregivers' experiences in terms of primary stressors and mediating factors. Results showed that Black and Anglo caregivers rated their primary factors similarly and, for most conditions, more positively than Latino caregivers. In terms of mediating factors: (1) Black and Anglo caregivers reported a more positive appraisal of their caregiving situation than Latinos; (2) Blacks reported significantly higher levels of competence and confidence in their role as caregivers than Latinos; and (3) Blacks and Latinos reported stronger adherence to norms of filial obligation than Anglos. Appraisal was found to be a significant predicting factor of depression among Black and Anglo caregivers and secondary stressors such as factors that were not directly associated with the caregiving situation (i.e. problems related to the caregivers' living situation) were found to be significant in predicting depression among Latino caregivers. In conclusion, when examining the experiences of multicultural groups of caregivers, one cannot make assumptions based on common beliefs and myths that have been attributed to particular ethnic groups. Furthermore, when examining the experiences of caregivers of AD patients, factors that might not be directly related to the caregiving relationship but that may affect the caregivers' health and subjective well-being, should also be taken into account.