The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV) of the American Psychiatric Association, has provided data on prevalence rates for ADHD in children; however, the definition and behavioral characteristics listed are from a population of largely White non-Hispanic participants. ADHD children and adolescents are commonly described as having persistent difficulties with inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity. Additionally, numerous studies have examined the comorbid diagnoses found in children with ADHD. For example, research has shown that the comorbidity percentages range from 27% to 49% for anxiety disorders to 9% to 32% for mood disorders. Since the vast majority of prevalence, assessment and treatment studies have focused mainly on White non-Hispanic children, there has been an increasing interest in the field on the contribution of gender and ethnicity to the frequency of the diagnosis of ADHD (e.g., Arnold, 1996). With the ever-changing and evolving ethnic composition of our schools, the challenges of competent assessment for all children becomes an increasingly important issue. Compared to previous years children of diverse cultural backgrounds currently comprise one third of all children enrolled in public schools (U.S. Department of Education, 1998-99). The purpose of the present study was to determine the relationship between the diagnosis of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and ethnicity in a sample of children and adolescents referred to two geographically different mental health clinics. Data were collected from these clinics and evaluated using chi-square and multi-way frequency analysis. Significant relationships were evaluated with a multiple comparison Least Significant Difference (LSD) post-hoc analysis. It was determined that both samples were significantly different (p < .05) in their make-up when compared to U.S. Census figures for each relevant region. Additionally, when evaluating comorbid conditions, there were no age group x gender interactions for Hispanic, White non-Hispanic, and other groupings. There was, however, a significant finding for the African American males 5 to 10 years of age, who were identified at a significantly higher rate to their sample representation for conduct disorder. We have found that gender and ethnic grouping accounts for much of the interaction effects seen in this study and the literature as a whole, however, until that literature provides more information on comorbidity and ethnicity, there is little that can be done to improve the current analysis.

Retention, persistence and graduation rates are not new issues in higher education. Early research by Tinto (1975), Bean (1980), and Pascarella (1980) illustrated the importance of retention and the different methods by which it can be analyzed. These theories, although widely cited and read, account for less than 30% of the variance in departure rates (Astin, 1993). Much of the retention research on African American students has focused on utilizing dominant retention theories to investigate Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in attempts to explain or explore the relationship between these students and the institutions (Cabrera, Nora et al., 1999; Person, 1990; Person and Christensen, 1996). The purpose of this study is to push the boundaries of the understanding of African American student retention. The expansion of these boundaries is accomplished in three ways: (1) providing institutions information to help facilitate the graduation of African American students, (2) providing a cross-sectional analysis of demographic characteristics of students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities versus Predominantly White Institutions, and (3) offering new perspectives on retention of African American students utilizing the institution as the unit of analysis. The goals of this project were accomplished by utilizing African American student culture as a lens for viewing the results of this research, a current retention model applied to African American students from a unique set of matched institutions.

Hispanics are the largest and fastest growing minority group in the United States. Puerto Ricans are the second largest Hispanic group. As a result, research on Puerto Rican educational attainment has received increasing attention over the years. However, some areas of their educational experience remain virtually unexamined. This study explores Puerto Rican high school students' educational ideologies. It seeks to uncover students' attitudes and responses toward education as well as their postsecondary education attitudes, perceptions, and choices. It examines differences based on class, birthplace, and gender. This study finds that an education is perceived to be a necessity and believed to be the best route to gain a comfortable middle class lifestyle. It was found that a high school education was not enough to guarantee success and that a postsecondary education was critical to reach their personal and professional goals. Furthermore, differences in the utility of 4-year and 2-year colleges are discussed.

The determinants of foreign language enrollment in U.S. colleges and universities were modeled for ten study years between 1960 and 1998. The units of analysis were at two different geographic scales: the state and EA (Economic Area) levels. Developmental characteristics, foreign language study requirements, and foreign language availability were found to be the strongest determinants of absolute foreign language popularity, measured as the percentage of all college students in a given geographic area who study a foreign language. Demographic and geographic characteristics were found to be the strongest determinants of relative foreign language popularity, or the percentage of all foreign language students enrolled in a particular foreign language. Supply-side factors were of equal importance with demand-side factors in determining absolute foreign language popularity, but demand-side factors predominated in regards to determining relative foreign language popularity. Spanish displayed a distinctive pattern of determinants, consonant with its outsize share of enrollments.

If you had a choice to be in an environment that ignored you and made you feel insecure and inferior, or one that affirmed your individuality, your identity, and made you feel welcome, which one would you choose? This study is about such decisions. "Stories from the Heart: Youth Narratives on Alternative Schooling Experiences" seeks to understand the social and educational conditions that lead growing numbers of "minoritized" youth to enter alternative education settings. The term minoritized refers to youth who have been disenfranchised educationally by the systemic interactions of socio-economic, socio-political, and linguistic forces that structure their everyday experiences; however, they are not necessarily minority in a numerical sense. It is my premise that these structures of feeling frame how these youth experience living in a modern world with competing interests and how they negotiate multiple subjectivities and identities. Increasing concerns about standards, safety, and accountability in American public education have given rise to a growing number of alternative school settings. Students arrive at these schools largely due to culminating negative experiences. The reasons range from school failure due to academic and/or behavior problems, poor home-school communication, excessive truancy, social alienation and juvenile delinquency to those motivated students who are working full-time to accomplish life goals in the fastest way possible. At many of these alternative schools, Hispanic/Latino and other minoritized students comprise a majority of the student body. As a teacher in the alternative-charter school where this research took place, the qualitative methods utilized revealed some surprising results. Although the data confirmed some prior findings in research on alternative schools, the results of this study bring forth new understandings of and possibilities for the education of disengaged youth. This study confirms that minoritized students enrolling in alternative education settings have a historical and enduring dissatisfaction with traditional public schools. And yet, provided with a more positive schooling experience, minoritized youth express genuine excitement for learning and even came to view school as a congenial environment. They profess learning more "than in any other school" in both academic lessons and the moral education of enhanced life skills. Grounded in Critical Theory and understanding of a caring approach to schooling, this study espouses the need for "love" in schooling as a pathway for positive educational change and revolutionary social transformation.

Criminal Alienation: Arizona Prison Expansion 1993-2003 argues that border militarization and the criminalization of Latino immigrants has increasingly driven Arizona prison expansion between 1993 and 2003. It identifies four policy shifts that have reversed decarceration trends in the state's prison growth over this ten year period, resulting in the emergence of an expanding "border-prison system". The project both enacts and argues in favor of a politically participatory cultural studies methodology, guided by a post-structuralist Marxist theoretical approach stressing interdependencies between political economic processes and subject formation. Criminal Alienation offers an intervention in the field of cultural studies, arguing for the foregrounding of state repression in the study of capital and social power relations. It also contributes to the field of prison studies with an analysis of the role of U.S. immigration policy, narratives of immigration, and the social production of "criminal alien" and "consenting citizen" identities in the expansion of the contemporary prison industrial complex. The case studies in Criminal Alienation center on narratives and practices surrounding the emergence of immigrant-only prisons, both state and federal, in Arizona. The project analyzes a variety of repressive state practices and narratives, identifying the ways in which the effects of state coercion are manifested in the social reproduction and reiteration of the border-prison system as well as the ways that these effects shape networked abolitionists struggles in and beyond the region. Finally, Criminal Alienation identifies the Arizona-Sonora border region as a significant front in the struggle for prison abolition by delineating historical and contemporary linkages between abolitionist resistance strategies and practices and the emergence of collaborative, socially transformative visions of community-based development, led by the communities most adversely affected by coercive state practices.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the prayers, addresses, memorials, legal briefs, testimony and delegations of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa exemplified Edward Said's insight that "nations themselves are narrations." Their legal struggle for land and sovereignty derived from "the power to narrate" their own side of the story. This tribal case study confirms that the Turtle Mountain Chippewa are a powerful people with a compelling history. An adherence to the Native viewpoint is required to re-examine the formulation and implementation of nineteenth century federal Indian policy. This more inclusive approach can help everyone gain a broader perspective on the history of European American/American Indian relations.

This dissertation examines the political and educational perspectives regarding English Language Learner (ELL) education. The broad context is the state of Arizona between 2000 and 2004. The specific context is the community of Rio Verde, a border town in Arizona. The data for this study consisted of a document review and analysis and interviews. The document review was of public documents. The interviews were with 10 study participants from the community of Rio Verde consisting of teachers, administrators, former students, and parents. The document analysis revealed two distinct positions regarding the education of ELL students; those in favor of English-only policies and practices and those against English-only policies and practices. The study participants from Rio Verde focused on beliefs about bilingualism and binationalism, immigration, the local history of ELL education, systemic inequities, and the role of the teacher in ELL education. Implications from this study that may be used to inform ELL policy and practice included: effective methodologies for ELL students based on educational research, collaboration in language policy development, placing value on the local context and history, discussion, reflection, and research as decision-making, and, teacher education programs' focus on ELL education.

This study argues that the development of individual choice in marriage markets has led to an increase in interracial marriage and an accompanying decline in racial boundaries. I first establish the importance of individual choice in interracial marriage. I do this by examining the persistent tendency for interracial marriage to be engaged in substantially more often by men in some racial-ethnic groups, and by women in others. I propose that a within-group mismatch of gender attitudes and an across-group matching of gender attitudes leads individuals to seek partners across racial lines. A national U.S. probability sample reveals that there are both significant differences in gender attitudes between each of the racial groups, as well as sex gaps in attitudes within each of the groups. Further, the cross-racial pairings for which the gender attitude gaps are smallest are also those for which interracial marriage is highest. Next, I examine the importance of women's employment for the weakening of racial boundaries. Previous research has established that increases in an ethnic group's occupational heterogeneity weaken ethnic solidarity for members of the group. Since occupations are highly sex segregated, increases in women's employment tend to increase an ethnic group's occupational heterogeneity, and hence weaken ethnic group solidarity. I confirm this hypothesis by finding that employed women are significantly more tolerant of interracial marriage than are married women. Last, I find that modernization is also associated with tolerance toward interracial marriage.

Assimilation has been used as a tool by the federal government to further its colonial enterprise. Through assimilationist policies, the federal government gained land and resources from Indian people. The codification of a definition of "Indian" in the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) was intended to limit the number of people to whom the federal government owed a unique political and financial relationship. The application of a definition of "Indian," based on blood-quantum standards, was an attempt to assimilate Indian people out of their Indian identity and into mainstream society where they are not party to the federal relationship. The legislated definition, which differs from tribes' customs and values regarding membership, has had several effects. The definition has affected tribes' abilities to be fully self-determining and issues of "membership" have created divisions within tribes and among Indian people. This paper examines the history of blood-quantum definitions and the long-term effects of and reactions to those definitions within Indian communities.