Thesis (Ph.D.)--Brown University, 2008. / Vita. Advisor : K. Dian Kriz. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 328-356).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Antonia Darder. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 156-165) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

There are currently over two hundred Indian groups seeking recognition by Congress or the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Every month, articles appear detailing recently acknowledged tribes such as the Pequot opening high stakes gaming enterprises. This study examines several once unrecognized Indian communities and their efforts to gain federal sanction through the BIA's Branch of Acknowledgment and Research or Congress. By focusing on four Indian communities, the Pascua Yaquis, the Timbisha Shoshone, the Tiguas of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, and the United Houma Nation, this work explores the strategies groups pursue to gain acknowledgment and the different outcomes that result. In its details, the work reveals ethnic identity in relation to the state bureaucracy while also demonstrating that groups must "play Indian" to both Indians and non-Indians to prove their racial and cultural identity. The case studies examine ethnic resurgence and cultural survival, the effects of the civil rights movement and Great Society social programs on these entities, and the historical impact of non-recognition on groups in several regions of the United States. This study also takes a broader look at federal acknowledgment policy. By analyzing the historical development of the policy and the administration of the BIA program, it ultimately concludes that the program has succeeded. While the new emphasis on recognizing tribes clearly represented a rejection of anti-tribal agendas of the past, its reliance upon written documentation and skepticism towards petitioners represents continuity in federal Indian affairs by maintaining the restrictive polices of earlier eras. Because it reflects the interest of many reservation tribes, the BIA process works as it was intended: in a slow and exacting manner, to limit the number of groups entering the federal circle. The recognition arena is thus a complicated amalgamation of modern Indian issues. Parties entering the process must maneuver complex terrain and deal with issues of scholarship and advocacy, concerns over gaming and motivations, and issues of racial and cultural authenticity. In the end, however, it is these complexities that make this study a multidimensional portrait of Indian policy, ethnic identity, and tribal politics in the post-termination era.

Pre-existing more hegemonic theories of Cultural Studies, Hispanic Studies, Media Arts, and Queer Studies, Nahuatl cosmologies offers an evolving political grounding for Native scholars. A Nahuatl cosmology of four directions represents a circle of masculinity, elders, femininity, and youth and forms the epistemology by which one can view Nahuatl and Xicana/o culture. In the east, Indigenous Rights directly relate to the hegemonic oppressions such as war, prison, and heterosexism that many Indigenous men face. Indigenous peoples fight those hegemonies with international legal concepts and through expressing their different epistemologies. In the north, the Caxcan oral tradition of my family contrasts with the homophobic and genocidal narratives more common in Chicano histories. I show how contemporary writers can rely more upon oral traditions and revisions to colonial records for their historical treatments of Indigenous peoples. To the west, postmodernism and feminism offer partial but incomplete analysis of Nahuatl cultures that Nahuatl women articulate in their own literatures and cosmological relations. In particular, Leslie Silko's stories are more than capable of critiquing postmodernism and ethnography, including those that describe Raramuri peoples. To the south, I demonstrate that gay Nahuatl and Xicano men can embody the social Malinche in keeping with Nahuatl beliefs. I use the idea of the gay social Malinche to critique Troyano's film, Latin Boys Go to Hell. Alternative internet sources tend to facilitate the ideas of the Social Malinche more. Together, all four movements comprise ollin, a social and cosmic movement that embraces different sexualities and generational changes in evolving aspects of dynamic social movements. Interweaving Western thought into the basic cosmology of Indigenous peoples, two-spirit social Malinches can open a path to political and social movement to improve their various relations.

Findings that Hispanic youth are at greater risk for delinquency than their Anglo American counterparts, have been used to suggest that traditional Hispanic cultures tolerate or even promote delinquency (Thom, 1997). However, when Hispanic youth are assessed by acculturation level, those most closely connected to the Hispanic culture of origin are at least risk for delinquency (Buriel, Calzada, & Vasquez, 1982; Fridrich & Flannery, 1995). The present study of 527 Mexican American high school students from two-parent families investigated how acculturation may function to minimize the risk for delinquency. Results indicate that Mexican American adolescents' reduced affiliation with Mexican culture is related to lower levels of the traditional Hispanic cultural value of familism and that familism is related to parent-adolescent processes linked to a reduced risk for delinquency, specifically parent-adolescent attachment and parental monitoring. Results also suggest that familism mediates the relationship between acculturation and delinquency through its effect on parent-adolescent processes related to a reduced risk for delinquency. Some gender differences were noted in follow-up analyses. For girls, only maternal monitoring was significantly related to a reduced risk for delinquency. For boys, only mother-son attachment was related to a reduced risk for delinquency. These findings are consistent with a causal model in which decreasing levels of familism help to explain the relationship between acculturation and delinquency to the extent that familism promotes parent-adolescent processes that are related to a reduced risk for delinquency, and suggest that traditional Mexican cultural values function as a protective factor for Mexican American youth and not as a risk factor. Furthermore, traditional gender role values may play a role in explaining the relationship between family processes and a reduced the risk for delinquency for Mexican American adolescents. This study suggests that relevant traditional Hispanic cultural values should be considered in designing and executing delinquency prevention and intervention programs aimed at Hispanic youth.

The magnitude of ethnic minority students' special education placement has been criticized on methodological grounds. Particularly, Reschly & Bershoff (1999) identified the prevalence rate calculation in Office of Civil Rights reports as over estimating the special education placement of ethnic minority students. Reschly & Bershoff (1999) identified the prevalence rate calculation found in descriptive epidemiology research for use. The present study calculated prevalence rates through the descriptive epidemiology method. The present study examined the role of cultural concerns in the assessment and placement practices of ethnic minority students in special and gifted education. The role of cultural concerns was particularly noted in federal and state definitions of special education categories. Campbell & Fiske's (1952) MMTM approach was outlined to conceptualize the cultural concerns research. The present study found that African-American students were overrepresented in the Emotional Disturbance (ED) and Specific Learning Disabled (SLD) categories, underrepresented in the Gifted (GI) category, and placed at a proportional rate in the Mentally Retarded (MR) and Speech Language Impaired (SLI categories. Hispanic students were overrepresented in the SLD and SLI categories, underrepresented in the GI and MR categories, and placed at a proportional rate in the ED category. Native American students were overrepresented in the SLD and SLI categories and underrepresented in the ED, MR and GI categories. Asian/Pacific Islander students were overrepresented in the GI category, underrepresented in ED category, and placed at a proportional rate in the SLI, MR, and SLD categories. Anglo students were overrepresented in the GI, ED, SLI, and SLD categories and underrepresented in the MR category. The significant finding on the proportional placement of African-American students in the MR category suggest that prevalence rates are reviewed. The underestimate of ethnic minority students in the GI category suggest a broadening to include cultural definitions of giftedness. Of the cultural concerns reviewed, cultural role taking, which may include consultation with interpreters, cultural advisors, healers along with training, was found critical in the assessment of cultural variables in psychopathology and placement of ethnic minority students in special and gifted education. Lastly, school practices such as problem solving approaches as well as culturally responsive teaching are recommended for use as prereferral interventions.

Previous research indicates that optimism may have considerable positive effects on mental and physical health. However, only a few previous studies have explored differential effects of optimism on health and none have examined the effects of different levels of optimism. This study supports the importance of optimism on health in a sample of 238 Chinese college students and 206 American college students. Comparative results indicated that there were significant differences on measures of two levels of optimism, pessimism, and indicators of health. In general, American students were found to express more dispositional optimistic belief, better mental health, and lower state and trait stress levels than Chinese students. However, there was no difference in the level of explanatory optimism. In addition, there was no significant difference between Chinese subjects' scores of overall health and American students' scores. Chinese students demonstrate a "middle optimism" style. In addition, both optimistic styles in this study were found to be significantly related to stressful states measured by State Anxiety (Y1) Scale and Trait Anxiety Scale (Y2) in Chinese students. In contrast, in American samples, only the dispositional optimism, the big optimism, was found significantly but negatively related to the trait stress. In this study, the association between optimism and health---either little or big optimism---were not different between the two cultures, while the association between optimism and stress was quite different between the two cultures. In the Chinese students, the association between big optimism and stress was stronger than in the American students. Both moderate and mediate models were tested to clarify some of the mechanism among culture, gender, optimism/pessimism, stress and health. Culture was moderating the relation between optimism (big vs. little optimism) and three health components. Gender on the other hand, had no moderating effect in the relationship of big vs. little optimism/pessimism on any health outcomes. The prediction that stress is the moderator in the prediction of optimism on health was not supported in both cultural groups. However, either big or little optimism were found fully mediated by state or trait stress on overall health conditions as well as the physical and mental health, except that the little optimism was not found to be related to mental health. Among the American students, on the other hand, optimism as dominate predictor directly effected reports of health. Stress was not found to be a mediator in the predictive relationship of optimism and health in the American students.

My dissertation is a qualitative study using content analysis to explore the roles of grandparents in multicultural picture books. I developed 14 Cultural Markers to analyze my first research question concerning how grandparents from a variety of cultures fulfilled their roles as Family and Cultural Historians, Cultural Role Models, and Experts on Traditions. I identified one Cultural-Sharing Symbol per book to answer my research question regarding how Cultural Markers and Cultural-Sharing Symbols related to these grandparent roles. My third research question explored how Cultural-Sharing Symbols related to character growth in the grandparent/protagonists. My fourth research question considered how gender differences might have influenced grandparents from a variety of cultures as they fulfilled the studied roles. I developed seven Gender Continuum Markers to investigate possible differences in how the eight studied grandmothers fulfilled the three grandparent roles, compared to the eight studied grandfathers. My fifth research question considered how Gender Continuum Markers might relate to possible gender differences in the grandparent/grandchild relationship. To answer the five questions I selected 16 picture books featuring a grandfather and grandmother from the following cultures: African American, Mainstream, East Asian American, Asian American, European American, Latino, Jewish American and Native American. To organize and analyze my findings, I developed a technique related to intertextuality called cumulative story analysis. I found that both European American grandparents, both Native American grandparents, and the Jewish American grandfather fulfilled all three roles almost equally, using most possible Cultural Markers. Both Mainstream grandparents were portrayed with significantly fewer tradition Cultural Markers than the other grandparents. All grandchildren/protagonists grew by the books' ends. Continuity was the most prevalent, powerful Cultural Marker. Most grandparents were portrayed with Gender Continuum Markers that might be considered closer to the traditionally feminine side of the continuum for non-verbal interactions. There was even less verbal variation between genders; talk was usually portrayed with blended Gender Continuum Markers. There were definitely more gender similarities than differences when the books were compared both across cultures and within cultures. The bond of grandparent love existed beyond gender limitations.

This study examined conditions under which low income mothers engage in voluntary supportive relationships with community-based early childhood programs. Parenting stress and support processes were examined in a population of low-income Mexican American Head Start mothers. A new construct, program support acceptance, describes mothers' appraisal of the program as a potential source of parenting support. Research questions related to (a) the relationship between Time 1 (fall) parenting stress and mid-year program support acceptance, (b) the relationship between mid-year program support acceptance and Time 2 (spring) parenting stress, and (c) the contribution of program support acceptance to longitudinal change in parenting stress. The study also considered contextual variables (acculturation, maternal education, stressful life events, partner status, and extended household) as predictors of parenting stress and program support acceptance, and potential moderation of parenting stress and support linkages by acculturation. Finally, the study considered the theoretical issue of whether parenting stress serves to motivate or inhibit support-seeking (reflected in program support acceptance) as a coping behavior. The guiding theoretical framework for the study was based on Abidin's parenting stress model (1983, 1992), and Lazarus and Folkman's general model of stress, appraisal and coping (1984), as well as family support literature based in ecological systems theory. Mean levels of parenting stress declined significantly from Time 1 to Time 2 for mothers in the Head Start program. The contextual variables did not significantly predict Time 1 parenting stress, and marginally predicted program support acceptance. Higher Time 1 parenting stress scores significantly predicted lower levels of mid-year program support acceptance. Higher program support acceptance scores at mid-year significantly predicted lower Time 2 parenting stress in bivariate analysis, but dropped to non-significance after controlling for Time 1 parenting stress. Acculturation did not moderate linkages between parenting stress and program support acceptance. However, several relationships were significant for immigrant generation mothers which were not significant for later generation mothers. In the immigrant group, being partnered predicted higher program support acceptance, and program support acceptance contributed significantly to lower Time 2 parenting stress. Higher maternal education level was associated with lower Time 2 parenting stress.

Historically, black women's employment levels have exceeded those for white women. However, looking only at young cohorts of women, the employment levels of black and white women were equal by 1969, and by 1991 white women's employment greatly exceeded black women's employment. If this continues to be true for successive new cohorts, it suggests that, overall, white women will soon be working at significantly higher rates than black women for the first time in history. Identifying the determinants of women's employment today becomes an important issue not only for explaining the factors that affect labor market outcomes but also for explaining the prospects for black and white women in the labor market. Utilizing the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I use event history methods to analyze the determinants of black and white women's employment in the contemporary U.S., and explain any race gaps in employment that emerge. My findings suggest that a race gap in the hazard of part-time employment exists among women in which the rate of part-time employment is lower for black than white women. This gap is explained by race differences in human capital and past welfare receipt. A race gap in the hazard of full-time employment exists among unmarried women in which the rate of full-time employment is lower for black than white women. This gap is explained by race differences in age, human capital, and past welfare receipt. I find that opportunities and constraints provided by the local economic environment, human capital, family structure, and past welfare receipt are an important influence on black and white women's employment.