This proposed study will explore how university racial composition impacts the relationship between cultural mistrust, campus comfort, and help-seeking attitudes in a sample of African American college students. A moderated hierarchical regression will be conducted to determine if the cultural and contextual variables predict a significant amount of variance in help-seeking attitudes, and to discover if the variables’ interaction with university type significantly increased the amount of explained variance. The results will demonstrate how one’s comfort in the university environment and degree of trust in the majority group can contribute to seeking psychological services. Counseling and university policy implications will be delineated from the results. Limitations will also be discussed. / text

The Culturally Responsive Special Education/English as a Second Language (ESL) program was designed to assist students from diverse backgrounds in being academically successful in a large western private university. Utilizing the Cultural Congruity Scale (CCS) and University Environment Scale (UES), this study analyzed the perceptions of 28 students who are ethnically diverse and enrolled in the Culturally Responsive Special Education/ESL Program. The data will be used to evaluate the program's success in addressing the barriers that have historically kept students who are ethnically diverse from succeeding in higher education. Participating students completed CCS and UES surveys questioning their perceptions regarding cultural congruity and how they perceived the university environment. Descriptive data based on responses to survey questions were summarized and examined. Additionally, individual survey items were examined to determine specific areas of student concern. Results from the current sample were compared against the instrument's validating normative sample to find the difference between perceptions of students from a more diverse university setting and this program's ethnically diverse students who are attending a program at a predominately white private institution. Results indicate that the students in the current sample perceive high levels of cultural congruity and positive university environment. Compared with students from a more diverse setting, the current sample perceived similar levels of cultural congruity and significantly greater perceptions of positive university environment.

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Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Curriculum and Instruction / Kay Ann Taylor / This qualitative case study examined how the intersection of gender, ethnicity, and college experiences affected five Latina undergraduate students' academic persistence in a predominately White, Research Extensive Midwestern State University. Latinas' gender, race, ethnicity, and college experiences influence their educational achievements directly. Because most research concentrates on understanding Latinas' educational experiences from a cultural deficit perspective, this research addressed the need to investigate Latinas' personal understanding of the challenges they face in college and their responses and coping strategies utilized to navigate their experiences and persist academically. Cultural Congruity was the theoretical framework for analysis and interpretation in this study because it contextualized the understanding of Latinas' culture of origin and its values in relation to the cultural values upheld by the university Latinas attend. The research utilized life narratives to understand the meaning the participants gave to their college experiences. Life narratives invent, reform, and refashion personal and collective identity for underrepresented people. Life narratives provided direct access to accounts of participants' lived experiences while identifying the ideologies and beliefs shaped by those experiences. The findings in this study identified the stereotypes, racism, obstacles, and support encountered by Latinas in college and at home. Further findings include: Impact and relevance that caring relationships and high expectations had on their academic persistence, Latinas' determination to be involved in college and give back to their parents and communities, and how academic effectiveness acted as a form of resistance for Latinas' college persistence. Four additional themes emerged: How self-efficacy was used by Latinas to redefine themselves in college, the changing effect that intellectually stimulating courses had on Latinas in college, their tenacity to succeed, and Latinas' identification of their fathers as feminist role models. Recommendations for practice and future research are addressed. The results contribute to the limited research on Latinas' persistence in higher education and the personal meaning that they give to the obstacles and support they encounter in college. Further, the findings defy the stereotypes attributed frequently to Latinas.

abstract: Given the post 9/11 influx of veteran students in higher education and the importance of early career decision-making for establishment of a post-graduation careers, understanding factors that help and hinder the college success and career decision-making of student veterans is needed. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of veterans in higher education in relation to career decision-making difficulties. Thus, the influence of variables related to campus environment (mentoring and cultural congruity), experiences of post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and college stress, and resilience as evidenced by sense of coherence (SOC) was investigated. A sample of 239 United States Armed Forces veterans (171 male, 67 female, 1 nonbinary) enrolled in institutions of higher education across the United States was recruited through an online program. In addition to a demographic sheet, participants completed self-report measures assessing cultural congruity, sense of coherence, post-traumatic stress symptoms, mentoring, college stress, and career decision-making difficulties. Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed that of the two constructs comprising campus environment, only cultural congruity was a significant and negative predictor of college stress. Mentoring was not a significant predictor. Post-traumatic stress symptoms predicted college stress above and beyond the variance predicted by college environment. The greater student veterans’ post-traumatic stress symptoms, the more college stress they reported experiencing. A moderated hierarchical regression revealed that college environment did not moderate the relation between post-traumatic stress symptoms and college stress. College stress was found to be a positive predictor of career decision-making difficulties. Sense of coherence did not moderate the relation between college stress and career decision-making difficulties. Findings are discussed in the context of Schlossberg’s transition model, which posits that individuals will navigate the transition process based on their perceptions of the transition and their personal assets and liabilities, factors that influence coping ability. Limitations and clinical implications for working with student veterans are presented. The importance of early intervention to enhance cultural congruity and address post-traumatic stress symptoms and career decision-making difficulties among student veterans is discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Counseling Psychology 2020

In recent years, scholars have moved beyond attributing academic difficulties to cognitive and personal characteristics of African American students, and have begun to consider the effects of the predominantly White university (PWU) setting on the educational and psychological outcomes of Black collegians. Unfortunately, the literature paints a bleak picture of the social context of African American students at PWUs which ultimately impedes students' academic persistence and achievement (Gloria, Kurpius, Hamilton, & Wilson, 1999) as well as psychological wellness (Prelow, Mosher, & Bowman, 2006). The psychological ramifications of social and educational conditions for African American students at PWUs, along with higher attrition rates would substantiate the tremendous use of campus mental health services by this student population. Yet, the literature reveals that even when services are easily accessible and are provided for free or at extremely discounted prices, African American students choose not to seek professional psychological help (Nickerson, Helms, & Terrell, 1994). Drawing upon the psychosociocultural theoretical framework proposed by Gloria and Rodriguez (2000), this study examined if variables specific to the PWU environment - minority student stress, out-group comfort, and cultural congruity - served as predictors of attitudes towards seeking professional psychological help in a sample of African American collegians. This study also analyzed if counselor racial preference served as a mediator between the predictors and help-seeking. Survey data were collected from 198 Black college students attending a large, PWU in the Southwest. Results revealed that cultural congruity was the only significant predictor of help-seeking attitudes, and counselor racial preference was not a significant mediator. Exploratory analyses indicated gender differences in the relationship between the psychosociocultural variables and counselor racial preferences. Implications for practice and research in counseling psychology are discussed. / text

Cette thèse a pour objectifs d'étudier les réactions des groupes majoritaires et minoritaires face au site web marchand congruent à leur pays d'origine et au site web incongruent (site congruent au pays hôte/étranger), de mieux comprendre les effets de la congruence culturelle des sites marchands et d'évaluer les conditions d'efficacité du site culturellement incongruent. Nous avons élaboré un plan expérimental comportant trois variables à manipuler : la congruence culturelle du site web (faible versus forte), la fréquence d'exposition (1 exposition versus 2 expositions) et la population (minoritaire versus majoritaire). Deux sites web expérimentaux ont été conçus (le premier site est congruent à la population majoritaire et le second est congruent à la population minoritaire). Grâce à une analyse de contenu réalisée sur les sites locaux de la population minoritaire, nous avons identifié et sélectionné les marqueurs culturels dominants (tels que les couleurs, les polices, les images et les symboles) que nous avons manipulés pour concevoir les sites web expérimentaux. Les résultats obtenus montrent que le site culturellement congruent par rapport au site incongruent améliore l'attitude vis-à-vis du site, la confiance envers le site et l'intention de recommander. Toutefois, les effets positifs de la congruence culturelle du site web sur l'attitude et la confiance vis-à-vis du site sont plus forts pour la population majoritaire que pour la population minoritaire / This thesis aims to study the reactions of the majority and minority groups towards commercial website congruent with their country of origin and culturally incongruent website (site congruent with host country / abroad), to better understand the effects of commercial websites cultural congruity and to assess the conditions of culturally incongruent website effectiveness. We developed an experimental design with three variables to manipulate: website cultural congruity (low versus high), exposure frequency (1 exposure versus 2 exposures) and population (majority versus minority). Two experimental websites were designed (the first site is congruent with the majority population and the second is congruent with the minority population). Through a content analysis performed on the local sites of the minority population, we identified and selected the dominant cultural markers (such as colors, fonts, images and symbols) handled in designing experimental websites. The results show that culturally congruent site compared to incongruent site improves attitude, trust toward the site and intention to recommend. However, the positive effects of website cultural congruity on attitude and trust toward the site are stronger for the majority than the minority population. The results also indicate that repeated exposure to incongruent website improves attitude and trust toward the site, but it should be noted that repeated exposure has a stronger influence on attitude toward the incongruent site