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With the implementation of No Child Left Behind, schools have been challenged to maintain Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) for low achieving subpopulations. Current research supported by historical data suggests that African American parent involvement could possibly be the missing link to African American student achievement. This study explores the possible connection between African American parent perceptions of their school involvement and student achievement. It surveyed 738 fourth grade parents from five Title I and five Non-Title I schools to see if there was a significant difference between the parent involvement perceptions of African American Parents and Non-African American Parents, as well as investigated the possible relationship of these perceptions to student achievement. Although a correlation was not found between African American parent perceptions and student achievement, other comparative analyses done indicates that there are interesting similarities and differences between Title I and Non-Title I parent populations. These findings may contribute to existing research concerning school factors that can be enhanced in order to encourage parent involvement. Implications for practice and future research are also discussed.

Cultural geographers have explored how the power to control definitions of place and dominant modes of their representation has naturalized the manipulation of environments and people. I am concerned not only with the impact of dominant ideologies, but with the interconnections of competing definitions of the West along ideological, material, and aesthetic lines. I discuss the ways in which American Indians, Asians, and Mormons experienced, shaped, and represented the American West to illustrate the various responses to it and the alternative plans for its development that are omitted from traditional discussions of the American West. I argue that the dominant ideas that shaped the environment of the West intertwined with ideas about race and that their intersection can be traced back to Thomas Jefferson's notions of American democracy. By focusing on a specific locale, the state of Idaho, and critically analyzing the policies of federal agencies informing its development and the legislation affecting Idaho's racial/ethnic minorities, I detail how the vision of an agrarian and all-white West became the controlling blueprint for its development. I focus on the period from 1805 to 2000 and use a comparative and cross-cultural framework that focuses particularly on Japanese Americans, but also includes Chinese, American Indians, and Mormons. My own travels through Idaho function as a framework by which my “reading” of the contemporary landscape reveals this historical connection between race and place in the American West.

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This dissertation introduces a political economic analysis of Social Reproduction. It ultimately focuses in on cooperative entrepreneurship as part of a strategy of urban industrialization which can be spearheaded in Black communities in the United States. The theoretical entry point is an examination of the economic thought of W. E. B. Du Bois. This is followed with constructive criticisms leading into a brief survey of worker ownership literature. The study culminates in an examination of the acclaimed cooperative complex in Mondragon, Spain. The evolving Political Economic framework is then used to conceptually link Mondragon to Black America. Further, "Social Energy" is conceptualized as a valuable non-material economic resource stimulated through strategic cooperation. The dissertation ends with some reflections on the art of Cooperative Economics in an era of a "New Competition."

This study examined the relative effects of socioeconomic class position and racial discrimination on young male black workers' occupational prestige and earnings attainment in the 1970's and 1980's. The data used in the present study were taken from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. The sample contained young black (N = 831) and white (N = 5882) workers who graduated from high school in 1972. Racial differences in occupational prestige and earnings attainment in 1973, 1976, 1979 and 1986 were decomposed into two portions, one reflecting the effect of class and the other reflecting the effect of race, by the method of regression standardization. The results indicated that racial disparities both in occupational prestige and in annual earnings had constantly widened over the years examined in the study, and that factors associated with race played a more important role than factors associated with class in creating the widening racial disparity in occupational prestige and in earnings. The results, however, did not totally invalidate William J. Wilson's argument that economic class position is more important than race in determining a black person's economic life changes. When economic class position is conceived as the position attained by the respondent, rather than the position he inherits from his family of orientation, the results indicated that class is more important than race in creating the racial disparity in earnings and occupational prestige. It is suggested that clearer definition/conceptualization of class as well as race (racial discrimination) is crucial in fostering a productive debate on "the declining significance of race."

This study examines factors that relate to the role perception and status of African-American administrators working in seven New England State Universities. Most specifically, the study asked: (1) How do African-American Administrators' perception of their responsibility to students, faculty, other administrators, and community impact the delivery of job performance and services? (2) What are some, if any, advantages and disadvantages of being an African-American administrator in a New England State University setting? (3) To what extent does an African-American administrator perceive the quota system and affirmative action as a factor leading to his/her employment? (4) Do African-American administrators perceive their role as mentors for African-American/minority students? (5) To what extent do the African-American administrators perceive their involvement in institutional decision-making? African-American administrators reported their input in institutional decision-making as limited to their particular assignment and not to decisions that influence the mission and goals of the institution. A majority of the respondents believed that they were hired to relate to needs of African-American students and other administrators. Some respondents indicated that they were not sure how the hiring process differed from that of White candidates; and the majority of the respondents think that tokenism was not a contributing factor to their appointment. A number of African-American administrators revealed that their presence on campus heightens the lives of African-American and other minority students. Succeeding on predominantly White campuses is a process which requires a partnership between the top level college officials and the minority administrators. This study supports this notion and encourages institutions of higher education to listen to the comments that African-Americans and other minority administrators are making; comments about real quality of life issues, expanded equal opportunities, and empowerment.

The nature of the difficulty of nine-dot problem solving has been controversial. A commonly accepted explanation is that problem solvers often fixate on the square shape of the dot pattern and confine their lines to the square area. This study was designed to test how the phenomenon of the assumed boundary is affected by culture, age and sex. The study used the nine-dot problem as the task and age, culture and sex as independent variables. One hundred and sixty mainstreamed Chinese and mainstreamed American participants from four age groups: 6-7, 10-11, 15-16, 17-18, half of whom were males and half of whom were females, participated. The data examined to analyze participants' problem solving processes were: (1) the number of solution attempts, (2) the time spent before and after extending the boundary formed by the dots, and (3) the total time spent in solving the problem, or, in working on the problem, if participants gave up before finding the solution. The results of the study revealed a significant cultural and age effect in the number of successful solvers and the time spent on the problem. Although the overall sex difference was not significant an interaction between culture and sex was found. American girls spent less time on solving the problem than boys while Chinese girls spent more time than boys to solve the problem. Additional findings of this study were: (1) a new version of solution to the nine-dot problem and, (2) evidence that Chinese children who had taken thinking courses could solve the nine-dot problem more effectively than children who had not. The implications and limitations of the study were discussed, and recommendations for further research were made.