This dissertation examines the evolution of early race relations in Boston during a period which saw the extinguishing of the progressive abolitionist racial flame and the triumph of Jim Crow in Boston. I argue that this historical moment was a window in which Boston stood at a racial crossroads. The decision to follow the path of disfranchisement of African Americans and racial polarization paved the way for the race relations in Boston we know and recognize today. Documenting the high number of blacks and whites who married in Boston during these years in the face of virulent anti-miscegenation efforts and the context of the intense political fight to keep interracial marriage legal, the dissertation explores the black response to this assault on the dignity and lives of African Americans. At the same time it documents the dilemma that the issue of intermarriage represented for black Bostonians and their leaders. African Americans in Boston cautiously endorsed, but did not actively participate in the Boston N.A.A.C.P.'s campaign against the resurgence of anti-miscegenation laws in the early part of the twentieth century. The lack of direct and substantial participation in this campaign is indicative of the skepticism with which many viewed the largely white organization. Boston, with its substantial Irish population, had a pattern of Irish, and other immigrant women, taking Negro grooms—perhaps because of the proximity within which they often worked and their differing notions about the taboo of race mixing. Boston was, for example, one of the most tolerant large cities in America with regard to interracial unions by 1900. In the period between 1900 and 1904, about 14 out of every 100 Negro grooms took white wives. Furthermore, black and white Bostonians cooperated politically to ensure that intermarriage remained legal throughout the nation.

This study describes the socioeconomic characteristics, assesses the basic information about special education the Hispanic parents are interested in knowing about through educational workshops and orientation, and identifies the need for services that allow the Hispanic parents active participation in the educational processes of their children with special needs. The involvement of parents in the education of their children with special needs at the national level was mandated by Public Law 94-142, The Education of All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. According to this Federal Law, the parents have the right to be active participants in decision making related to the educational needs of their children, especially in the development of the Individualized Educational Plan (IEP). According to the literature reviewed, parents are usually less prepared to actively participate in IEP conferences since they possess the least amount of knowledge pertaining to laws, advocacy, rights, sources, and special education procedures. Studies have demonstrated that participation of parents in the decision-making process has been passive, limited to giving and receiving information, and sometimes simply signing the Individualized Educational Plan (IEP). The lack of knowledge about Public Law 94-142 and about the procedures of special education related to services makes necessary the creation of educational workshops addressed to parents of children with special needs. In the first part of this study, it was found that Hispanic parents surveyed in the site selected for this research study show particular socioeconomic characteristics that should be taken into consideration when active participation and involvement in the educational process of their children with special needs is expected. Findings in the second and third part of this study should be taken into consideration by school personnel, administrators, and community-based program directors when planning, developing, and providing educational workshops, counseling, and orientation to a culturally-diverse population.

The purpose of this study was to design and test-out a workshop to help fathers of special needs children with their transition to fatherhood. The workshop was evaluated to ascertain how effective it was in helping the fathers to understand and feel more engaged and open to their experience of fatherhood. Also of importance was the positive impact that the workshop had on men's sense of isolation as fathers, self-esteem as fathers, and their ability to see their experience from a larger, more self-accepting and positive perspective. This is an unexplored area of study and this was a pilot project focused on developing a new resource. In the dissertation specific components of the study and workshop process, such as interviews, leadership style, as well as, specific workshop exercises (the sharing of personal stories, photography, collage making, guided imagery and infant massage) were examined to evaluate how they contributed to the over-all effectiveness of the workshop. In the dissertation a model of intervention is proposed by which fathers of young special needs children could more fully align themselves with their own creativity, and, thereby, empower themselves to take on the challenges of new fatherhood in a way that enriched and supported their personal growth. It was a model that supported men to more fully engage their experience of fatherhood and claim its richness and power. It was a model based on men supporting men, and in this regard, it provided men with models of male caring, and it supported men to experience themselves as nurturers.

One of the most troubling features of the contemporary critical scene is the near-total absence of "non-western" theories. My thesis investigates how this absence is constructed not through institutional discursive, or disciplinary constraints, but through the content of hegemonic theories. This requires exploring two main questions, namely, "what makes elite theories imperialist?" and "how can we rearticulate "indigeneity" so that the project of reconstructing indigenous theories is not a nativist project"? Instead of reducing the imperialism of elite theories to their geographical or cultural origins, I look at what they do within specific cross-cultural contexts. No unique definition of cultural imperialism is assumed. Theories become imperialist through a variety of tropes, within specific contexts. One of the predominant ways in which this occurs is by situating the West as Theory, and East as Evidence. This is based on the interpretation of the "indigenous" as necessarily nativist, authentic, ahistorical, pure and autonomous. My thesis also demonstrates how processes of "contextualization," "displacement," "historical erasure," "dislocation," and "homogenization" become tropes of cultural imperialism, silencing the other as theory, in theory. The relationship between theory and cultural difference, central to the project of reconstructing indigenous theories is usually understood in terms of the notion of determination. If problems of reductionism are to be avoided, I argue that it is important to reformulate the relation in terms of the notion of "location." Rasa, a theory indigenous to the Indian context is discussed in order to demonstrate that the absence of "non-western" perspectives is ideologically constituted. All theories are indigenous, that is, local, particular, and situated within specific social and historical contexts. It is in this sense I argue, that the margins of theory need to be reinterpreted so as to reconstitute the heterogeneity of postcolonial space and time.

It is Jack London's attitude toward race which critics and scholars now find most embarrassing. Yet they offer no explanation of how this "regrettable flaw" arose in such an otherwise admirable socialist as London. My research shows that London's ideas and attitudes on race in general, i.e. racial evolution, social Darwinism, Aryanism, and eugenics, and on the superiority of the English-speaking branch of the Teutonic "race" in particular, as expressed in his fiction and essays, mirror those held by the majority of well-educated and prominent Americans prior to World War II. Chapter 1, "The Racial Education of Jack London," traces the emergence of London's racial consciousness from earliest childhood experience to the reason for his resignation from the Socialist Labor Party in 1916. Chapter 2, "Nineteenth Century Racial Theory," locates the major sources of London's belief in racial inequality in some of the most eminent race theorists of the period including Darwin, Galton, Huxley, Pearson, Spencer, Kidd, Haeckel, Weismann and others. Chapter 3, "Sexual Selection," shows how London's Yukon stories exemplify the "scientific" point of view by portraying human sexual behavior in terms of animal-like impulses which were thought to have evolved through the process of sexual selection. Chapter 4, "The Call of Kind," examines London's concept of gender, the "New Womanhood," and his faith in the "passion for perpetuation" (rightly guided) to improve mankind. Chapter 5, "Conclusion": London's stories dramatize the evolutionary superiority of the white man over all other peoples at a time when America needed to justify and explain her imperialist expansion abroad.

The purpose of the study was, having elaborated a theoretical rationale, to assess the impact of a twelve-hour anti-homophobia workshop on the attitudes and professional practice of 16 staff participants at the public high school in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The theoretical aspect included an application of Kohlberg moral development theory and theories of sexism to an analysis of homophobia. The resulting Stage Model of bigotry was used in conducting the voluntary staff development workshop, "Gay and Straight at CRLS: Creating a Caring Community." The methodology included analysis of the responses to a questionnaire and interview given two years after the workshop was conducted. The results show that participants were more likely to be female, politically and religiously liberal staff members with little or no academic experience with the topic of homosexuality. Response to the workshop was very positive with an emphasis on empathizing with families of gay/lesbian people, being moved by testimony of co-workers dealing with their own experiences as gay/lesbian teachers or as parents of gay/lesbian children, and recognizing the inhospitable environment at the high school for gay/lesbian students. Most of the participants felt the workshop sharpened their view of homosexuality as an issue at the school and made them more likely to confront homophobic attitudes/behaviors around them. Participants' near unanimous support for a gay/lesbian student support group, which has been formed at the school as a consequence of the workshop, underscores the idea that a community of caring (Kohlberg Stage 3) was the moral atmosphere created by the workshop.

The aim of this study was to increase our knowledge about the prevalence and nature of childhood sexual abuse in Latino populations. Specifically, data was gathered for the following purposes: (1) to determine the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse and sexual experiences in a sample of Puerto Rican college students, (2) to identify risk factors associated with them, (3) to analyze the nature and degree of trauma reported by victims, and (4) to examine the differences between the Puerto Rican sample and a New England college student sample previously studied by Finkelhor (1979). Self-reports of childhood sexual experiences were obtained from 571 Puerto Rican undergraduate students (206 males and 365 female) at three institutions of higher education in Puerto Rico. The mean age of participants was 22.2 years. A Spanish translation of sections of a self-report questionnaire developed by Finkelhor (1979) was used to gather the information. Seventeen percent of male students and 17% of female students reported childhood sexual experiences that were classified as child sexual abuse on the same age discrepancy criteria used by Finkelhor (1979). No statistically significant differences were found between the percentage of female students (17%) who reported childhood sexual abuse experiences in this study and the percentage (19%) in the New England study (19%) by Finkelhor. A higher percentage of male participants (17%) in the present study reported childhood sexual abuse as compared to males (9%) in Finkelhor's original study. This represented a significant difference (X$\sp2$ = 8.27, p $<$.01) between males in the present study and Finkelhor's. Sexual abuse experiences occurred most often between 10 and 12 years of age for both sexes and in both studies. No differences were found between the students who reported childhood sexual abuse in this study and those who did not in terms of demographic and other family background characteristics. Twenty-one percent of the abusers were female and 79% were male. Thirty-eight percent of the childhood sexual abuse experiences reported by girls and 33% of those reported by boys were with family members. Females reported more negative reactions to the experiences and higher degrees of trauma than males.

Even though most psychological theories postulate the father's influence in the daughter's choice of mate, few studies have addressed this specific aspect of the father-daughter relationship. The subject has remained basically unexplored within the Puerto Rican culture, especially within the predominantly middle class family. This research used an exploratory mode due to the scarcity of research in this area. Subjects selected consisted of 120 Puerto Rican women, ages 30 to 50, who had at least a high school education, who lived in Puerto Rico, and who were involved in an ongoing heterosexual relationship with a husband or companion. Participants filled out a demographic and a research questionnaire developed for this study consisted of two sections of a Likert type scale, one section of a Semantic Differential and an open-ended question. The questionnaire explored daughters' perceptions of their fathers, husbands/ companions and themselves. The study also included five individual interviews of father-daughter dyads. Overall results found statistically significant differences between the two groups (fathers and husbands/companions) for each one of the characteristics measured: similarities between father and husband/companion; parents' and mates' childrearing practices, expectations and teachings; their assimilation of father's and mother's teachings; their father-daughter relationship; their parents' and their own marital relationships. Analysis of responses to the questions about characteristics and behaviors of the fathers and husbands/companions of the participant's perceptions indicates that daughters do not choose mates exhibiting behaviors and/or characteristics similar to their fathers. Analysis of other questions directly asking the daughters about resemblances between the two revealed that most of the participants perceive their partners as being more similar than not to their fathers. The daughters of divorced parents reported significantly less similarity between fathers and husbands/companions. Even though not significantly different, the mean scores of daughters with deceased fathers fell in between the daughters of divorced fathers and the daughters with fathers still alive. Oral interviews disclosed similarities between subjects' fathers and husbands/companions and the pursuit of partners that were opposite to fathers on specific qualities or behaviors (e.g.: alcoholic father; non-drinker husband/companion).

The Universal theme of Water, both the Sea as well as the Rain in literature reaches a dimension of Cult in Cape Verdean literature and it is an important part of the Cape Verdean identity. Water is of the utmost importance at several levels for Cape Verde: an archipelago surrounded by water and yet about half of its population has to immigrate due to the lack of rain. These two facts play an important role in the complex bi-polar Cape Verdean identity struggling between the desire to emigrate connoted with the Sea and the desire to stay connoted with the Rain. The present study aims to analyze, compare and contrast the major literary works of Cape Verdean Literature from the Claridade period (1936) to Post-Colonial period (1975) and extends until 1990 with the publication of Germano Almeida first novel O Testamento do Sr. Napumoceno da Silva Araújo which coincides with the end of the mono party system in Cape Verde. The other authors and works focused on this study are: Jorge Barbosa: Arquipélago (1935), Ambiente (1941), Caderno de um Ilhéu (1956); Manuel Lopes: Poemas de quem ficou (1949), Crioulo e outros poemas (1964), Chuva Braba (1956), Os Flagelados do Vento Leste (1960), Galo Cantou na Baía (1959); Corsino Fortes: Pão & Fonema (1974), Árvore & Tambor (1986), Pedras de Sol & Substância (2001); Baltasar Lopes: Chiquinho (1947), Os Trabalhos e os Dias (1987). This study also makes references to four authors before the Claridade period: Eugénio Tavares, Pedro Monteiro Cardoso, Januário Leite and José Lopes.

Black alumnae are a major resource for informed opinion about the experiences of Black students on predominantly white college campuses. Their wisdom, energy, knowledge and support have remained largely untapped. The literature regarding this resource is scanty and seldom deals with the perspective of Black alumnae, especially those who have been successful in negotiating the system. Knowledge of the past informs the direction of the future. Knowledge of and understanding about the past is available in the minds and from the experiences of Black graduates. They need to be recruited to share, in retrospect, their wisdom and insight about their college experiences and the effect it had on them as Black students. In addition, they needed to inspire, encourage and be a source of support to Black students of the present and in the future. Following a decade or more in which predominantly white colleges and universities actively recruited Black students as well as Black faculty and staff, the situation has been reversed dramatically. Black students who attend these colleges and universities in the eighties and nineties find themselves facing diminished numbers of both student and faculty; more stringent entrance requirements in the form of increased reliance on standardized test scores; financial aid more often in the form of loans than grants; and a distinct change in attitude about the support they can expect to find throughout the campus. Undergirding this change in attitude on the part of institutions of higher education is the increasingly conservative, sometimes even hostile, political and social situation in the country at large. The steady erosion of the idea that education is an entitlement and the insurance for all citizens against an uneducated citizenry who will, at the turn of the century, become our leaders, is the message of the eighties. The dissertation will seek to demonstrate the benefits to the college to be derived from the participation of Black alumnae of a predominantly white college or university. Historically these colleges have faced a major dilemma in their attempts to involve Black alumnae in the ongoing affairs of the college through the alumnae association. The methods used to encourage participation of the general body of the alumnae have failed to get significant participation or positive results from Black alumnae. An Entitlement Symposium held on the weekend of April 7, 8 and 9 at Simmons College can serve as a model of a way to involve these alumnae. The dissertation will present a journalistic report of the planning and the events. It will include the results of the discourse in the form of plans for future direction, activities and recommendations.