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Latinos are the largest and most rapidly growing ethnic minority in the United States, and they have the highest dropout rates of any major ethnic group in the country (U.S. Department of Labor, 2003). Latinos' educational attainment is consistently lower than that of other students (Gandara, 2008). The majority of Latino college students in the state of Oregon are of Mexican origin and have parents with low income and low levels of education, which ultimately influences the students' decisions in whether or not to pursue higher education. This study examines these and other factors which motivate Latino students to pursue higher education in selected colleges in the state of Oregon. Quantitative data was gathered and evaluated to determine their academic self-efficacy, an idea grounded in Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura 1997). Accordingly, this dissertation analyzed personal, environmental, and demographic factors as determinants of the academic self-efficacy of Latino college students. The results indicated that mothers (family being one of the environmental factors) were the most motivating persons for Latino college students pursuing higher education, followed by the influence of friends. The results also revealed that another influencing factor in academic self-efficacy of Latino college students was their own self-efficacy and their personal goal orientation. Female students reported the highest scores of self-efficacy for a four-year institution, followed by students of both genders aged between 18 and 22 years old. Latino college students' choice of agriculture as a program to pursue in higher education was also analyzed, despite the fact that the majority (92 %) of Latino college students did not choose an agriculture-related career. / Graduation date: 2012

In light of the increase of Hispanic Immigrants (i.e 1st, 2nd, 3rd generation) in the U.S. workforce and the impact that the quality of the leader-member exchange has on the organization's success, this study investigated the quality of the relationship that emerges between hispanic subordinates and Anglo-American leaders (i.e who are most representative of the U.S. dominant culture).

The specific purpose of this study was to explore the correlation between social support, socioeconomic status and psychological well-being among Hispanic adolescent females. In examining these specific variables, the researchers obtained a clearer picture as to the predictors that influence Hispanic adolescent female's psychological well-being.

Guided by attachment theory and principles of positive psychology, a conceptual model was developed depicting the direct and indirect effects of attachment insecurity, state hope, belongingness, and meaning in life on wellness indicators (i.e., life satisfaction, physical health, and depression) of first generation Latino immigrants in the U.S. Specifically, the present study proposed that the effects of attachment insecurity on Latino immigrants' wellness would be mediated by two tiers of factors. The first tier consisted of state hope (i.e., general state hope, spiritual state hope, mastery state hope) and sense of belonging (i.e., general belongingness; connectedness with mainstream/ethnic community), which represented individual-level and relational factors, respectively, salient in Latino culture. Greater attachment insecurity was hypothesized to contribute to a compromised MIL and poorer wellness by decreasing state hope and sense of belongingness. A total of 352 first-generation Latino immigrants from Texas participated in this study. The exploratory factor analysis on the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale revealed a two-factor factor structure that is different from the two factors of adult attachment typically found with American samples (i.e., anxiety and avoidance). The emerged two factors represent anxious-distancing attachment and comfort-seeking attachment. Results from structural equation modeling analysis showed adequate model fit with the data. The final model indicated that the effects of comfort-seeking attachment on wellness were fully mediated by two layers of mediators (belongingness and state hope as the first layer and meaning in life as the second layer). In addition, the effect of anxious-distancing attachment on wellness was fully mediated by belongingness and meaning in life but not through state hope. Bootstrap methods were used to assess the significance magnitude of these indirect effects. Comfort-seeking attachment explained 13% of the variance in state hope and both attachment variables explained 36% of the variance in sense of belongingness. Anxious-distancing attachment, comfort-seeking attachment, state hope, and sense of belongingness explained 78% of the variance in meaning in life, and the overall model explained 75% of the variance in wellness. Limitations, future directions, and implications for counseling and theory are discussed from attachment theory, positive psychology, and immigration perspectives.

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This qualitative study addresses how the Dallas Morning News and Al Día reporters and editors determine what type of news related to the Dallas Latino and Hispanic communities gets covered. It also looks into how and why each newspaper tackles the coverage of these communities. Through a systematic analysis of 8 in-depth interviews and a 6-month ethnography, the findings of this study suggest that Latino and Hispanic journalists in Dallas feel the Latino and Hispanic communities are regarded as the "other." This study suggests the newsroom's hegemony and its news production routines influence the way Latino and Hispanic communities are covered in Dallas, and the way Latino and Hispanic reporters and editors who primarily cover these communities are treated. Though the newsrooms have made an effort to diversity its staff, reporters and editors claim they still have a long way to go before the staff accurately represents the large Hispanic and Latino population in the city.

Measures of adult attachment developed in English have been translated and validated in multiple Spanish-speaking countries, yet to this date no self-report adult attachment instrument has been systematically examined for validation with Latinos/Hispanic Americans. The present study examined psychometric properties of a Spanish version of a widely used adult attachment scale, the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale (ECRS), with a bilingual college student sample. Following the dual-language split half (DLSH) quantitative method of evaluating semantic equivalence, 209 bilingual, Latinos/Hispanic American college students recruited from a large public university completed a DLSH version of the ECRS (half English, half Spanish). Internal consistency reliability and DLSH reliability were within acceptable limits, although significantly smaller than coefficients of the English ECRS completed by a large Caucasian sample (n = 459); 3- to 8-week test-retest reliability was also adequate. Exploratory factor analysis revealed a two-factor solution with 35 items accounting for 40% of the variance, which was similar to the English ECRS. Convergent validity was supported by findings that showed significant associations of attachment dimensions with social self-efficacy, self-esteem, depressive symptoms, and comfort with self-disclosure, but not interpersonal trust. Evidence for discriminant validity was found in that attachment dimensions were not significantly associated with social desirability. Theoretical implications, limitations, and future directions of the study will be discussed based on adult attachment theory and cross-cultural perspectives.

Although growth in the Hispanic population and its buying power has outpaced by far non-Hispanic U.S. growth in the last decade, only a limited amount of attention has been given to study consumer acculturation among Hispanic subcultures. That lack of research represents one of the biggest gaps in the ethnic marketing literature. Previous research has shown that leveln of acculturation is one of the best ways to segment markets, yet key concepts in the acculturation literature have been used interchangeably (Wallendorf & Reilly, 1983 ; Metha & Belk, 1991 ; Hui, Laroche and Kim, 1998 ; Webster, 1994 ; Penaloza, 1994 ; Laroche, Kim, Hui, and Tomiuk, 1998 ; Ogden, Ogden & Schau, 2004). This research clarifies such concepts and studies the effects of level of acculturation on attitudes toward money among Mexican Americans. Findings suggest that one of the sub-processes of acculturation, integration, can be effectively used to predict Mexican American attitudes toward money. Results address the need of a better understanding of consumption among Hispanic Americans. The importance of research in this area is underlined for public administrators, marketing managers and scholars alike. / by Luis Eduardo Torres. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

This dissertation investigates the role of the printing press in the global Iberian Monarchy of the Union of Crowns (1581-1640), when the Portuguese empire was annexed to Spain’s. I argue that the book printer Pedro Craesbeeck and the authors and editors who published works treating America, Africa, and Asia at his Lisbon house used the printing press to attempt to alter the Iberian Monarchy’s commercial and political composition. Pedro Craesbeeck reconfigured the printing industry of Iberian Europe by building a global publishing hub in Lisbon that attracted editorial projects from all over the monarchy while drawing business away from competitors in cities like Madrid, Antwerp, and Seville. Writers and publishers symbolically rearranged the two Iberian empires’ lines of administration, tying Spanish America to Lisbon and Portuguese Asia to Madrid through a variety of textual and material operations. These agents of the Iberian book trade wielded the printing press as a mechanism to ‘re-compose’ the global monarchy they inhabited, exploiting the flexibility of a multi-territorial, multi-jurisdictional state while working within and around the limitations imposed by the institutions of Church and Crown. Pedro Craesbeeck’s press gives us stories of global linkages and disconnections forged in productive tension. This thesis makes a crucial contribution to studies of early modern globalization, which have tended to focus on tracking connections and circulations rather than dynamics of reconfiguration and redistribution. The dissertation also problematizes longstanding views of the printing press as a top-down tool of the Habsburg monarchs by showing that this technology enabled subjects to participate in the monarchy’s construction according to their individual designs. The dissertation makes these claims by closely analyzing the textual and material contents of printed histories, hagiographies, treatises, reports, and poetry in Spanish and Portuguese alongside archival documentation in those languages and Latin, as well as large sets of bibliographical data. Among the canonical works that occupy a prominent place in the dissertation are Mateo Alemán’s Segunda parte de la vida de Guzmán de Alfarache, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega’s La Florida del Inca and Comentarios reales, Luís de Camões’s Os lusíadas, Fernão Mendes Pinto’s Peregrinaçam, and Diogo do Couto’s Décadas da Ásia. I also bring to light a range of little-known works: a hagiography of an ascetic in New Spain, a treatise on the corruption of the Caribbean pearl trade, and a discourse on the short-lived Portuguese takeover of Pegu (current-day Bago, Myanmar), to name a few. By building a corpus of study out of Pedro Craesbeeck’s press, I put into dialogue texts rarely read together due to linguistic and national disciplinary divides. The categories of Spanish, Portuguese, peninsular, and colonial literature, history, and culture dissolve, giving way to a global Iberian perspective.