This dissertation study examined how teachers in four newcomer schools conceptualized and implemented social studies education for newcomer Latino/a youth. I designed this multi-site, collective case study to examine the perspectives and decision making of four social studies teachers' enacted pedagogy for Latino/a newcomer students. I documented how social studies teachers (U.S. History and Global History) were teaching Latino/a newcomer youth within urban newcomer high schools through the research question: how do four secondary teachers conceptualize and implement social studies education for newcomer Latino/a youth? As evidenced in their culturally and linguistically relevant pedagogy, teachers in this study provided constant support, encouragement, and opportunity for Latino/a newcomer students to succeed academically, and encouraged active civic engagement by using students' cultural, linguistic, and civic knowledge and experiences as central to their pedagogy. I analyzed the findings within and across four case studies to develop an emerging grounded theory of culturally and linguistically relevant citizenship education. This developing grounded theory analyzed the intersections of culturally relevant pedagogy, linguistically responsive teaching, and active and engaged citizenship. These intersections and cross-case analysis of the four teachers' social studies pedagogy for newcomer Latino/a students developed five principles of culturally and linguistically relevant citizenship education. These principles included: pedagogy of community, pedagogy of success, pedagogy of making cross-cultural connections, pedagogy of building a language of social studies, and pedagogy of community-based, participatory citizenship. This study has the potential to add to and expand on the discourse regarding social studies pedagogy for culturally and linguistically diverse students (Ladson-Billings, 1995b; Lucas and Villegas, 2011), newcomer schools (Short and Boyson, 2000), English Language Learners (Cruz and Thornton, 2009), and citizenship education for newcomer youth (Salinas, 2006). Possibilities for future research might include examining how Latino/a immigrant students' cultural and linguistic experiences influence their perceptions of social studies and how they conceptualize citizenship. Furthermore, additional research might also explore how the findings in this study may be used to develop a more culturally and linguistically responsive teacher education program, create professional development opportunities for in-service teachers, and examine how elementary teachers and teachers in rural/suburban contexts conceptualize their social studies pedagogy for immigrant youth.

The Hispanic birthweight paradox, whereby Hispanic women exhibit a comparable or lower risk of bearing a low birthweight infant than their white counterparts despite relative socioeconomic disadvantage, has been observed across a number of research studies. However, the majority of evidence for the paradox has focused on Hispanics in aggregate form or on populations with primarily Mexican ancestry and has relied largely on outcome measures with important methodological shortcomings. Furthermore, studies have identified the variation of birthweight risk among Hispanics by nativity, maternal education and neighborhood composition, but the evidence has been scarce and inconsistent. The overall goal of this dissertation was to investigate the Hispanic health paradox with relation to measures of birthweight and infant size in births to women residing in New York City aged 20 years and older, using birth records for years 2003 through 2007 collected by the Office of Vital Statistics of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (N=460,881). The main outcomes of interest in this study were mean birthweight, low birthweight (LBW, defined as < 2500 grams versus ≥ 2500 grams) and small for gestational age (SGA, calculated as the 10th percentile for birthweight at each week of gestational age and by sex). Multilevel logistic models with random effects were used to estimate odds ratios for the association between race/ethnicity and measures of birthweight and infant size, while controlling for individual-level and contextual factors and accounting for the correlation between observations within the same neighborhood. Analyses were conducted with Hispanics as an aggregate group as well as with race/ethnic-nativity subgroups. In addition, effect measure modification by maternal education and by neighborhood proportion of Hispanic population (NPHP) were examined. This research confirmed the Hispanic paradox in SGA analyses for Hispanics overall and for both U.S.-born and foreign-born Hispanics, but not in analyses with LBW or with mean birthweight. As compared to white women, black women exhibited 50% greater risk (OR:1.50;95%CI:1.45,1.55) and Hispanic women comparable risk (OR:1.03;95%CI:1.00,1.06) of having an SGA infant, in a fully adjusted model. With regard to LBW, the risk was more than double for black women (OR:2.25;95%CI:2.16,2.35) and close to 50% greater for Hispanic women (OR:1.46;95%CI:1.40,1.53) as compared to that of their white counterparts. In addition, the mean birthweight of infants born to Hispanic women was significantly lower compared to those born to white women. Furthermore, the relationship between race/ethnicity and all three measures of birthweight and infant size varied by maternal nativity status (p<0.0001), with infants of foreign-born women experiencing more favorable outcomes relative to their U.S.-born counterparts. The paradox with SGA was also apparent across most Hispanic race/ethnicity-nativity subgroups, The odds were greatest among black and Puerto Rican women overall (OR:1.52;95%CI:1.47,1.57 and OR:1.17;95%CI:1.13,1.22, respectively) and lowest among Mexican and South American women overall, (OR:0.91;95%CI:0.87,0.95 and OR:0.85;95%CI:0.80,0.89) as compared to white women in a fully adjusted model. The odds of SGA for infants born to Dominicans, Central Americans and Cubans in the fully adjusted model were similar to those born to whites. In addition, SGA varied by maternal nativity status (p<0.0001), with more favorable SGA odds observed among infants of most foreign-born women, as compared to whites. The exception was U.S.-born Puerto Ricans who consistently exhibited elevated risk of SGA relative to whites. The association of race/ethnicity-nativity with SGA varied by maternal educational attainment (p<0.0001), but the influence varied by subgroup. The observed advantage of foreign birth was stronger among less educated women of all Hispanic subgroups other than Puerto Ricans and Cubans. Similarly, the variation of SGA risk by neighborhood proportion of Hispanic population (NPHP) differed across subgroups (p<0.0001). NPHP did not appear to influence the association between race/ethnicity-nativity and SGA in a consistent pattern, but among black women and US-born Puerto Rican women greater NPHP was associated with a higher risk of SGA. Findings from this study underscore the importance of using SGA an accurate measure of infant size and of conducting analyses disaggregating race/ethnicity and nativity subgroups. Future research should focus on factors that contribute to the resilience of Hispanic subgroups in the face of adverse economic circumstances, such as the role of social support networks and acculturation. Greater understanding of the salubrious circumstances that lower the risk of adverse birth outcomes has major public health benefits, especially for a wide-ranging population of mothers, Hispanic and non-Hispanic, and their infants.

In recent years, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Technology (STEM) talent pool has re-emerged as a national priority. Certain racial and ethnic groups are dramatically underrepresented in STEM careers and STEM educational programs, an especially serious concern given demographic transitions underway in the United States. The College Board's Advanced Placement (AP) Calculus program provides one way in which students can gain exposure to college-level mathematics while still in high school. This study analyzed factors that contribute to the success of minority students in AP Calculus using a large, longitudinal (2007-2012), geographically distributed dataset which included important school-level variables and AP scores for 10 urban school districts. Descriptive statistics show that AP success in general and minority success in AP Calculus specifically are unevenly distributed across the dataset. A very small number of schools and school districts account for the majority of the production of passing scores on AP exams. Results from multi- variate regression and multi-level growth modeling demonstrate that school size and academic emphasis on a school level constitute important predictors of success for Black and Hispanic students in AP Calculus. The very narrow distribution of AP success across schools and school districts suggests that a specific set of school-level policies and practices are likely to be highly effective in leveraging these two predictors.

Despite analysts' predictions and assertions prior to the 2016 presidential election, the Hispanic vote did not prove decisive. Donald Trump's victory elucidates a new electoral calculus, one that will be ruled simultaneously by changing demographics and the backlash against such change. While Hispanic voters largely supported Hillary Clinton, structural and individual impediments hinder their access to the voting booth and their turnout on election day. This thesis explores the reasons why the Hispanic electorate did not prove decisive in the 2016 presidential election. It further illuminates the changing Electoral College map, in which the Midwest and the Rustbelt are determined by an older white electorate and the South and Southwest are determined by an influx of minorities and immigrants, namely the Hispanic electorate. The 2016 presidential election illustrates the demographic changes and subsequent backlash that will persist over the next decade. A growing Hispanic population and electorate will eventually alter the political calculus of national and state elections, but turnout among white voters will continue to prove decisive in the near future. White backlash and transactional voting (e.g. economic, religious) clearly clinched Trump's success in crucial swing states, ultimately securing his Electoral College win. A review of polling prior to the 2016 election, as well as case studies of economic transactional and Hispanic Trump voters, demonstrates the breakdown across party and state lines that ensured Trump's Electoral College victory, despite a large and expanding Hispanic electorate. While it will continue to grow exponentially, it is unlikely that the Hispanic electorate will prove decisive as soon as the 2020 presidential election, but it will inevitably determine national and state elections within the next decade.

<p>The aim of this research has been to describe and analyse Swedish linguistic and cultural influence, on identification, and idiomatic awareness as well as on the Spanish used by Hispanic Americans who have lived more than 12 years in Sweden.</p><p>The analysis has been carried out within the field of sociolinguistics, specifically in the area of language contact, drawing on methodological aspects of ethno linguistics, sociology of language and cognitive linguistics. The research was divided into two phases. In the first phase, we describe and analyse Corpus 1, consisting of 20 interviews of first generation Hispanic Americans political refugees. In the second phase, we describe, compare and analyse Corpus 2, which consists of 105 questionnaires distributed to first and second generation Hispanic Americans in Sweden.</p><p>The results have shown that in Sweden Hispanic Americans have gradually generated a variety of Spanish which clearly shows features of Swedish culture and language and with an aspect of standardisation due to the fact that in the intercommunication between language speakers of varieties of Spanish certain variations have slowly been eliminated over the course of time. The sociolinguistic situation of the informants has been observed as well as the nature of the immigration and identification and idiomatic awareness in relation to their integration or lack of integration into Swedish society. The use of 38 words with a high level of synonymy was also investigated in order to establish standardisation of these representative words among the varieties of Spanish, spoken in Sweden. Furthermore we have investigated clichés, lexical, semantic-pragmatic and syntactic loans from Swedish as well as Swedish cultural influence on use tense among the informants.</p>

The goal of this study is to elucidate the similarities between the grammar of oral folk music and oral language grammar through field examples from Grupo Kultura, a group of neo-Latin American musicians in the mid-Willamette Valley area of Oregon. The linguistic analysis of oral folk music explores textual and contextual issues which serve to highlight the need to include such forms of communication as music in an expanded view of "language." It suggests both fluid and non-fluid boundaries between spoken language and oral folk music. Of particular emphasis are the potential ability of music to express deep emotional content in music and the possible decoding of that content's musical meaning. Data was collected through ethnographic interviews and participant observation. / Graduation date: 1998

The aim of this research has been to describe and analyse Swedish linguistic and cultural influence, on identification, and idiomatic awareness as well as on the Spanish used by Hispanic Americans who have lived more than 12 years in Sweden. The analysis has been carried out within the field of sociolinguistics, specifically in the area of language contact, drawing on methodological aspects of ethno linguistics, sociology of language and cognitive linguistics. The research was divided into two phases. In the first phase, we describe and analyse Corpus 1, consisting of 20 interviews of first generation Hispanic Americans political refugees. In the second phase, we describe, compare and analyse Corpus 2, which consists of 105 questionnaires distributed to first and second generation Hispanic Americans in Sweden. The results have shown that in Sweden Hispanic Americans have gradually generated a variety of Spanish which clearly shows features of Swedish culture and language and with an aspect of standardisation due to the fact that in the intercommunication between language speakers of varieties of Spanish certain variations have slowly been eliminated over the course of time. The sociolinguistic situation of the informants has been observed as well as the nature of the immigration and identification and idiomatic awareness in relation to their integration or lack of integration into Swedish society. The use of 38 words with a high level of synonymy was also investigated in order to establish standardisation of these representative words among the varieties of Spanish, spoken in Sweden. Furthermore we have investigated clichés, lexical, semantic-pragmatic and syntactic loans from Swedish as well as Swedish cultural influence on use tense among the informants.

Not available / text

Not available / text

Not available / text