This study examined the direct relationship between actor/ partner effects of negative communication, spirituality and relationship quality and also examined negative communication when mediated by spirituality among four types of couples. The sample included 300 heterosexual Anglo couples (AC), 319 heterosexual female Anglo/ male Latino couples (FAML), 292 heterosexual female Latina/ male Anglo couples (FLMA), and 177 heterosexual Latino couples (LC) who completed a survey questionnaire known as the RELATionship Evaluation (RELATE). Variables from this questionnaire that were used in the study included measures of negative communication, spirituality, and relationship quality. Results from Structural Equation Modeling indicated that negative communication significantly predicted relationship quality across all four groups, in support of the literature. Results revealed gender and cultural differences, suggesting that female spirituality did not have a significantly positive influence on relationship quality for either gender in any group, and that actor/ partner effects of male spirituality positively influenced relationship quality depending on the group.

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Through art therapy, this research examines the influence of the main components of Latino culture as risk and/or protective factors for internalizing and externalizing behaviors and disorders in Latino adolescents. The goal of this research is to also identify how these factors impact academic performance for Latino high school students. First, a literature review examines preexisting research evaluating the presence and influence of particular cultural factors like family expectations and roles, gender, religion, language, and parental involvement in education. Non-cultural factors include peer influence and socioeconomic influences. The literature further examines the impact these factors have been found to influence internalizing and externalizing behaviors. No literature regarding the presentation of these cultural factors within art therapy was found. Second, data was collected from a case study conducted by the researcher with a Latino high school adolescent participating in school-based counseling within the art therapy modality and demonstrated internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Themes and symbols from the art created were analyzed and coded for the risk and/or protective qualities of each factor. Lastly, a discussion of findings guided by the literature review expands the meaning of the case study data and addresses five main areas: the protective or risk qualities of cultural themes and symbols within the art and art process, how the themes and symbols presented by the client can inform and guide treatment in relation to cultural factors, whether to examine these factors individually within treatment or in an integrated manner, and how this process played out within a crosscultural therapeutic relationships.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a critical public health problem that has a broad range of negative consequences on not only the individuals in the relationship but also on their children. Although Latino adolescents experience dating violence at a higher rate than White adolescents, little research has investigated the risk and protective factors associated with this group. Witnessing domestic violence has been associated to an increased risk in experiencing dating violence as adolescents. The pattern of IPV exposed youth to later experience violent relationships has been described as the intergenerational transmission of violence (ITV). Although youth exposed to IPV are at an increased risk for experiencing and perpetrating violence in their own relationships, not all do. This dissertation moves research on ITV beyond a deficit focus by using a resilience framework to investigate parenting relationships as protective factors for dating violence. A subsample of data Latino adolescents and their mothers’ were analyzed from a larger Welfare, Children, and Families (WCF) study. This study extends previous cross-sectional research by using longitudinal data to assess risk and protective factors when youth were 10-14 years old and its relationship to their own use of violence seven years later. Latent class analysis was conducted to understand the contextual and cultural factors related to the development of adolescent dating violence: acculturation, gender, and positive parent-child relationships were examined as influencing ITV. Three classes emerged that indicate unique combinations of risk and resilience. Two of these classes predicted differential associations with adolescent dating violence. A class indicating moderate-risk/low-protection and mothers with high acculturation was significantly related to increased odds of adolescents experiencing dating violence, both as victims and as perpetrators. A class indicating low-risk/high-protection and mothers with low acculturation significantly predicted increased odds of perpetrating dating violence but no significant relationship was found with victimization. Findings suggest that holistic family based approach to dating violence and adult domestic violence may be most effective for Latino adolescents and their IPV exposed mothers.

Domestic violence (DV) affects communities across a variety of nations and cultures, at significant physical, psychological, and economic costs to families. In the United States Latino families affected by DV often face unique challenges influenced by changing ecologies and personal as well as political histories. Peer-led workshops are one way for communities to disseminate information about social issues like DV in a culturally relevant manner, and they have the potential to promote capacity for addressing DV within communities. The impact of peer-led DV was examined using an embedded mixed-method design, where participant feedback collected throughout the study served to enhance the nonequivalent control group survey portion of the study. It was hypothesized that sense of community would moderate the relationship between workshop participation and capacity measures of knowledge, communication, and identification with Latina community leaders. Data screening and linear regression found no effects of workshop participation for knowledge and communication. A linear regression supported the hypothesized workshop by sense of community interaction effect, where individuals with higher sense of community were more likely to connect with workshop leaders in the workshop condition. Themes that emerged from the analysis of qualitative data from individual questionnaires, researcher notes, and a group interview were: (1) connection to the larger community organization, (2) family communication about domestic violence, (3) interest in support for Latino youth and (4) community leader’s testimonies of their own experiences of violence. Together, quantitative and qualitative findings lend weight to the notion that peer interventionists can establish meaningful connections and trust with community members based on their own lived experiences. Further research is needed to link this strength in a peer-led DV program to gains in capacity domains like knowledge. Overall, the results of this study extend research on cultural specific DV community programs and provide recommendations for community organizations seeking to evaluate community-based programs.

This thesis examines the links between Bourdieu’s concept of the capitals and social mobility. By using interviews conducted with families who have imigrated to Austin from Latin American countries, patterns of social mobility are traced alongside the accumulation of capitals, such as cultural capital, social capital, economic capital, symbolic capital, and techno-capital. Three generations of women are interviewed from three different families, allowing the family history to serve as the unit of analysis. Links are made between the transmission and transmissibility of capital and the ascension or descension of social mobility. / text

This dissertation examines the works of four Chicana/o writers who write about Los Angeles, California urban spaces, and how the literary protagonist experiences the material realities of everyday life. The objective of this dissertation is to look at the mechanisms used by the narrator and the meaning they transmit through the description of urban space. David Harvey's theory on the Urbanization of Consciousness is used to analyze the spatial transformation taking place in Los Angeles from the 1960's to the 1980's. Moreover, I utilize Michael de Certeau's explanations of how the practices of everyday life influence the author's cartographic imaginary. These practices are manifested in the narrator's description of the physical and social space and they convey an ideological message that points to the process of urbanization of consciousness in a capitalist society. Additionally, it draws together the work of important theorists such as Henri Lefebvre, Rodolfo Acuña, Mario Barrera, and James Diego Vigil. Chapter one introduces the theoretical framework that is used throughout this study. It establishes a definition of the urbanization of consciousness and how the main characters' interact with money, family, community, class, and the State. Chapter two explains how the rapid urban development in East Los Angeles during the 1960's shaped the characters' upbringings in the novel Their Dogs Came With Them (2007) by Helena María Viramontes. Chapter three analyzes how urban space molds the consciousness of the individual in Always Running, La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. (1993) by Luis J. Rodríguez. Chapter four examines the architectural imagination in the novel of Alejandro Morales' Caras viejas y vino nuevo (1975). Chapter five studies the urbanization of gang violence among Chicana/o youth in the work of Yxta Maya Murray, Locas (1997). My investigation leads me to conclude that the Chicana/o community became urbanized when its members began to mirror its fragmented environment and when they began to see themselves as wage workers.

Latino male students lag far behind their Latina and European American counterparts in academic achievement (Yosso & Solorzano, 2006; Moll & Ruiz, 2002). One potential explanation for this discrepancy is the pressure to resist school behaviors (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986) that Latino male students may encounter from their same-sex and same-ethnic peer group members. The current dissertation research explores how messages of school resistance from peers impact Latino student achievement and how self-monitoring strategies (i.e., regulating one's behaviors; Snyder, 1974) may provide a coping strategy for this school resistance. In Study 1, Latino and European American male and female undergraduate students (N=95) completed peer school resistance items and reported GPAs. Analyses revealed that while male students reported higher perceptions of peer school resistance than female students, peer school resistance was only negatively correlated with achievement for Latino male students, and was unrelated to achievement for European American male students. In Study 2, Latino and European American male and female undergraduate students (N=413) completed self-monitoring items and reported SAT math scores. Analyses revealed that self-monitoring strategies were positively correlated with achievement for Latino male students, but were unrelated to achievement for Latina and European American male and female students. While Studies 1 and 2 used correlational methods, in Study 3, Latino high school students (N=174) who were randomly assigned to read messages of high or low peer school resistance completed self-monitoring items, thoughts about achievement items, and an achievement task (i.e., AIMS math items). Analyses revealed that high peer school resistance encouraged Latino male students to present more negative thoughts about achievement compared to low peer school resistance. Additionally, self-monitoring was positively related to achievement for Latino male students. Peer school resistance and self-monitoring had no effects on Latina students' thoughts or achievement. These findings demonstrate the negative impact of peer school resistance on Latino male student achievement, and the positive effects of self-monitoring on achievement for this cultural group. This research aims to offer new perspectives on the Latino male student achievement gap. Implications for future research are discussed.

For Latina's in the United States, navigating the spectrum of racial and ethnic identities can be complicated. This same complication has the potential to affect one of the largest groups of Latina's in the nation: Mexican-Americans living in Texas or Tejanos. Through qualitative analyses of interviews and surveys and the use of an ecological framework on identity development theories for Latina's, Native Americans, Multiracial peoples and those in the Mexican diaspora, this study examines various factors that influences the ethnoracial identity choice of Tejano college students. Findings revealed that there were several common themes across all the participants, even those who did not identify as Tejano. Geographical origin of parents and family and community influence emerged as a noticeable reason as to why students identified as Tejano. A connection to generations of family in the United States and Mexico also impacted how strongly students identified ethnoracially as Tejano. In addition, experiences of "not being enough" galvanized some students to a stronger Tejano identity. Other themes included the impact of physical appearance, growing up with Spanish in their household, and Tejano representation in media. Recommendations are targeted to staff and faculty who work with Latina students, especially Mexican-Americans in Texas, to provide opportunities to explore and support a more complex ethnoracial identity including connection with their cultural traditions, education on Latina history, an examination on the impact of language on identity, and consideration of ethnoracial affinity group work.

In the U.S., the Latino youth population is large and growing rapidly and many Latino youth are sexually active. These relatively high rates of sexual activity are concerning because Latino boys and girls, compared to other youth, have the lowest rate of contraceptive use and high rates of sexually transmitted infections (STI’s) and teen pregnancy. Thus, the need for greater attention to factors that influence Latino adolescent sexual health such as sexual risk behavior and attitudes is imperative. An understudied area with respect to Latino youth sexual behavior is the role that an adolescent’s perception of his/her body has on sexual risk attitudes and behaviors and the possible moderating role of cultural factors. To address this gap in the literature, this study obtained data from one hundred and fifty Latino adolescents who completed a survey that assessed sexual risk attitudes and intentions, body image, ethnic identity, and acculturation. Results indicated that both weight concerns and shape concerns were marginally positively associated with more positive attitudes towards condoms among females and with less positive attitudes towards condoms among males. Gender did not moderate relations when examining attitudes towards pregnancy and intentions as outcome variables. At lower levels of Anglo acculturation, negative body image was associated with less sexual risk attitudes among females whereas positive body image was associated with higher risk attitudes towards pregnancy among males. At low levels of Mexican Orientation, more positive attitudes towards condoms were associated with negative body image among males. Results indicated that none of the interactions of participant’s ethnic identity score with the three body image variables were significant in predicting sexual risk attitudes or intentions for either females or males. The findings shed light on the role of body image and cultural factors on sexual risk attitudes and intentions among Latino adolescents.