This report explored the effects of stereotype threat—i.e., the apprehension associated with the possibility of confirming a self-relevant negative stereotype—on the stigmatized group Latinos as they were interviewed about their academic achievements and career aspirations. Latino participants were exposed to a self-relevant negative stereotype in the news, an illegal immigrant crossing the Mexican-American border smuggling drugs, as a stimulus activating stereotype threat. The study used deception as participants were unaware of the connection between the news article and the interview thus ensuring stereotype threat activation. Latino participants in the illegal immigrant/criminal condition displayed more verbal disfluency and tentative language than those in the control condition demonstrating evidence for media’s ability to stereotype threat. / text

The increase in the Latino population, and specifically the Mexican-American population, in the United States demonstrates the need for meaningful multicultural museum education to, for, and about this demographic. This exploratory case study investigates the educational programming in the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, Illinois and Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin, Texas through observations of programs and curricular documents and interviews and seeks to identify characteristics of effective multicultural art education related to this cultural group. While highlighting Mexican and Mexican-American art and artists serves as the primary content of program curricula, museum educators at these institutions aim for education that is socially conscious and meaningful. The author of this study argues that effective multicultural museum programming has the potential to positively impact program participants on an educational, personal, and societal level. / text

The current economic conditions in the United States have contributed to budgetary cuts to public education at both the federal and state levels. This attention to educational funding and political decisions regarding spending are linked to beliefs about what is valued in education and what proper policy solutions exist. Yet, contemporary actions and issues do not exist in isolation. These economic difficulties are situated in a specific context, history, and have been shaped by political ideologies. This dissertation is directly focused on critically examining the history and context of school finance policy. School finance policy has been an important political issue for over 40 years, beginning with the San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez case (Koski & Levin, 2000). This case was first filed in 1968 and serves as the unit of analysis for this study. While much of the body of work regarding school finance is framed according to traditional economic methods and beliefs, this study is a historic narrative that utilizes critical policy analysis to examine educational funding. Though Rodriguez was a case filed by Mexican American parents on behalf of students in the Edgewood school district, which served a student population that was over 90% Latino, Mexican Americans and the voices of Mexican Americans were glaringly absent from the arguments made in court. This absence of race marks a need for critical policy analysis and work that calls attention to this silent area of political discourse. The purpose of this paper is to examine the inclusion and exclusion of race in the Rodriguez case to find out what is missing from the dominant narratives of school finance and begin to understand how current policies continue to ignore race. Historic methods, guided by a Latino Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) framework, are employed to analyze archival records, newspaper articles, legal documents, and oral histories. Narratives reveal themes of the social context that lead to legal action, the language used in the courts cases, and the lasting implications for continued understandings of school finance policy. / text

Through fifty-three in-depth interviews with activists, community members, immigrants, students, and allies, this dissertation research explores the Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition (AIRC), a nonprofit immigrant rights organization in Austin, Texas that formed as a response to the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act (H.R. 4437) in the spring of 2006. Three layers of questions guide this research: (1) How did AIRC emerge from the established organizations and activist networks in Austin, Texas? (2) What did AIRC do after the 2006 marches and what is its relationship with organizations in Austin? (3) What are the different ways AIRC has attempted to mobilize Latino(a) and pro-immigrant activism? My dissertation demonstrates that the 2006 mobilizations in Austin, Texas were part of a concerted effort by non-profit organizations, grassroots groups, activists, allies, and college and high school students. Amongst these many active participants, Latinas took a lead. The prominence of the work of similar coalitions throughout the U.S. during La Primavera Latina of 2006 and the lack of prominent male leadership suggests that across the nation, as in Austin, a new type of organizational lead is emerging in the Immigrant Rights Movement (Ramírez Perales-Ramos, Arellano 2010). The 2006 mobilizations reveal a different type of leadership, not an absence of one. In Austin, Latinas took on various leadership roles to move the AIRC forward during and beyond the 2006 marches. This dissertation explores the significance of new leadership, a process approach to leadership which I term “doing leadership.” The four processes of doing leadership embody shared leadership, leadership that serves the community, leadership that leads by obeying, and leadership unfolds behind the scenes. / text

This dissertation presents two participatory action research case studies focusing upon how students viewed the influence of the pedagogy and curriculum of the Chican@ Literature, Art and Social Studies (CLASS) program upon their personal, ethnic, and academic identities. In addition, these studies examined the various ways that youth perceive their role in addressing critical issues in their lives. I conducted this study as a teacher researcher in collaboration with my students. The first study focuses upon eight of the students in the CLASS program as a collective, and the second study is concentrated upon the only student in CLASS who was not of Chican@/Latin@ descent. Both case studies were ten months in duration where I used ethnographic research methods for data collection, which included transcripts from one-on one interviews with the students, as well as artifacts they produced during CLASS. The eight students in this study were an average age of 18.5 years old and all but one had experience in the now defunct Mexican American Studies (MAS) program in Tucson; a program that produced positive educational outcomes in terms of graduation rates and state standardized tests through culturally responsive and critical pedagogy rooted in Indigenous epistemologies (Cabrera, Milem, Jacquette, & Marx, 2014). CLASS was a similar in structure and practice to MAS since I was a teacher in both programs. However, due to unprecedented legislation in Arizona banning Mexican American Studies, CLASS became the last vestiges of the former program outside of public school spaces in order to adhere to the law (Acosta, 2014a; 2014b). Implications include the impact of Indigenous epistemologies, decolonizing and humanizing methodologies and theoretical frameworks upon teaching practices for Chican@ students and other students of color. Furthermore, culturally sustaining pedagogies and critical multicultural and responsive curriculum can increase student engagement and the formation of a positive academic identity (Banks, 2005; Ladson-Billings, 1994; Paris & Alim, 2014; Valenzuela, 1999). Finally, counter narratives (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001), ethnic studies, and social justice curricula (Sleeter, 2011) coupled with Indigenous epistemologies can assist in the development of critical consciousness in students, and serve as a guide to taking collective action in their community and lives.

Little is known about intimate partner abuse (IPA) in divorcing Hispanic parents and how divorcing Hispanic parents utilize legal, social, or community services in regards to their experience of IPA. Research has identified many barriers for Hispanics attempting to access these services, including lack of knowledge of laws and services, lack of access, discrimination, and language barriers. This study aimed to understand the underlying dyadic structures of IPA and how such abuse affects the utilization of civil court processes in addition to social, community, and health services. Data sources included records from the civil court and mediation services, self-reports of intimate partner abuse, and law enforcement records. This paper focused on a subsample from a larger study and included 187 Hispanic couples and 467 non-Hispanic White couples. Results revealed differences between groups in terms of coercive controlling behaviors and their relationship with other forms of IPA. The strength of the relationship between coercive controlling behaviors and IPA victimization was equal for Hispanic husbands and wives, and also equal to White husbands' IPA perpetration, but had a weaker relationship between White wives' IPA perpetration. Overall Hispanic and Non-Hispanic White couples had similar interactions with the civil court system, ranging from time to complete the divorce and interactions with the court after divorce. Within the Hispanic group, couples with at least one partner preferring Spanish were significantly less likely to complete the divorce process, and had fewer contacts with the court after the divorce was finalized. Hispanic couples who were identified as experiencing IPA were significantly less likely to utilize certain helping services, but not others. Possible explanations, limitations, and future directions are explored.

Background: Historically, US immigration policy, including border enforcement, has served to define national belonging and through this process, has constructed particular groups as undesirable or threatening to the nation. Such political-economic strategies contribute to oppression through gender, ethnic, and class discrimination and economic and political exclusion. This dissertation is based on three studies that collectivity explored these issues as structural determinants of health (SDH) and forms of structural and everyday violence. Objectives: These studies aimed to (1) examine the relations between immigration related mistreatment and practices of ethno-racial profiling by immigration officials on health of Mexican immigrants of the Arizona border (2) contextualize the structural and everyday violence of such institutional practices through mistreatment narratives and (3) evaluate the impact of an intensive Border Health Service Learning Institute (BHSLI) on public health students' ability to locate such forms of violence and identify the role of public health advocacy. Methods: Study one and two are a secondary analysis of quantitative and qualitative data drawn from a random household sample of 299 Mexican-origin farmworkers. Study three is a qualitative analysis of 25 BHSLI student reflection journals from 2010-2012. Results: Farmworkers were US permanent residents and citizens, employed in US agriculture for 20 years. Approximately 25% reported immigration related mistreatment, more than 50% were personally victimized and 75% of mistreatment episodes occurred in a community location while residents engaged in routine activities. Immigration mistreatment was associated with a 2.3-increased risk for stress in adjusted models (OR 2.3, CI 1.2, 4.1). After a week at the US-Mexico border, BHSLI students articulated aspects of immigration and economic policy impacting health. Students framed economic and immigration policies as health policy and found the role of public health to convene stakeholders toward multi-institutional policy solutions. Conclusion: Immigration related mistreatment and ethno-racial profiling are historically embedded at institutional and individual levels and reproduce inequality overtime. Such institutional practices of discrimination are SDH and forms of structural and everyday violence. Academic public health programs, engaged in service learning strengthen students' abilities to learn and act on such SDH and contribute to campus-community engagement on related ethno-racial health disparities.

Grounded in Freire's (1970) notion that the purpose of education in an unjust society is to bring about equality and justice, Critical Mathematics (CM) scholars consider mathematics to be a tool to understand, critique, and change the world by deconstructing power structures that marginalize certain groups. In particular, Gutstein's (2006) framework for integrating students' Community, Critical, and Classical mathematics knowledge bases (3 Cs) advocates for mathematics instruction that incorporates students' informal and everyday experiences. This involves investigations into social phenomena that draw on students' perspectives and experiences to inform critical analysis, while developing mathematical power. This dissertation presents the findings from a critical ethnographic study of a veteran teacher of color's approach to integrating the 3 Cs in his Precalculus class. In addition to discussing the creation and implementation of CM activities, this study examined the perspectives and participation of students of color during these curricular units. Data from 12 students of color, including interviews, focus groups, classroom observations, and student work, were collected over the course of a school year. Detailed descriptions are presented of three CM activities (i.e., Local Poverty Unit, AIDS Lab, Gini Coefficient Unit).Analysis of student participation found that students engaged most fully when units integrated transparent mathematical concepts into non-traditional social investigations. CM activities that lacked mathematical activity and/or reproduced traditional instructional norms resulted in high levels of open and passive resistance. Analysis of student perspectives found that repeated opportunities to integrate the 3 Cs promoted shifts in students' orientation toward mathematics. Some students came to see new ways of learning and using mathematics that included various means of participation and connections to one's personal life. In the end, students recognized that mathematics could be relevant and powerful for making sense of the world (reading the world), and acknowledged its potential for bringing about change (writing the world). Findings point to the essential role personalization plays in helping students develop a sense of social agency. That is, by prioritizing Community knowledge and inviting students to incorporate personal and family stories, teachers promote students' integration of their personal perspectives and experiences into their critical analyses.

The United States has the highest teen birth rate of any developed country in the world. In the period 2005-2010, the fertility rate for the United States was 41 births per 1,000 women ages 15-19, compared to 26 births in the United Kingdom, and 4 in Switzerland and The Netherlands. However, the teen birth rates in the United States vary considerably by race and ethnic group. National vital statistics data for 2009 report that the rate for Blacks is more than twice that of non-Hispanic Whites, and the rate for Latinas is almost three times as high. The difference within Latino groups is just as dramatic. The adolescent fertility rate per 1,000 for Cubans is 23.5, while for Puerto Ricans it is 61.67, and for Mexicans the rate is 78.7. Teen pregnancy and childbearing in the Mexican American population are issues of great concern because this ethnic group is the fastest growing population in the United States. The literature on teen childbearing among Latinos, and specifically among Mexican origin teens, tends to attribute the high rates to cultural differences. In this dissertation, I argue that the high rates of teen pregnancy cannot properly be attributed to "cultural" characteristics. Instead, I develop falsifiable hypotheses that are derived from theoretical frameworks which recognize the relationship between racial inequalities and teen fertility. I first test the social characteristics hypothesis to determine the effect that income and parents? education have on teen fertility. Second, I test if other characteristics such as religiosity, type of religion and views on teen pregnancy have an impact on predicting the odds of having a teen birth. Third, drawing on demographic literature, I ascertain whether educational experiences and aspirations to attend college are critical factors in predicting a teen birth. Last, I test if having a teen birth has the same impact for Mexican origin teens compared to Whites in terms of being able to obtain a college degree.

An approach to teaching art using a cross-cultural curriculum to create enthusiasm amongst Latino students and myself was the basis for my research. I collected my data using auto-ethnographical recordings and documenting my results in a pre-evaluation in December 2009, and an implementation of the study in January and February of 2010, with third grade students in a public school in Metro Atlanta. After the pre-evaluation I decided to use a more cross-cultural and tactile approach. I first implemented a lesson based on the Maori of New Zealand. I furthered my research by implementing a second lesson based on Chinese New Year dragon puppets. This lesson was also cross-cultural, but created a more tactile experience. I found that teaching about a culture rather than a singular artist, using tactile materials, and having step-by-step directions that led to a specific outcome created more enthusiasm in my classroom.