No / This article Contributes to theoretical debates on minority political participation in the UK, with specific reference to inter-generational variations within the South Asian Muslim community; Contributes to the scholarly literature on the impact and effectiveness of new political parties within the British political system, through a case study of the Respect Party; Adds to empirical primary data on strategies adopted by political parties in courting specific sections of the ethnic minority vote in the UK; Offers an empirically-led demonstration of the changes taking place within the political sphere of South Asian Muslim diasporas in Britain. In March 2012, the Respect Party won an unexpected by-election in the British city of Bradford, previously regarded as a safe Labour seat. This article examines the party's campaign strategy and in particular how it courted South Asian Muslim voters. A dominant feature of South Asian Muslim politics in the UK has been community bloc voting along lines of kinship (biraderi). The use of kinship networks for political gain effectively disenfranchised many young people and women. We demonstrate how Respect used their experience of campaigning in constituencies with significant numbers of South Asian Muslim voters to achieve an unlikely victory in Bradford. A key strategy was to mobilise otherwise politically marginalised sections of the South Asian Muslim community by offering an alternative to the culture of patronage in Bradford whilst at the same time utilising certain community structures in order to gain their own bloc votes.

The purpose of this study was to identify and examine the roles and functions of parent advisory councils serving Spanish-English bilingual projects funded under ESEA Title VII. It was also the intent of this study to determine if there existed signif icant differences on the ranking of roles and functions by the participants with respect to the specified variables of: position of participant, sex, age level, education level, bilingualism and ethnicity. The roles and functions under the program areas of planning, implementation and evaluation were identified through an extensive review of the literature. Twenty-one Spanish-English bilingual projects with grades Kindergarten through eight, funded under ESEA Bilingual-Bicultural Programs 1976-1977 were randomly selected from <ul>Guide To Title VII ESEA Bilingual-Bicultural Programs 1976-1977</ul>. The participants from these bilingual projects were advisory council chairpersons, and project directors. The research instrument developed was a questionnaire which solicited from the participants demographic information on the advisory councils and also asked participants to rank, according to primacy, roles and functions under the program areas of planning, implementation and evaluation. The data were analyzed by the Kendall Coefficient of Concordance W and Multivariate Analysis. The .05 level of significance was chosen for both tests. The results indicated that there existed a high degree of agreement within each group of respondents on the ranking of roles and functions. The only exception was a low degree of agreement by chairpersons ranking functions under evaluation. The results also showed that the independent variables identified made no difference on the ranking of roles and functions. The only exception was the sex variable on the ranking of roles. Male respondents ranked the roles of advisor, supporter and director first, second and third respectively, while female respondents ranked the roles of supporter, director and advisory first, second and third respectively. / Ed. D.

Colleges are struggling to retain students of color at four-year academic institutions (Kuh, 2005). The result is that while African-American and Latino students are entering college, fewer successfully complete their programs of study and obtain an undergraduate degree (ACE, 2006). For this reason, institutions are establishing supportive learning communities to not only recruit, but to retain this population.Learning communities have become welcoming places in the academy, and are designed to help students succeed in college by providing a formative, integrated academic experience that builds strength, perspective, and commitment. Employing Vincent Tinto`s (1975) student integration theory as a conceptual framework, this qualitative case study examined the relationship between student participation in a learning community, college persistence, and college retention. This research addressed the experiences of eight students of color who participated in the Louis Stokes Alliance Minority Participation (LSAMP) learning community program. Participant experiences were gathered through the administration of demographic questionnaires, in-depth interviews, a focus group, and a non-participant observation. The findings of this research study revealed that college persistence and retention is a function of four strategies, all of which are incorporated into the Louis Stokes Alliance Minority Participation Program: (a) Social Integration; strengthened connections amongst students of color and between students, faculty and staff (b) Academic preparedness; making sure students of color have the resources and skills needed in order to be academically successful (c) Group identity; helping students overcome feelings of isolation that are common on large college campuses (d) Providing both an academic and social atmosphere where students can succeed. The implications of this study assert that learning communities have a profound impact on positive student outcomes for both African-American and Latino students who attend predominately white institutions.