This thesis examines the discursive messages and specific practices that Latino families use to transmit messages about culture, race, and racism. Scholars have not fully explored the complexity and range of practices and discourses that are involved in Latinos’ ethno-racial socialization. The use of the phrase “ethno-racial socialization” is important because it combines the concepts of racial socialization and ethnic socialization in an effort to account for how the lived experiences of Latinos who mostly think of themselves as a racial group, are treated as one race, and thus, discuss race with family members. This research explores this process using twelve in-depth, semi-structured interviews with seven U.S. born children of immigrants between the ages of 18-30 and five of their parents (3 immigrant, 1 migrant, and 1 U.S. born). The immigrant families were middle-class and had at least one parent that was born in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, or Puerto Rico. To theoretically ground the project, I draw on Annette Lareau’s concepts of concerted cultivation and the accomplishment of natural growth, which are two major frames to describe how middle-class and lower-class families socialize their family members. I apply this framework to strategies of ethno-racial socialization and develop through the concepts of ethno-racial concerted cultivation and the accomplishment of natural growth, which, I argue, respectively correspond to ‘explicit’ and ‘implicit’ socialization approaches to conveying messages about culture, race, and racism. I argue that ethno-racial concerted cultivation and the accomplishment of natural growth stand in opposite ends of a continuum of approaches to instilling messages related to race and ethnicity. In some cases, the strategies can be mutually reinforcing because a practice that can be considered ethno-racial concerted cultivation can create opportunities for the accomplishment of natural growth to occur (and vice versa). Intra-familial differences in how family members socialize their children mean that they receive diverse and at times contradictory messages about culture and race from different family members such as parents and extended family members. The differences in how family members use ethno-racial socialization strategies are further heightened due to the experiences of the family member (such as their maintenance or rejection of immigrant culture and experiences with racial discrimination or lack thereof) and family structure (such as the varying messages children receive in single-parent households with extended family members living in the home, two-parent households, and households with transnational family ties). The young adults who were consistently exposed to encouraging and empowering messages that implicitly or explicitly emphasized a sense of commitment, belonging, and identity to the ethno-racial group experienced the most positive outcomes, some resulting in cultural capital, such as: racial literacy, preparation for bias, ethnic/racial identity, language skills, access to co-ethnic networks, cosmopolitanism, social flexibility, and social capital (in the form of familial capital). The young adults who did not receive consistent messages or who received messages that promoted anti-blackness or erased the importance of their immigrant family’s culture experienced some of the following outcomes: limited racial literacy, ambiguous ethno-racial identity, limited Spanish skills, limited access to co-ethnic networks, and parent-child conflict. Overall, this research illustrates how ethno-racial socialization in Latina/o families does not easily fit into one discrete model of socialization, but rather is a complex, multi-layered interplay of mechanisms that draw on both ethno-racial concerted cultivation and the accomplishment of natural growth approaches. This interplay also brings sometimes conflict due to the various and, at times, opposing messages that children receive from different family members.

Bullying is an issue that has a presence felt by individuals residing all across the United States. There is not one universal accepted definition of this problem, but the types of bullying are as diverse as the individuals who are affected. This study looks at an under researched demographic of Biracial children in comparison to single-race children and the prevalence of bullying. The study uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study. The original study took place in 20 urban cities across America with mothers and fathers of newborns (N=4,898). This study looks at the prevalence of bullying made possible from the 9 year follow up child survey (N=3,266). After analysis, results show that race is not a significant factor when comparing the prevalence of bullying between biracial children with their single-race peers.

Proposition 209 banned the consideration of race or ethnicity in admission decisions to the University of California (UC). The UC “clarified” their policy in 2008, recognizing that Native Americans enrolled in a federally recognized tribe enjoy a political status that enables them to be offered affirmative action, even when the consideration of race or ethnicity is banned. The Clarification led to a statistically significant surge in the Native American applicant share, acceptance rate, admit share, and enrollment share. Enrollment share increased by 56% from 2008 to 2010 at the UC, even as the three-tiered California system of higher education saw a 40% drop in Native American enrollment. The study also finds that Prop 209 shifted Native American students from the more selective to the less selective campuses. The results suggest that affirmative action is a strong determinant of both the number and the location of Native Americans at the UC.

Mountaineering is not typically considered an academic subject. Nor is there much scholarship on the sport, let alone its history in the state with the smallest population, Alaska. Yet through analysis of the sport, deeper connections in the relationship between humans and the environment, the history of colonizing both indigenous peoples and land, and the place of gender and sport in Alaska come to light. Mountaineers that traveled to Alaska in the late 19th century and early 20th century were some of the first advocates for protecting its land, yet also displayed their imperialist and masculine values in the mountains. The effects of these approaches to climbing structurally excluded women and furthered the project of colonizing the land by both physically and metaphorically claiming the peaks of mountains for the nation. Their climbing also contributed to the idea that humans conquered nature; by dominating the peaks these climbers saw themselves in a battle with nature, and reaching the summit was their victory. As World War II hit Alaska, new approaches to climbing surfaced, reflecting both the spirit of war time in Alaska and the resulting population boom. Organized through the branches of climbing and environmental clubs, women began to participate with a distinctly female culture of climbing. Women sometimes expressed views of the union between humans and nature, and men also organized as environmental protectors due to their experiences in the mountains. Yet as this thesis will point out, in viewing nature and humans as separate mountaineers encouraged the view that Alaska and its land were a wilderness resource for recreation, rather than a land to act in community towards. This thesis attempts to complicate the sport of mountaineering, documenting the ways people climbed and the different meanings they embedded in their climbing activity.

The intention of the study is to come into a better understanding of the way in which the Diasporic body comes to know and understand its subjectivity within the governing contemporary public sphere. I suggest that this knowledge is diverse and that it can assist us to re-conceptualize learning in the context of schooling and education. I am interested in this seemingly mundane thing of ‘blackness’ and the way in which the signifying power of ‘blackness’ has come to constitute the conditions of possibility for the formation of a certain humanism. I trace somewhat abstract historical trajectories in order to better understand how contemporary everyday Diasporic life comes to be classified, organized, self-regulated and inscribed through particular intersections of race by way of gender, ableism, class, and sexuality. I seek to ascertain ways in which race is interpreted as the ‘Truth’ in order to impute the ethic of colonialism onto the Diasporic body. With this study my interest concerns understanding my lived experiences within the context of Diaspora and about how I come to make sense of race/racism/blackness through the cultural location of the colonial West. I am seeking to understand how, at certain moments, abject bodies of the Diaspora become predisposed to socialize in specific ways through these protean subjectivities. My interest involves coming to know critical pedagogies immanent to African Diasporic spaces that are germane for re-imagining schooling and education. I am interested in the school as a Diasporic space, the pedagogical and instructional implications for the teacher/educator, and about the ways in which meaning is made of Diaspora. I am suggesting writing Diaspora for schooling and education presents alternative ways of making sense of one’s subjectivity, citizenry, identity, about coming to know and understand how belonging, power and privilege come to be inscribed within the governing nation-state.

The intention of the study is to come into a better understanding of the way in which the Diasporic body comes to know and understand its subjectivity within the governing contemporary public sphere. I suggest that this knowledge is diverse and that it can assist us to re-conceptualize learning in the context of schooling and education. I am interested in this seemingly mundane thing of ‘blackness’ and the way in which the signifying power of ‘blackness’ has come to constitute the conditions of possibility for the formation of a certain humanism. I trace somewhat abstract historical trajectories in order to better understand how contemporary everyday Diasporic life comes to be classified, organized, self-regulated and inscribed through particular intersections of race by way of gender, ableism, class, and sexuality. I seek to ascertain ways in which race is interpreted as the ‘Truth’ in order to impute the ethic of colonialism onto the Diasporic body. With this study my interest concerns understanding my lived experiences within the context of Diaspora and about how I come to make sense of race/racism/blackness through the cultural location of the colonial West. I am seeking to understand how, at certain moments, abject bodies of the Diaspora become predisposed to socialize in specific ways through these protean subjectivities. My interest involves coming to know critical pedagogies immanent to African Diasporic spaces that are germane for re-imagining schooling and education. I am interested in the school as a Diasporic space, the pedagogical and instructional implications for the teacher/educator, and about the ways in which meaning is made of Diaspora. I am suggesting writing Diaspora for schooling and education presents alternative ways of making sense of one’s subjectivity, citizenry, identity, about coming to know and understand how belonging, power and privilege come to be inscribed within the governing nation-state.

Vaccinations were noted as the top public health achievement in the 20th century (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1999). However, not everyone is getting vaccinated. Taking a sociological approach this study examined the extent to which African Americans, American Indian/Alaska Natives, and Latino populations received an influenza vaccination compared to whites at a micro and macro level from the 2009 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. Previous research on racial and ethnic health disparities, attitudinal difference, and other demographic characteristics are reviewed in the literature. The Behavioral Model of Health Services was employed as the theoretical framework for this study. The methods consisted of three levels of analysis beginning with multivariate logistic regression at the individual level, least squares dummy variable modeling (LSDV), and hierarchical logistic regression modeling to incorporate aggregate data from the 50 United States. The results from the logistic regression show African Americans and Latino respondents have lesser odds of receiving the flu vaccine compared to whites after controlling for medical costs, access to health care, and a variety of socio-demographic characteristics. Results also show American Indian/Alaska Natives had greater odds of receiving the flu vaccine compared to whites after introducing similar control variables. Least Squares Dummy Variable Modeling controlled for the effects states have on receiving a flu vaccine. The results presented were African Americans and Latinos have significant lesser odds of receiving the flu vaccine compared to whites. While American Indian/Alaska Natives had greater odds of receiving a flu vaccine compared to whites, statistical significance was lost once states were used as control variables. It was also found 13 states had greater odds and 13 states had lesser odds of receiving the flu vaccine compared to North Dakota. Hierarchical logistic regression models examined the influence of state level covariates on the odds of individuals receiving the flu vaccine, and the results indicated that African Americans and Latinos had lesser odds of receiving an influenza vaccine compared to whites, but American Indian/Alaska Natives were found to have greater odds compared to whites, with the results not being statistically significant. The implications of these results are discussed.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Adelaide, Depts. of Geography and Politics, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 384-402).

For my thesis I discussed the struggles of growing up with a bounded racial identity through the medium of animation. Portraying through the personal stories I have endured, I explain to my viewers how often I struggled with my internal and external identities that either ignored or confronted the ignorance and racial mistreatment I faced growing up. The hope for my animation is to have viewers acknowledge the issue of the bounded racial identity and hopefully begin a dialogue that ignites change.

This case study examines the Self-Help Cooperative Movement (SHCM). Largely ignored by social scientists for the past eighty years, the movement took place during the Great Depression and, while national in scope, it was concentrated in Los Angeles. This movement combined traditional protest tactics with pre-figurative politics; its goal was to provide full employment for all Americans through the proliferation of worker and consumer cooperatives. Despite a very promising start in 1931, the movement collapsed and disintegrated by 1940. This dissertation examines the reasons for the SHCM's early successes and later its failures. The SHCM's early successes were made possible through their alliances with Japanese farmers (who lived on the outskirts of Los Angeles) and people of color in general, Los Angeles businesses and conservative business leaders, and with sympathetic politicians and state agencies. These alliances were, in turn, made possible by the inherent ambiguity of the SHCM's politics, which incorporated both conservative practices (e.g., self-help) and socialist practices (e.g., workplace democracy). This unique mixture, what the Los Angeles Times called "voluntary communism", generated widespread support among hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers and among conservative, socialist, and liberal political actors. In 1933, the SHCM underwent a profound transformation when Upton Sinclair and the End Poverty in California movement assumed leadership of the cooperatives and the California Democratic Party, promising to place state support behind the cooperative movement and in the process both end unemployment and undermine capitalism. The gubernatorial campaign of 1934 became a referendum on the cooperatives. Over the course of the prolonged bitterly fought campaign the cooperatives became associated with communism, and their liberal and conservative allies responded by discontinuing their support. With the loss of this political and financial assistance the SHCM slowly faded away. While the movement failed to achieve its specific goals, its impact on California politics, along with other Utopian Socialist movements in Los Angeles during this period, was immense. By the 1940s both political parties in California were supporting liberal and socialist initiatives (e.g., universal health-care and mass university education).