Browsing by Subject "Ethnicity"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Collective identity and African American views of Africa, African immigrants, and immigrant entitlements.
    (2010-06) Pendaz, Sadie
    In this dissertation, I examine how collective memory and collective identity impact African American interpretations of Africa, African immigrants and African immigrant participation in affirmative action programs. The setting of the research is the Minneapolis/St. Paul area of Minnesota (the "Twin Cities"), which has a notable historical and contemporary African American population and the largest eastern African population of immigrants from Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the Sudan. I find that rather than expanding their definition of African American ethnic identity through their interactions with African immigrants, African Americans, relied on a bifurcated notion of the historical place of Africa as part of the two-ness of African American ethnic identity, and African immigrants as an on-the-ground reality. Methodologiclly, I use historical newspaper analysis and extensive in-depth interviews with African Americans and eastern Africans from the Twin Cities. Theoretically I analyze theories of collective memory, intergroup contact and challenge the notion that African American ethnic identity is equatable with black racial identity.
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    Ethnicity, poverty, and secular schooling: Muslim Hui students' identity negotiations in rural China
    (2014-08) Wu, Xinyi
    Intrigued by the heterogeneous development of rural and urban China, persistent poverty in rural ethnic minority regions, and dilemmatic quality compulsory education provided for ethnic regions as a key to poverty alleviation, this dissertation sets out to examine the rural appropriation and implementation of compulsory education and its impacts on the lives of students from one particular ethnic group, Muslim Hui in Xihaigu, Southern part of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in Northwestern China, as they respond to changing rural dynamics, fighting against poverty, and trying to maintain ethnoreligious identity.Informed by critical theory and constructivism paradigms as well as studies of ethnicity and ethnic identity, cultural reproduction theory, and cultural production theory, this study use critical ethnography as a method of research to particularly examine how secular schooling is practiced in this rural and Muslim Hui concentrated region and is lived everyday through routinized pedagogical practices and administrative maneuvers. Most importantly, through the voices of local Muslim Hui, it explores parents' changing views of secular schooling and how the changed views affect Muslim Hui students' exercise their power to participate in school activities, whether they resist against and struggle with secular schooling or straddle across secularity and ethnoreligiosity. In the end, this study attempts to make a theoretical contribution by challenging the binary relationship between the dominating and the dominated that guided majority of studies of ethnic groups in China. Muslim Hui students in my study exhibit diverse reactions and responses to the dominant Han culture and constantly negotiate a life of their own.
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    The role of ethnicity in the foreign language classroom: perspectives on African-American students’ enrollment, experiences, and identity
    (2012-12) Glynn, Cassandra Lea
    This evaluative comparative case study focuses on the foreign language enrollment and experiences of African-American students in both a suburban and an urban context. Given the pervasiveness of inequity in education coupled with the benefits of foreign language study, it is important to examine the low enrollment and retention of African-American students in foreign language classes. The main objective of this study was to compare and contrast lower and upper level foreign language students' perceptions of foreign language study within two different school contexts in order to gain a better understanding of African-American students' enrollment and experiences. This study involved 79 students in total: 42 suburban students and 37 urban students. All 79 completed a questionnaire about their ethnic background, family, and previous and current experiences learning a language. 15 suburban and 32 urban students also participated in focus groups, group interviews, or individual interviews during which they were asked to describe their enrollment decisions, experiences in foreign language study, and their perceptions of the low enrollment of African-American students in foreign language classes. Data analysis procedures included both a within-in case and a cross-case analysis of the questionnaire, focus group, and interview data from each school. This study illuminated that students of all ethnic backgrounds in two very different educational contexts shared similar perceptions of foreign language study, particularly that it is grammar and textbook-driven. Additionally, many of the students, regardless of their ethnicity or SES, embodied similar motivation for enrolling in and opting out of foreign language classes. In regard to African-American students, however, this study provided evidence of a low enrollment and retention among African-American students. Furthermore, findings reflected that teachers and fellow students harbored negative perceptions and stereotypes of African-American students, pointing to the pervasiveness of institutional and social racism in the students' schools and communities. Other findings in this study pointed to the difference between male and female African-American students' persistence in foreign language study and several issues related to identity and SES.
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    Student Experiences and Educational Outcomes of Southeast Asian Female Secondary School Students in the United States: A Critical Quantitative Intersectionality Analysis
    (2018-04) Jang, Sung Tae
    The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between Southeast Asian female students’ multiple identities (race or ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic class [SES]) and their schooling experiences and educational outcomes. It also seeks to identify school organizational characteristics that mediate the effects of the convergence of multiple marginalized identities on Southeast Asian female students’ experiences and educational outcomes. This study used restricted-use data from High School Longitudinal Studies 2009 provided by the National Center for Education Statistics, and employed multiple regression, logistic regression, and linear mixed effect modeling. Math achievement scores of Southeast Asian students were significantly higher than those of other race or ethnicity groups, except Other Asian/Pacific Islanders, regardless of gender. However, Southeast Asian females’ intention to pursue higher education was significantly lower than that of Southeast Asian males as well as being the lowest among all female students. Furthermore, the influence of SES on Southeast Asian female students’ math achievement scores was not statistically different from the average impact of SES on math achievement scores for all students. In terms of students’ schooling experiences, Southeast Asian female students are less likely to hold gender stereotypes regarding males’ superior math abilities than are other race or ethnic groups. In addition, Southeast Asian female students perceived a higher degree of positive interactions with math teachers (i.e., teacher’s expectation, teacher’s treatment in terms of respect, and teacher’s fairness). Focusing on math teachers’ teacher quality measures (i.e., years of teaching experience, a graduate degree), Southeast Asian students’ math teachers did not have significantly different teacher quality compared to that of their white counterparts. Finally, the effect of SES on the quality of interactions with math teachers was positive for Southeast Asian female students. This pattern was not unique to Southeast Asian high school girls; that is, higher SES had a similarly positive association on the quality of interactions with teachers for other race or ethnicity groups, except Hispanic students. This study also found that the school organizational characteristics used in this study did not mediate or differentiate the intersectionalities related to Southeast Asian female students. In other words, the patterns described above held regardless of schooling context. Although the model minority stereotype toward Asian students suggests that they are the most likely to pursue higher education, this study reveals the limits of the myth. It demonstrated that Southeast Asian females have the lowest intention (among females) to pursue higher education even though they had good schooling experiences, earned among the highest grades in high school, and did not consider boys to be better at math. The findings reveal a larger systemic failure to consider the specificities within the Asian population, which limits the provision of adequate support for Southeast Asian females to realize their full potential through their future academic careers. Implications for policy and leadership are discussed.
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    Talking difference: discourses about the Gypsy / Roma in Europe since 1989.
    (2009-08) Schneeweis, Adina Alexandra Giurgiu
    This dissertation is a study of discourses about the Gypsies / Roma in contemporary Europe. It is positioned at the intersection of the disciplines of mass communication, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and Romani studies. It seeks to explain the construction, development, and social treatment of Gypsy difference in Western and Eastern Europe since 1989. The research, therefore, focused on discourses in the press, in Romania and the United Kingdom at critical conjunctures between 1990 and 2006, and in publications of non-governmental organizations of the emerging movement for Roma rights. The analysis asked what press and activist discourses contribute to what European cultures mean by Gypsy / Roma. How and why have these discourses changed - at a historical time of increased attention to human rights and minority political representation, of European Union enlargement and opening of borders, of politico-economic transformations and democratization processes throughout Western, Central, and Eastern Europe? Press discourses constructed "the Gypsy," whereas activist discourses formulated "the Roma." The analysis of newspapers identified competing representations of discrimination against the Gypsy, of deploring the Gypsy's perpetual victim status, and, to a smaller degree, of attempting to recognize the minority culture in its own right. Differently, the activist publications contributed and formulated discourses that recognize the discrimination against the Roma, the state's role in this process, the rights of the Roma, the need for integration of the Roma, the role of tradition in contemporary process of inter-ethnic living, and, in few rare cases, the inferiority of Roma cultures. Tensions, hesitations, and changes were inherent in each of these constructions of the Gypsy / Roma. While discriminating against the Gypsy / Roma and lamenting racism are both rather self-explanatory in post-World War II and post-Communist Europe, press and activist discourses illustrate that such communication institutions play their part in the dominant ideology-counter-ideology dance that maintains an anti-Gypsyist system in place - by over-ethnicizing the Roma peoples, by intentionally shying away from formulating a cohesive Roma identity, and by continuing to find solutions for the Roma instead of with the Roma (yet an improvement from earlier eras of solution-finding against the Roma).
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    Using Multiple Regression to Ascertain Group Differences in the Relationship of Predictors to a Criterion: Ethnic Group Differences in the Relationship between Course-taking and Achievement in Mathematics
    (2018-10) Park, Kyungin
    This study introduces an approach that utilizes ten regression models to assist in the study of the relationship between predictors and a criterion as it pertains to group differences. The models range in complexity from a simple multiple regression model that assumes one size fits all, to a full moderated multiple regression model, where each group has its own set of predictors. The different models arise via varying constraints that are theoretically meaningful and testable relative to equity of the groups. Data for mathematics achievement and course-taking for different ethnic groups obtained from the National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS: 09) are used to illustrate and explain the different models. This study is especially timely given the attention to achievement gaps and their causes and correlates.