This dissertation examines the historical process of racially constructing and criminalizing black males in the United States. More specifically, the dissertation explores how marginalizing and subordinating narratives are generated and informed by various intersecting and stratifying ideologies that, in turn, become institutionally reified, enshrined, and transmitted throughout the culture. This invisible/seamless process has contributed to the economic, social, and political disempowerment of the black male subject long after he returns to his community after incarceration. The study conducts an historical genealogy of black male racial construction, ideological narrative, and the penal process in the United States between 1790–1930, examining changes in corrections ideology, and highlighting evolving representations of criminality and its effects on popular perspectives concerning black male citizenship.

This study investigated the effects of ethnicity and education on quality of life (QOL). A total of 103 male and female participants were selected from the Argosy University-Dallas student population. Participants (European American n ＝ 31, Latin American n ＝ 19, and African American n ＝ 53) reported their ethnicity, highest level of education completed, household income and gender on a demographics page. The Quality of Life Inventory was used to measure their QOL. Results were analyzed using a two-way ANOVA. Results indicated a significant relationship exists between education level and QOL； and that education level accounted for a greater portion of the variance in overall QOL scores when compared to ethnicity. Ethnicity did not have a significant effect on QOL scores. There was not a significant interaction between ethnicity and education level on QOL scores.

This dissertation focuses on the impacts of US-Mexican state-level restructuring — particularly the liberalization of corn — on the lives of Zapotec maize farmers in San Juan Guelavia, Oaxaca. While demonstrating how neoliberal policies such as NAFTA emerged through a long history of the structural abandonment of southern Mexico, this study shows that current state-level disinvestment in productivity, corruption, migration, and constant infusion of commercial products, along with environmental challenges such as drought, are rapidly changing the conditions of corn production and consumption throughout Mexicos rural South. I argue growing inequalities, particularly between individual family resources, including social resources such as access to education and migration networks to subsidize the rising costs and risks of production and diminishing returns, differentially shape the ability of Guelavians to respond to the “crisis of corn harvests” and undermine the self-governance of communities traditionally based on usos y costumbres. Unlike many studies of rural Mexican communities, I assert that much of this inequality has roots in the establishment of the ejidos, which, despite embodying the Mexican Revolutionary ideals of communal land management, introduced legal institutions and unequal access to good land within the community, leading to unending opportunities for strife. Now, patterns of faltering corn production and uneven access to social and economic capital to meet the challenges of production closely match these patterns of inequitable land distribution. I show how as Guelavians confront a deepening integration of the cash economy and increasing loss of self-sufficiency, they struggle to reconcile a conflict between two moral economies — one based on traditional reciprocity, Guelaguetza, and another based on the “puro dinero” of the global market — within a cultural system of meaning that is deeply ambivalent about the possible outcomes of their responses. Contrasting with studies that examine the role of traditional indigenous institutions in confronting or resisting globalization forces, this study instead shows how it is precisely such institutions that have become points of contention, and emphasizes how community members are attempting to create new opportunities and to define a new moral economy as they try to balance lives lived in “two worlds” located somewhere south of hope.

Mountain-based indigenous peoples have lived on the island of Taiwan since time immemorial. For thousands of years, they were self-ruled in accordance with their own customary law. Not until the early 20th century did they encounter the first foreign dominator—the Japanese government. After World War II, many colonized peoples gained independence due to the international trend of decolonization. However, the indigenous peoples of Taiwan continued to be colonized by the subsequent ruler: the autocratic Kuomintang KMT) government. After sixty years of the KMT governments assimilation, integration and land policy, indigenous peoples now face various socio-economic difficulties, as well as language and cultural extinction. When they realized that many of their problems were the result of systematic discrimination and marginalization by the dominant society, indigenous peoples started to fight for their right to self-government. Nevertheless, their requests have been neglected or ignored by the dominant government. The ruling government claims to have acquired territorial sovereignty over Taiwan including indigenous land), making it the legitimate ruler of indigenous peoples. However, by reviewing the territorial sovereignty of indigenous land from the Qing dynasty, Japanese era, and the Republic of China ROC) era, the dissertation suggests that the KMT government has never acquired territorial sovereignty over indigenous land, and therefore lacks the right to govern indigenes. Under the legal principles of decolonization and right to self-determination, the indigenous peoples of Taiwan are entitled to decide their own political future. Considering Taiwans special international status and current domestic political situation, this dissertation suggests that indigenous peoples can either: 1), establish their own nation-states) separate from the ROC Taiwan), 2) establish a democratic multination federation with the non-indigenous Taiwanese, or 3) seek self-government using existing ROC Taiwan) mechanisms. Although establishing a democratic multination federation seems to best serve the interests of both indigenous peoples and the non-indigenous Taiwanese, it is unlikely to take place soon. In the near future, seeking self-government within the existing ROC Taiwan) mechanisms seems the most practicable way to implement indigenous peoples right to self-determination.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relations between cultural values, social norms, and beliefs related to co-sleeping with the sleeping arrangements of first generation Chinese immigrants in Canada. The participants were 162 first generation Chinese immigrants from four Canadian cities who had children ranging from 2 months to 71 months M ＝ 37.9, SD ＝ 18.06). Participants completed a questionnaire measuring their cultural values and beliefs, value of parenting roles and family, value of romantic relationships, and beliefs of sleeping arrangements. Parents indicated their sleeping arrangements i.e. where child slept and with whom the child slept). Participants were also asked to draw a picture of their bedrooms) which indicated the location of the childs and/or parents bed, and the distance between the two beds. Results indicated that 77% Chinese parents in this study co-slept with their pre-school aged child, whereas only 23% parents let their child sleep in their own bedroom. Among the co-sleepers, half of the children slept in their parents bed, and half of them slept in their own bed, which was either attached to the parents bed or separated from the parents bed. The mean distance between the parents bed and the childs bed was 21.15cm SD ＝ 42.74) for co-sleeping families, and 502.8 cm SD ＝ 188.69) for solitary sleeping families. Using stepwise regression analysis, the relations between demographic factor, space availability, values, norms, and beliefs, on the one hand, and sleeping arrangements, on the other, were examined. Personal beliefs about sleeping arrangements, including cultural beliefs of independence and interdependence, beliefs of marital quality, and beliefs of solitary sleeping, influence sleeping arrangements. Parents length of residency in Canada, childs age, and bedroom numbers also influence sleeping arrangements. The findings have important implications for researchers and health professionals in terms of sleeping arrangements in the larger socio-cultural context.

Abstract This work examines the under-recognized complexity of how race and socioeconomic status (SES) shape aspirations and mobility prospects for teenagers transitioning to adulthood. In this research, I follow Young (2004) in conceiving of aspirations as future-oriented goals, coupled with clearly articulated strategies for attainment. I test three main hypotheses: first, that white and middle-class students will have more ambitious goals than their non-white and working-class counterparts. Second, I hypothesize that white and middle-class students will have more well-articulated strategies for attaining their goals than non-white and working-class students. Lastly, I hypothesize that aspects of the home environment explain these differences, specifically in terms of the social capital available to teenagers. The data for this research come from fifteen one-hour interviews with randomly selected high school students (juniors and seniors), stratified on the basis of race and SES. I asked these students about their educational and occupational goals and whether they have specific plans for achieving those goals. In addition, I asked about the sources of their aspirations, including aspects of their home environments and close social ties both inside and outside of their families. I found that middle class students typically have higher goals then working class students, while non-white students have higher goals than white students. These differences in aspirations are strongly tied to individuals’ social networks.

This dissertation focuses on the trade-union responses to immigration. Immigrants have long constituted a challenge for labor unions, resulting in a wide variety of union responses historically and cross-nationally, ranging from restrictive and exclusionary policies, to orientations supporting the liberalization of labor migration laws and socio-economic integration. A variety of factors are posited to influence unions response to labor migration and immigrant integration, including the effects of globalization internationalizing labor markets, economic restructuring, porous borders), weakened labor movements, industry characteristics, grassroots activism, and union ideologies. While each of these factors offers important insights, their explanatory value is significantly enhanced by appropriately contextualizing each in relation to the degree to which unions are embedded in institutionalized decision-making and consultation relationships with employers and the state embeddedness). The more embedded unions are in a dense web of multi-level exchange relationships, the more influence unions have in policymaking, but at the same time, more compromise is encouraged among social partners as each issue area becomes part of a larger system of concessions and credits. I argue that the greater the embeddedness, the more unions position on immigration and integration will be homogeneous among unions and will reflect the dominant immigration/integration regime in the country. More specifically, embedded unions are posited to take more conciliatory stances towards employer demands for labor migration in exchange for limiting conditions e.g., equality in working rights) to reduce exploitation and protect domestic wages and conditions. Other integration efforts are more likely to support migrant interests through general, universalized efforts e.g., anti-poverty or anti-discrimination campaigns) than targeted, specialized programs directed specifically at migrants. Conversely, weakly embedded unions will exhibit more variation in their policies towards immigrants given their fragmentation, weaker position in industrial relations and greater susceptibility to changing labor market conditions. With less policy influence, unions are more likely to oppose labor migration. However, in the context of union decline, in unions representing sectors with increasing diversity, there will be greater incentives for the targeted organizing of immigrant origin workers, and for developing more inclusive internal programs and structures to facilitate their integration. Union ideology and grassroots mobilizing are also posited to play a greater influence in determining union commitment to integration efforts. These tendencies are supported by the cross-national comparison of eight countries. Insights from two in-depth case analyses strongly embedded unions in neo-corporatist Belgium； weakly embedded unions in pluralist Canada) further buttress these arguments, as well as providing the relationship between embeddedness and union responses towards immigration and integration with a plausible causal mechanism.

The K-12 schooling experiences of African American and Latino males are often characterized as a pipeline to prison. African American and Latino students are suspended and expelled from school at higher rates than any other racial group. The failures that African American and Latino males face in K-12 schools limit their opportunities as adults to become active participants in the workforce； instead many become participants in crime, unemployment and the criminal justice system. Mentoring programs and/or youth development programs have been implemented in schools and communities to help at-risk African American and Latino males. The dissertation was guided by this major question: How do high school males of color describe and make sense of their academic engagement in school and self-perception while participating in an ecologically structured school-based mentoring program? For the ten high school males of color in this study I do an in-depth analysis using program observations, interviews, and data from journal writings to examine the meaning of their experiences in the program. The ecological systems theory will help to explain how specific activities and functions that occurred within the various levels of the IMPACTs program ecological structure influenced the high school students experiences in the program. Furthermore, I will use the different levels of the programs ecological system to describe how the activities and functions at those levels may or may not have an influence on the high school students other settings that are located at each individuals micro system level. Also, I use the ecological systems theory to conceptualize the high school students experiences at various levels of the programs ecology, how those experiences interacted with other levels of the IMPACT programs ecological structure and whether or not it influenced the high school students academically and personally.

This dissertation investigates how photographs have shaped public memory of the history of immigration to the United States through an analysis of the images of European immigrants that circulated widely between 1880 and 1980. Tracing the changing meanings attached to these photographs helps us to better understand the evolution of American concepts of racial identification, the emergence of a national identity as a “nation of immigrants,” and the impact of visual images on public understandings of the past. During the era of mass immigration, roughly 1880-1920, photographs of European immigrants circulated widely in the popular illustrated press. After 1920, these historical images were reprinted in educational materials and textbooks, in government propaganda and advertisements, and in prominent museums. Until the 1930s, the photographs functioned primarily as documents of race. Since the 1930s, the same photographs have circulated within a rhetoric of pathos: they represented the humanity of all European immigrants who in turn became Americans, and also the freedoms and opportunities available in the United States. When these photographs entered the museum in the 1960s, they became nostalgic images of ancestors. The changing rhetorical usage and context of presentation of these photographs supported the rise of the narrative of the United States as a “nation of immigrants” in three crucial ways. First, photographs enabled the concept of a shared immigrant heritage by visualizing an inclusive European-American identity emerging in the 1930s and 1940s. Second, photographs of European immigrants were deployed to confirm the greatness of the nation in the 1940s and 1950s. Finally, in the 1960s and 1970s, photographs affirmed the greatness of immigrants themselves. By the late 1960s, photographs could support two distinct interpretations of immigration history: the official narrative that focused on the nation, or the vernacular narrative that emphasized the immigrants themselves. Yet in both versions, European immigrants struggled and ultimately triumphed. Photographs thus have come to visualize a celebratory history of immigration in which European immigrants represent both the American people and the nation.

In Canada, the adage too few to count has relegated studies on incarcerated Black women to the margins of social science and sociological inquiry. Social justice initiatives investigating the lived experiences of incarcerated Black women in federal institutions have seldom been explored. This dissertation presents an integration and subsequent exploration into how incarceration has detrimentally affected the socio-economic status of Black women in the 21st century. In our current local and global environment, the racial, economic, and political marginalization of women is a contributing factor related to the disproportionate numbers of incarcerated Black women. This study uses ten qualitative interviews with incarcerated Black women in order to explore how social relations such as poverty, violence against women, racism and classism are historically connected to the contemporary over-representation of incarcerated Black women. This dissertation is ethnographically driven see Saleh-Hanna, 2008). This project was designed in such a way that the analyses from the interviews support many of the theoretical frameworks argued in the research. As such, this work relies heavily on qualitative parameters as a means to support theoretical arguments. This dissertation is grounded in theory； however, it has also been designed to tell stories and/or narrative accounts that serve as micro-maquettes for exploring some of the conceptual arguments being put forth. This research draws on feminist theories of law, critical criminology, critical race and racism, and citizenship, in order to examine the social implications of incarceration and the Black woman body politic. Additionally, a move towards Canadian Black Feminist Criminology explores how theories of race and racism are explicitly connected to gendered incarceration and the social reproduction of citizenship and belonging； when situated in a Canadian context Black Feminist Criminology is identified as a tool for future critical feminist criminological theorizing and social activist praxis.