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Most of the training material that Assemblies of God educators use in Latin America was originally written in English. Almost without exception nationals or missionaries translated the approved theology texts from English. While everyone contextualizes, the gospel message will not ever be completely at home in the Yucatan until the pastors think in theological categories that differ from what the first missionaries delivered to them. This study attempted to understand how the YAG pastors contextualized their reading of passages in John 2-4 and from those findings describe the process of theological contextualization as practiced by the pastors. Those findings were to be used to develop a theory that explains how theological contextualization takes place. Yucatan Assemblies of God (YAG) sermons, sermons written by Augustine, and my own study of the Gospel of John provided the raw material for this dissertation. I used Grounded Theory to analyze the pastors' sermons, whom I then invited to a focus group interview about their sermons. Their comments were video recorded and transcribed. The first step was to analyze the pastoral sermons. The focus group uncovered a major finding of this study. Multiple interpreters provide the corrective for what this study calls unfaithful readings and for over-contextualization. The wider the circle of interpretive perspectives the more likely the reading will avoid interpretive bias. This topic will be described at length in Chapters 6 and 7. This study's analyses included local sermons, then historical sermons, and finally I prepared the exegetical and narrative analysis of the same text. Eventually, I compared the observations from the YAG sermons with the sermons preached by Augustine looking for clues to how he contextualized. Finally, I produced an exegetical study of the same portions of the Gospel of John, trying to identify the Gospel author's method of contextualizing his materials. This dissertation identified several components leading towards a theory of the process of theological contextualization. The resulting conclusion of this study is that contextualization is unavoidable, and over-contextualization will be the result of a lack of culturally diverse interpreters. Problems arise because the "etic" (outsider) person is often blind to the meaning of differences identified or unidentified in the alien culture and the "emic" (insider) person's blindness creates the illusion that all cultures view the text in the same way. Interpretative communities and intercultural reading provide the correction to over-contextualization to help eliminate bias. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

"Nuu Savi" ("Sacred Rain's collectivity"), the Mixtec people of southern Mexico, had created some of the most complex polities in the continent at the time of European contact. Five hundred years later, they remain cohesive, culturally distinct communities, as increasing numbers of individuals and families migrate to northern Mexico and the US for work in the agricultural and service sectors. In 2005, the Mexican Federal Government reported there were more than 446,000 speakers of "Tu'un Savi" ("Sacred Rain's word," the Mixtec languages) five years of age and older, 322,000 of them still living in 1551 settlements within their historic homeland; an additional 100,000 to 200,000 are estimated to reside in the US. The term Mixtec, derived from the Nahuatl "mixte:cah" ("cloud-people"), has been considered by different authors to encompass between 12 and 52 mutually unintelligible languages, in addition to numerous dialects. According to the Summer Institute of Linguistics' "Ethnologue," it is the second most diversified group of languages in the Americas, after Zapotec. The "Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indigenas," however, recognizes 81 variants of Mixtec, making it the most diversified language group in Mexico following official criteria. The internal variation of Mixtec and its geographic proximity to three related groups (Cuicatec, Triqui and Amuzgo, members of the same lineage in a progressively earlier sequence of branching episodes), provide fertile ground for diachronic inquiry into various lexical and grammatical traits of these languages, which are part of the Otomanguean phylum. The Mixtec territory can be portrayed as an intricate mosaic in its geology and vegetation. It boasts one of the richest floras in Mexico, itself one of the most diverse areas of the planet in biological terms. Furthermore, the Mixteca (the local name for the region in Spanish) is notable for a high incidence of endemic species of vascular plants and terrestrial vertebrates, which reflect long series of climatic and ecological changes in the area's natural history. It is part of a larger region of Otomanguean speech where a characteristic stone-working technology has been documented by archaeologists, in conjunction with the early development of plant domestication and agriculture. Natural complexity and cultural history thus converge to enhance the interest of the Mixtecan languages for ethnobotanical study. This dissertation presents the results of several years of research on the names and uses of plants in Mixtec communities in the states of Oaxaca, Puebla and Guerrero. Extensive information is provided on plant terminology, backed in part by herbarium specimens collected in the field by the author. The Mixtec languages make use of a productive system of noun markers, in some cases matched by pronominal clitics, to label various plant categories. Adscription to these groupings appears to be determined by use, edibility and symbolic significance, as much as by life form affiliations that reflect adaptive design, such as woody plants, leafy herbs, vines and grasses. Categories labeled by class terms appear consistently in all the Mixtec languages that have been documented to date. The dissertation reviews the botanical nomenclature recorded by linguists and naturalists throughout the Mixteca since the 16th century. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this study was to design a culturally relevant curriculum that could be used with English language learning, Mexican American, immigrant, fifth grade children and study the responses they might have to that curriculum. The research questions were: What are the issues in developing a culturally relevant curriculum for Mexican American fifth graders? What are the responses of teachers and children to a culturally relevant curriculum? This study utilizes qualitative research and action research methods. A reading club was formed at an elementary school site and Mexican American children with at least one parent born in Mexico were invited to participate in the study. 21 children opted to attend the club, though only five children, three girls and two boys were the focus of the study. They participated in 21 hours of club meeting times. Data collected included interviews, observational field notes, questionnaires, taped session transcripts, and a collection of written artifacts. Categories were constructed for data analysis using Hickman's (1979) reading response model. The findings show that the children responded enthusiastically and positively to the content of the curriculum. The club gave them an opportunity to demonstrate prior knowledge of Mexican history in a U.S. school setting. Their teachers reported the children gained "voice" in the classroom and an eagerness for learning. The children self-reported they had a greater interest in reading and wanted to participate in another club in their next school year. The club setting for this study allowed the children to embrace books that reflected their history and culture. Discussions and interest ran high throughout the study, with the children often requesting more frequency in club meetings. This action research springs from studies by Gloria Ladson Billings, A. B. Osborne, James Banks, and my own Southwest Paradigm which embraces the rich cultural traditions and background of the inhabitants of the Southwest. The dissertation offers teachers and educators topics and subjects of study pertinent to the history of Mexican Americans in the U.S. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]