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Background: Globally there continues to be an increase in the number of voluntary and non-voluntary migrants. In 2019, the UK records show that 3.1 million visas were issued to immigrants for various purposes including study, work, family unification and a range of other reasons (Migration Statistics, 2020). Against this background, there has been limited study of voluntary immigrant parents' experiences of child healthcare services in Northern Ireland. Aim of the Study: The aim of the study is to explore the experiences of immigrant parents in relation to their engagement with child healthcare services and specifically to understand Middle Eastern voluntary immigrant parents' experiences of child healthcare services in Northern Ireland. Method: First, a systematic review of the literature on voluntary immigrant parents' experiences was undertaken. Second, a qualitative study exploring Middle Eastern parents' experiences was carried out in Northern Ireland. Purposive sampling was used to recruit voluntary immigrant parents from the Middle East (n=28). The recruited parents were interviewed using a semi-structured interview method between Marchand August 2019. Inductive thematic analysis of the interview data was carried out using the model of Braun and Clark (2006). Deductive analysis of the data was undertaken using the Immigrant Health Service Utilization theoretical model devised by Yang and Hwang (2016). NVivo11 software was used for data management. Results: The thematic synthesis identified three principal themes: navigation, trust and balance. The results of the qualitative study showed that immigrant parents experienced difficulties while attending child healthcare services. These barriers were systematic and were related to the context of immigration and factors outside parents' control and involved governmental requirements and the healthcare system, such as language and cultural barriers and unfamiliarity with healthcare services which impaired access to child healthcare services for immigrant parents. Most of the participants reported positive experiences with the healthcare system resulting from parents' and healthcare professionals' communication and interaction, successful navigation and reaching a balance within the new and unfamiliar healthcare service. Conclusion: This study adds an understanding of Middle Eastern voluntary immigrant parents' experiences of child healthcare services in Northern Ireland. Overall, the findings show that voluntary Middle Eastern immigrant parents were satisfied with the healthcare services in Northern Ireland. Even so, most of the participants had experienced difficulties with the registration process when they encountered it for the first time. This problem was compounded by language and cultural barriers for several of the participants. It is recommended that proper support and guidance with the initial registration process should be provided and that culturally competent healthcare services will enhance voluntary immigrant parents' future access and outcomes.

Immigration worldwide is at an all-time high resulting in significant changes in school populations internationally. Schools have a key role in the resettlement of International New Arrivals (INA) and the perspectives of INA pupils can play an important part in the development of provision which effectively meets their needs. The first paper is a systematic literature review exploring the secondary school experiences of INAs. Using the PRISMA framework, 35 potentially relevant studies were identified of which 10 met the inclusion criteria. A thematic synthesis of the studies identified the following key themes: sense of belonging, acquisition of the English language and lack of acceptance. Findings also highlight similar perceptions across different INA groups relating to the importance of social inclusion of pupils into schools. Implications for school practice are considered. The second paper is an exploratory qualitative study exploring the experiences of three male adolescent INAs as they transferred into secondary school in one local authority in the UK. Two interviews using interpreters were carried out with each participant and analysed using thematic analysis. Key themes generated from the data included navigating the learning context, the school transition experience and developing a sense of belonging. Findings also reflected the role of INA pupils as active agents in shaping their own experiences in school. Implications for school practice and future research are considered. The third paper outlines the dissemination of evidence to professional practice within the context of educational psychology. An overview of the literature on evidence-based practice, practice-based evidence and effective research dissemination is given. This is followed by a summary of the research implications from Paper One and Two and concludes with a strategy for dissemination.

Rationale and Aims: Ethnic Identity (EI) refers to the extent to which an individual identifies with their cultural group (Phinney, 2000) and has been widely documented as being beneficial for well-being (Smith and Silva, 2011; Umaña-Taylor, 2011). EI can be especially beneficial for ethnic minority populations, such as British Bangladeshis, who are at risk of a complex, largely undocumented negotiation of identities and stressors related to cultural adjustment in Britain (Eade, 1994). However, some research suggests the opposite effect: namely, that high levels of EI may actually increase vulnerability to distress when faced with discrimination, especially when considering populations that face intersectional disadvantages. A systematic review of the literature regarding British Bangladeshi identity and well-being revealed that there are currently no documented experiences of third-generation British Bangladeshi adults. Furthermore, no peer reviewed qualitative research has explicitly considered EI and well-being in the British Bangladeshi population. Hence the aim of this study was to understand the importance of EI and well-being in third-generation British Bangladeshi adults. Methods/Analysis: A qualitative design was employed where semi-structured interviews were conducted on 15 third-generation British Bangladeshi participants. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analysed using Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006), within a Critical Realist epistemology. Findings: Three main themes were identified: Theme 1 – “Oh my God, I’m different” being “made to feel” like an outsider in Britain. Theme 2 – “You’re a coconut” being “made to feel” like an outsider within the British Bangladeshi community. Theme 3 – “A proper sense of belonging”. Participants discussed their experiences of feeling like an outsider, due to a multitude of factors e.g. race, religion, cultural practices and gender norms. At times their strategy for survival involved trying to behave in ways that they perceived as synonymous with being ‘White British’ in professional and public spaces. Multiple challenges also appear to be faced whilst trying to engage with their own community. Despite these challenges, participants talked through connecting with elements of their Bangladeshi and Islamic heritage that has enabled a sense of belonging at a number of different stages within varying contexts and moments in their lives. Implications: Findings are discussed in relation to existing literature and theoretical models. Implications for clinical psychological research and practice, methodological considerations and suggestions for future research are also discussed.

The 'feminisation' of international migration, reflects an increase in the health sector migration from African countries to the UK, particularly from countries with previous colonial relationships to the UK, such as Nigeria. However, the impact that the intersections of racialised, gendered and immigrant identity status have on identity and occupational opportunities for Nigerian women who migrate to the UK is under researched. Addressing this gap, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was performed on interviews with twenty-four Nigerian women, twelve doctors and twelve nurses working in the NHS. All participants were interviewed using unstructured interview, eight of whom were interviewed a second time using semi-structured interviews to further develop analysis. IPA proved a fruitful method for in-depth analysis of the participants' experiences, and the findings captured three superordinate themes: 1) The process of becoming; 2) Inequalities at work; and 3) Coping with threatened identities. Four conceptual frameworks were applied in interconnected ways to further interpret the findings. These were: Acker's inequality regimes from organisational studies, Hall's conceptualisation of identity from cultural studies, an intersectionality lens from Black feminist scholarship, and Lazarus and Folkman's coping strategies for stress, from Psychology. Overall, this study highlighted how those seeking higher status professions may experience greater stressors, due to intersections of racialised and gendered positionality. The thesis also showed the value of an interdisciplinary and intersectional approach; and contributed to developing knowledge of inequality regimes in the NHS; and increased analysis of Black migrant women's experiences in a context where their voices are often absent.

This thesis examines the influences on Irish identity articulation within Melbourne and Chicago during the nineteenth century. Bringing together ethnicity and religious devotion, this thesis argues that the foundational identities encouraged by religious orders within parish schools and societies were fundamental to the shape of nationalist politics that emerged in each city. While the imperial and republican contexts of Melbourne and Chicago presented specific opportunities and restrictions on Irish cultural and political identity articulation, the ethnic pluralism of the Catholic Church in each city influenced the networks established between Irish migrants across class, occupation, and gender. In turn, the Catholic parish structures of each city altered how Irish identity was articulated at a local and global level. While focusing on Irish Catholic identity, this thesis also examines the establishment of secular and ethnic Irish institutions utilised by middle-class culture brokers within Melbourne and Chicago to promote a civic Irish identity. It explores the ways that Irish migrants interpreted British imperial and American values to encourage diasporic Irish identities shaped by Irish and local contexts. Using comparison, this work identifies similarities between two cities previously dismissed as divergent and transnational links between Ireland, Australia and Chicago. Examining these societies over a fifty-year period allows for the interrogation of identity influencers over numerous generations, addressing the evolving shape of two cities and the Irish communities therein.

The responsibility of raising a child is demanding on all parents, but immigrant parents with limited literacy skills in English may find parenting even more demanding than native born parents. Hispanic immigrant parents are rarely consulted about their literacy needs. Furthermore, they are often overlooked as experts on their own needs. Using two of the most widely accepted models of literacy, The Simple View of Writing and The Simple View of Reading, this study explored Hispanic immigrant parents' literacy needs in the United States. The current study was conducted on N=30 Hispanic Immigrant parents, ages early 30s to mid 70s. A qualitative open-ended questionnaire was used to provide information regarding Hispanic immigrant parents’ literacy needs. The conceptual frameworks used, emerging patterns of learners’ perspectives of their literacy needs were analyzed under six categories: Three reading elements- Decoding, language comprehension, and reading comprehension, and three writing elements- text generation, transcription, and self-regulation. Findings of the present study provide initial insights on the literacy needs of Hispanic immigrant parents in light of The Simple View of Writing and The Simple View of Reading literacy frameworks. These insights can be used to inform and advance literacy interventions and programs that can be tailored to parents' specific needs moving forward as we seek to provide person centered care for this population. The implications of these findings of parents’ literacy needs are discussed in terms of its impact on parents education and the quality of the outcomes so that a literacy program that meets Hispanic immigrant parents’ needs can be built in the future.

This qualitative, flexible design, multi-case study explored the financial impact of COVID-19 on foreign-born Filipino Asian Immigrant entrepreneurs. Specifically, what impact it had on this ethnic group in Duval County, Florida. This body of research sought to determine the challenges faced by these entrepreneurs along with how they were impacted by this event, and the lessons learned. During the research phase, 46 firms were contacted, and some were discovered to have been closed and others ineligible for the study. In all a great cross-section of the Filipino-American community was able to participate in the study. The research found that the participants were fairly positive about their businesses and had been impacted by COVID-19 in various ways but were very resilient. Most of the participants had gone into business to be their own boss and provide a service to their community. Most mentioned faith as being a motivator for proceeding with the venture. None of the participants seem to have any regrets about their choices.

The purpose of this Ph.D. thesis on émigré art historians in Britain is not only to show how alien the concept of art history was to the British before 1933, but also to assess and qualify the subsequent practical and theoretical contribution of art historians who immigrated to Britain. These 93 art historians who immigrated to Great Britain after 1933 had a major impact on the British art world. Yet, apart from a few monographs on Sir Ernst Gombrich and Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, no in-depth study has ever been done on this influx of scholars who changed the - picture of art history in Britain and, by extension, worldwide. Part one is a biographical enquiry based on both archival and historical research undertaken in Germany, work done in various private estates and public archives in Britain - the majority of which have never been utilised before - and interviews carried out both in Germany and Britain. It addresses fundamental issues about lewishness and the arts and gives an overview of the stages of Nazi persecution of art-related professions in Central Europe. It then categorises different groups which emerged in Britain between 1933 and 1945, depending on both gender issues and the intellectual background of the emigres. Eventually, it investigates the settlement of émigré art historians in Britain. This involves an analysis of the reasons which led refugee art historians to choose Great Britain as a first exile country. It focuses on help networks, problems of subsistence in a country where art history was under-developed, internment, the role played in the war effort, "Remigration" and, finally, the institutional acceptance of different emigre art historians by British scholars. The second section of my thesis is theoretical. It investigates the intellectual reaction of the émigrés to the British formalist tradition as well as the encounter of British scholars with the Central Europeans' non-aesthetical input. After emigration, some iconographers tried to steer clear of conventional style analysis, Geistesgeschichte or any other method involving criteria based on nationalistic components. It has been noted that émigré art historians took extreme care to winnow out any ideological inflection from their work by undertaking systematic research. However, a case study of the adaptation of the two most prominent emigre art historians emphasises the diversity in this "ideological withdrawal" and demonstrates that emigration was a key factor in their intellectual development. Pevsner's adherence to Hegelian and nationalistic analysis was transformed into a broader international version so as to escape the ideological debate. On the other hand, Gombrich's rejection of systems is an exacerbated phenomenon of the detachment from Hegelian historiography. This part eventually analyses another factor which had a deep influence on the works of the émigrés, i.e. language. Emigration was an important stage in the development of art history as the transfer to a new language helped clarify the art historical terminology of the émigrés. The third part of this thesis sheds some light on the active role of emigre art historians in Britain. It includes substantial work on the influence of the emigres on the structuring of art historical education, a survey of the emigres' new attempts in museology and a study of the unprecedented input of émigré art historians in art collecting, art dealing and art publishing. This thesis shows the extent of the influence of emigre art historians both in intellectual and practical domains. In the realm of theories, the British art theorists acknowledged a need for a more scientific discipline while remaining very attached to their tradition of "art appreciation", and the same phenomenon applied to their attitude towards art-historical education. In the practical arena, the British art scene was also professionalised through this influx of scholars. This Ph.D. thesis concludes that the post-1933 emigration of art historians professionalised the British art world but that this was achieved through a popularisation of the methods and techniques originally imported by the emigres.

Historically and in the present, immigration looms large in the American consciousness. Today, we find ourselves in a challenging moment, struggling with political polarization alongside key questions about the causes and consequences of immigration. In this contemporary context, I explore the views that Americans hold about immigration, which may in turn impact immigrant integration. I then explore how first, second, and third-generation immigrants experience national and transnational social ties with attention to their health impacts. Broadly speaking, my dissertation seeks to understand how proximity to the immigrant experience is an important marker of group change. Since a large number of Americans are immigrants or have parents, grandparents, or even great-grandparents who are or were immigrants, understanding variability in the ideas or stereotypes that Americans hold with respect to contemporary immigration is crucial to understanding how today’s immigrants will be incorporated into the fabric of American life. To that end, I collect and analyze original survey data through the American Population Panel (APP) to first examine variability by generation in how Americans view immigrants in today’s climate (Chapter Two). I find that generation is an important predictor of views towards immigration, but generation matters less for how individuals perceive diversity. Next, I use the commentary associated with my original APP survey to understand the thought processes and ideas that respondents invoke when presenting their views of immigration (Chapter Three). I find that oftentimes respondents cannot separate immigration from illegality, with politics, nationalism, and mistrust combining to create archetypes that respondents superimpose on immigrants broadly. Last, I conduct interviews with first, second, and third-generation immigrants in order to characterize the social ties that immigrants hold, how these ties inform their experiences in both the U.S. and in their countries of origin, and how these experiences inform their narratives of their health, particularly their mental health (Chapter Four). I find that immigrants and their descendants hold complex social ties, with generational differences in the meaning of ties and in their experiences with language and loneliness. I also discuss the implications of these findings for the mental health of immigrants and their descendants. Taken together, I find that distance from the immigrant experience is an important factor in both predicting views towards immigration and in understanding the structure and consequences of U.S.-based and transnational social ties.

The United States demographic and workforce are increasingly becoming more diverse. However, the question remains of how the leaders within diverse organizations can consistently manage workforce interaction to attain employee commitment. This quantitative study examines the relational effect of diversity and inclusion management on organizational commitment. Data for this study was collected using the SurveyMonkey online identity anonymity survey weblink. Voluntary participants entered the online survey through an invitation link to the consent page, explained the study's purpose focus on Nigerian American Immigrants and relevant inclusion and exclusion criteria. Initial one hundred thirty-five responses, whereas one hundred and twenty met all criteria with a demographic response rate of 65.8 percent Nigerian American immigrants and 34.2 percent American Minority Immigrants. The study assessed the outlined hypotheses using a hierarchical regression model in SPSS version 25 to assess the effect of diversity and inclusion management predictor variables on the organizational commitment criterion variable. The study findings provide empirically tested relational effects of inclusion and diversity management, indicating that inclusion management revealed a higher positive relational effect on organizational commitment. Consequently, organizational commitment is most effective when diversity receives support and commitment from top leadership to promote an inclusive environment. It provides training tools for HR management, organization management literature, TEDx Talks, and educational purposes for creating an inclusive environment.

Immigrant students face many challenges when attending schools in the United States, including language barriers, cultural differences, and discrimination. While research has explored the experiences of immigrant students in U.S. schools, little is known about how these experiences differ based on gender. This qualitative research study aimed to explore the perceptions of immigrant students' experiences in U.S. schools from a gendered lens. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with immigrant students in U.S. schools. The study found no significant difference in the overall perceptions of immigrant student experiences between genders. Both male and female students shared similar experiences of difficulties surrounding language barriers, and positive relationships at school and home with teachers, peers, and family. This study provides valuable insights into the complex experiences of immigrant students in U.S. schools and highlights the need for educators to consider the experiences of immigrant students when developing strategies to support their academic success. Further research is suggested to explore the intersectionality of factors that impact the experiences of immigrant students. Implications for educators and schools to support immigrant students are provided.

Parents with shared children are faced with many challenges after a divorce or separation. One such challenge is to negotiate shared parenting responsibilities with their former spouses. This can be further exacerbated for immigrant parents as they may lack the know how or resources to traverse the legal system, in addition to seeking out a cultural divorce. Moreover, divorce may still be highly stigmatized which can serve as a barrier for communication between parents and between families. Yet little is known of how immigrant parents come to share their parenting responsibilities after divorce and the role of family in this process. This paper is comprised of two qualitative studies with immigrant community in the US: a study with Hmong key community informants to explore their perceptions of barriers to shared parenting and the role of family in the decision-making process; and a second study with divorced Hmong parents centered on their parenting experiences after divorce. The initial qualitative study broadly follows a community engaged approach with 17 key community informants selected to share their knowledge on the topic. A semi-structured interview guided by previous literature on divorce and parenting was designed. A thematic analysis of the transcripts found 6 themes. Themes revolved around perceived barriers to communication between former spouses and the role of specific family members in facilitating or impeding the shared parenting process. The second qualitative study was guided by an interpretative phenomenological approach with 10 divorced Hmong parents. Five Hmong fathers, and 5 Hmong mothers were part of this study. Through analysis, themes centered on how parents came to their current childcare arrangement, what were their experiences in sharing parenting responsibilities with their former spouses, and the role of family in the shared parenting process. Implications for findings across the two studies are also shared. Most importantly, findings seem to support a need for a cultural lens to better understand the experiences of divorcing parents. Many in this community do not come into contact with the legal system after a divorce and instead implement informal shared parenting arrangements. Findings raise concerns of how applicable the clan mediation system of divorce remains applicable for Hmong parents in the US today. As Hmong families acculturate and adopt more Western ideologies of parenting, this may clash with the culture and presents ambiguity for parents in how to share parenting after divorce. Moreover, it is unclear how clan leaders sanction childrearing arrangements if at all. For parents that use the legal system, they may be required to participate in mandated parenting education programs. Yet the applicability and effectiveness of such programs for Hmong parents needs further exploration as findings across the two studies here illustrate both structural and cultural barriers to maintaining contact between former spouses. Most importantly, family members seem to play an instrumental role during the decision-making process of shared parenting arrangements and after divorce as a caregiver role. Thus, further examination of how intervention programs and resources are adapted to include the extended family after divorce could be helpful for closing some of the gaps in this community. Moving forward, suggestions for future directions include continued exploration of how immigrant parents come to share parenting, the role of family during this process, and the impact of the various arrangements on child adjustment and well-being.

While it is well known that boarding was a widely used practice in growing urban centers of the United States such as Boston and New York City during the nineteenth century. Boarding has not garnered the same level of attention in rapidly expanding Southern cities during this time. This is partially due to the delayed industrialization of the South. However, industrialization did occur in cities such as Charleston, South Carolina, and the increasing number of workers flooding into the city meant boarding became an attractive solution. The purpose of this thesis is to add to the basic understanding of the prevalence, placement, and character of boarding houses in Charleston, SC from 1840 to 1880. Charleston City Directories, contemporary Charleston newspaper advertisements, and historic maps provided data for analysis. These sources were analyzed for information about the number, spatial relationships, and various characteristics of boarding including social and architectural patterns. This study found that generally the densest areas for boarding houses from 1840 to 1880 were along Charleston’s southeast edge by the Wharves and along Charleston’s commercial roads. The density of boarding houses was found to increase from 1840 to 1880 except for the decade surrounding the Civil War. This study also found that women were associated with boarding as boarding house keepers or owners—their exact relationship to the boarding houses were not listed—more often than men, and that married women were more common than unmarried. People of color were also listed as associated with boarding, again as housekeepers or owners, but were not recorded until after the end of the Civil war. Finally, the research demonstrates that boarding houses did follow some basic architectural massing patterns including being two to three story brick buildings. There were no defining characteristics architecturally that would make a boarding house identifiable solely by its architecture in Charleston, however because these characteristics were common among most buildings during this time period. This thesis is important because it adds to the complexity of our understanding of the ordinary citizens of Charleston, South Carolina though the investigation of an almost undetectable but rich landscape of boarding houses and adds to the growing literature on southern boarding houses.

This qualitative dissertation study explored how multilingual/multicultural immigrant high schoolers’ multilayered identities intersected and shaped their experiences and imagined futures. I used intersectionality as a social action theory (Hill-Collins, 2019) as a theoretical lens to examine how multiple aspects of multilingual/multicultural immigrant high schoolers’ identities, such as socioeconomic status (SES), race, ethnicities, immigration, linguistic, social, and cultural backgrounds intersected and affected their perceptions of self, in and out of school experiences, access to resources and support, and imagined futures. While there is an increasing number of studies about schooling experiences and inequities that multilingual/multicultural immigrant high schoolers in U.S. public schools face, research on how the intersecting aspects of their identities influence their life, experiences, and futures is scarce. Multiple data sources were collected, including a podcast, semi-structured Zoom interviews, identity maps, and researcher notes, despite the COVID-19 Pandemic restrictions. Data were analyzed in iterative rounds using open and exile coding strategies. The complexity and challenges of intersectional analysis were apparent throughout the study. However, attempting to analyze the data and the writing process through an intersectional lens emphasized the importance and need for examining the intersecting aspects of participants’ multilayered identities to better make sense of their overall experiences and future decisions. The findings were represented in chapters four and five under two main foci: They revealed that the six multilingual/multicultural immigrant high schoolers’ educational experiences and imagined futures were highly influenced by the intersections of their gender, racial, linguistic, ethnic, social, cultural, SES, and immigration backgrounds. The study concluded that the participants’ multilayered identities affected their gendered roles and responsibilities, access to educational resources and support, sense of belonging, and imagined futures. The study also suggested implications for policy and practice and teacher education.

Filling gaps in our understanding of how the effects of migration extend through familiesand impact healthcare decisions, access, and expenditures, this dissertation examined how migration is associated with health services in contexts that send a high number of migrants and a major migrant destination. The first study (Chapter 2) evaluated the impact of male spousal migration on the healthcare use and access for left-behind women and children using a quantitative cross-country comparison of four countries in South and Southeast Asia. Results showed that male spousal migration was positively associated with barriers to healthcare use across Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, and the Philippines through a reduction in both economic and social (gender related) barriers to care - adding new evidence to the literature showing that migration can contribute to the health and well-being of those left-behind. The second study (Chapter 3) quantitatively measured receipt of international migrant remittances and healthcare expenditures to show how this important source of income for families and for the economy of the Philippines related to spending on healthcare. We found that remittance receiving households spent significantly more on healthcare than non-remittance receiving households in both absolute and proportional measures. Additionally, remittances did not provide financial protection against catastrophic health expenditures (CHE) and a significantly higher proportion of remittance receiving households experienced CHE compared to non-remittance households. The third study (Chapter 4), based in the United States, examined the role of family structures and immigration factors in health services decision-making. Through quantitative analyses of the interaction between migration related characteristics and family structure, this study found that immigrants had a higher probability of seeking healthcare when they needed it compared to their US born counterparts who delayed or forewent needed care at higher rates, but that family structure affected immigrant families differently and this was especially true for more newly arrived immigrants and those on temporary visas or who were undocumented. The three papers of this dissertation expand our understanding of the relationship between the migration and health systems and demonstrate that relational frameworks can help capture some of the nuance of the complicated migration and health relationship.

This study investigated perspectives on extracurriculars by immigrant, non-immigrant Latinx, and non-immigrant Black parents of high school students, as well as potential barriers, if any, to their children’s ability to participate in extracurriculars. Drawing upon previous research that demonstrates the positive impact of extracurricular participation for students and the gaps in participation rates by immigrant, Latinx, and Black students, my study focused on parents’ awareness of the benefits of extracurriculars, their source of information regarding extracurricular opportunities at their children’s school, any potential challenges with allowing their children to participate in extracurriculars, and potential remedies they believe may allow for greater participation in extracurriculars for their children. My research design consisted of open-ended, semi-structured interview questions conducted with immigrant, non-immigrant Latinx, and non-immigrant Black parents of high school students. Once the data was collected and analyzed, I identified an overarching theme that schools must be more explicit and intentional in their engagement of parents, and thereby, students in regards to extracurricular participation, including its value for student success and increasing the participation rates of marginalized students. Additionally, while all parents interviewed identified barriers to extracurricular participation, such as time, transportation, cost, and safety, only the immigrant families in this study were unable to circumnavigate the barriers. The findings added to previous research from the perspective of students and teachers and aligned with the Authentic Development framework which views extracurriculars as a space to demonstrate authentic care, connect learning to social and democratic life as well as personal interests, develop social capital, and challenge hierarchical systems of oppression. Implications for further research are also discussed, as well as recommendations for school-based practitioners to improve access to and awareness of extracurricular opportunities at school sites.

Background: Chinese-Australian immigrant patients with cancer report poorer psychosocial outcomes compared to Anglo-Australians. Additionally, Chinese immigrant caregivers experience burden and anxiety associated with caregiving. Presently, there are limited resources available that can support them in coping with these challenges. This thesis aims to address this gap by developing and evaluating the acceptability and feasibility of a culturally appropriate self-management (SM) resource, WeCope, for Chinese-Australian immigrant patients and caregivers affected by cancer. Methods: A systematic review was conducted to identify the unmet supportive care needs of Chinese patients and caregivers with cancer to identify areas of concern requiring support (Chapter 2). An overview of self-management interventions, including theoretical underpinnings and evidence for effectiveness on psychological outcomes and unmet needs was provided (Chapter 3). The cultural sensitivity framework and community participatory approach were explored to guide the methods for developing WeCope with content based on a previous dyadic resource, Coping-Together (Chapter 4). Acceptability among patients, caregivers and community members was explored in a qualitative study (Chapter 5), and feasibility of WeCope as an intervention and the study methods employed were assessed in a mixed methods study (Chapter 6). Results: The systematic review (Chapter 2) showed that health system and information needs was the predominant domain of unmet need frequently reported by Chinese patients and caregivers. The qualitative study (Chapter 4) indicated overall acceptability with suggestions for additional information which informed modifications to the WeCope booklets. The feasibility study (Chapter 5) indicated barriers to the feasibility of WeCope as an intervention across several aspects: demand, acceptability, practicality, and implementation. Preliminary efficacy of WeCope could not be assessed due to low recruitment and response rates, and the study methods were deemed unfeasible for a larger trial. Conclusion: This thesis reports the acceptability and preliminary feasibility of a SM intervention for Chinese-Australian immigrants affected by cancer. While WeCope demonstrated some degree of acceptability, feasibility of the intervention and study methods were limited. Considerable additional resources and refinement of the study methods are needed if a large-scale study is undertaken.

My report will look at the making of my most recent body of work entitled Ten sounds I cannot hear. I will discuss each individual work through the process of their making, elaborating on my motivations, doubts, and decisions. The report will interweave written text with images of the works on view, and in the studio.

Refugees and immigrants were at heightened risk for poor physical, mental, and social health outcomes related to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19). Community health workers (CHWs) from these communities played essential roles as frontline health workers and information resources during the pandemic. Despite their critical presence, CHWs’ perspectives and expertise are rarely leveraged in health workforce strengthening. This study addresses this gap by privileging immigrant and refugee CHWs’ voices during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic in a midsized town in the Midwest United States. We conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 11 CHWs representing 19 communities. Interview analysis resulted in several key findings, including (1) Inadequate multilevel communication in the context of rapidly changing information, (2) divergent staffing and funding priorities among stakeholders, (3) structural vulnerability exacerbating health inequities, and (4) the importance of CHWs’ expertise in community health planning. It is presumed that stakeholders and policymakers want the best for their communities. However, this study highlights a missing voice, CHWs, whose expertise must be included at every level, from frontline day-to-day work to policymaking. Without CHWs knowledge and experience, the best interests of the community cannot be entirely seen. Advisor: Julie A. Tippens

Labor shortages in blue-collar occupations have become a significant challenge for firms throughout the United States. Naturally, as employers seek to address those shortages, one of the solutions has been the recruitment of immigrant workers. Multiple languages, mores and cultures within the diverse workforces present unique challenges within workplace cultures. Research suggests that intergroup contact between distinct groups, such as racial or ethnic groups, when certain conditions are in place, can have a positive impact on relationships between members of those groups. Additionally, diverse workplace management studies identify management practices that may enhance diverse workforce outcomes. This qualitative grounded theory study explores the question: How do blue-collar workers, both immigrant and U.S.-born working alongside one another, experience their workplace culture? It consists of responses from 15 participants to semi-structured interviews conducted via electronic communications technology (due to COVID-19 restrictions limiting direct researcher/participant contact). The study took place between the months of June and October of 2022. A new theory, the inverse contact outcome theory, was generated. The theory states that, contrary to what might be expected in diverse blue-collar workplaces, a) positive contact outcomes such as reduction of prejudice and conflict may result among same status blue-collar workers from diverse backgrounds despite the lack of institutionally supportive conditions whereas b) negative contact outcomes of prejudice and conflict may not be mitigated among same status blue-collar workers from diverse backgrounds despite the presence of institutionally supportive conditions. The study also revealed that diverse workforce management approaches that include customized socialization, enhanced communication, and status-based hierarchy mitigation, are essential to positive diverse workforce management practice.

Parent training is key to the success of treatment for autistic children and has been demonstrated to not only improve child outcomes but also decrease parental stress. However, language barriers have been identified as a key barrier to immigrant parents’ access to services and contribute to disparate outcomes for autistic children. While matching parents with service providers who speak the same language is ideal, the shortage in bilingual service providers may mean that immigrant parents experience long wait times for linguistically appropriate services. Preliminary evidence suggests that the use of video instruction, with some support from a provider who speaks the same language as the parent, can be used to overcome language barriers in parent training. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of video instruction within an asynchronous, telehealth parent training intervention for increasing autistic children’s daily living skills. An English speaking experimenter delivered the intervention to four Spanish speaking parents with autistic children. The intervention included video instructions and feedback, as well as messages translated using online translation software. Taking into account Hispanic cultural values for personalismo, families also received a weekly, 5-minute phone call from a Spanish-English bilingual experimenter. Experiment 1 used a multiple probe design across two daily living skills and Experiment 2 used a multiple probe design across three families to evaluate the effects of the intervention. Results indicated that fidelity of implementation increased for all four parents and some improvement in children’s daily living skills was observed. The inclusion of qualitative inquiry in the evaluation of social validity revealed certain procedures in Experiment 1 to be socially invalid, leading to modifications which increased the social validity of procedures in Experiment 2. Analysis of qualitative data from Experiment 2 revealed some dissatisfaction with child outcomes. Potential implications for practice and the value of including qualitative methodology in the evaluation of social validity in future research is discussed.

The education and successful integration of immigrant youth are imperative for the U.S. economy. Indeed, first- and second-generation immigrants are estimated to account for 93% of the nation’s working-age population growth over the next three decades (Pew, 2013). However, existing empirical work on postsecondary outcomes among immigrant youth mainly focuses on differences between pan-racial/ethnic categories, potentially masking within-group differences (e.g., ethnic/regional variations) arising from unique pre- and post-migration contexts and experiences. This dissertation aims to uncover heterogeneity within and between immigrant racial/ethnic groups’ trajectories in higher education. A special focus is placed on Asian immigrants, a pan-racial group that represented about 28% of the immigrant population in 2018 but comprised several distinct ethnic and regional groups with considerable variation in pre- and post-immigration experiences (Pew, 2018). The dissertation also helps advance current knowledge by simultaneously examining variations by ethnic/regional groups and generational statuses for Asian youth. Utilizing data from the High School Longitudinal Study 2009, the first part of the dissertation explores enrollment, attainment, and persistence differences among pan-racial/ethnic groups and, in turn, disaggregated analyses specifically for Asian ethnicities and regions. Second, the dissertation examines variations in postsecondary outcomes as a function of immigrant generation (i.e., first, second, or third generation, focusing on both within– and across–racial and ethnic group differences). For this second aim, variations within and between Asian ethnicities and regions are closely examined. The findings indicate that pan-racial/ethnic differences follow patterns previously highlighted in the literature; however, evidence of generational differences within and between groups in this study extends the existing literature. For example, there was evidence of generational advantages in educational outcomes for first- and second-generation youth compared with the third generation for Asian and Black youth. On the other hand, there was evidence of disadvantage among first-generation Latinx youth. The disaggregated analyses for Asian immigrants also revealed several important findings. For example, the second-generation advantage found at the pan-racial level for Asian immigrants persisted for Southeast Asians and partially for Chinese and South Asian immigrants. However, it disappeared for other Asian ethnic/regional groups for several outcomes. These findings have implications for the discourse around immigrants by challenging current pervasive pan-racial/ethnic narratives. In particular, for Asian immigrants, often stereotyped as the “Model Minority,” the immigration and assimilation process is not monolithic. Therefore, postsecondary outcomes reflect these complex and heterogeneous processes.

Psychological contracts take shape even before employees begin their first day with an organisation. Pre-employment experiences, perceived expectations, individual and cultural backgrounds influence a new employee’s schemas. However, this is only one side of the psychological contract; the manager also comes with a set of antecedents as the employee and manager begin to form an employment relationship. This study seeks to understand the interrelationship under the lens of psychological contracts. The main objective of this research was to understand the formation of a psychological contract framework to explore value-based expectations between Subcontinent immigrant employees (Pakistan, India and Bangladesh) and New Zealand managers working together. Both parties from different cultural backgrounds can influence the perceived exchange expected from each other. A psychological contract is “individual beliefs” shaped by past experiences, culture, or values that influence the social exchange between two parties (Rousseau, 1995). A qualitative approach was adopted in this research; 28 Subcontinent immigrants and 7 New Zealand managers were interviewed. The key finding is that their respective cultures consciously and subconsciously influenced the participants’ expectations. The employees had a moral compass that influenced which direction their psychological contract would evolve towards. This is because some participants held on to some of their cultural values more strongly than did other participants. Power distance was a constant variable affecting the employee–manager relationship. For employees coming from the Subcontinent, power distance is a value that is not only limited to organisations but is widespread in their culture and society. It is related to age, gender and social class. In contrast, New Zealand observes low power distance. This difference significantly affected the employee–manager relationship through communication, independence, and feedback processes. This study also provides a theoretical framework by comparing three well-known theories: national cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 2001), cultural values (Schwartz, 1994; 2004) and individual cultural values (Schwartz, 2012). A cross-cultural star framework has been conceptualised, and the themes analysed through this framework have helped visualise and compare the individual and cultural values of the participants. It has helped connect the comments of the participants with their values. This thesis concludes with recommendations for policymakers, immigration advisors, and organisations to better understand the underlying expectations and experiences of employees from the Subcontinent immigrant culture and use that to create more accurate methods to ensure positive employment integration into the New Zealand work environment.

This thesis explores how highly educated immigrants articulate a sense of belonging upon relocating to the United States, more specifically to the Lexington, KY area. Engaging with feminist political geography as well as migration and cultural studies, I argue that articulations of belonging are framed through transnational attachments, which respectively expand individuals’ ability to employ everyday forms of belonging. Expressions and understandings of transnational belonging are framed through in-depth interviews on participants’ workplace, relational dynamics, and engagement with the geopolitical discourse on migration. Through these interviews, a broader representation belonging is presented, while questions on highly educated immigrants’ privilege and the potential mitigation of anti-immigrant marginalization and bias are explained through the multifarious landscape of transnational belonging, which is further complicated by the particular and intersectional identities of participants.

Parents’ communication of love and care to their child is arguably a universal behavior found among all species. Yet expressions of human love and care are multi-faceted and found to be culturally-varied. In this dissertation, I examine Chinese American parent-child conversations as a case for the multiple ways in which parents express love and care to their child, building on cultural theories about emotion and parenting. In a sample of 1st generation Chinese American immigrant parents (N =110) and their children (M = 9.16 years old), I measured cultural orientation, parenting style, and expressions of love and care during a dyadic affection discussion task. Three types of affection styles were found: training (guan), relational affirmation, and validation. Results showed that Chinese parents with lower American orientation discussed training more often to express affection. In addition, socioeconomic status (SES) was found to be a robust predictor of affection style. Higher SES was associated with validation, whereas lower SES was associated with training and relational affirmation. Finally, in moments when parents spoke Chinese, they were more likely to discuss training and relational affirmation, whereas parents who used more English were likely to use validation to express affection toward their child. Cultural theories of emotion and parenting may explain varied expressions of affection styles, including training, relational affirmation, and validation. Beyond the static view that immigrant families espouse heritage and host cultural values, the present dissertation demonstrates how these multiple cultural practices dynamically unfold in conversation. Bilingual code-switching found in these family conversations of love and care may reflect one way in which immigrant parents adopt the new unfamiliar context, while also respecting the old familiar context, thereby bridging the emotional acculturation gap.

The goal of the current research was to gain insight on how people visualize, or “picture in their heads”, the faces of immigrants, and what role anti-immigrant biases may contribute to these facial representations. Participants (image generators) completed a reverse-correlation image-classification task in which they generated a facial image of an immigrant or a natural-born American citizen. Separate groups of participants (image raters) then evaluated these facial images on various traits (e.g., competence, trustworthiness, dominance), or classified them by perceived race/ethnicity. Results revealed that the immigrant facial representation were rated more negatively and were more likely to be classified as non-White, relative to the citizen images. These differences were more pronounced in the visualizations created by image generators who had less positive immigrant attitudes (as assessed by a Single-Category Implicit Association Test). Overall, these findings suggest that anti-immigrant biases may shape the way in which immigrants are visualized.

Young refugees are a vital and growing population in the United States that experience health inequities that make them vulnerable to adverse health outcomes. The health inequities that are evident between refugees and the general population elucidate the disparate power relations between the outcomes of the colonial past and postcolonial present. Although research shows that colonialism and their more recent experience of racism may have adverse long-term impacts on young people's health, it is essential to understand the contexts that shape their wellbeing. While the westernized model of wellbeing focuses on the individual, this study prioritizes the prevention of illness and maintenance of wellbeing at the different levels of the socioecological model- individual, community, organizational, and policy levels. This dissertation explored the African Great Lakes region refugee youths' experience with wellbeing, how they interpret their experience, and the meanings ascribed to wellbeing. A descriptive qualitative study used twelve in-depth interviews, two-member checking focus groups, and observational field notes for data collection to understand the influence of holistic wellbeing on African Great Lakes refugee youth. Data coding and analysis was conducted in Dedoose using the constructivist grounded theory approach. The study findings suggest that the African Great Lakes Region youth view the combination of physical, mental, social, and cultural health to maintain wellbeing. Also, participants interpret wellbeing on a community level rather than an individual level. The findings also suggest that colonialism is a form of racism that shapes and hinders young refugees from maintaining wellbeing. Racism has a huge influence on Black refugee youth from Africa which was evident in the refugee health policies, education system, refugee resettlement process, and the social determinants of health. The study offers implications for research, policy, and practice. There is a need for partnership between community programs and immigrant communities. This study provides practical recommendations for developing programs to educate and enlighten youth refugees on the use and benefits of health insurance. This study informs strategies for developing and implementing policies to provide more funding for culturally competent refugee programs.

Abstract: I conducted three case studies spanning three different Canadian provinces to explore parental perceptions of childhood and childrearing held by parent couples in intercultural marriages in which one spouse was Canadian born and raised and the other was foreign born and raised and immigrated to Canada as an adult. The three parent couples in my study were (1) a couple with one partner born in Canada and one in Uganda who have a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old; (2) a couple with one partner born in Canada and one in The Netherlands who have a 2-year-old; and (3) a Plains Cree individual born in Canada and their Romanian-born spouse who have a 9-year- old and an 11-year-old. My intent was to explore how these parents experience raising their children as they navigate their different understandings of childhood and parenting. Children in intercultural families are referred to as bicultural, experiencing influences from both parents’ childrearing practices. My study is informed by the developmental niche framework, which acknowledges the role of parents’ cultural belief systems regarding the nature of the child and its influence on childcare practices (Super & Harkness, 2002). Of particular importance to parents’ cultural belief systems are parental ethnotheories, which include “taken- for-granted ideas about the ‘natural’ or ‘right’ way to think or act” (Super & Harkness, 2002, p. 270) when caring for children. The participants’ parental ethnotheories were explored using a qualitative research design that employed interpretive inquiry (Ellis, 1998) informed by philosophical hermeneutics (Ellis, 1998; D. G. Smith, 1991) and was attentive to cultural protocols (Merriam, 2009; Patton, 2002; L. T. Smith, 2012; Tine, 2020). Pre-interview activities as well as interviews using open-ended questions (Ellis, 2006; Ellis, Amjad, & Deng, 2011; Ellis, Hetherington, et al., 2013), were used to gather data on parents’ understandings of children and childrearing. For each case study, two two-hour individual interviews were carried out with each partner separately, followed by a two- hour joint interview with the couple. After transcription of the interviews, narrative portraits were crafted for each couple. The participants’ accounts were then examined for common elements and then categories were created, part-whole relationships were explored (Polkinghorne, 1995), and narrative accounts were crafted. Common to all three narrative accounts were the topics of interactions in the community, safety, understandings of children, sources of parenting influence, language (examined through the construct of family language policy), and identification and identity. The topic of interculturalists is found throughout the Ugandan/Canadian-born couple’s narrative account (and to a lesser extent in the Romanian/Canadian-born couple’s account). Unique to the Ugandan/Canadian-born couple is the topic of time. Each participant in my study holds understandings of parenting and childhood both in common and in difference with their spouse, sometimes acculturating to their spouse’s ways of parenting. Despite their differences, the couples are able to parent in collaborative and amicable ways amid both their unmet hopes of each other and their unrealized parental agendas (e.g., hopes for their children). My study offers insights into the transnational nature of intercultural childrearing in the context of immigration. My study also highlights the destructive intergenerational impact of Canada’s colonial imposition on my Plains Cree participant and her family, as well as offers stories of survival (Donald, 2012).

This study examines the challenges and experiences of first-generation higher education immigrant students in the United States (US) in order to understand how they form their perspectives regarding higher education in the US. The study documents students’ perspectives through analysis of data situated within their immigrant higher education experience and challenges. Based on a phenomenological approach, the study focuses on a sample of seven university students who are first-generation immigrants. Berry’s (2005) acculturation theory and Ogbu’s (1981) cultural ecological model help frame the study within the discussion of the immigrant students’ perspectives through their explained challenges and experiences. The findings of this study are presented through specific themes describing the students’ personal challenges and experiences followed by an analysis of the same themes. These findings underscore language, education system, socio-cultural and economic issues faced by immigrant students.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) began the process of resettling Bhutanese refugees in U.S. cities in 2008 after many had spent up to 17 years in refugee camps in Nepal. At that time, Pittsburgh became home to 1,000 of these refugees and more than a decade later, their community has grown to an estimated 7,000-8,000 with many entrepreneurs among them (BCAP, 2021). The study included six cases of Nepali Bhutanese entrepreneurs in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area which were compared to better grasp the operational links between decision making and business success or failure while considering how embeddedness in the ethnic community impacted the entrepreneur. The participants in this study were all first-generation entrepreneurs from the Nepali Bhutanese community who had established residency for at least two years or the spouse, employees, partners, or customers associated with the business. Eighteen virtual interviews were conducted and recorded with the participants on Microsoft Teams from January-April 2021. In all of the successful business cases, the entrepreneurs were exploiting an unmet need in their community, providing excellent customer service, and marketing the business using social media. Only one case from the study experienced business failure, which was attributed to not being able to provide the lowest rates to the immigrant population that comprised the majority of his customer base. The theories discovered in the findings included exploitation of social capital, understanding concentrated disadvantage theory, and attempting to break out into mainstream markets.

Abstract: A strong partnership with immigrant parents can help educators better support students who experience reading difficulties related to complications arising from differing cultural, social, linguistic, and orthographic systems of their native language. Unfortunately, parental involvement is unequally distributed between families due to immigrant status (Baquendo-Lopez et al., 2013). When immigrant parents try to get involved, their efforts are often undervalued and unacknowledged due to a cultural disconnect between parents and school personnel (Baquendo-Lopez et al., 2013; Turney & Kao, 2009). Furthermore, they face numerous unique barriers that are unacknowledged in family-school partnership policies (Antony-Newman, 2019). Using focused ethnography, the current study aimed to understand and describe the lived experiences of immigrant parents’ involvement in supporting a child’s reading difficulty within the Canadian educational context. Criterion-based, purposeful sampling was utilized to select sample participants, and six participants were recruited to share their experiences related to collaborating with school personnel to support their child’s reading difficulty. Data was collected using in-depth, semi-structured interviews, which were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. The data was then subject to Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-phase thematic analysis. Two broad themes were identified: (a) Factors that Influence Level of Immigrant Parental Involvement and (b) Immigrant Parents’ Supportive Literacy Practices. The findings revealed that participants were willing to collaborate with school personnel to support their child’s reading but faced numerous unique barriers to doing so. Nevertheless, all parents engaged in supportive reading practices that were influenced by their cultural and social experiences in both Canada and their native country. This study contributes to the development of inclusive and culturally responsive family-school partnership policies for supporting the reading difficulties of immigrant students.

Abstract: Friendship plays an integral part in modern life. Apart from families and romantic partners, friends are one of the most important sources of fulfillment and foundation for a well-lived life. However, studies have shown that people with intellectual disabilities face more challenges forming and maintaining friendships compared to people without disabilities. This research pays close analytic attention to friendship, an understudied domain relative to kinship in the extant anthropological literature. I am particularly interested in how disability support workers facilitate the inclusion of adults with intellectual disabilities. For this population, supported community participation and increased community presence are crucial in opening opportunities for socialization and friendship formation. Front-line care workers are overwhelmingly women and disproportionately immigrant women. As they facilitate the inclusion of their clients, they too experience social isolation. Data gathered from 20 in-depth interviews with front-line care workers in Edmonton, Canada show four key points; (1) staff develop an affectionate relationship with clients but some do not call it “friendship” to maintain professional boundaries, (2) genuine relationships help staff understand clients better and gives them a deeper sense of purpose in life, (3) context, environment, and frequency of meetings are essential for the development of friendships, (4) friendships among people with and without disabilities are crucial for community development. Through this research, I intend to contribute to the growing anthropological discussion on friendship and its importance in binding contemporary societies. This study will shed light on the importance of friendship for people with intellectual disabilities and disability support workers.

The United States of America has always been a nation favor by immigrants throughout history. The foreign-born proportion of the U.S. population has been steadily rising since 1970. In fact, 13.3% of the nation's population comprised of immigrants in 2014 is the highest rate registered in 94 years. However, this increase in the number of immigrants has been followed by anti-immigrant sentiment, including some attempts to reduce immigrants' access to the health care system. This study examines the probability of accessing health coverage among immigrants by comparing Naturalized-citizens and not citizen immigrants. A quantitative analysis was used based on immigrants' sex, gender, level of poverty, education attainment, race, and employment status. The results of this analysis provide evidence that after controlling for all these variables, there is a strong and statistically significant relationship between citizenship status and health insurance coverage. Namely, our model estimates an average difference of 12.9% in the probability of having health coverage for naturalized citizens and non-citizens. Moreover, disaggregating the probabilities with respect to Age and citizenship status, we find that the impact of citizenship status diminishes as people get older, but remains significant.

Below is my production binder and reflection paper of my thesis film Yelena. It is a drama following a female immigrant with slivers of arthouse horror. The film is in Serbian and English. The filming took place during the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper is divided into pre-production, production and postproduction.

Quand c'est? is an excerpt from a semi-autobiographical novel about a twenty-six-year-old Dominican American woman named Jada, who moves back to suburban New Jersey from Chicago to begin her PhD studies. Regrets cloud Jada’s initial excitement to escape Chicago (which for years has triggered memories of depression, anxiety, academic failure, and isolation) when the difficulties of cohabitating with her single mother, Altagracia, start to accumulate. Running parallel to Jada’s academic journey is an exploration of approaching bereavement. A few weeks prior to Jada's arrival, her grandfather, Domingo, began losing weight and having trouble breathing, eating, and sleeping. Jada must learn to cope with his potential passing, as well as what the change in family structure will mean for her grandmother, Eufemia, and her own mental well-being. Quand c’est? dramatizes recognizable, human conflicts through a perspective rarely explored in contemporary literature—a dark-skinned, Dominican American young woman raised by a colorblind white-passing Hispanic family, living in the constant interplay of privilege and marginalization.

Korean-Americans are one of the fastest-growing racial subgroups, representing 0.4% of the total population of the U.S. as of 2019. Many Korean-American immigrant families consist of Korea-raised parents and their 1.5- or second-generation children. Because these families experience both mainstream and heritage cultures, cultural discrepancies may arise between the children and their immigrant parents. The main purpose of this study is to examine the mediating effects of parent–child communication quality, mattering to parents, and parental autonomy support on the relationship between intergenerational cultural discrepancies and psychological well-being, among Korean-American young adults. Participants were recruited through Korean-American communities in the U.S. and participated in this study through an online survey and follow-up one-on-one video interviews. A total of 161 Korean-American young adults between age 18 and 34 (M age = 23.14) were included in the final sample for the survey study, and 10 of the 161 also participated in the follow-up interview study. A mixed methods approach, including several mediation models and interview analysis, was used to test the hypotheses of this study. Key results from the quantitative analyses showed that greater parent–child intergenerational cultural discrepancies affected their lower communication quality, and this lower communication quality subsequently affected lower mattering to parents, but this lower mattering did not affected children’s depressive symptoms (Model 1). Also, greater parent–child intergenerational cultural discrepancies affected both lower parent–child communication quality and less parental autonomy support at the same time, which in turn affected lower levels of young adults’ life satisfaction (Model 2). The qualitative results provide a rich description of specific examples of these effects and possible reasons for the quantitative results. In addition, the participants shared messages to their parents during their adolescence as well as advice for current Korean-American adolescents who may face similar experiences. The results of this study support and extend the findings of previous work linking parent–child intergenerational cultural discrepancies to children’s psychological adjustment in immigrant families, as well as those linking parent–child communication, mattering to parents, and parental autonomy support. Future studies could investigate whether these relationships are different between mother–child and father–child dyads, and whether these results have any Korean-specific characteristics, by comparing them with results from young adults in other ethnic groups.

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe the lived experiences of secondary content teachers who instruct English Language Learner (ELL) students. ELLs are the fastest growing population of students in the United States. As this group continues to grow, so do the challenges of providing equitable education. Although most schools have adopted one or more models of instruction for ELLs, there is no universal model. High stakes testing and improved college readiness curriculum are designed to provide higher expectations for student achievement. However, ELL students continue to fall behind their native English-speaking peers in math and reading. Secondary content teachers should be knowledgeable of the unique needs of ELLs and feel supported when teaching these students. Understanding the lived experiences and perceptions of teachers who instruct ELL students at the secondary content level can lead to a positive and successful learning environment for the students and the teachers. Participants included 12 secondary content teachers from three high schools in a southern state. I utilized one-on-one interviews, focus group interviews, and participant journaling from all participants to gather data about what the participants experienced and how they experienced it. The theories guiding this study were Krashen’s 1982 theory of second language acquisition and Cummins’ 1980 theory of language development as both have been instrumental in developing models of instruction and strategies to instruct ELL students and continue to play an integral role in today’s instructional methods.

Sexual violence is a common experience among women in the United States that can have a number of negative sequalae, including heightened feelings of shame (Feiring & Taska, 2005; Smith et al., 2018). While literature has started to document the effects of shame on some aspects of survivors’ lives (Bhuptani et al., 2019; Kim et al., 2009), less is known about how shame is experienced by survivors in their daily lives. Mexican Americans constitute a notable segment of the U.S. population and are affected by unique contextual factors such as their immigration history, cultural values, religious experiences, and acculturation processes. Yet, there is limited literature examining the experiences of Mexican American survivors of sexual violence. Using Campbell and colleagues’ (2009) ecological model and a mujerista research paradigm (Bryant-Davis & Comas-Díaz, 2016), this study sought to develop a qualitative understanding of the experience of shame among 1.5 and 2nd generation Mexican American women who are survivors of sexual violence, while considering how cultural values and beliefs shape their experience of shame across ecological levels. Twelve 1.5 and 2nd generation Mexican American survivors of sexual violence participated in semi-structured interviews for this qualitative descriptive study. Conventional content analysis of the data yielded eight broad domains: (1) influence of immigration and cultural context on shame; (2) impact of shame on mental health; (3) relational impacts of shame; (4) impact of shame on daily functioning; (5) impact of shame on disclosure; (6) marianismo increased feelings of shame after sexual violence; (7) healing from shame; and, (8) challenges to healing from shame. Results indicate that the effects of shame are pervasive for survivors across multiple areas of their lives (i.e., mental and physical health, relationships, academic and professional lives), religious and cultural messages foster a context of shame for survivors, and survivors’ healing process is shaped by their bicultural context. Limitations and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed, along with implications for culturally responsive clinical practice and future research directions.

Beyond the normative escalation of adjustment challenges in adolescence, immigrant parents and youth also face acculturative challenges that can negatively impact parenting and mental health. Many existing interventions to address the challenges of adolescence capitalize on knowledge of parent-child dynamics primarily studied within non-immigrant, white families. The cultural relevance of these interventions is hampered by our limited understanding of the long-term relations between parenting and youth mental health in immigrant families, and how these factors unfold across time. Furthermore, more research is needed to understand how parents’ and youth’s perceptions of mental health symptoms align and differ among immigrant families.The current study aimed to address this gap by examining longitudinal relations between childhood parenting styles (1st – 3rd grade) and adolescent (9th -12th grade) internalizing and externalizing issues in a group of Chinese American immigrant families. The study utilized the first and third waves (approximately 10 years apart) of a longitudinal study of Chinese American immigrant parents and children in the Bay Area of California (Wave 1: N = 258, M age = 7.4 , SD = .7; Wave 3: N = 162, M age = 16.7 , SD = .7). In Aim 1, I explored whether differences emerged between parent and youth report of parenting styles and adjustment at both waves. In Aim 2, I examined whether childhood parenting styles predicted adolescent adjustment. Parent and youth report of authoritative and authoritarian parenting were measured at both waves using the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ). Parent report of youth adjustment was measured at both waves using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Youth report of adjustment was measured at Wave 1 using the Behavior Problem Index (BPI), and at Wave 3 using the Youth Self Report (YSR). Regarding Aim 1, results indicated that parent report of authoritarian parenting was higher than youth report at both waves. Differences between reporters on authoritarian parenting were non-significant. Comparing parent and youth report across subscales of authoritative and authoritarian parenting revealed significant correlations only for Wave 3 authoritative parenting (warmth r = .29, reasoning/induction r = .24, democratic participation r = .25). While parent and youth report of internalizing and externalizing T-scores were positively correlated at Wave 3, youth-reported maladjustment was significantly higher across both adjustment dimensions. Regarding Aim 2, separate path models were used to test longitudinal relations between parenting styles and adjustment across every combination of reporters given non-significant factor loadings in measurement models. Controlling for Wave 1 adjustment, youth-reported authoritative parenting had a negative path to Wave 3 parent-reported externalizing issues reported in raw scores. However, this path became non-significant after adjusting for concurrent relations between Wave 3 parenting and adjustment. Additionally, in this more stringent model authoritarian parenting emerged as a significant predictor of externalizing problems. Controlling for Wave 1 adjustment, youth-reported authoritative parenting had a negative path to externalizing problems, and authoritarian parenting had a positive path to externalizing problems. After making similar stringent adjustments for concurrent relations, the positive path from authoritarian parenting to externalizing problems remained significant. In summary childhood authoritarian parenting emerged as a predictor of adolescent externalizing issues. This study adds to our understanding that Chinese American immigrant parents and children likely view parenting behaviors and mental health from different perspectives. It also can contribute to culturally informed interventions that may be able to better address communication within the family.

Sí Se Puede, Sí Se Pudo, Sí Se Va a Poder:The Narrative Experience of Newcomer Immigrant Adolescent Students in Obtaining a High School DiplomaSchool districts across the country are responsible for providing a fair and equitable education to all students who enter its doors. The current flows of immigration have created a challenge for educational agencies to meet the needs of newcomer immigrant adolescent students. As unique members of the education system, these students enter not knowing the language, academic structures, educational requirements, or social norms of their new academic home. As families continue to migrate, their children often struggle to find a successful path in the American education system. For newcomer immigrant adolescent students, the first step in achieving their American dream is to earn their high school diploma. This study explored the lived experiences of newcomer immigrant adolescent students as they pursued their high school diplomas. Moving forward, I utilize newcomer immigrant adolescent students to identify RAIELs (Recently Arrived Immigrant English Learners Students) to define the group of students I study. The literature review presented explored research on English Language Learner students (ELLs) with a focus on RAIEL students, current academic structures serving ELLs, and the importance of a student’s voice. Research indicated that to ensure academic success for newcomer immigrant adolescent students, it is imperative to have strong and purposeful academic structures that meet the social-emotional needs of these students. In addition to strong and purposeful structures, it is essential to clearly articulate the importance of a leadership role to ensure all agencies and decision-making entities are coordinated with an understanding of the academic, linguistic, social, and emotional needs of this special population. This population, often marginalized by so much more than just the inability to speak English; social justice and leadership implications are also discussed. This narrative inquiry study used qualitative methods to explore the nature of the questions based on the participants' views and experiences. This narrative inquiry study used qualitative methods to understand participants views based on the questions asked by the researcher. explore the nature of the questions based on the participants' views. Narrative inquiry describes a collaboration between participants and researchers during the collection of stories in which both gain valuable insight because of the process (Creswell, 2012). Allowing newcomer immigrant adolescent students to tell their stories was best suited through narrative inquiry. From my data analysis, three themes emerged from using the cultural proficiency essential element assessing culture and cultural proficiency essential element valuing diversity: historical context, family, and community programs. The importance of understandings students lived experiences, the importance of family inclusion, and the importance of community programs that connect students to resources. Student expression played a key role in this analysis, allowing them to describe their experiences through their own voice. The essential elements that this study focused on was assessing culture and valuing diversity. Through this analysis, I address the following research questions: How do newcomer immigrant adolescent students experience their high school journey? and, Specifically, what experiences contribute to and detract from their ability to persevere toward graduation? Empowering and providing support to foster positive experiences for newcomer adolescent students is a collective task of parents, educational leaders, and community. Newcomer adolescent immigrants continue to arrive at schools in hopes of achieving their American dream. Ensuring structures are in place to support their academic and social emotional well-being will likely benefit society. As these students acclimate themselves into the communities where they live, it is important they integrate in a manner that positively impacts society.

In this diasporic world as the city starts getting diverse each day, can architecture create a sense of belonging amongst the in-coming immigrant as well as the already established resident? “Hospitality” comes from the Latin word; hospes, meaning “host”, “guest”, or “stranger”; it can also be defined as the relationship be-tween the guest and the host. The growing number of international migrant population is often caught in this relationship. Immigrants leave their homes and countries to form new ones in sometimes an unfamiliar culture, which starts transforming their identity. The immigrants or guests are looking for connections with their past identities while trying to become a part of the new host culture and the host culture on the other hand, is constantly negotiating with its security and infiltration issues due to the new guest culture. This interaction comes with the problem of the delicate dialogue between the guest and the host where neither are wrong in their concerns of preserving their culture and gives rise to the question of the extent till which each should accommodate the other. Jac-que Derrida explains through his theories on hospitality the relationship between conditional and unconditional hospitality and the restricted nature of national hospitality to legal and illegal immigrants. Architecture when combined with this theory can play an important role in influ-encing an immigrant’s experience of a new place while reconnecting them with their identities. It can govern this relationship of the guest and a host while informing the experience of losing the sense of feel-ing at home and revealing the disintegrating entrance of Otherness into a coherent home space. The aim is to explore conditional and unconditional hospitality through ar-chitectural interventions in the planning of cities with a growing immigrant population to help maintain cultural continuity and hu-manize the present and future built environment. Chicago’s Devon Avenue being one of the biggest South Asian business districts in North America, holds a unique migrant identity, and expresses a necessity for a connection between the “home” and “host” identi-ties. Architectural interventions in the form of a network of busi-ness and refuge might create this bridge on this street which is oth-erwise losing its identity.

This work explores how democracy is a rhetorical construct that is often used to maintain the status quo; it examines the way democratic outsiders speak within exclusive democratic frameworks. The framework of liberal democracies like that in place in the United States delimits who can speak through what is framed as insider rhetoric; insider rhetoric seeks to attain hegemonic consent by negating the validity of arguments and ideas forwarded by those who do not have authorized channels of participation in the democracy. Outsider rhetors in democratic frameworks, therefore, must forge alternative frameworks of participation. They seek to tell stories, build coalitions, engage in activist events, question assumptions and generally destabilize the hegemonic narratives of democracy.The chapters of this work focus on immigrants, prisoners and children as democratic denizens who lack authorized agency as a result of their statuses. Ethical democracies should seek to listen to all those who are affected by the decisions of the democracies. However, most democracies craft litmus tests to determine who has the right to participate within their frameworks. Often, however, those who do not have the right to participate are the ones who have the most to gain or lose as a result of the decisions—immigrants may have no say in immigration policy; prisoners may have no say in criminal justice reform; children may have no say in climate crisis action. It is, therefore, necessary to consider the ways all participants can be given a voice and heard.The chapter on immigration examines immigrant narratives of radical transparency, considering the stories of immigrants, documented and undocumented, and how they fit within the concept of American. The chapter on prisoners explores the activist actions of currently and formerly incarcerated people to highlight the way they agitate for changes to the system that impacts their lives daily. The chapter on youth activism focuses on how young people use traditional and social media platforms to forward their causes and defy the notion that they are too naive to concern themselves with politics. The final chapter is a conclusion that articulates the changes that need to be made to democracies in order to be more inclusive, including actively listening to outsider voices, changing the mechanisms for participation within democracies and serving as allies for the voiceless. The conclusion seeks to situate the issue of insider and outsider democratic rhetorics within historical and global contexts and articulates avenues for further future research.

Dragon Tiger Goat follows the lives of three Vietnamese American girls, Trac, Trieu, and Nhi, and their immigrant mother, Xuan. This work gives voice to Vietnamese women whose experiences have been removed from the historical record and works to dismantle past representations from Western literature of Asian women as submissive or exotic. The narrative moves backwards chronologically and traces a matrilineal line of intergenerational trauma, grappling with what it means to be both “American” and “Vietnamese.” This project aims to take part in the field of diasporic fiction. In particular, it is in conversation with other Vietnamese American literary works, engaging with themes or motifs of war, trauma, violence, displacement, ghosts, and language. Most importantly, this novel attempts to represent an “American” experience that contradicts popular narratives.

When Czech composer Bedřich Smetana's opera The Bartered Bride received its American premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in February 1909, New York music critics published positive reviews which displayed a great fascination with the many "Bohemian" aspects of the production. However, certain comments or language used by some critics indicate that American opinions of the Czech people were less than positive. After Czechs began immigrating to America en masse in 1848, already-established American citizens developed skewed cultural perceptions of the Czech people, established negative stereotypes, and propagated their opinions in various forms of press throughout the nation. Despite a general dislike of the Czechs, reviewers revered The Bartered Bride and praised its many authentic "Bohemian" qualities. This research explores the idea of a paradoxical cultural phenomenon in which the prejudice against Czech people did not fully cross over into the musical sphere. Instead, appreciation for Czech music and musicians may have trumped any such negative opinions and authentic Czech productions such as The Bartered Bride may have been considered a novelty in the eyes of early twentieth-century New Yorkers.

This qualitative case study grounded in ethnographic methods examined how transcultural and translinguistic students responded to ideological discourses in their school community. I explored the discourses of social power and hierarchical structures and ideological discourses present in the students' experiences, and investigated how they accepted or rejected the ideologies exhibited in these discourses. This research was motivated by three questions: (1) What are the discourses of social power and hierarchical structures present in the experiences of middle-school Latinx transcultural and translinguistic students in their school community? (2) What ideological discourses are enacted in these experiences? (3) How do these students respond to the ideologies exhibited in oppressive discourses? Raciolinguistics and New Literacy Studies were used as theoretical frameworks; and data collection methods consisted of critical focus-group discussions, semi-structured and image-elicited interviews, and emplaced and active observations. The findings facilitated the development of transresistance, a frame that explains how translingual and translinguistic students respond to oppressive ideological discourses in a more systematic, intentional, and sophisticated manner than previously determined. The implications of these findings for theory, research, and practice are discussed, along with recommendations for future research.

In 2015, U.S. firms applied for over half a million work visas (H-1B) for skilled immigrants, or 20% of all jobs added that year. However, these visas are granted subject to a strictly binding quota of 85,000 per year which has been increasingly called into question. On one hand, some economists like Borjas (2003), argue that immigrants substantially crowd-out native workers. On the other hand, Hunt (2011) finds that immigrants in certain skilled occupations improve native wage conditions and positively impact innovation, productivity and growth. Firms that apply for H-1B visas argue that the skilled labor market in the U.S. is particularly tight (the unemployment rate for holders of bachelor's degrees in March 2015 was 2.7% vs. the national unemployment rate of 5.5%), lobbying for an increase in the quota. Using a panel of 421,000 firms that applied for H-1B visas (n = 5.1 million) between 2002 and 2015, this paper aims to understand the relationship between skilled immigration and the domestic labor market. I explore how firm demand for immigrant labor, wages offered to new hires, and spatial composition of applications relate to the U.S. business cycle. Exploiting the Great Recession as a natural experiment for a labor demand shock, I find that for a percentage point increase in the native unemployment rate for the college educated, the wage premiums offered to skilled immigrants decrease by 2-4 percent.

The current displacement crisis in the German context has focused scholarly attention on refugee student access to higher education. However, much less research has attended to supports at higher education institutions (HEIs) for enrolled migrant and refugee students. In fact, education research in the German setting rarely focuses on students from any migrant background, though these students comprise between 20-25% of all German tertiary enrollment. This study uses Constructivist Grounded Theory (Charmaz, 2014) and a postcolonial lens to analyze “equal opportunity” plans and programs at 32 German HEIs across all 16 federal states. Data sources include the “equal opportunity plan” unique to each HEI (Gleichstellungsplan) and interviews with “equal opportunity office” (Gleichstellungsbüro) faculty and staff. Key findings include a bureaucratization and numerification of diversity in the German case, as well as an almost exclusive focus on diversity as gender. This dissertation offers a potentially transferable theoretical model, which may be relevant in national settings with increasingly diverse student populations, histories of colonial possession or fantasy, or primarily public higher education systems (Bhabha, 1994; El-Tayeb, 2016; Kilomba, 2008; Said, 1979).

This thesis explores the health-related decisions Latin American immigrant women make in MetroWest Massachusetts. Within public health and biomedical literature, women from Spanish-speaking communities are often measured by their adherence to biomedical guidelines. Several programs have been designed to increase compliance with recommended cancer screenings like Pap smears and mammograms in an effort to reduce health inequities between Latina populations and their white counterparts in the United States (Peek and Han 2009). Community Health Organizations often prioritize biomedical models of care, as Community Health Workers are typically trained in public health and biomedicine. Yet little research has been done on women’s conception of their own health. Using the theoretical concept of patterns of resort, this research examines what women prioritize for their own health needs, why, and what local resources women use to meet these needs. Women have a broad understanding of their own health, and use varying resources to meet the needs of physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual health needs. By understanding these specific health needs, researchers and those invested in immigrant communities may create more effective programs with women’s health in mind.

* “Chó bò” is the approximate Vietnamese homonym for “trouble.” Bluntly translated, “chó~bò” is a “dog~cow” or “dog~crawl.” This absurdist linguistic joke for many Vietnamese people learning English represents a capacity to make trouble. This PhD thesis comprises original research and artistic work made with my family. As people from the Vietnamese diaspora, our experiences are formed by dispersals and estrangements as settler-colonists in Australia. Our daily encounters in the realms that this thesis is focused – contemporary art, academia, and family enterprise, are folded into distinct systems of colonial power and violence. I often make work with my family in video-performance and the documentary medium. Our inter-generational, political, and language differences add to the conceptual complexity of what it means to collaborate, make art, produce archives, and confront our position as recent settler-colonisers in Australia. This thesis aims to address how our artistic collaborations utilise linguistic and archival approaches to articulate the systemic racism we encounter as people from a refugee background, but who are also embedded in the colonial infrastructures of our new home. Aligning with thinkers including Gloria Anzaldúa and her critique of coloniality, to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Hito Steyerl on minoritarian forms of translation, and Sara Ahmed on racism in the university - this thesis describes how collaborations with my family can trouble the contradictions of colonial power enacted on our human relationships. Reconnecting with individual members of my family through art, I have gained a better understanding of my language and culture, as well as finding important artistic and political connection to my peers. Collaborating with my family has forced me to rub against the researcher-participant/research subject binary, the archival visibility of being invisible, the rhetoric of institutional inclusion, and the weight of being displaced and displacing colonisers on this continent. The work we have produced together methodologically uncovers and critiques the opaque confrontations of institutional power, racism, and colonial violence embedded in the everyday. As a family, we continue to make uncomfortable pronunciations like “chó bò,” producing the epistemic trouble needed to face the colonial realities of our resettlement. ARTWORK WEBSITE: https://chobotrouble.com/

This study aimed to understand the experience of Mexican immigrant patients living in the U.S. and their health providers as they worked together in the treatment of type 2 diabetes at community health clinic. This study was conducted in partnership with a non-profit community health clinic that serves individuals living in poverty who may be uninsured. Utilizing a qualitative phenomenological approach five bilingual health providers and seven Mexican female cisgender immigrant patients with type 2 diabetes were interviewed regarding their experiences in working together to promote treatment adherence. Findings were evaluated utilizing a strength-based and social justice framework to understand the role that culture played in the development of the patient-provider relationship as it related to adherence. This study highlights effective strategies that are facilitative in building collaborative relationships that can be used to promote treatment adherence over time. This study has the potential to inform future intervention efforts that are informed in patients’ and providers’ perspectives, are culturally congruent, and may require minimal resources.