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"Previous theory suggests that Latino adolescents and their mothers acculturate to the United States culture at different rates, leading to gaps in acculturation that may result in family conflict and youth maladjustment (Szapocznik & Kurtines, 1993). Because acculturation is a multi-faceted construct that includes identity, cultural value endorsement, and engagement in culturally-influenced behaviors (Schwartz, Unger, Zamboanga & Szapocznik, 2010), it is critical to identify the gaps in specific aspects of acculturation that are most detrimental for youth and family outcomes, such as cultural value gaps. The current study identified profiles of adolescent/mother dyads based on mean reports of cultural value endorsement across seven cultural values to determine patterns of cultural value endorsement across dyads and cultural value gaps within dyads. The sample included 174 Latino youth (51.4% female) and their mothers recruited from two middle schools in rural North Carolina. Results indicate that there are four profiles of adolescent-mother cultural value endorsement that result in patterns of cultural value gaps within dyads. Adolescent reports of acculturation-based family conflict differed across profiles such that the profile with adolescents who reported above average endorsement of the traditional gender role value and the U.S. mainstream values as compared to their mothers reported significantly more acculturation-based family conflict than adolescents in other profiles. The implication of this finding is discussed."--Abstract from author supplied metadata.

"The current push for K-12 service-learning, particularly as an intervention strategy for "at-risk" youth, makes more urgent the need for critical service-learning constructions that counter deficit ideologies. Responding to this need, the researcher designed, implemented, and researched a course-embedded service-learning project conducted with Latin@ high school students considered "at-risk" by school personnel. To explore the possibilities of creating a critical, social justice, asset-oriented service-learning project in a core classroom setting specifically designed to foster students' critical agency, the researcher and students blended the service-learning with Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) methods. The findings of the postcritical ethnography of this course-embedded YPAR guided service-learning project indicate that the project did create a unique space within the school for fostering critical agency. Additionally, the work demonstrates how service-learning and YPAR can inform one another, creating a more asset-based and social justice-oriented practice. Finally, the findings model how teachers can successfully navigate the pedagogical, ideological, and practical challenges of fully embedding YPAR and/or service-learning projects into their core classroom practice."--Abstract from author supplied metadata.

"This qualitative study uncovers the voices of five Latin@ students who are high-"achieving" and undocumented and have strong aspirations in science, in a Southern, Title I high school. Through critical race methodology and these students' testimonios/counter-stories, these students' struggles and successes reveal their crossing of cultural and political borderlands and negotiating structures of schooling and science. The students dream of someday pursuing a trajectory in the field of science despite racial, ethnic, and political barriers due to their undocumented status. I use three key theoretical approaches--Borderlands/Anzaldúan theory (Anzaldúa, 2007), Loving Playfulness/World Traveling (Lugones, 2003), and Latino Critical Race Theory (in which many Latin@/Chican@ studies contribute)--to put a human face on the complex political and educational situations which the students in this study traverse. Data were collected during a full school year with follow-up contact into the present, with over 133 hours immersed in the field, involving 22 individual student interviews, six student focus group interviews, 14 teacher interviews, field notes from over 79 contact hours with participants in formal and informal science education settings, and document review. This study reveals "high-achieving" students flourishing in formal school science and informal science settings, starting a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) club and the first community garden in a Title I high school in their state, to benefit their immigrant-rich community. Each student professes agentic desire to follow a science trajectory but testifies to their struggle with racism, nativism, and state policies of restricted college access. Students persevere in spite of the additional obstacles they face, to "prove" their "worth" and rise above deficit narratives in the public discourse regarding students of their ethnicity and undocumented status, and hold onto hope for legislation such as Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) or the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act. These students' lived realities, identifying as undocumented and DREAM Act eligible, also known as "DREAMers," show that more work must be done, beyond the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) permits some have received, before these students' dreams can be realized. The students' testimonios call for a space in the U.S. where their talents and dreams in science are welcome and can thrive. These students speak to the injustice inherent in shutting out talented youth with potential contributions to make to science due to an immigrant status that was never their choice. Given the dearth of highly skilled and committed contributors to the field of science in the U.S., especially scarce in Latin@ representation, these students' prospects are vital in an increasingly globalized scientific world. This study makes this case as a deliberate appeal to interest convergence, while also attending to issues of social justice and problematizing the culture of school power that these students must navigate and assimilate into to "prove" themselves. This study adds to the science education research by providing insights into the lives of students who are Latin@ and undocumented, a considerable population in many science classes yet rarely discussed in science education literature, and elucidating how they negotiate science and science education framed by the larger structures they must face. Implications of this study suggest new ways of understanding this population in non-deficit ways that advocate changing the public dialogue and taking educational and political steps towards social change in solidarity with this group of students."--Abstract from author supplied metadata.