College of Liberal Arts Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/1969.6/1174

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Aqui is anywhere we choose to call home
(2022-05) Negreros, Jacqueline; O'Malley, Ryan; Katz, Louis; Aubrey, Meg; Peña, Joe; Hinojosa, Yndalecio
Jacqueline Negreros draws upon her parents’ experience as immigrants in Aquí Is Anywhere We Choose to Call Home to highlight themes of tradition, immigration, and assimilation conveyed through memories shared by the artist and her family. She uses food as a metaphorical device to probe cultural attitudes of authenticity and otherness through ingredients that remain traditional and those that have grown with her. Aquí centers around the communal preparation of barbacoa de pozo – from its roots in her parents’ village of Zacapala, Puebla, Mexico to its evolution into barbacoa al vapor, using a steam pot, adapted from her family’s life in the United States. Through printmaking and sculpture, Negreros explores the duality immigrants contend with after leaving their homeland for a new nation and how customs can evolve across generations. Rice embossed paper depicts objects fundamental to the preparation of this meal and signifies cultural and familial traditions. Veils sewn from guaje seed pods and arranged carizzo stalks are relics from the landscape of Zacapala. Collected around Corpus Christi and considered invasive, they form a border between belonging and otherness. El pozo in the middle of the gallery is the portal by which everything enters or emerges, a point of origin. Comprised of dirt from the Texas Mexico border and sand from the beach at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, El pozo merges physical spaces from the past and present for experiences to coexist. La Pancita signifies matriarchal bonds and the importance of ritual. The installation and preparation of this meal create an intimate view into the artist’s use of food to traverse time, and this supporting paper serves as an archive of her family history and this important recipe.
Assimilating into the transnational: Examining transnational identity in global cities through immigrant narratives
(2019-12) Walker, Callie T.; Pattison, Dale; Concannon, Kevin; Salter, Sarah
As cities become more globalized due to technological advances and increasingly interconnected flows of humans, capital, and goods, movement of people into new spaces has raised questions about belonging and identity within a global system of national boundaries. Ideas about immigration and assimilation have fluctuated throughout modern history, often on a scale between liberal ideas of cosmopolitanism and modes of belonging that favor national identity as a defining characteristic of community. This thesis explores immigrant narratives written by transnational individuals in the late 20th and early 21st century for the purpose of reconceptualizing belonging, identity, and assimilation in increasingly transnational urban spaces. By establishing a framework within which postcolonial theories of hybridized identity such as those put forth by Homi Bhabha and Gloria Anzaldúa are applied to the work of urban theorists like Michael Peter Smith and Sassia Sasken, this thesis pushes against the notion of assimilation as working toward “sameness,” and asks readers to consider the ways in which transnationality and globalization complicate notions of belonging and community-building. Rather than thinking of assimilation as a process of acquiring national membership, I argue that membership in the transnational world should be considered locally within the communities in which individuals live and operate as a mode of the sort of civic citizenship described by urban theorist Benjamin Barber. Within the following chapters, the city provides a locus for the argument that true belonging and “assimilation” are achieved through engaging transnational identity and adaptability as a mode of moving through the transnational urban. Chapter one focuses on the transnational flexibility of individuals in the works of Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie. Chapter two challenges the notion of assimilation as developing a fixed identity based on cultural background through Chang-rae Lee’s Native Speaker. Chapters three and four look at hybridized identity within There There by Tommy Orange and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. These chapters explore transnational spaces more broadly by applying Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of smooth and striated space to describe the impacts of hegemonic systems on individuals who resist assimilation into the socioeconomic systems imposed on them by the nations in which they move.
Associations Impacting Food Choices
(2017-05) Reader, Shane Wolf; Moreno, Miguel; Houlihan, Amy; Mozzachiodi, Riccardo
Food choice behavior is subject not only to cognitive and behavioral factors, but also to physiological motivational processes and implicit associations. The rising obesity rate suggests that purely cognitive-behavioral interventions fail to change food choices in lasting ways. While researchers have explored a variety of measures to assess and manipulate covert, non-conscious food associations, there continues to be little evidence that these techniques change overt behavior. Three experiments attempted to better illuminate the potential pathway between implicit associations and overt food choice by untangling the confounds of calorie content and stimulus modality that have pervaded current literature. Study 1 piloted the efficacy of a new Implicit Association Test (IAT) as a measure of differential attitudes toward food by calorie content, revealing that participants hold implicitly unpleasant attitudes toward obesogenic food words. Study 2 substantiated this effect across stimulus modality, and found little evidence that the IAT predicted long-term food preferences. Study 3 integrated a discrete food choice task and a semantic priming procedure; the IAT failed to predict food choice while explicit measures succeeded, and the influence of a semantic priming task on IAT scores suggests the IAT is a measure of semantic associations, not implicit preference. Participants demonstrated a substantial unpleasant bias toward obesogenic foods across all studies, consistent with literature on implicit biases toward substances of abuse.
"A Brave New Woman:" Print Media's Portrayal of Women in the American Civil War
(2018-12) Syamken, Jennie M.; Syamken, Jennie M.; Wooster, Robert; Wooster, Robert; Moore, Peter; Blanke, David; Moore, Peter; Blanke, David; Blanke, David
The American Civil War transformed the roles of women in the United States. Their domestic lifestyle was uprooted as many women vacated their domestic duties and joined different public causes to support the war in either the Union or Confederacy. These new roles included serving on the United States Sanitary Commission, as nurses in hospitals and on the front lines, and as women soldiers. This study illustrates how the 19th century print media published favorable stories about women’s expanding roles in the Civil War and molded public opinion about white women in a male dominated society. The first chapter will assess the work of other historians on the changing nature of journalism and women’s contributions in the war. The second chapter includes the coverage of women by newspapers and periodicals in the public sphere, most notably in the Sanitary Commission, aid societies and as nurses in the hospitals and on the battlefield. The third chapter will focus on the media’s portrayal of the experiences of women soldiers in battle and camp life. This affirmative view encouraged greater acceptance of women outside of the domestic sphere. Helped by the favorable portrayal of their efforts by newspapers and periodicals, women seized the opportunity to expand their roles by creating a new sense of respect for their gender, as evidenced by the successful efforts by Civil War nurses to secure pensions for their wartime service.
Brown bodies and police killings: The case of José Campos Torres, Jr. and anti-Mexican violence in Houston in the 1970s
(2020-05) Hays, Veronica; Hays, Veronica; Sanos, Sandrine; Sanos, Sandrine; Rueda, Claudia; Rueda, Claudia
This thesis addresses the often-silenced history of violence perpetrated against Latinos for decades. This is not only about physical violence, but about the historical violence done to these victims. What does this mean? The history of these acts has been wiped from the historical record so as not to disrupt the larger story of Mexican Americans successfully integrating/assimilating into U.S. society. The goal for this study is to engage in an in-depth interrogation of the varied sources regarding the death of José Campos Torres in May, 1977 in Houston, Texas, the outcome of the state and federal trials that followed, and the Moody Park riot that erupted one year later in 1978. The José Campos Torres case is emblematic of how these victims disappear from historical memory and the official historical record of our nation and how they become members of the “forgotten dead.”
The Cabinet of Renwick Ambrose Matheton
(2017-08) Murdoch, Andrew; O'Malley, Ryan; Gron, Jack; Katz, Louis
This display represents all items archived (to date) in the collection of the late Renwick Ambrose Matheton. A known eccentric and occult enthusiast, Matheton spent his lifetime procuring and cataloging artifacts pertaining to a previously undiscovered civilization - one that seemingly pre-dates the continental schism of Pangaea. Through research, speculation, and the aid of Matheton's coded and cryptic notes, these objects have been identified and categorized to compile this exhibition. Finding the connections between these artifacts became the force driving his every waking moment, some say driving him to madness. Many of the ephemera included in this exhibition are works of his own, attempts to recreate the technologies of these ancients. But was it madness? With continued analysis of these objects a simple fact becomes increasingly apparent - something sinister lurks in the ancient origins of these artifacts. The further I delve into this research, the more I am beginning to see these connections. For what purpose were these objects destined before they entered Matheton's collection? What connection, if any, exists between these artifacts and Matheton's disappearance? Ominous warnings aside, please enjoy the assembled ephemera from the collection of Renwick Matheton. Drawing ones own connections is encouraged, but not recommended. Feel free to share your findings.
Changing media leadership and its perceived impact on news objectivity
(2020-05) Agbaje, Kehinde A.; Babbili, Anantha; Gurney, David
This study seeks to explore how media leadership has evolved in the United States and how leadership styles of media owners have impacted the perceived objectivity of news stories. Objectivity of news stories has been a major problem in the media industry in the U.S. and journalists are blamed often for lack of credibility of news stories. This study explores how select leaders have a major influence on journalists’ approaches to news, which ultimately influences news objectivity. This thesis employs a historical analysis approach using the four theories of the press as a framework to understand media leaders’ leadership styles. The analysis begins with the leadership styles of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, owners of traditional, 19th -Century newspapers, and concludes with an evaluation of the leadership styles of present-day tech giants, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, owners of Facebook and Twitter, respectively. Further, this study analyzes how yellow journalism has led to the present problem of fake news to attract readership in the new media and argues that media leaders have a major influence on how journalists approach news they cover.
Children's moral evaluations of lie-telling and truth-telling in modesty contexts
(2016-12) Zhao, Yuhang; Comparini, Lisa
Children’s moral evaluations of lie-telling and truth-telling, are influenced by culture (Lee, Cameron, Xu, Fu, & Board, 1997; Lee, Xu, Fu, Cameron, & Chen, 2001). Compared with Canadian children, eleven year olds Chinese children tend to rate modest lie-telling (lies about a good deed you have done) more positively than immodest truth-telling (admit a good deed you have done) (Lee et al., 1997; Lee et al., 2001). Additionally, older Chinese children (11 year olds) were more likely to rate modest lie-telling positively than younger children (7 and 9 year olds) (Lee et al., 2001). However, research suggested that specific social context could also influence people’s moral evaluations (Sweester, 1987). Previous research centered on this topic never considered a collaborative context in which children tend to show more modesty to their partner (Banerjee, 2000). The present study bridges this gap by investigating American children’s moral evaluations of lie-telling and truth-telling involving a collaborative context. All the children were recruited from an elementary lab school located in South Texas where the student body is comprised of 60 percent Hispanic population. We found that even American children tended to rate modest lie-telling more positively than immodest truth-telling in a pro-social situation when a collaborative context was involved. Also, there was a tendency for older (10-11 year olds) children to rate the modest lie-telling more positively than younger (7-8 year olds) children. Lastly, children spent more time in making a corresponding moral evaluation when lie-telling occurred in a pro-social context. This study suggests that the explanation of the modesty effect built on cultural factors might not be complete. Specific social contexts may also have an important effect.
Comedy of Purposes
(2017-05) Roeder, Larson; O'Malley, Ryan; Katz, Louis; Peña, Joe
In March of 2016, Lars Roeder began a series of performances and interactive installations that were designed to engage viewers as participants in each artistic experience. They have taken the forms of food carts, voting booths, books and vending machines, connecting themes of convenience, commodity, agency and identity with the public. Each work was created to interact with the audience, often times involving a piece of the work given away as a memento of that experience. In contemporary theory, artworks are defined by aesthetic interaction. Both the art and the viewer bring a unique set of circumstances that determine the outcomes of their mutual experience. Retaining these experiences on the part of the viewer is what connects the art to the whole of society. The accumulation of these performances was the exhibition, Comedy of Purposes, at the Islander Art Gallery in Corpus Christi, Texas. From April 7th to the 15th, 2017, the performances were presented, along with documentation and artifacts, to revisit the works of the previous year and reinterpret them beyond their original context. Amongst one another, the pieces established strong visual and aesthetic relationships. Their reflections as a group embraced the complexities of desire and value in art. The final exhibition became a performance in itself, with many moving parts to parody the idea of exhibiting events that have already happened. Yet, this process furthered the reach of the work, inscribing it with a whole new context beyond its original purpose. These intended functions critique the viewer’s perspective to clarify the relationship between art and life.
Communicating forgiveness: how organizational members seek forgiveness to benefit their workplace
(2020-08) Ruggiero, Isabella; Sollitto, Michael; Gurney, David
Though often challenging, conflict is an inevitable part of organizational life. At some point, organizational members will have to face their interpersonal issues, or risk suffering negative implications in their roles as individuals and professionals. The purpose of the thesis was to understand how and why organizational members seek forgiveness in their workplace, as well as examine the organizational conditions and outcomes that encourage forgiveness. The researcher conducted semi-structured interviews via Zoom and Webex with a convenience snowball sample of 10 full-time organizational members. A thematic analysis revealed themes of Maintaining Positive Relationships, Maintaining Personal and Professional Image, Direct ForgivenessSeeking Strategies, Indirect Forgiveness- Seeking Strategies, Leadership Participation, Open Communication Climate, Forgiveness as a Learning Experience, Positive Organizational Climate, and Strengthened Positive Relationships. The theoretical implications of this study suggest that forgiveness-seeking can employ POS to sustain a positive feeling in the workplace. A practical implication is that organizational leaders should play an active role in cultivating forgiveness seeking behaviors and climates by establishing consistent practices for their members to deal with conflict.
A community of convenience: an ethnographic case study of narrative relationship-building in public relations
(2016-08) Hatch, Debra Young; Michelle M. Maresh-Fuehrer
The purpose of this case study was to gain in-depth understanding of how a convenience store with a nationally recognized reputation of friendliness, creates relationships with its mobile and ever-changing customers and employees through the construction and implementation of their corporate narrative. Using an ethnographic approach, the researcher enacted the role of participant-observer to gather information and rich description of customer and employee experiences in the store. The results of the study reflect this company authentically shared their corporate narrative with their stakeholders - employees and customers. As such, that narrative, successfully passed on from their employees to their customers on a daily basis, serves to create a following, a community and brand loyalty with customers, while simultaneously fostering community among their customers. In addition, this study adds to knowledge in academic literature, as well as for the public relations practitioner. From an academic perspective, it offers a unique view inside an organization's public relations efforts through observation of customer and employee communication. Further, since there are few ethnographic studies in public relations, particularly from the customer perspective, this study provides a unique opportunity to understand the effectiveness of public relations strategies as they build relationships, community and brand loyalty. From a public relations standpoint, the case study provides specific strategies on how to create authentic relationships between employees and customer, while offering customers a uniquely personalized experience with a convenience store model.
Constructing Ghetto Consciousness: Recognizing Class as Diversity and Acknowledging a Cultural Dissemblance in the Self
(2017-05) Hernandez, Joe Anthony; Hinojosa, Yndalecio Isaac; Blalock, Glenn; Garza, Susan
Despite the attention to socioeconomic class in scholarship, implementation of class-conscious pedagogy in writing studies is typically overlooked because race and gender take precedent over class. As a result, students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, such as myself, are forced to straddle their home and school communities in attempts to maintain their relationships outside of the classroom while attempting to find acceptance into academic communities. Providing students with the opportunity to express themselves in an outlet that supports both communities they are straddling allows for students to develop a “ghetto consciousness,” a phrase I coined for this project. A “ghetto consciousness” recognizes the cultural dissemblance, rather than disparity, between an academic and a home community. I suggest that while experience may differ, coming from a lower socioeconomic class is not necessarily a disadvantage or negative outcome, but rather an oppositional cultural background that offers an alternate perspective to the more normative view of socioeconomic class. To be successful in both communities, the lower socioeconomic student must have class-consciousness and realize the benefits that low socioeconomic communities can provide to advance their academic achievement. Relying on Gloria Anzaldua’s concepts and theories such as la facultad, nepantla, mestiza consciousness, and conocimiento, in this thesis, I apply these concepts to my personal experiences of navigating both academic and home cultures and explain my construction of ghetto consciousness. Through my understanding of class consciousness, I explain the rhetorical maneuvers and gamification that I utilize as straddling devices to ensure success in both communities. In recognizing the obstacles faced by students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, this thesis critiques current pedagogical approaches utilized by writing instructors as well as urges instructors to reevaluate current frameworks to ensure that students from diverse populations are successful.
COVID-19 Impacts and Responses
(2020-05-29) Schuchs Carr, Isla; Borges Quadros, Cristiane; DeFrancesco, Phillip; Falcon, Marlene; Garcia, John; Gayle, Theresa; Hinojosa, René; Jimenez, Adriana; Kozak, Renée; Miller, Samantha; Rodriquez, Ariana; Salazar, Luisa; Sanchez, Sandra; Szczepanek, Paula; Tryon, Monica; Schuchs Carr, Isla; Borges Quadros, Cristiane; DeFrancesco, Phillip; Falcon, Marlene; Garcia, John; Gayle, Theresa; Hinojosa, René; Jimenez, Adriana; Kozak, Renée; Miller, Samantha; Rodriquez, Ariana; Salazar, Luisa; Sanchez, Sandra; Szczepanek, Paula; Tryon, Monica
In the following report, two MPA students—Cristiane Borges Quadros and Marlene Falcon—analyzed the COVID-19 response in China, Italy, Spain, and the United States. Theresa Gayle wrote an introduction to Federalism and created a timeline of state responses to provide context for her classmates reports on several key localities including Washington, California, New York, Texas, and Florida—written by MPA students John Garcia, Luisa Salazar, and Adriana Jimenez. Monica Tryon wrote a comparative analysis of the COVID-19 response in two or the largest U.S. cities, Los Angeles, California and Chicago, Illinois, and New Orleans, Louisiana—one of the hardest hit in the early days of the pandemic in the United States. Sandra Sanchez and Renee Kozak provided an analysis of the COVID-19 response in six major Texas cities—Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso and, Corpus Christi, the city in which our university is located. Several students contributed questions to a survey: The Educational Impacts of COVID-19 in the United States. Samantha Miller reported on some of the higher education institutional responses to COVID-19 and the impacts on students. Ariana Rodriguez provided an analysis on the COVID-19 educational impacts on communities of color. René Hinojosa analyzed both higher education and K-12 access to technology and training prior to and during the COVID-19 institutional responses. Paula Szczepanek reported on the impacts of K-12 schools closing in reaction to the pandemic. John Garcia analyzed the challenges associated with the changes in instruction for K-12 students during this time and Cristiane Borges Quadros reported on the general perceptions of risk and the federal government response to COVID-19.
Deconstructing the savior narrative: The Brownings, agency, and their cultural afterlife
(2020-12) Sifers, Krista Diane; Sheehan, Lucy; Sorensen, Jennifer; Wiehe, Jarred
Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s love story has quite the cultural afterlife. Articles describing their epic literary love often appear around Valentine’s Day, and there have been many fictionalized narratives re-telling their story. However, this project’s main goal is to show the problems with the Browning-as-savior narrative these narratives create. Whereas re-tellings might lead readers to believe that Browning or his love “saved” EBB from her life before him, close analysis of the Brownings’ letters and poetry complicate this idea by showing the complexities of ideas behind gender, power, and disability. These analyses show we should not buy into these fictionalized salvific ableist heterosexual narratives that require re- writing the past and controlling the future. Rather, this project seeks to influence readers to consider three things: 1) EBB’s disability and the numerous ways it affected her embodied experiences as a woman and a writer within her relationship to Browning, 2) the problems fictionalized narratives have created in terms of understanding disability, gender and power, and 3) the ways in which Browning and EBB slipped in and out of stereotypical gender roles over the course of their relationship.
Does fulfilling a need for uniqueness decrease conspiracy theory endorsement?
(2020-12) Libretto, Carina; Houlihan, Amy; Brouillard, Pamela J.; Seidel, Steven
With the recent increase of measles outbreaks, there has been a rising concern regarding anti-vaccination conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories are belief systems endorsed by some individuals in which powerful, malevolent groups work in secret to orchestrate world events. Research on conspiracy theories has increased in the past decade. Several scholars have examined a number of epistemic, existential, and social motivations for conspiracy theory endorsement. Others, to a lesser degree, have inspected individual factors such as analytical thinking styles and education. The current study hypothesized that fulfilling individuals’ need for uniqueness by providing bogus personality questionnaire feedback would result in decreased endorsement of conspiracy theories. Furthermore, those who receive bogus feedback indicating they lack uniqueness will be more likely to endorse conspiracy theories. Two hundred and seventeen students were recruited from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Participants completed a bogus personality questionnaire. After receiving either positive uniqueness feedback or negative uniqueness feedback, participants completed the Need for Uniqueness Scale, the Generic Conspiracist Beliefs Scale-Short, and the Rational Experiential Inventory-short. Analyses revealed that manipulating participants’ need for uniqueness did not impact conspiracy theory endorsement. This may be because the manipulation of need for uniqueness was ineffective as bogus feedback may have been too specific or participants did not perceived feedback as accurate.
Dr. Hector P. Garcia: A study in cross cultural communication leadership
(2020-05) Gomez, Rosana; Babbili, Anantha; Maresh-Fuehrer, Michelle
The purpose of this study is to investigate the communication leadership styles of Dr. Hector P. Garcia, a Mexican American leader in the United States. Dr. Garcia is best known for founding the American G.I. Forum social movement with a mission to protect and defend veterans’ and Hispanic Americans’ civil rights by providing access to education, health, and employment. Trait, skills, and emotional intelligence leadership styles are applied using a critical rhetorical approach. Dr. Garcia’s leadership style is a reference to analyze, understand, and apply the different concepts, theories, and approaches concerning effective leadership. The results of this study demonstrate that Dr. Hector P. Garcia was a transformational and servant leader who used charismatic and authentic communication to build a relationship with followers. These findings illustrate how Dr. Garcia used different tools of persuasion such as ethos, logos, pathos, and civic spaces to deliver and engage in communication with his followers. Dr. Garcia’s rhetoric resonated with followers by creating a shared cultural identity due to similitudes such as cultural background, and experiences with racism and discrimination. Dr. Garcia’s leadership may be used as a model for today’s Mexican American leaders that are trying to generate change in society.
The effects of short-term heterosexual privilege awareness on the evaluations of minority people
(2021-12) Bae, Eun Young; Zaikman, Yuliana; Comparini, Lisa; Botello, Raquel; Houlihan, Amy
Privilege, or automatic unearned benefits, create group inequities that cause and perpetuate systems of disadvantage, oppression, and discrimination for those that lack these benefits (Case et al., 2012a; McIntosh, 1998). A large challenge of privilege studies is the tendency for the sole focus and conversation to be on the discrimination component of these systems from the view of the underprivileged, rather than examining the systems from the privileged perspective (Case et al., 2012a). LGBT+ people have continued to openly fight for equal rights in the United States and though much progress has been made, members of this underprivileged group still face rampant prejudice, discrimination, and inequities (Korn, 2020). This project examined the effectiveness of short-term interventions to engage privilege self-awareness, reduce homophobia, and employ behavioral intentions towards challenging systemic oppression in cisgender heterosexual identifying individuals. We recruited 105 undergraduate cisgenders, heterosexual participants for this study. Our findings illustrate those short-term interventions to elicit self-awareness of personal privileges as a dominant heterosexual person can be successful in leading to behavioral intentions to collective action towards challenging the systemic oppression experienced by non-heterosexual people. We also found correlations between being aware of one’s own heterosexual privileges and favorable perceptions of other underprivileged, minority groups. Further research is needed on the effects of raising heterosexual privilege self-awareness on perceptions towards other minority identities.
An examination of the effects of sexual education on American college students: sexual knowledge, sexual behaviors, and sexual opinions
(2016-05) Gabrion, Karlee E.; Houlihan, Amy
Roughly 10 million new cases of sexually transmitted infections occur in individuals aged 15 to 24 every year in the United States, and over 300,000 babies are born to women 15 to 19 years old annually (CDC 2011; CDC, 2013). Finding ways to combat these negative health outcomes has been a challenge for decades. One feasible solution to the problem may be sex education. The United States has three frequent modes of teaching public school students about sex including abstinence only, abstinence plus, and comprehensive sex education, with the primary focus being the health outcomes associated with sexual activity (Carroll, 2009; Gilbert, 2010; Schalet et al., 2014). Universities often offer courses in human sexuality that tend to focus on a wide array of topics and implement a more holistic view of sexuality (Hock, 2012). This study tested the effects that different types of sex education may have on college students' level of sexual knowledge, health, behaviors, and opinions. Results indicated that AOE, AOEP, and CSE programs did not have a significant effect on the outcome variables. However, students who had taken human sexuality in college had significantly higher levels of sexual knowledge, reported healthier sexual behaviors, and held more positive views toward sexual topics. These findings suggest that we may need to revise the way we educate teens and young adults about sexuality.
Facebook is the yellow pages of today': South Texas Hispanic business administrator social media utilizations, relevancies, and concerns
(2015-02) Nava, Ismael Josue'
The Hispanic population is currently rising to be the most populous ethnicity and is stated to become one of the most powerful economic forces in the United States. Although persons of the Hispanic ethnicity living in America may be grouped into one culture, there are many issues regarding differences of identity and specific histories from various groups within this culture. The Hispanic population in the cultural region of South Texas can have great implications for business decisions in the 21st century in regards to technological communication advancements. Different social networking sites are now in collaboration efforts with enterprises across the country to tap into this emerging demographic. These organizations have found the importance of becoming culturally relevant toward the Hispanic culture. Qualitative methods were applied to present answers from an interview questionnaire that helped describe social media use pertaining to Hispanic business administrators in the South Texas region. Hispanic business administrators in a South Texas metropolitan area utilized social networking sites to be specifically proactive. It was also found that these applications were relevant to their business goals and that administrators were concerned with how they would manage critics in online environments.
Feminist identity and the personal epistemologies of Latina college students
(2018-08) Munoz, Emily; Comparini, Lisa; Botello-Zammaron, Raquel; Berkout, Olga V.
The current study examines the relationships between women’s ways of knowing, ethnicity, and feminist identity, making use of Belenky et al’s (1986) research paradigm published in Women’s Ways of Knowing (WWK). The focus of the WWK project was to understand women’s beliefs about knowledge and how they made meaning of their educational experiences. Building on Belenky et al’s work, we seek to investigate how Latinas’ identification with feminism and their culture intersect to influence women’s beliefs about knowledge. The study employed a mixed-methods design, 101 students who self-identify as Latina and who are currently enrolled at a Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI) were recruited from undergraduate courses to participate in an online survey. Participants were asked to complete a web-based survey, which included questions regarding their attitudes towards feminism and the women’s movement, language praxis, media use, and their attitudes towards learning. Participants were also asked to provide demographic, which included a question about whether or not they identified themselves as a feminist. In the interview portion of the study, 20 participants were asked questions about feminism, and were prompted to explain why they do or do not identify as a feminist. They were also asked about their beliefs about opinions, and how they distinguish between what is factually right and wrong. Overall, the Latina woman surveyed held relatively favorable attitudes towards feminism, with 71% identifying themselves as feminists. The results of the study confirmed the initial hypothesis, which stated that feminist identity would be related to connected knowing, however, there were no significant differences between feminists and non-feminists on a measure of Hispanic and non-Hispanic acculturation. There was also no significant relationship between acculturation and specific ways of knowing. Qualitative results demonstrate that Latina women emphasize family and morality when discussing both feminism and beliefs about knowledge.

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