Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Contenido
No Child Left Behind in Puerto Rico: How does the No Child Left
Behind Act Affect Teacher’s Attitude Toward Students from Low-
Income Communities 9
Ericka Acevedo-Torres
Concentración: Psicología
Abstract:
Heritage speakers are defined as persons that acquired the second
language in a natural context by interacting with speakers at home, work,
school or neighborhood (Valdes, 1997). In the United States, Censo describe
the large and growing population of Spanish heritage speakers in the U.S.
2000 .The field of teaching Spanish to Native Speakers (SNS) has received
quite a bit of research attention (Paranda, 2005; Potwsky, 2003;Valdes, 1997) ,
finding that heritage speakers are a very heterogeneous population.
However, the general conclusion is that while low proficiency heritage
speakers share some characteristics with traditional foreign language
learners, many heritage speakers benefit most from specialized Spanish
courses tailored to their particular linguistic and affective needs. That is,
proficient heritage speakers should not be in traditional “foreign language”
Spanish courses, but rather in courses that look more like native language
arts.
While this finding is quite clear, one area of heritage speaker
development that remains relatively unexplored is how to develop their
proficiency in writing. In the preliminary sections of my paper, I will review
the few published studies on developing heritage speaker writing, and I will
also analyze seven (7) recent heritage speaker textbooks to see how they
address the development of writing. Then, in order to arrive at an
understanding of what might be the best approaches and activities in
developing the formal academic writing of Spanish heritage speakers, my
study examines research on how to best develop writing proficiency among
(1) foreign language students, and (2) native monolingual students. The goal
is to combine the knowledge and approaches from both of these fields in
order to arrive at empirically testable writing activities that can be piloted on
a course of heritage speakers at UIC during Fall 2009.
Mariana L. Arroyo-Ortega
Concentración: Sociología
Health Status, Access, and Acculturation amon Puerto Rican vs. Other Hispanics/
Latinos
Abstract:
Hispanics/Latinos living in the United States are often treated as a
monolithic ethnic group. Some writers and commentators on the topic of
within group differences have suggested that because Puerto Ricans are U.S.
citizens, they may be better off than other Hispanics in regards to social
safety nets, government welfare and health care programs. This study
compares healthcare access and health outcomes among Puerto Ricans and
other Hispanics (Mexicans, Central Americans, South Americans, Cubans,
Dominican Republicans, and Hispanic/Latinos born in the USA), to assess
what similarities and differences might exist among them. Variables related
to health status socio-economics status, and acculturation were examined
using data from the Illinois Hispanic/Latino Health Survey (IHLHS), the
healthcare access and health outcomes of Puerto Ricans other Hispanics/
Latinos groups living in metropolitan Chicago. Puerto Ricans were more
likely to be questioned about their legal status than other groups of
Hispanics, but had no significant differences in their life satisfaction or
experiences of poor treatment and discrimination when compared to
members of other Hispanic/Latino groups. Results of the analysis indicate
that while there were no significant difference in employment and income
among Puerto Ricans and other Hispanic/Latinos, there were significant
differences in health care access, chronic illness rates and experiences of
acculturation stress between the two groups.
César E. Concepción-Acevedo
Concentración: Ciencias Sociales Generales
Abstract:
It took a little more than a decade for Social Networks Sites (SNS)
to become one of the most popular destinations for internet users. Based on
the popularity of these sites, issues of privacy, identity, politics and
socialization overall have been raised online and “offline”. Meanwhile,
dichotomized perspectives of offline and online behaviors have been
nurtured to understand the unique social scenarios created in response to
SNS’s. However, with recent research it is becoming more evident that the
behaviors shown on these sites are only a mirror of individuals and
furthermore, society. These sites are not only influenced by events that occur
offline but are also prone to social factors like: institutionalized
isomorphism, free market behavior, politics and normative social values. This
medium of interaction has allowed people to magnify their social capital
since social networks are more visible and more easily accessible.
Nevertheless, to completely understand the benefits and drawbacks of this
novel way of communication more research is needed.
Juan Gutierrez
Concentración: Psicología
Abstract:
Eira E. Figueroa-Cordero
Concentración: Psicología
Abstract:
2. Olsson, et.al, (2005) and Navarrete, et.al, (in press) found that
intergroup contact significantly reduces the persistence of learned fear
towards social outgroups in a fear conditioning procedure. Other studies
have also demonstrated that positive intergroup contact reduces negativity
toward outgroups. In this study we explore the role of interracial contact in
romantic relationships and sexual behavior in the the extinction of fear
toward outgroups. We replicated the results of previous work, finding that
interracial dating significantly reduces conditioned fear to the outgroup
target. However, other variables measuring more detailed romantic and
sexual contact did were not found to be significantly related to fear
extinction. Most correlations were in the predicted direction, suggesting that
analyses conducted with a larger sample may yield significant relationships
between these variables and the persistence of learned fear to an outgroup.
Bianca R. Jimenez-Torres
Concentración: Psicología
Abstract:
Emely E. Medina-Rodríguez
Concentración: Ciencias Políticas
No Child Left Behind in Puerto Rico: How does the No Child Left Behind Act
Affect Teacher’s Attitude Toward Students from Low-Income Communities
Abstract:
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was created in 2001 to close
the achievement gap between middle class White students and low-income
minority students in the U.S. NCLB is also mandated in Puerto Rico and
affects Puerto Rican educational institutions. Although this law has been
studied in the U.S. there is a lack of understanding of how it affects
territories distant from the mainland. Little is known about how NCLB
affects Puerto Rican teachers’ attitudes, especially those working with
students from low-income communities. Qualitative research methods were
chosen to encourage teachers to express their perspectives from their own
point of view. A snowball sample identified seven participants. Open-ended
questions were used to interview teachers at a school near the University of
Puerto Rico at Mayaguez. The school serves students from the surrounding
public housing projects. Ninety-two percent of the student body had
incomes below poverty levels. Statistics from Puerto Rico’s Department of
Education also showed that this school had not met NCLB’s Adequate Yearly
Progress requirement for the past five years.
María M. Quiñones-Cordero
Concentración: Psicología
Abstract:
At least two neural pathways, a dorsal pathway for localization of
sound sources and a ventral pathway for recognition of auditory objects may
process auditory information. These processing pathways converge in the
prefrontal cortex (PFC) and this area is involved in working memory for
visual stimuli and may have the same involvement for auditory information.
Some studies have shown that there are neurons in the prefrontal cortex
(PFC) that respond to sounds. However, many of these studies have only
used a few numbers of example stimuli such as monkey vocalization and
pure tones. The focus of this study is to examine auditory processing of
simple and complex sounds by utilizing single-unit neuronal recordings in
the ventral lateral prefrontal cortex (VlPFC) while the primates are
challenged by tasks requiring auditory discrimination, recognition, and
memory. The present study employs a delayed matching-to-sample (DMTS)
task that requires maintenance of an auditory stimulus over a delay period as
a test of working memory. The stimuli presented came from multiple sound
types including: music, human voices, monkey vocalizations, animal sounds,
synthetic sounds, white noise, pure tones and sounds from nature.
Preliminary results from 52 cells in two experimental animals indicate that
the majority have some task related activity, as indicated by a significant
change in firing rates as indicated by the Wilcoxon test during particular
events for at least one of the four trial types. It appears that this region of the
PFC is actively involved in auditory short term recognition memory, as
demonstrated by changes in firing activity to both sounds, during the
memory delay, response, and reward periods. This is similar to findings in
this brain region from the visual system (Wallis & Miller, 2003), and suggests
that although the sensory input is very different for auditory versus visual
sensation, eventually the encoding processes are similar at the cortical level.
Antonio L. Romaguera-Rodríguez
Concentración: Psicología
Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to understand how a child’s speech-
language disability potentially impacts the quality of their parent-child
relationship. The theoretical framework used for this study is based on the
ABCX Model of Family Stress which suggests that factors that increase
parent stress are likely to have a negative impact on parent-child
relationships. Parent-child dyads were selected from the Western Reserve
Reading Project (WRRP) to form two groups: a) 13 dyads in which the
children had a speech-language disability and b) 13 dyads in which the
children had typical speech-language skills. Quality of parent-child
relationship was compared between these two groups using items from the
Parent Feeling Questionnaire (Deater- Deckard, 1996) which measured how
parents feel about their relationships with their children. Mean differences
were statistically evaluated between both groups and between boys and girls
with an independent samples t-test. Correlation matrixes were derived to
evaluate the influence of parental education level. Results suggested no
differences between groups and no influence of parent education level, but
suggest that boys elicit more negativity from their mothers as compared to
girls.