Browsing Working Paper Series by Title
Now showing items 24-35 of 35
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National Origin Based Variations of Latino Voter Turnout in 1988: Findings from the Latino National Political SurveyThe Latino community in the United States, currently estimated at over 23 million, is projected to become the largest minority group in America within the next fifteen years. However, insufficient national-level data on Latinos has resulted in relatively few studies being published on the voting behavior of this increasingly important group. Using data drawn from the first national probability sample of Latinos, the Latino National Political Survey, this paper addresses selected socio-demographic indices correlated with voter turnout. The logistic regression model empirically demonstrates the importance of distinguishing among subgroups and identifies the life-cycle effect as a principle determinant of voter turnout.
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Of Information Highways and Toxic Byways: Women and Environmental Protest in a Northern Mexican CityWomen’s involvement in collective struggles for environmental quality has surged in recent years, as has research focusing on this phenomenon. Consistent with this research, a feminist lens is useful in revealing a model of community struggle that features women’s activities and strategies to expose environmental insult. I use a case study of community protest in Hermosillo, a city in the Mexican state of Sonora, to feature social networks as a means of politicizing the placement of a toxic waste dump six kilometers outside the city. A feminist perspective reveals these social networks to be more than a way to mobilize resources. It allow us to see the ways in which gender interacts with globalized relations of power, political ecology, and environmental policy, and to validate a creative way in which women can out-maneuver the gendered constraints to political participation. An analysis of how social networks served in this particular struggle suggests that they are an important component in the process through which women gained voice and authored oppositional discourse in contexts where these have been previously denied, and ultimately deconstructed the political authority that sanctioned the dump.
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Phenotypic Discrimination and Income Differences Among Mexican AmericansUsing a national probability sample of approximately 1,000 Mexican American heads of household, we analyze a subsample of 253 Mexican American male wage earners and present evidence of the importance of phenotype, measured by skin color and physical features, on earnings, controlling for other factors known to affect earnings. Even after controlling these variables, individuals with a dark and Native American phenotype continue to receive significantly lower earnings than individuals of a lighter and more European phenotype. A decomposition of differences in earnings reveals that most of the differential in earnings between the darkest one-third of the sample and the lighter two-thirds is due not to differences in endowments but rather to labor market discrimination. When taken as a whole, Mexican Americans in all phenotypic groups remain far from having incomes comparable to those of non-Hispanic whites.
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Predictors of Breast Self-Examination Among Mexican American Women: A Path Analytic ModelThis paper is a test of several hypothesized predictors of frequency of breast self-examination among low-income Mexican American women. Current research points to several factors as important predictors of preventive care. Among these are self-efficacy – one’s perceived capacity to perform a given action – and social support from significant others. For Mexican Americans, environmental barriers to health care are important factors. While findings are inconclusive regarding the role of language proficiency as a predictor of preventive care, the model includes this as a hypothesized predictor of frequency of breast self-examination. The findings show a strong relationship between self-efficacy and frequency of breast self-examination. Barriers to health care have a weaker direct effect upon breast self-examination. The effects of English-language proficiency are indirect and mediated by self-efficacy.
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Social Exchange Practices among Mexican-Origin Women in Nogales, Arizona: Prospects for Education AcquisitionThis paper summarizes quantitative and qualitative findings from a 1999 study of Mexican-origin households in Nogales, Arizona. An important finding shows that women’s educational progress is facilitated with social support, and more importantly, that a household’s investment in the education of its members is significantly raised with the increase in the education attainment level of the female head of household. These findings form the premise for arguing that by systematically building on existent cultural frameworks for social support that advance women’s educational progress, the chances for educational attainment for all Mexican-origin persons are improved.
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Viva Emiliano Zapata! Viva Benito Juarez! Helping Mexican and Chicano Middle School Students Develop a Chicano Consciousness via Critical Pedagogy and Latino/Latina Critical Race TheoryThis article describes how an anti-racist curriculum constructed on Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Latino Critical Pedagogy (LatCrit) helped Mexican and Chicano middle school students enrolled in an alternative education program to alter their attitudes toward the use of English, and to change their forms of self-identification resulting in the development of a Chicano consciousness. In the beginning of this fourteen-month study, 9.6% of the students identified with the Chicano label. However, at the end of the study, 77% of the class selected the Chicano label for self-identification. Moreover, this investigation bridges the theoretical concepts of Critical Pedagogy to everyday practice in a middle school classroom. In short, the tenets of this theoretical framework were applied in the design and the implementation of the curriculum.
