New multicultural anthologies too often end up looking suspiciously like the color palate of a paint-by-numbers kit. Canonical tokenism is quickly seen as a ruse by minority students and teachers who are circumspect and adept at uncovering counterfeits. As an alternative to tokenism, one recommendation is to use Patricia Bizzell's "contact…

Identity formation is a process in which successive identifications with parents, siblings, peers, teachers, folk heroes, and cultural groups are synthesized into a coherent, consistent, and unique whole. This study reports the case of a 13 year old female, Jane, of mixed Latino and European American heritage who was admitted for long-term…

The status of women viewed against the background of the United Nations Decade for Women is examined with emphasis on the world context, the Latin American context, and the context of rural women in the region. It describes attempts at categorization of rural women in Latin America based on the main types of agricultural economy in the region and…

Prepared to support the efforts of a series of international conferences on the economic and social status of women, this report focuses on Latin American and Caribbean issues and reviews conference directives and goals. Calling attention to the difficulties relating to the evaluation of the status of women, the report mentions the political and…

This study predicts willingness of refugees to acculturate to North American society based on selected demographic and psychological variables. The hypothesis is that most previous research on refugee adaptation has overemphasized sociological variables such as age, time in the country, and level of education and underemphasized psychological…

There are a variety of methods to impart the cultural setting of a foreign language. The teacher can use, among other things, cultural assimilators, films, mini-dramas, culture capsules, background lectures, and native-speaking class visitors. This last technique can be extremely effective but difficult to arrange and difficult to control once it…

These papers represent a general discussion of the problems and prospects for teaching Latin American Studies in two-year colleges. More broadly, they highlight the difficulties of introducing any sort of intercultural dimension into the two-year college curriculum. Sheila Tesar discusses the constraints of state regulations and student attitudes…

This study investigated ethnic differences and the effects of racism on the college adjustment of African-American, Asian, and Latino students who attended five undergraduate predominantly Anglo-American colleges. Results indicated that social adjustment was better for Anglos than it was for Asians and Latinos. African-Americans reported the most…

The paper provides a framework for identifying trends in planning in Latin American universities for the last 20 years. Identification of the planning trends is based on two main dimensions: the purpose of the relationship between universities and the external environment (organization-centered versus society-centered), and the degree by which the…

Cross-cultural psychology has begun to analyze cultural differences on collectivism and the implications of these differences for social processes such as group productivity. This study examined natural social interaction during a problem-solving task that required discussion and the establishment of a consensus. The relationship of collectivist…

Culture is a powerful force that may affect the reception and acceptance of communication. To determine if culture has an effect on perceived speaker effectiveness, students in one introductory speech communication class in a Florida university and a variety of courses in a university in the Bahamas, were given an 80-item questionnaire that was…

This paper asserts that initiatives to promote community colleges in Latin America should be linked with assessments of Latin American higher education overall. What are the higher education norms and practices that have largely excluded such colleges? And what changing reality opens doors for them? This paper highlights the concept of…

This guide is intended to be a resource for teachers of the newly arrived Hispanic immigrant child. The number of children who enter U.S. schools without knowledge of English or whose first language is Spanish is growing and will continue to grow. Teachers will need to meet the challenge of educating students whose native language is not English…

This study investigated the influence of a community-based heritage culture program on Chicano students in a southwestern suburban middle school. Subjects were 61 seventh- and eighth-grade students, all Chicanos, with little or no previous instruction in indigenous Mexican culture. The pre- and post-survey, administerd a week piro to and 3 weeks…

An intensive, one-semester introductory Spanish course developed for nursing and other health-care professionals is intended to make possible spoken communication in Spanish, at least on a rudimentary level. The course encountered initial problems of rapidly growing enrollment, lack of appropriate text, and limited scheduling. However, student…