Focusing on the ethnic identity and achievement motivation of adolescents, this book reports on a study of Mexican-origin and Anglo American adolescents and sets it in sociopolitical, theoretical, ethnohistorical, and demographic contexts. The opening chapters examine public malaise over immigration and ethnic diversification in the United States…

In this book written for young people, six young Mexican immigrants tell about their immigration experiences and adaptation to life in the United States. These immigrant youths are 16-20 years old and include both legal and illegal immigrants, high school students and dropouts, and permanent immigrants and those planning to return to Mexico. An…

This paper reports the effects of thematically integrated mathematics instruction on achievement, attitudes, and motivation in mathematics among middle school students of Mexican descent. A school-university collaborative effort led to the development and testing of a thematic approach undertaken as a means of contextualizing instruction for…

This study explored how motivational and achievement factors interact and affect persistence in minority undergraduate engineering students. Study participants were 38 entering Mexican and African American college students in an engineering program at a large, southwestern university in the Fall of 1990. Each student was assigned to a peer…

A total of 2,118 8th-grade, 12th-grade, and community college students (66% were Mexican American) from 11 Texas school districts and 3 community colleges were surveyed to determine the extent of family influence over their occupational and career choices. In addition, 581 parents completed mailed questionnaires and 100 more responded to a…

Since the mid-1970s, at least 20 states have instituted standardized tests that must be passed before students can receive a high school diploma. This paper draws on data collected in four states to explore some of the lasting effects of competency test legislation. Of particular interest is student awareness of these tests. A survey of 733…

Selected papers presented at a conference on the contributions of and to the new immigrants in North America include: "Realizing the Dream" (Len Fox); "From Gattegno to Freire: Musings on a Decade Gone By" (James A. Lydon); "The New Immigrants" (Doris W. Koo); "Haitian Immigrants in the U.S.: Migration and…

Project E.T.B.B.S., a bilingual education program designed to accelerate the transition to English usage among Spanish-speaking high school students of limited English proficiency, is described in this report. As implemented in 1980-81, the project provided instruction in English as a second language, native language instruction, bilingual…

In 1980, Oregon State University began a program going beyond the usual procedure for students of English as a second language (ESL), which involved putting them in intensive English programs until they could pass the Test of English as a Foreign Language and then sending them on to a regular academic program. It was found that this traditional…

A questionnaire with 120 variables was given to 105 high school juniors and seniors in Anthony and Canutillo, Texas, small school districts in which the majority of students are Mexican Americans, to study the perceptions of the schooling experience of this regional culture. Questions covered policy awareness; perception of school, teachers, and…

With a goal of forming interventions and programs to address needs of student athletes (such as group and individual career interventions as well as time management training), this study compared attitudes of 73 freshman athletes and 73 nonathlete freshmen at the University of Maryland toward their college experience. A questionnaire concerning…

This publication describes a study of one small Bronx high school's attempt to create an intellectual culture that drew on and validated the realities of its diverse students. The study examined examples of teachers, students, and families drawing lessons from each other and using those lessons to improve and enrich the ways in which they…

This collection of papers includes the following: (1) "Insights from Research and Practice in Spanish as a Heritage Language" (M. Cecilia Colombi and Ana Roca); (2) "Toward a Theory of Heritage Language Acquisition: Spanish in the United States" (Andrew Lynch); (3) "Profiles of SNS Students in the Twenty-First Century:…

Investigates how students' ethnic backgrounds relate to their views of instructional communication processes. Assesses the structural relationships among teacher immediacy, course utility, and teaching effectiveness for Anglo-American, Latino, African-American, and Asian-American students at the middle and end of a 10-week term. (SR)

A study examined attitudes, cognitive and noncognitive experiences, and transfer-related behaviors of 277 nontraditional-age Hispanic students graduating from a community college. Measures were developed for family concerns, encouragement, social and academic integration, English skills, and educational and institutional commitments. Variables…