Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are a significant and necessary component of American higher education and should be treated and perceived as such. However, this has not been the case. Despite their lengthy track record of making significant contributions toward the advancement of Black people, HBCUs have faced discrimination. Additionally, despite their accomplishments, they have been subjected to heavy criticism in the media, suggesting there are some misconceptions about their value and relevance. This study investigates the beliefs people hold about colleges, how systemic racism and social pressure affect those beliefs, and the effects those beliefs have on social and educational outcomes.Using a bio-demographic questionnaire, individual semi-structured interviews, and two activities that resulted in files for document analysis, this study explored how systemic racism and social pressure influenced how 20 Black students (10 who attended predominantly white institutions and 10 who attended HBCUs) were socialized to perceive HBCUs compared to predominantly white institutions (PWIs). It also investigated where these beliefs came from and their social and educational effects. To ground the research, the study used The Cycle of Socialization, two tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT), and introduced and applied a new theory, "The Cycle of Perception Formation." Several significant findings emerged. First, results indicated very different perceptions of HBCUs compared to PWIs among the participants. Although individuals were socialized to regard PWIs as discriminatory and unconcerned about the well-being of their students, they were instructed to see HBCUs as welcoming environments where they could connect with others, receive care, and feel included regardless of their race. Furthermore, people regarded HBCUs as challenging settings regarding finances, facilities, and academic standards, while they saw PWIs as establishments with superior financial backing, resources, majors and employment prospects. However, these beliefs did not always align with participants' experiences. In addition, findings also indicated respondents were more familiar with and had greater involvement in PWIs. This finding was primarily due to HBCUs being overlooked in-school when students were discussing which colleges to attend. Moreover, the findings indicated that participants’ perceptions of educational institutions were significantly influenced by various socialization factors. These factors included the influence of other individuals, mass media, social media platforms, the participants' surroundings, systemic racial discrimination, and societal expectations. Lastly, the findings showed participants placed the most value on five factors when forming their perceptions of a collegiate institution: the institution's display of concern for students' well-being; the institution's standing regarding academics, social life, finances, and racial issues; the institution's capability to fulfill the individual needs that were the most important to participants; the institution's environment; and the participants' personal connection to the college. The study is important because it makes several potential theoretical, methodological, and literary contributions. First, it contributes to the very limited literature on student perceptions. In addition, it offers a new theoretical application of Critical Race Theory, proposes a new theory, "The Cycle of Perception Formation", and employs a mixed-multimethod research design that incorporates activities into qualitative interviews. The study is significant because negative perceptions of HBCUs have called into question their relevance and value. This situation is concerning because HBCUs play a significant role in advancing opportunities for Black and low-income students. Any threat to their existence could pose a danger to the Black middle class, and limit Black and low-income populations’ social mobility and advancement. This research can be valuable for identifying how negative perceptions are perpetuated. In addition, it is significant for enrollment and recruitment, as it sheds light on how students perceive institutions and provides them with opportunities to emphasize positive perceptions and address their negative ones. To address the issues highlighted, the study's implications call for students, parents, and teachers to critically evaluate the suitability of a college, the process of selecting a college, and the messages conveyed about different colleges. These evaluations can help prevent misunderstandings and ensure the college selected is the best option for each student. Finally, it urges lawmakers, educators, and the broader society to reflect on the impact that messaging about colleges has on students and academic institutions.

This case study examines college student ecoliteracy, a measure of ecological awareness and understanding, as influenced by a year-long course on food systems and related environmental issues. Food: A Lens for the Environment and Sustainability is part of the UCLA Cluster Program, a three-quarter lecture, lab, and seminar series that satisfies several of the College’s General Education requirements, including scientific inquiry and writing. The study follows twenty students through the program, relying on data collected through in-depth interviews, document analysis of course materials and assignments, and fieldnotes from my experiences as a participant-observer and one of the instructors of the course. This project evaluates the utility of food as an entry-point for broader conversations of ecology and sustainability. I identify the ways in which college students integrate ecoliteracy into their perspectives and habits, and I explore the educational and contextual barriers that inhibit or mitigate this type of development. Many of the student narratives center around relational understandings of environmental issues, navigating the complexities of food choices, and their experiences applying new socioecological knowledge into their established social and cultural contexts. The purpose of this project is twofold: first, to make the theoretical argument for ecoliteracy as a fundamental intention of higher education, and second, to provide institutions and educators with recommendations for transformative ecopedagogical practices.

Hmong American students and their struggles are largely invisible yet grossly misunderstood when seen. This study reveals how Hmong Americans negotiate the contours of race and ethnicity to construct an affirming identity on their respective university campuses. A framework of campus racial climate is employed to investigate how institutional context shapes students' experiences of race and ethnicity, which are processes of racial formation. Case study methodology and semistructured interviews with 40 Hmong American students are used to compare the experiences at two selective public universities with varying institutional dimensions. At one institution, Hmong Americans exhibit a critical mass inside and outside of the predominantly White campus. In the other institution, there exists a plurality of Asian American and Pacific Islander Americans (AAPIAs); however, Hmong Americans are underrepresented on campus and absent in the larger institutional context.

The findings illuminate the complex negotiations of identity for Hmong students and how contexts inform racial formation. First, the project of identity involved constraints from both ethnic community outsiders and insiders; however, constraints from the inside were complicated by racialization. Race and racism operated through various stereotypes to constrain the identity and experiences of Hmong American students as both Asian and Hmong. These racial stereotypes mirrored larger racial understandings and reflected how students experience the campus racial climate. Second, individual and collective acts of ethnicity benefited from community, but also necessitated addressing intercommunity tensions and commitments. Ethnicity was cultivated in community spaces and provided a means for identity affirmation and self-determination through expressions that acknowledged diversity and difference inherent in the Hmong communities.

Finally, the contours of race and ethnicity were shaped by structural diversity, historical legacy of inclusion and exclusion, and the proximity of co-ethnic community, illustrating how these dimensions inform racial formation processes. The dynamics of these institutional dimensions inform negotiations regarding the status of Hmong students within educational spaces and illustrate that status is never fixed and subject to agency and structure. The findings elucidate the intersectional marginalization of Hmong Americans in higher education in order to inform policy, practice, and research.

Diversity is one of the most widely discussed topics in society, but is neither clearly defined nor well understood. Given the number and visibility of student-athletes of color, the athletic department is rarely considered as needing to address diversity; yet, diversity goes beyond numerical representation. Indeed, diversity in organizations includes the culture and climate, and must be actively managed through both policy and practice—the congruency of which can be telling. This dissertation sought to examine the organizational context around diversity in Division I athletic departments through three individual yet inter-related studies. The first study investigated what messages athletic departments and universities express regarding diversity through mission statements; the second study examined what athletic departments are doing to address diversity through policy and programming and how these messages fit together; and with the organizational context in mind, the third study explored how athletic staff define and perceive diversity by focusing on what identities are most salient to their understanding of the concept.

The United States is undergoing such rapid shifts in the racial demographics of its population, that it is projected to become a majority-minority country in less than four decades. Will its citizenry be ready to participate socially and politically within the new racial/ethnic context? Higher education is positioned to play a role in the cultivation of a socially engaged democratic citizenship through its influence on students’ social agency, the extent to which a student values political and social involvement as a personal goal, which empirical research indicates is positively affected through students’ engagement with racially diverse peers. Selective institutions, particularly, serve as pathways to official positions of leadership for students who will govern an increasingly diverse democracy. In order to provide the opportunity of diversity benefits to all students, selective institutions may use affirmative action policies and practices to admit students of color historically denied admission. This study proposed the campus racial climates of institutions, in addition to the admission of a diverse student body and cross-racial engagement amongst peers, may play an important role in the development of social agency. This study, therefore, examined the interrelationship of compositional diversity, cross-racial interaction, and campus racial climate on social agency across White, Asian/Asian American, African American/Black, and Latina/o racial/ethnic groups.

Grounded in a set of theoretical frameworks on the benefits of diversity, intergroup relations, and campus racial climate, this study employed multiple group, multi-level structural equal modeling (MSEM) using national and longitudinal undergraduate student survey data. The author tested three different measures of campus racial climate, one per each of the three models, in order to investigate if results were sensitive to how it was operationalized. The study’s key findings include: the impact of campus racial climate in connection to the diversity rationale, outcomes of equity and affirmative action policy should be understood through the unique dimension the variable employed measures; particular dimensions of the campus racial climate impact the levels of cross-racial interaction for all students but does not impact outcomes of social agency for students of color; and greater engagement with diverse peers is associated with greater levels of social agency values at the end of college.

African-American males are conspicuously underrepresented on the nation’s college and university campuses, and in many highly paid and socially important professions. Prior research into this phenomenon has focused on individual- and environmental- level deficits related to college preparation, offered few interventions to increase black male success, and typically represents black males as a monolithic group whose under representation is a result of its own particular characteristics. Few researchers have interrogated the cultural triumvirate of media, education, and law enforcement and the seamless way in which these domains scaffold representations of black males as second-class citizens, who are inauspicious academically, and ultimately represent social threat. To explore the implications of these cultural representations and processes on individual’s college going aspirations and trajectories, this phenomenological qualitative study examined the meaning making of 20 college going African-American males to examine how they perceive media representations of blackness and college going. We ask whether these portrayals promote, discourage or are silent about the unique gauntlet black males must negotiate to and through college. While the lack of preparation and the financial ways and means of college are concerns for all students, black males must additionally negotiate structured racism, in the form of deficit perceptions, infrequent recommendation for advanced placement, and differential experiences with school discipline and law enforcement. The study uses an ecological framework, in which the totality of student experiences is explored in the environments where they are encountered. The focus is on what strategies have worked rather than adding to the already-significant body of deficit literature. The study probed black male college going decisions and how those decisions were shaped, altered, or supported by perceptions students may have developed from mass media representations. Media act as a kind of surrogate for personal contact, which individuals use to assess and judge their social worlds. This powerful and ubiquitous curriculum, although informal, has implications for how others view black males, as well as how they may view themselves and their opportunities.

Problem: Black women are the most at-risk group for heart disease and related diseases in the United States. The communities where Black women reside are often positioned in food deserts flooded with ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and devoid of nutritious food options, both of which perpetuate food addiction (FA). A possible link between the social determinants of heart disease in Black women and UPF consumption has yet to be examined in depth.

Hypothesis: Common social, behavioral, and economic factors contribute to Black women’s heart disease. Moreover, Black women’s heart disease is positively correlated with excess UPC consumption, rendering UPF an extraordinary risk factor for heart disease in Black women.

Methods: This case study uses a self-administered demographic questionnaire and one-on-one conversational interviews from 2 Black women diagnosed with heart disease. The interviews inquired about several topics, including mental health, exercise and activity, eating patterns, and a food frequency questionnaire. The questionnaires and interview responses are analyzed to identify similar themes between the two participants and available literature. Overall, the interviews adopted a life course approach to identify dietary patterns and changes to dietary patterns as responses to life events and the intersectionality experienced by Black women.

Findings: The interviews revealed key factors that contribute to the social determinants of Black women’s heart health. Black women’s roles as lifelong primary caregivers and providers render them particularly vulnerable to developing FAs in response to chronic stress. Although Black women are aware of the negative impact of poor diet and low exercise on their health, lack of time, resources, and social disconnect from healthcare providers generates a gap between Black women's awareness and practice of healthy dietary behaviors. Generally, Black women are unaware of the harmful effects of UPFs on heart health and vitality. More empirical research should be conducted to examine Black women’s excess UPF consumption and disproportionate burden of heart disease.

Study and Implications: The study results support an experiment-based intervention that will examine UPF and heart disease in Black women. The results also support anti-UPFs policies such as restrictions on fast food enterprises and availability of UPFs at small-scale grocers and supermarkets. The findings can also be used to tailor medical policies, including wide scale requirements for ethnic nutrition studies in formal medical education. In addition, the results can be used to introduce culturally sensitive food-based preventative care in the clinical setting and provide information for local community interventions.

Undocumented students, lacking United States residency or citizenship, select colleges annually. These students navigate a college application process in California whereby they prove AB 540 residency, take standardized exams, and attend competitive four-year universities without a social security number, a driver's license, or federal financial aid. A total of 20 Latino/a undocumented students and nine faculty or staff were surveyed and interviewed at three postsecondary institution types: Universities of California, California State Universities, and California private universities. This study examined the critical transition from high school to college and applied Laura Perna's college access and choice conceptual model to undocumented college students and explored the social, cultural, and economic resources that provided the conditions enabling their successful navigation through the college choice process.

Participating Latino/a undocumented college students shared similar beginnings. They each migrated to the United States before the age of 13 from Mexico or El Salvador and enrolled, attended, and graduated from local elementary and secondary schools. Students and their parent(s) value education as a means of validation and social mobility, yet the access to a CSU, a UC, or a private university depended primarily on financial aid and secondarily on the information made available to them by counselors, teachers, and organizations facilitating college access. Students with the greatest access to information at every level of Perna's model, from the external legal policy to their community applied to the greatest number of colleges and had the greatest financial resources throughout their college decision-making process.

Chain migration theory informed the application of Perna's model. Individuals and institutions through every contextual level could potentially inform the college decision process for undocumented students, yet available resources varied by institution type. Conferences, document review, and student and faculty staff surveys and interviews corroborated that public colleges have greater transparency about the application process for AB 540 students, and currently have easier access to financial aid information after the passage of AB 130 and 131. Some private colleges have over 20 full scholarships available to undocumented students, yet allies at the colleges and knowledge of such financial aid must be identified in advance to motivate undocumented students to apply. Students identified links in their respective chains for the colleges to which they applied and attended. Families and communities provided the support and motivation to succeed academically in elementary school, but links were vital to connect students to resources throughout high school and to college. The links came from teachers, programs like Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) or the Boys and Girls Club, and most importantly from organized undocumented student groups. Such groups provide inspiration and information regarding college access to their peers, but also demonstrate through example the ability and potential to access postsecondary education. This study informs practice at the policy, university, secondary, and elementary levels to improve college access for students regardless of legal status, regardless of nation of origin, and regardless of state of residency.

ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION

Entering the Big Zone: Accruing Social Capital in a Developmental Learning Community for Nontraditional Student Success

by

Theresa Marie Lorch

Doctor of Philosophy in Education

University of California, Los Angeles, 2014

Professor Walter R. Allen, Chair

Over the past decade, three rationales have emerged for improving the rate of postsecondary participation among the Latina/o population in and through the higher education pipeline. The first rationale pertains to the importance of educational access and equity to ensuring the U.S. remains a global competitor on the world stage (Bowen, Kurzweil, & Tobin, 2005). The second relates to the importance of a diverse workforce to ensuring greater social mobility within the U.S. (Rhoads & Torres, 2006; Russell, 2010). The third rationale points to the importance of adequately addressing the dual concerns of educational social justice and equity and the necessity for creating a fair, open, educational pipeline encouraging and cultivating rather than undermining and curtailing the life chances of students (Zhou, 2005).

Taking into consideration these three rationales, this case study focuses on the ways community colleges bolster the success of Latina/o students, and nontraditional students of color in general, through institutional innovation intended to improve student persistence rates and encourage transfer aspirations. This case study examined the experiences of 44 Latina/o community college students who were participants in a "Zero-Year" Developmental Learning Community (DLC). The DLC represents a one-year gateway program specifically designed to help students navigate their precollegiate year of entry into college. I analyzed data from interviews with program participants from across the 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 DLC cohorts. Based upon my analyses, two themes emerged as important factors in the academic careers of the DLC Latina/o participants:

* The importance of the program structure in a conducive environment for accrual of social capital and academic capital,

* The pivotal role of program culture for accrual of cultural capital transmitted by high performance and values of transfer-readiness for student success.

DLCs are environments created to support students' persistence and transfer aspirations by creating the physical space, social relationships with faculty, staff and peers, academic skill development, and cultural supports necessary to achieve these goals. The DLC's purpose is to equip students with knowledge and understanding of the collegiate culture and its values. Consequently, students gain awareness of how the community college system operates so they can persist and transfer. Specifically, students develop bonding and bridging social capital, which is transmutable to academic and cultural capital. Together, social, academic, and cultural capital assist students' preparation to transfer.

Findings from this research study provide university administrators, policy makers, faculty, and scholars with a better understanding of the role community colleges can play in motivating and supporting the success of Latina/o and nontraditional community college students of color.