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Mas Que Un Idioma: Spanish Proficiency and Attitudes Towards Immigration
Get PDFSocial Identity theory states that societies create in-groups and out-groups due to social processes consistent of social categorization, social comparison and social identification. Relying on Social Identity Theory, this study investigates the relationship between Spanish proficiency in the Latinx community and the attitudes towards current immigration rates in the U.S. Utilizing the Pew Research Center 2018 National Survey of Latinos, a total of 1,069 respondents were analyzed. This survey was conducted over the phone in both Spanish and English with Latinx individuals 18 years and older residing in the U.S. I hypothesize that respondents with lower Spanish proficiency will express more negative attitudes toward immigration by stating that they believe there are too many immigrants in the United States. This study finds that there is no statistically significant relationship between Spanish proficiency and the belief that there are too many immigrants in the U.S. Two control variables - age and U.S. citizenship - were found to be significant with attitudes toward immigration. U.S. Citizens were less likely to state that there are too many immigrants in the U.S whereas the older a respondent was, the more likely they were to state this. My hypothesis was disconfirmed, but the social identification component of Social Identity Theory serves as a possible explanation. U.S. Citizens may be identifying more with their Latinidad then nationality while older individuals may instead be identifying strongly with their peers
Birds of a Feather Succeed Together? Racial Residential Segregation and Educational Attainment
Get PDFIs racial residential segregation or integration a stronger predictor of educational attainment? Does the racialized direction of this relationship matter? Drawing from Wilson’s (1987) social isolation theory and Massey and Denton’s (1993) theory of racial segregation and poor neighborhood formation, I propose that 1) greater residential racial homogeneity and 2) greater white residential segregation will increase average educational attainment at the county level. I analyze data from the 2016 County Health Rankings and Roadmaps along with the 5-year 2011-2015 American Community Survey, both of which yield a total population size of 3,141 counties. The study reveals that the impact of residential segregation on academic achievement is indeed racialized: white residential segregation most strongly affects county percent high school graduation. General residential segregation, however, is positively and significantly related to high school and graduate/PhD degree level completion. Nevertheless, median household income and county rurality are consistently the strongest predictors of high school and graduate/PhD completion across four regression models. While these results confirm both hypotheses, they highlight the strength of alternative explanations for educational gaps in the United States—gaps that may be more directly tied to social capital and rurality. The findings suggest that policies intending to alleviate disparities in educational attainment cannot center segregation alone, they must also offer a broader solution to social isolation and resource deprivation patterns by targeting counties with lower median household incomes and greater rurality
Identity Crisis: Effect of Immigrant Replenishment on Spanish Language Use Among US-born Mexican Descendants
Get PDFImmigrant replenishment may affect assimilation patterns of US-born descendants by maintaining the use and relevance of the language of origin. This study asks, how does Mexican immigrant replenishment affect Spanish language use among adult US-born Mexican descendants? Descendants include members of the second or later generations. I propose that greater exposure to Mexican immigrants will encourage adult US-born Mexican descendants to maintain their ethnic origins, especially language of origin. Therefore, the higher the rate of immigrant replenishment, the more likely respondents will speak Spanish at home. I analyze a five-year cumulative data file of the US American Community Survey (ACS) from 2011 to 2015, which represents 5 percent of the US population. The ACS uses stratified cluster sampling to collect data from 15,637,457 respondents. The sample is limited to US-born Mexican descendants, who were 25 years of age, married, and heads of households or spouses thereof. This limited the analysis to 187,212 respondents. I found that college attendance and higher family income decrease the odds of speaking Spanish at home. I also found that as immigrant replenishment increases, the odds of respondents speaking Spanish at home increases and decreases. As immigrant replenishment increases, respondents with Hispanic spouses are more likely to speak Spanish at home. However, respondents with non-Hispanic spouses are less likely to speak Spanish at home, which may be a result of sharpened intragroup boundaries created by new immigrants. The results confirm that Mexican immigrant replenishment significantly affects speaking Spanish at home for adult US-born Mexican descendants
No More Fucking Guns -6
No full texthttps://creativematter.skidmore.edu/altered_books_2018/1010/thumbnail.jp
The Forgotten Women of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon
Get PDFIn the afterword of The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison writes that, in the novel, she sought to focus “on how something as grotesque as the demonization of an entire race could take root inside the most delicate member of society: a child; the most vulnerable member: a female” (210). Through Morrison’s close-readings of her own novels, we know that—at the level of form—Morrison painstakingly crafts her novels with particular goals in mind, that the gaps she leaves are just as important as the stories she tells. Morrison’s female characters exist in these gaps, sometimes filling them and sometimes getting obscured by the literary shadows. The women on the margins of Morrison’s novels—mothers, daughters, and sisters—buttress plot development and provide necessary subjectivity in regard to their gendered and raced experiences. Toni Morrison’s treatment of certain female characters in The Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon simultaneously mirrors societal marginalization and elevates the voices of these “vulnerable” members of society. In the pages that follow, I explore the significance of these female characters by analyzing how Morrison’s narrative form ignores or neglects certain social actors, and by taking a closer look at the rarer moments in which Morrison gives these actors the opportunity to speak. Through an exploration of both novels, I suggest that Morrison’s character development and narrative form challenge the reader to become more aware of one’s own forgetting. By giving these characters limited space—in paragraphs, chapters, or entire sections—Morrison reminds us how utilizing different female voices and stories is necessary in representing the multitudes of standpoints and experiences that constitute American Blackness
Consumer Awareness of Electric Vehicles and Global Purchasing Patterns
Get PDFThe primary purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship of electric vehicle consumer awareness on the subsequent purchasing patterns of consumers across the globe, in conjunction with other macroeconomic variables. For this study EVs have been defined as hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) or plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs). Data for this study comes from 33 countries in North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceanus over the period from 2011 to 2016. Within the field of research surrounding EV adoption, almost all work has been done at the microeconomic level, this study uses a hybrid macroeconomic approach to bridge the gap in previous literature. In order to gauge consumer awareness at the national level this study utilizes Google Trends data, which tracks the search terms at the country level. The main findings of this study include a significant positive relationship between consumer awareness and purchasing patterns. Consistent with previous literature this study found a significant relationship with household income and EV sales using two different metrics, and found that at the regional level greater policy collaboration creates a more conducive environment for EV adoption
Does Mobile Phone Usage Boost Productivity in Developing Countries?
Get PDFThe aim of this study is to assess the impact of mobile phone proliferation on productivity, using data from 73 low-income countries, from the period 2000-2016. The sample includes countries from Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Caribbean. The author\u27s findings show that holding all else constant, a 1 percent increase in mobile penetration rate boosts output per capita by 2.6 percent. These findings confirm there are increasing returns (network effects) to productivity associated with an increase in penetration rate. Results also show that the ease of doing business matters in low-income countries in that it influences the speed at which higher productivity is achieved
The Short, Medium, and Long-Term Growth Effects of a Natural Disaster on Economies within the Ring of Fire
Get PDFThis paper investigates the economic impacts that natural disasters cause on countries located in the region of the Ring of Fire. Using information from 1960 to 2016, this paper adds to the current literature on the impacts that earthquakes have on economies in the short run, mid-term and long run. Furthermore, this paper investigates specifically developed and developing economies located within this region. The results indicate that overall natural disasters only impact developed economies located within the Ring of Fire in the short run and that only ECONOMIC and SOCIAL factors are the main drivers and hinderers of economic growth overall