Perceptions of Bilingualism and Home Language Maintenance and Loss: A Study of Latino Parents at a San Francisco Bay Area Elementary Charter School

There is limited research that investigates parent perceptions with respect to their early elementary school children\u27s home language use. To fill the gap in research, this study explores the relationship between first generation Latino parent perspectives of bilingualism, home language maintenance and loss, and the intersection of culture and identity in an elementary school community. It also investigates how parents create an additive bilingual environment in the home. This participatory action research (PAR) study involved group dialogue sessions and individual interviews in order to engage co-researchers and participants. PAR provided this study with the structure and tools to change and improve upon the current problems that some of the participants were experiencing, while capitalizing on ways in which other participants were successfully maintaining the home language. The findings included dialogue transcriptions and summaries organized within generative themes. The participants perceived home language maintenance as an important goal regarding family communication and relationship building, cultural preservation, and a better future in the professional world. Their perceptions of bilingualism and attitudes did influence their children\u27s Spanish maintenance or loss. In addition, the participants\u27 ethnic and social identities had an impact on their own language choice, but not necessarily on that of their children. Finally, the group shared home language maintenance strategies that contributed to an additive bilingual environment in the home, highlighting the Spanish Only rule within the home space, which was perceived to be the most effective method. This study illustrated the complexity of language maintenance and its relationship to the following components: perceptions and attitudes; personal histories, or counterstories; personal paradigms; and social, cultural, and economic factors. The research concluded with an action plan to share findings with school staff and other Latino parents interested in home language maintenance

Collaboration in Social Hobby Groups: Transferring Qualities of Teamwork from the Social Sphere to the Professional Sphere

Workplace collaboration has been the subject of much research and writing. Social collaboration can help inform our understanding of how people prefer to work together and should be studied for its aspects that could be transferred to the professional sphere. This research examines how members in social hobby groups collaborate with each other and what aspects of that collaboration can be applied to the workplace. I observed and surveyed five local hobby groups to better understand how the members worked together and what made this type of socializing appealing to members. One of the primary aspects of this social collaboration is a feeling of belonging in a social sphere. This can be brought into the professional sphere by allotting more time for employees to socialize in non-work capacities and through business leaders promoting a positive working atmosphere

Normative Percent Differences between Inter-day and Inter-Limb Upper Extremity Volume in Healthy Adult Females

Current diagnostic thresholds vary, but a 5% volume difference between limbs is generally accepted to diagnose lymphedema. Newer research among women with breast cancer-related lymphedema established a 3% threshold for diagnosis of preclinical lymphedema. Understanding normal limb volume fluctuations and side to side differences is important to determine whether this 3% cut point for diagnosis of subclinical lymphedema should be made compared to same or contralateral limbs.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/dpt_symposium/1029/thumbnail.jp

Consistently estimating graph statistics using Aggregated Relational Data

Aggregated Relational Data, known as ARD, capture information about a social network by asking about the number of connections between a person and a group with a particular characteristic, rather than asking about connections between each pair of individuals directly. Breza et al. (Forthcoming) and McCormick and Zheng (2015) relate ARD questions, consisting of survey items of the form "How many people with characteristic X do you know?" to parametric statistical models for complete graphs. In this paper, we propose criteria for consistent estimation of individual and graph level statistics from ARD data