Helena Addae, UW-Whitewater
Catherine Chan, UW-Whitewater
Amanda Coleman-Mason, UW-Oshkosh
Sandra Toro Martell, UW-Milwaukee
Ling-Ling Tsao, UW-Oshkosh
Chia Youyee Vang, UW-Milwaukee
Helena Addae Department of Management, UW-Whitewater - "Dimensions, Antecedents, and Consequences of Absence Legitimacy: A Nine-Nation Study"
This project investigates employees' perception of absence legitimacy and its effect on their absence behavior. In the context of increasing globalization, it is important for organizations to be cognizant of differences and similarities in attitudes towards absenteeism in the various countries where they operate. Very few studies in absenteeism have investigated the phenomenon using data from multiple countries. Addae has data from nine countries and ten organizations. The results of her dissertation illustrate differences and similarities at both the individual and national level of analysis. Because perceptions of absence legitimacy lead to a distinctive absence culture in organizations, she has developed and intends to validate a new absence culture instrument aimed at providing systematic evaluation of research in the area. For the instrument validation, data will be collected via questionnaires distributed to various organizations.
Vishwanath Baba, DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, will serve as mentor.
Catherine Chan, Departments of Biological Sciences and Chemistry, UW-Whitewater - "How Plants Adapt to Varying Concentrations of Calcium in the Environment"
Calcium is a necessary mineral nutrient in supporting various stages of plant growth and development. For example, calcium is necessary during the process of fertilization as well as during cell division. In addition, changes in internal calcium concentrations in plants correlate with changes in environmental conditions (e.g., temperature, light, water status), and this is often necessary for triggering the subsequent biological responses. Although calcium plays crucial roles in a wide variety of physiological processes, important questions remain unanswered. For example, researchers are looking to identify the pathways through which calcium is taken up and understand how that uptake is controlled according to varying environmental conditions. They also do not know why and where calcium is needed because the identities of a vast majority of the calcium-dependent pathways, their physiological functions and their tissue distribution in plants remain a mystery. By using a combination of molecular, microscopy and plant physiology techniques, Chan's research aims to provide answers to some of these questions.
Michael Sussman, Department of Biochemistry, and Patrick Krysan, Department of Horticulture, UW-Madison, will serve as mentors.
Amanda Coleman-Mason, Human Services and Professional Leadership, UW-Oshkosh - "Recognizing Self-Efficacy and Education: Tools to Self-Sufficiency"
The stringent criteria of the 1996 welfare reform mandate did not promote or acknowledge the pursuit of higher education and whether it increased an individual's potential to secure employment or career advancement. The need to foster educational expansion through collaborative learning may be paramount to the success of women leaving welfare and seeking self-sufficiency, as educational expansion has the potential of raising self-efficacy. Women leaving welfare who seek self-sufficiency have largely been studied from external foci. This study will augment the focus on self-sufficiency and the influence of post-secondary education on self-efficacy. Thus, it will provide awareness to the Human Service field in the assistance of women exiting welfare, while moving toward career advancement and self-sufficiency.
Janet Hagen, Department of Human Services and Professional Leadership, UW-Oshkosh, will serve as mentor.
Sandra Toro Martell, Department of Educational Psychology, UW-Milwaukee - "Informal Settings for Learning and Achievement: Museums in Action"
Informal Settings for Learning and Achievement: Museums in Action (ISLA: MIA) is a partnership between UW-Milwaukee and six Milwaukee-based nonprofit organizations. The partnership's goal is the socialization of diverse students and their families into the scientific community, beginning with a sample of 500 Latino families from Milwaukee. This study will include quantitative analyses of questionnaires addressing attitudes toward and conceptions of science and qualitative analyses of observations of informal science activities. The goal will be to inform development of a model of best practice for working with underserved and underrepresented populations and address system change in the scientific community through published findings.
Enrique Figueroa, Roberto Hernandez Center and Assistant to the Provost for Latino Affairs, UW-Milwaukee, will serve as mentor.
Ling-Ling Tsao, Department of Special Education, UW-Oshkosh - "Outcomes of Preschool Inclusion for Children with Disabilities"
With the increase of preschool inclusion in the U.S. have come questions about the quality of early childhood services and settings, as well as the developmental and social outcomes for children with disabilities. Currently, more than 50 percent of preschool children with disabilities are placed in an inclusive setting. This project will examine the developmental outcomes (e.g., cognitive, language, and social aspects of developmental progress) of children with disabilities in four types of program models: (i) community-based programs (private child care programs operating outside of public school systems); (ii) public schools (routinely provided itinerant special education and related services in these settings; (iii) Head Start programs - offered early in childhood education programs for children from low-income families and also enrolled children with disabilities; and (iv) blended programs (programs blending resources across Head Start, Title 1, and public school sources). Extensive information already has been collected involving 143 children with disabilities in inclusive programs. Quantitative data will be used to inform local and state policy makers about preschool inclusion and its effect.
Samuel Odom, Director, Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will serve as mentor.
Chia Youyee Vang, Department of History, UW-Milwaukee - "Reconstructing Community in Diaspora: Hmong Americans in the Twin Cities"
This book will explore the complex process by which Hmong Americans/refugees have reconstructed a sense of belonging and community in the United States. Refugee policy will be studied as a component of U.S. immigration in the post-World War II era and, more specifically, U.S. immigration since 1965. Using a multi-disciplinary approach Vang argues against the notion of Hmong refugees as an innocent ethnic group practicing their timeless traditions. She will explore how Hmong American identities are socially constructed and constituted and how with these identities, Hmong Americans are challenging popular assumptions about race, ethnicity and culture in multicultural America. The book will reveal the diversity of Hmong identities and call into question previous works of scholarship that emphasize Hmong homogeneity.
Previous scholarship has focused on Hmong history, folklore, involvement in international conflicts and war in Southeast Asia, spiritual and religious beliefs and customs, arts, crafts, community and family structure, and struggles in America. Most are disciplinary, tending especially toward anthropology and sociology, and are written from the perspectives of non-Hmong researchers who have spent a brief period studying their subjects. Often, these researchers relied on bilingual key informants to gather information whose primary focus was on the most vulnerable of the Hmong American/refugee population. This book will differ in that Vang will write from an "inside" perspective, having come to the U.S. as a nine-year-old child who grew up in the Twin Cities and witnessed the transformation in her community about which she researches and writes. Vang's book will show that Hmong identity in the American context has been shaped by larger social, cultural and political transformations before, during, and after migrating to the U.S., and that a diversity of experiences have accompanied the migration process.
Rachel Ida Buff, Department of History, UW-Milwaukee, will serve as mentor.
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