Mary V. Alfred

Expanding Theories of Career Development: Adding the Voices of African American Women in the White Academy

Many theorists have proposed models to explain career development. The appropriateness of these models for women and minority groups, however, has been widely criticized. Changes in the composition of the workforce, including the increased number of minority professionals in majority organizations, call for new ways of theorizing career development. Using a bicultural framework, this study examined the professional development history of five tenured African American women at a predominantly White university to explore how minority professionals develop competencies to meet career expectations in White organizational cultures. The findings indicate that race, culture, and identity play a vital role in the career development of minority professionals in majority organizations. An important finding is the way the women accessed the power of their bicultural life structure to develop strategies for maintaining successful careers in White organizational cultures.

Sociocultural Contexts and Learning: Anglophone Caribbean Immigrant Women in U.S. Postsecondary Education:

This study drew from sociocultural theory to understand the learning experiences of Anglophone Caribbean immigrant women in U.S. postsecondary institutions. As a British Caribbean immigrant, the author acted as both researcher and participant in this qualitative research study. The findings suggest that culture and early schooling socialization in the country of origin influence learning experiences in the host country. Some of the major challenges participants faced in the United States were in transforming cultural assumptions about silence, negotiating language and identity, and reorienting to a new meaning of teaching and learning. The study also found that the length of time spent in a new culture, the level of social support inherent in the culture, and the characteristics of the sociocultural environment greatly affect learning among immigrants in postsecondary institutions. Within discourse communities in higher education, participants were often located at the margins, thus hindering their full participation in such communities.

Transnational Migration, Social Capital and Lifelong Learning in the USA.

At the beginning of the twenty‐first century, immigration continues to be a powerful force that shapes the US demographic landscape and hence influences all aspects of US lifeways. Unlike past waves of immigration, communication, media and transportation technologies enable today’s immigrants to maintain strong ties and relationships with their homeland while they live and work in the host country. The transnational identities of today’s immigrants have implications for lifelong learning across both nations. In their attempts to adapt in the new society, they form new networks and relationships with members of the host country and other kinfolks who preceded them in the border‐crossing venture. At the same time, they continue to maintain relationships and ties with the homeland, drawing from social capital resources from both contexts. The purpose of this paper is to examine the intersection of immigration, transnationalization and lifelong learning through the lens of social capital theory. More specifically, drawing from the literature, it examines how networks and relationships inform learning and acculturation among today’s ethnic minority immigrants. Findings from the literature suggest that ethnic minorities have strong bonding networks with members of their cultural and racial groups but weak bridging networks with those outside their group, which has implications for accessing funds of knowledge inherent in other network groups.

Nonwestern Immigrants in Continuing Higher Education: A Sociocultural Approach to Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

Abstract Every wave of immigration to the United States has brought significant changes to the country and to its institutions. Unlike earlier waves that were drawn primarily from Europe, the majority of todays newcomers originate from developing nations, causing the United States population to be more diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, language, culture, and ways of knowing. Such diversity has implications for teaching and learning in continuing higher education. Drawing from the literature, this article advocates for more inclusive learning environments where immigrant learners can experience learning that is culturally relevant and that would meet their needs for acculturation and integration into the host society. It highlights the profile of todays U.S. foreign-born population who originate primarily from nonwestern cultures and the impact of cultural orientation on learning. Furthermore, using sociocultural theory as a guiding framework, the author provides recommendations for culturally responsive pedagogy that are particularly sensitive to students from nonwestern cultures.

Nurses’ Perceptions of the Organizational Supports Needed for the Delivery of Culturally Competent Care:

The purpose of this study was to determine nurses’ views on the organizational supports needed for the delivery of culturally competent care. The research design was qualitative, with a case study approach. Data collection included face-to-face interviews with 23 registered nurses, document analysis, and reports of critical incidents. The findings of this study revealed that caring for culturally diverse clients was challenging and frustrating for most participants. Major themes emerging from the data included language barriers, lack of training, difficulty with cultural differences, lack of organizational support, and reliance on culturally diverse staff members. Few organizational supports existed for delivering culturally competent care. Expectations were not explicit, and culturally competent care was not rewarded or supported. Recommendations for organizations, nursing practice, theory, and future research are made.

The development of economic self‐sufficiency among former welfare recipients: lessons learned from Wisconsin’s welfare to work program

In 1996, the US Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, changing the culture of welfare from a system of dependency to one of personal responsibility and economic self-sufficiency through workplace participation. Through the expert views of case managers and area employers of Wisconsin, this research sought to identify the problems and barriers to self-sufficiency among former welfare recipients and other low-income workers and the effectiveness of services and programs available to address these barriers. The study found situational barriers, education and learning experience barriers, personal issues and disabilities to impede the development of low-income workers. The services found to promote the development of economic self-sufficiency among former welfare recipients were support services, educational and learning programs, employer intervention services and counseling services. The findings suggest that these services could be expanded and made more effective through the collaborative efforts of welfare reform agencies, employers, educational institutions and community-based organizations.

Immigrants in America: Who are they, and why do they Come?:

The concept of diversity in education has received much attention in social science and adult education literature. Focusing primarialy on race, class, gender, and sexual orientation and how these contexts impact teaching and learning, little attention has been paid to cultural and linguistic differences as a result of migration and how they influence learning among foreign born students. Adult educators need to give more attention to the concept of immigration as a context for learning in adulthood. During the colonial era, most of Americas immigrants came from Great Britain and Ireland, with a few from Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg (U.S. Bureau of the Census Report, 1993). The Chinese, faced with famine in their homeland, began to migrate to America between 1850 and 1882. Upon arrival, they found work in mining camps and expanding railroad construction. However, the American labor force protested the low wages the Chinese accepted and forced Congress to pass the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited Chinese immigration until 1965. It is important to note that the Chinese migration was among the first voluntary immigration to the U.S. among todays minorities. It is no surprise, then, that this Act was among the first significant evidence of xenophobia directed against Americas foreign born. While immigration from China remained prohibited, European immigration continued in full force. For 20 years following the Civil War, Canadians arrived in large numbers. Italians began arriving in significant numbers in 1890, and from 1900 until the start of the World War I, about a quarter of all immigrants were Italians (U.S. Bureau of the Census Report, 1993). The Germans began arriving in large numbers after World War II, while the 1970s saw an increase in the number of immigrant people from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Who are Todays Immigrants? According to Schmidley in March 2002 the estimated foreign-born population of the United States was 32.5 million, representing 11.4% of the population. This number is an increase of 13.5 million, or 47% over the 1990 census figures. This increase is primarily the result of immigration from Asia and Latin America (Camarota, 2002). In 2002, 52% of the immigrants originated from Latin America (including the Caribbean and South America) and 25% Asia (Schmidley, 2002). The Latin American countries with the highest representation of immigrants in the U.S. are Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador. Asian countries with the highest immigrant rates include China, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, and Korea (Camarota, 2002). In contrast, only 14% of the foreign-born population come from Europe, a significant shift from the 62% recorded in 1970. Overall, according to current population reports (Camarota, November 2002; Schmidleg 2002), the largest wave of immigrants arrived between 1985 and 1990.75% of Salvadorian immigrants, along with more than half of the immigrants from Korea, Vietnam, and China, and nearly half of the Mexican and Filipino immigrants arrived during that period. As a result, the racial and ethnic composition of the foreign-born population has shifted to more than 75% minority Many immigrants speak a language other than English in the home including 95% of Asians, 80% of Italians, and 58% of Germans. This reflects a polarized pattern of demographics with the most educated and wealthiest as well as the least educated and poorest (Martin & Midgley, 1994). This polarization in the composition of the immigrant population suggests that planners of adult education programs face a challenging task as they attempt to meet the variety, of needs and expectations that immigrant Americans bring to the new country Why Do Immigrants Come to America? A variety of conditions compel migration from the homeland to a foreign country Most are pulled to the United States in search of a better standard of living. …

Making the Invisible, Visible: Race Matters in Human Resource Development

The purpose of this article is to create space for authentic dialogues about “race” in the discourse on diversity in graduate programs of human resource development (HRD). Although HRD professes an interest in diversity, it has not seriously made it a part of the curriculum, and race as a dimension of diversity has remained invisible. In approaching this exploration, we were guided by the following questions: (a) How is race conceptualized in the social science literature? (b) To what extent have HRD scholars and practitioners responded to the discourse on race, particularly in light of the increase in racioethnic minorities in education and in the workplace? (c) How can HRD educators facilitate greater attention to race in the process of teaching and learning? From our review of the literature, we found some attention to diversity in general but race remains an invisible construct despite the rapid increase in the number of racioethnic minorities to the United States and other nations. To facilitate research and teaching about race, we suggest critical race theory as a framework to guide such activities. Recommendations for teaching race in graduate HRD programs are presented.

Chapter 2 African-American, Academically Gifted, Millennial Students in STEM Disciplines at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs): Factors that Impact Successful Degree Completion

The pipeline to the professoriate in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields for African-Americans has been at best a leaky faucet. It is a common knowledge that if more African-Americans are to enter the professoriate, they must first graduate from four-year institutions in these fields. The literature is clear that historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are uniquely positioned to increase the pipeline to the professoriate for this population even in the midst of questions concerning the viability of these institutions. As a result, this study examines a unique population (i.e., African-American, academically gifted, millennial students) in HBCUs to understand the factors that facilitate successful degree attainment. On the basis of the findings of this study, recommendations will be provided for several constituents to move this population through the pipeline to the professoriate.

Predicting workplace transfer of learning: A study of adult learners enrolled in a continuing professional education training program

Purpose The primary purpose of this study was to predict transfer of learning to workplace among adult learners enrolled in a continuing professional education (CPE) training program, specifically training courses offered through face-to-face, blended and online instruction formats. The study examined the predictive capacity of trainee characteristics, training design and work environment on transfer of learning among the study respondents. Design/methodology/approach A cross-sectional online survey design was used to collect data from the study respondents, three months after CPE training. Two hundred ninety-seven trainees participated in this study. Data from 46 participants were incomplete and therefore excluded in the preliminary analysis, resulting in 251 valid responses and participants for the data analysis, 43 males (17.1 per cent), 201 females (80.1 per cent) and 7 (2.8 per cent) who did not indicate their gender. To answer the study’s research questions, factor analysis and multiple hierarchical regressions were performed. Findings The results of the study revealed training efficiency and relevance were critical in the transfer of learning among the study participants. The findings of the study showed combined training efficiency and training relevance enabled training participants to acquire knowledge and skills for application in the workplace and had significantly positive influence in transfer of learning. The work environment, measured by work variability (or flexibility) and work complexity, and the trainee motivation to participate, measured by learning-conducive workplace features, had a positive influence in transfer of learning. Research limitations/implications Because the majority of participants were females (80.1 per cent), this could be one of the limitations to this study. Research has identified that, because of the broad expectations based on sex and different family and occupational roles, men and women differ in their social network communication, participation in CPE, personality traits, gender-related occupational preferences, learning preference and methods of handling workplace conflict. The second limitation is related to the study design. The researchers did not have a control group because of practicality issues. This being a cross-sectional online survey study, all extraneous variables were not controlled such as in the case of a true randomized control study. This study is relying on the information obtained from a self-report training transfer instrument completed by the study participants. The accuracy of the obtained data is dependent on the honesty of the participants and their commitment in providing correct responses. Originality/value This study provides empirical evidence pertaining to the transfer of learning among adult learners engaged in a continuing professional development training program. The study examines factors related to training design, training delivery, trainee motivation and the workplace environment and how these factors determine transfer of learning among trainee respondents who participated in the study. The findings of the study have practical implications for the design and successful delivery of continuing professional training among adult learners. The study could be replicated at a national level and in international settings.