Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: El objetivo de este estudio fue constatar el grado de dificultad de los problemas verbales de tasa sencilla. Reportamos un estudio sobre características de estos problemas –que se presentan a los alumnos en los libros de texto de matemáticas de educación primaria en México– y su relativa dificultad. Mostramos resultados de un estudio teórico (análisis de libros de texto) y empírico, llevado a cabo con alumnos de primaria. A pesar de que los problemas de tasa sencilla son una clase representativa, identificada en los libros analizados, los alumnos mostraron serias dificultades al momento de resolver problemas verbales, en cuanto a: su comprensión, procedimientos de solución y, sobre todo, al momento de operar con números enteros.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The sociological literature on stratification and social mobility, when it has focused on developing countries, has emphasized the causal linkages between class origins and social and economic outcomes. This emphasis was geared to ascertain the relative importance of merit versus social class as determinants of social advancement. However, few analyses have explored the relative importance of historical timing as a dimension of stratification. I examine specifically whether the timing of entry into the labor force impacts earnings attainment over time in a developing country. To examine this question, I consider the experience of employed adults in Puerto Rico from the 1940s to the 1990s. Puerto Rico is ideal in this regard because it has experienced a developmental path that has been followed by other countries. My findings suggest, that the contingencies of development impact labor market participants in neither the quasi-linear fashion postulated by human capital analyses or in the structural manner examined by more traditional theories of stratification in sociology.

Supporting Publications:
Supporting Document
Supporting Document

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: On the island of Puerto Rico, women are over-represented in terms of the heterosexual transmission of HIV/AIDS. In response to this increasing health crisis and given the lack of understanding of interpersonal factors that contribute to this crisis, an in-depth qualitative study was conducted investigating communication about sex in the relationships of 42 Puerto Rican men and women ranging in age from 18 to 56. Gender emerged as a significant guide to communication about sex, comprising three main themes: the influence of machismo, the role of virginity, and messages received about sex. It became clear that safer sex, from a relational standpoint, is difficult to negotiate in Puerto Rico for both men and women.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Neural tube defects (NTDs) are serious birth defects of the brain and spine that affect approximately 3,000 pregnancies in the United States each year and affected over 400 pregnancies in Puerto Rico from 1996 to 2002. Consuming the B vitamin folic acid can reduce the incidence of NTDs 50-70%, and recent efforts to reduce NTD rates have focused on increasing the number of childbearing aged women who take a vitamin containing folic acid every day. To this end, two exploratory, qualitative studies were conducted in order to (a) understand the complexity of vitamin use among women in the U.S. and Puerto Rico and (b) serve as a foundation on which to develop national communication and education interventions. Results indicated that campaign messages designed to increase folic acid use through multivitamin supplementation in the U.S. must address women’s barriers to vitamin use (e.g., cost, time), increase women’s perceived need for multivitamins (e.g., identify immediate, tangible results from taking a daily multivitamin), and address the relationship between daily food choices and the need for supplementation. Future campaign messages in Puerto Rico must focus on many of these same issues, in addition to increasing women’s knowledge about when folic acid should be taken in relation to pregnancy and addressing women’s perceptions that vitamins cause weight gain (an undesirable outcome for most participants). The practical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines the role of identity, the politics of identity contestation and domestic political structures in the decisions that states make regarding disengagement from their colonial and territorial possessions as well as the manner in which they disengage. While it incorporates insights from the literature on nationalism, and identity in International Relations, it is specifically interested in examining the politics that are involved in the contestation of identity, and how this, filtered through domestic political structures, affects the decisions that states ultimately make. Focusing on the United States' colonial relationship with Puerto Rico, this paper asks how and why it has remained fundamentally unchanged despite various efforts to alter it over the course of a century. It will look specifically at the role played by the contestation between two differing versions of American identity, and the difficulty of resolving issues of contestation or implementing changes that may have emerged from the rise of a dominant identity within a domestic political system where intra- and inter-branch struggle have been built into the structures of government, in contributing to the stalemate in US-Puerto Rican relations.