Dr. Jorge Ruiz-Menjivar

Assistant Professor
Family Financial Management

Dr. Ruiz-Menjivar is an Assistant Professor of Family and Consumer Economics and State Specialist in the area of Family Financial Management for the Department of Family, Youth and Community Sciences/Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Florida. He earned his doctoral degree in Financial Planning, Housing and Consumer Economics from the University of Georgia.

His current research focuses on financial risk tolerance—its measurement using modern psychometric theory (e.g., Item Response Theory and Rasch Measurement Theory), and its cross-cultural and transnational applications. Additional current projects include research efforts on financial well-being and financial education with researchers in Latin America and Asia.

Dr. Ruiz-Menjivar teaches “FYC 4003: Personal and Family Financial Counseling” every Spring semester. This class explores theories and counseling strategies and best practices for the delivery of financial education and advising of individuals and families. The class prepares students for the Accredited Financial Counselor (AFC®) certification.

In his commitment to help Floridians improving their financial well-being, Dr. Ruiz-Menjivar’s extension involvement includes projects and initiatives that encompass financial literacy and education, effective money management, healthy financial behavior and habits, and tax preparation assistance in conjunction with the Internal Revenue Service (i.e., Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, or VITA program). He is a member and co-leader of the Family Financial Management Priority Work Group.

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Discourse analysis (DA), or discourse studies, is a general term for a number of approaches to analyze written, vocal, or sign language use, or any significant semiotic event.

The objects of discourse analysis (discourse, writing, conversation, communicative event) are variously defined in terms of coherent sequences ofsentences, propositions, speech, or turns-at-talk. Contrary to much of traditional linguistics, discourse analysts not only study language use 'beyond the sentence boundary' but also prefer to analyze 'naturally occurring' language use, not invented examples.^[1] Text linguistics is a closely related field. The essential difference between discourse analysis and text linguistics is that discourse analysis aims at revealing socio-psychological characteristics of a person/persons rather than text structure.^[2]

Discourse analysis has been taken up in a variety of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, including linguistics, education, sociology,anthropology, social work, cognitive psychology,social psychology, area studies, cultural studies,international relations, human geography,communication studies, biblical studies, andtranslation studies, each of which is subject to its own assumptions, dimensions of analysis, and methodologies.

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