  The interplay of deconfinement and chiral symmetry restoration are considered
in terms of effective theories. We generalize the earlier model studies by
considering fermions in higher representations, and study the finite
temperature phase diagrams of SU(2) and SU(3) gauge theories with two fermion
flavors in fundamental, adjoint or two-index symmetric representations. We
discuss our results in relation to recent lattice simulations on these theories
and outline possible applications in the context of dynamical electroweak
symmetry breaking.
