Ethnic Barriers Research Articles

Working Together to Remove Racial and Ethnic Barriers to Student Achievement

This discussion guide was written by John Landesman, Ruby Rubens, and Catherine Orland with Miriam Carter, Mark Clark, Sandra Coles Bell, Judy Jourdain-Earl, Patricia Lee, Eeshan Melder, Michael Pauls, Ottoniel Perez, Paula Puglisi, Jane Smith, and Carolyn Vasques Scalera. Design by John Landesman.The discussion guide introduces the reader to the Study Circles approach to dialogue, community organiing and action. The guide provides guidance through a step by step approach accomplished in six sessions.

Immigrant Candidates and Politics in the Republic of Ireland: Racialization, Ethnic Nepotism, or Localism?

Recent waves of new immigration distinct from postcolonial-era migrations can be identified in many Western countries. More than 40 such “new immigrant” candidates contested the 2009 local government elections in the Republic of Ireland. This article draws on interviews with just under half of these and on official responses from each of the Republic's five political parties to a study of “new immigrant” participation in Irish politics. It also draws on a specific locality case study of the border town of Dundalk where support for Sinn Féin, Ireland's most distinctly ethno-nationalist political party, is relatively high. Our analysis of “new immigrant” candidate participation in Irish politics suggests that a number of factors influence responsiveness to these; this article focuses on the salience of theories of racialization, ethnic nepotism, and localism. In particular, the findings emphasize how local identities as manifested by immigrant candidates potentially mediate racial and ethnic barriers.

Health service use in indigenous Sami and non-indigenous youth in North Norway: A population based survey

BackgroundThis is the first population based study exploring health service use and ethno-cultural factors in indigenous Sami and non-Sami youth in North Norway. The first aim of the present study was to compare the frequency of health service use between Sami adolescents and their non-indigenous peers. The second aim was to explore the relationships between health service use and ethno-cultural factors, such as ethnic context, Sami self-identification, perceived discrimination and Sami language competence. Finally, we wanted to explore the relationship between use of health services and emotional and behavioural problems.MethodThe Norwegian Arctic Adolescent Health Study was conducted among 10th graders (15-16 years old) in junior high schools in North Norway. The sample consisted of 4,449 adolescents, of whom 450 (10.1%) were indigenous Sami and 3,999 (89.9%) were non-Sami.ResultsSami and non-Sami youth used all health services with equal frequency. However, several ethno-cultural factors were found to influence health service use. Sami youth in more assimilated ethnic contexts used general practitioners more than non-Sami youth. Youth with Sami self-identification had a higher probability of using the school health service compared with other youth. Ethnic barriers to health service use were also identified. Sami speaking youth with a high degree of perceived discrimination had lower probability of using school health services than non-Sami speaking youth. Sami youth with conduct problems were less likely than non-Sami to use psychologist/psychiatrist. The present study demonstrated a relationship between health need and actual health service use.ConclusionCulture-specific factors influenced the help-seeking process in indigenous youth; some factors acted as barriers against health service use and other factors increased the probability of health service use.

Women in neurosurgery

More than 2 centuries ago our nation was founded on the political and moral principles of equality—equal votes, equal rights, and equal opportunities. The principle of equal ity was an ideal not immediately achieved; even the founders’ vision had to expand over time so that its po tential could be realized and include all citizens. The progress toward equality has been halting and uneven and marred by conflict (sometimes violent), hope disappointed, and promise denied. Yet despite prejudicial and cultural barriers, we have come a remarkable distance on the road to equality. Gender, racial, and ethnic barriers have been gradually eroded, though they are nowhere fully demolished. The struggle to reach the elusive ideal continues. Women comprise more than half of medical school class attendees today, yet only account for 10% of neurosurgical residents and 6% of practicing neurosurgeons. Res ipsa loquitur. The barriers may neither be obvious nor even acknowledged, but they exist. A large proportion of our neurosurgical applicant pool is excluded by the lingering fences of prejudice and discrimination through which we can best break by exposing the barriers and helping those blocked to cross them. The discipline of neurosurgery has never attracted overwhelming numbers. Of the 16,000 graduating medical students, only 300 (2%) apply for the 180 residency positions available, and that number has diminished from 400 in the 1990s.1 Neurosurgery attracts a unique pool of individuals willing to learn complex and esoteric anatomy, endure long years of difficult training, treat high-risk neurological conditions, learn challenging and complex surgical procedures, accept profound responsibility, and face extraordinary levels of liability. It will never be a haven for the timid. However, the rigor of training or practice does not justify arbitrary barriers to women entering or advancing within the specialty. We cannot afford the failure to attract the brightest and most talented in the applicant pool when they are excluded by subtle and deniable discrimination. We can neither discourage the rewards of accomplishment nor block the ascension to positions of leadership and authority in our specialty by ignoring or condoning discrimination, no matter how disguised, without stunting the growth of our discipline or, more importantly, unfairly depriving half our potential members of the promise and moral entitlement of equal opportunity. The American Association of Neurological Surgeons Board of Directors requested the “White Paper on the Recruitment and Retention of Women in Neurosurgery” because we believe that fairness and equality are fundamentally right and vital to the future success of our evolving specialty. In recognition of the findings of this report, we acknowledge the need for active measures to ensure that every neurosurgeon enjoys the same benefits and opportunities by dismantling the barriers and offering a hand across the remaining gulfs that separate the privileged from the deserving. (DOI: 10.3171/JNS/2008/ 109/9/0377)

Ethnic and Social Barriers to Cooperation: Experiments Studying the Extent and Nature of Discrimination in Urban Peru

This paper presents a series of experiments on discrimination in urban Lima, Peru. The experiments exploit degrees of information on performance as a way to assess how personal characteristics affect how people sort into groups, and the results show that behavior is not correlated with personal socio-economic and racial characteristics. However, people do use personal characteristics to sort themselves into groups. Height is a robust predictor of being desirable, as is being a woman. Looking indigenous makes one less desirable, and looking “white” increases one’s desirability. Interestingly, our experiments show that once information on performance is provided, almost all evidence of discrimination is eliminated. Although there is evidence of stereotyping or preference-based discrimination, clear information trumps discrimination.

Shifting Language Attitudes in Linguistically Diverse Learning Environment in South Africa

This paper draws on post-structuralist theories on language and identity to explore the shifting language attitudes of 15 ‘black’ students over the course of their undergraduate studies at a historically ‘white’ South African university. All the students speak an indigenous language as their first language. Those students who have been educated in racially mixed schools are relatively at ease in the environment and are able to straddle racial and linguistic boundaries. Those who have been educated in working-class, ethnically homogenous schools enter the institution with a strong desire to preserve their home languages and home identities. For them, English is equated with ‘whiteness’. The paper describes the process through which this equation is questioned as English and institutional discourses become more dominant in students' lives, and as relationships with their home communities become strained. By the time the students enter their senior undergraduate years, a shared speech code emerges. The authors argue that this code signals students' dual affiliation to English (and the cultural capital it represents) and to their home identities. In mixing languages across boundaries of school background and across traditional ethnic barriers, the code also signals students' shared group identity as first-generation university students in post-Apartheid South Africa.

MULTIPLE STORIES

This article discusses the dynamics of ‘crossings’ across the Green Line in Cyprus from a social–psychological and reconciliation perspective. I will present individual stories of crossing the divide and meeting the Other after 30 years of mutual isolation in order to illustrate the Cypriot experience. In ethno-national conflicts and in divided societies, maintaining contact across ethnic, religious or geographical barriers is important because it helps soften stereotypes and misperceptions and gradually complicates the ‘enemy image’; however, without institutional support these contacts can reconfirm old stereotypes or misperceptions. The opportunity to cross the Green Line and establish contacts between the two communities has been given to Cypriots since April 2003 and has been welcomed by the European Union and the international community. In this article I argue that, whereas these contacts form part of the public reconciliation process and constitute an element of informal peace education and narrative, they will not suffice to bring about sustainable peace and reconciliation unless supported by the political level—symbolically as well as institutionally. I define reconciliation as the capacity to reach to the Other, feel empathy for the Other's suffering and, by engaging in shared social activities, challenge the bipolarity of ‘us and them’. The challenge remains of how to incorporate these ‘new realities and stories’ in the information that makes up the master narrative. To do this it would entail official engagement in a new dialogue about history making.

Psychiatry in the News

<p>Psychiatry in the News summarizes consumer-oriented media reports on psychiatry and topics related to psychiatry. We recognize that for our readers, keeping abreast of new clinical information is a challenge, leaving little time to review the information, good and bad, that media outlets supply to consumers. Our purpose is to help keep you informed about subjects that your patients might read or hear and question you about. </p> <p>Please note that publication of the reports in this department does not imply endorsement of the methods or systems described. </p> <p>We hope you find this department both informative and entertaining. As always, we welcome your comments and contributions; please e-mail <a href="mailto:marcher@slackinc.com">marcher@slackinc.com</a>.</p> <h4>Dementia Caregiver Program may Cut through Racial, Ethnic Barriers to Ease Burden on Family</h4> <P>An intervention has been found to ease the burden on caring for a relative with dementia, according to a study published in <cite>Archives of Internal Medicine</cite>. [see more news...]</P>

Kwacha: The Violence of Money in Malawi's Politics, 1954–2004*#

One of the strongest limiting factors in the transition to participatory democracy in Malawi is the failure of independent and sustainable cadres of young politicians to emerge. This is caused by the role that money, generated via the informal economy, plays in Malawian politics. This money is channelled into politics via achikulire (neo-patrimonial patrons or ‘big men’), usually without party accountability. This factor may be more critical in retarding the development of participatory democracy than social structure, ethnicity, religion, donors or other aspects of political dynamics. The socio-economic impediments to achieving participatory democracy tend to be viewed through economic theories appropriate to contexts more westernised than Malawi. I will argue that some of the ‘disorder’ in Africa observed by Chabal and Daloz (1999) is actually a function of the unresolved historical dynamic between two economic sectors: the formal cash (colonial European and postcolonial black elite) sector and the ‘informal’ non-cash (rural/peasantry) sector. By controlling this dynamic, neo-patrimonial politicians can minimise ethnic, social, political and constitutional barriers to their hold on power. Successful Malawian politicians have a triple-edged relationship with the peasantry: peasants are their masters at election time, subjects at most times and business clients at harvest. This article will analyse the formation of new patron–client relationships during the 1991–1994 political transition and show how these were successfully exploited by United Democratic Front achikulire. In 2004, money sourced through achikulire enabled Bakili Muluzi to impose his designated successor on a reluctant party and nation, leading to the 2004–2005 constitutional crises. KuNyasalande Azungu achuluiche, nambo mbiya kwangali.1Wandu agamba kwenda! (Ndiche Mwalale) [So many Europeans in Nyasaland now but there is no money. People still migrate…].2 *‘Kwacha’, the name of Malawi's currency, means ‘A new day dawns!’. #Thanks to John McCracken, Patrick O'Malley, Terence Ranger, David Rubadiri, Jim Wilkie, Kings Phiri, Kenneth King, the History Department at Chancellor College, and anonymous peer reviewers and Malawians. 1 Mbiya: money, disposable/surplus cash. 2 This is an acerbic comment on 1950s Malawi by the popular musician, Ndiche Mwalale.

Fiscal Devolution in East Asia

Fiscal Devolution in East Asia

Hundreds Walk Pennsylvania Avenue To Raise Mental Illness Awareness

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Professional NewsFull AccessHundreds Walk Pennsylvania Avenue To Raise Mental Illness AwarenessEve BenderEve BenderSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:3 Dec 2004https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.39.23.00390002APA leaders and staff were among the hundreds of mental health advocates who donned their walking shoes on November 6 for the first 5-K walkathon sponsored by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) in the nation's capital.Assembly members Jeffrey Geller, M.D. (left), Isabel Bergman, M.D., and Guillaume Barbes-Morin, M.D., join Team APA in a walkathon sponsored by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill last month in Washington, D.C. The walk raised money for psychiatric research and education. Each year, NAMI organizes as many as 50 walks, called NAMIWalks, in major cities throughout the United States, which are designed to raise funds for advocacy, education, and research initiatives related to mental illness.James Nininger, M.D., speaker of APA's Assembly, rallies the troops. He emphasized the shared goals of NAMI and APA.For the D.C. NAMIWalk, APA, the American Psychiatric Foundation (APF), and American Psychiatric Publishing Inc. (APPI), supported the walkathon through a combined contribution of $20,000 (Psychiatric News, November 5). APA was a presenting sponsor at $10,000, and APF and APPI were gold sponsors at $5,000 each.The morning walk began with a rally on Freedom Plaza, which is located across the street from the J.W. Marriott Hotel, the site of APA's fall Assembly meeting (see Original article: page 14).Dozens of Assembly members streamed out of the hotel and into the brilliant sunshine to take their place on Freedom Plaza. There, they joined “Team APA,” which, in addition to other APA leaders and staff, included friends, family members, and one dog. Through the fundraising efforts of its members, Team APA contributed nearly $3,000.“Our communications efforts at APA resulted in having many APA employees and a number of APA members attend the inaugural D.C. NAMIWalks march,” said Eugene Cassel, director of APA's Division of Advocacy.“ We are pleased to have also provided financial support for an event that we hope will continue as a wonderful tradition.”APA President-elect Steven Sharfstein, M.D., reminded walkers that“ APA loves NAMI” and said the two organizations would continue to work together to finish “overdue, unfinished business,” including the elimination of racial and ethnic barriers to receiving treatment for mental illness and boosting funds for research that will produce more effective treatments for psychiatric disorders.Sharfstein said NAMI “proves that people can make a difference,” and since the organization began 25 years ago, it“ has provided hope for people with serious and persistent mental illness and their families.”“Together we must overcome the resistance and inertia in the House of Representatives to get the Wellstone parity act passed now,” he declared. He was referring to the Sen. Paul Wellstone Mental Health Equitable Treatment Act.James Nininger, M.D., speaker of APA's Assembly, also emphasized the shared goals of the two organizations.“It seems appropriate that our meeting coincides with this walk,” he said. “Both events are designed to move the field of mental health forward and advocate for treatment and support for patients and their families.”Nininger acknowledged that the stigma surrounding mental illness was one of the most significant barriers to improving the mental health of Americans.“The unfortunate reality is that many people don't recognize mental illness or are afraid to accept the fact that either they or a loved one might be suffering,” he said. “If you feel a pain in your chest, you go to a doctor, but if you feel a pain in your soul or confusion or disorganization in your mind, you may not seek treatment for mental illness due to the stigma attached to these disorders.”The D.C. NAMIWalk was the perfect antidote to such stigma, Nininger pointed out. “When events like this attract a large crowd, it's such a reassuring way of saying it's OK to get help.”More information about NAMIWalks is posted online at<www.nami.org/template.cfm?section_namiwalks>.▪ ISSUES NewArchived

Walking the talk: An opportunity and a challenge

Walking the talk: An opportunity and a challenge

Ethical Aspects of Determining and Communicating Prognosis in Critical Care

Physicians have an ethical duty to accurately determine and clearly communicate a patient's prognosis because a patient's or surrogate's decision whether to consent for aggressive treatment rests largely on their understanding of the patient's diagnosis and prognosis. Pitfalls in determining prognosis include uniformed summary judgement based on faulty pattern recognition, inadequate outcome data, utter reliance on retrospective studies, statistical limitations, nongeneralizability of outcome data, and the fallacy of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Pitfalls in physicians' communication of prognosis include inadequate time spent in discussion, use of technical jargon, biased framing of decisions, unjustified physician bias, patient innumeracy, ethnicity barriers, and surrogates' unfounded intuitions about critical illness and death. Improving the recognition of and surmounting the barriers to accurate determination and clear communication of prognosis can make critical care physicians more scientific and virtuous.

Enfants Terribles: The Challenge of Sectarian Converts to Ethnic Orthodox Churches in the United States

This article considers two case studies of collective conversions to Eastern Orthodoxy to illustrate the most pressing challenges faced by ethnic Orthodox congregations who attempt to assimilate sectarian groups into their midst. I argue that these challenges include: 1) the different understandings of ecclesiology held by former Protestant sectarians and by "cradle" Orthodox believers; 2) the pan-Orthodox aspirations of sectarian converts versus the factionalism found in ethnically-based American Orthodox jurisdictions; 3) the differing pastoral styles of former sectarian ministers and Orthodox priests; 4) the tendency of sectarian converts to embrace a very strict reading of Orthodoxy and to adopt a critical and reformist attitude in relations with cradle Orthodox communities; and 5) the covert and overt racism that sometimes exists in ethnic Orthodox parishes. I suggest that the increasing numbers of non-ethnic converts to ethnic Orthodox parishes may result in increased pressure to break down ethnic barriers between Orthodox communities and to form a unified American Orthodox Church. These conversions may also lead to the growth of hybrid Orthodox churches such as the Charismatic Episcopal Church.

Racial, ethnic, and geographic disparities in rates of knee arthroplasty among Medicare patients.

There are large variations in the use of knee arthroplasty among Medicare enrollees according to race or ethnic group and sex. Are racial and ethnic disparities more pronounced in some regions than in others, and if so, why? We used all Medicare fee-for-service claims data for 1998 through 2000 to determine the incidence of knee arthroplasty according to Hospital Referral Region, sex, and race or ethnic group. A total of 430,726 knee arthroplasties were performed during the three-year study period. At the national level, the annual rate of knee arthroplasty was higher for non-Hispanic white women (5.97 procedures per 1000) than for Hispanic women (5.37 per 1000) and black women (4.84 per 1000). The rate for non-Hispanic white men (4.82 procedures per 1000) was higher than that for Hispanic men (3.46 per 1000) and more than double that for black men (1.84 per 1000). The rates were significantly lower for black men than for non-Hispanic white men in nearly every region of the country (P<0.05). For the Hispanic population and for black women, racial or ethnic disparities at the national level were due in part to geographic differences rather than to differences in the rates for different racial and ethnic groups within geographic areas. Residential segregation and low income levels contributed to racial and ethnic disparities in arthroplasty rates. In the Medicare population, the rate of surgical treatment for osteoarthritis of the knee varies dramatically according to sex, race or ethnic group, and region. These variations underscore the importance of geography and sex in determining racial or ethnic barriers to health care.

Addressing racial and ethnic barriers to effective health care: the need for better data.

Racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes and quality of care have been observed among persons with similar health insurance, within the same system of care, and within the same health plan. National efforts to eliminate these disparities are hindered by the lack of race/ethnicity data. Collection of these data by health care providers, coupled with standards for collection, use, and privacy protection, would be a first step toward eliminating disparities. Although no national consensus exists with respect to data collection, the weight of prior research, related public and private efforts, and growing diversity of the U.S. population are likely to increase demand for accurate data on race and ethnicity in health care settings.

South Africa's Universities: Force for the future or a signal of failure?

The legacy of apartheid is inseparable from the wellbeing of South Africa's universities, a fate shared with most of the country's institutions. The vitality and diversity they have achieved so soon after the removal of ethnic barriers are measures of the success of the wider transformation process, with significant progress towards unscrambling the untenable racial divisions inherited by the Government of National Unity in 1994. But this progress has created tensions that have had a direct impact on the authority, integrity and credibility of the universities and other higher education institutions, both internally and in their relationship with the society in which they operate. They are now faced with conflicting demands that pose severe challenges for managements and academic staff alike. Without a greater degree of engagement with the social and economic challenges that continue to face the poorest sections of South African society, they risk losing the respect and support of the majority population. But the ability to engage effectively is potentially put at risk by the demands for greater efficiency and economic relevance.

(Re)positioning Malaysia: high-tech networks and the multicultural rescripting of national identity

Abstract Transnational processes and imaginings valorise the putative cultural networks, connections and affinities of Malaysia’s ‘non-Malay’ (Indian and Chinese) communities. In this paper, I argue that this signals neither the end of nation building—which naturalised such communal difference in the first place—nor of the nation-state as a social, political and economic actor. Rather, attention is given to discursive practices through which the state seeks to ‘reposition’ Malaysia in/for the ‘networked’ information economy and society. Multicultural ‘rescripting’ of the nation/national identity is thus highlighted as part of broader state strategies to negotiate, facilitate and capitalise upon transnational phenomena. Increasing state emphasis on multiculturalism unsettles Malay-centred constructions of post-colonial national identity. However, the paper cautions against a celebration of the high-profile accorded to multiculturalism in ‘information age’ Malaysia. The Malay ‘special position’ continues and the lowering of ethnic barriers in various domains remains dependent upon domestic political contest. In addition, the socio-economic benefits of less Malay-centred state means of development associated with Malaysia’s ‘k-economy’ push are highly uneven. Non-Malays wooed to the high-tech showcase Multimedia Super Corridor are a highly-skilled professional elite.

IMGs: More Than Meets the Eye

IMGs: More Than Meets the Eye

"Messianity Makes a Person Useful": Describing Differences in a Japanese Religion in Brazil

In the forty-five years since its introduction to Brazil in 1956, the Church of World Messianity has attracted some 300, 000 followers, over ninety-five percent of which are non Japanese Brazilians. Messianity is known for its practice of jŌrei, meaning purification of the spirit in Japanese, the foundation of all its activity. By using experience-near and experience-distant as analytical concepts, this article elucidates the reasons why Messianity has crossed the ethnic barrier and been accepted in Brazil, and tries to locate Messianity in the Brazilian religious arena.