Sociocultural Profiles Research Articles

The failure of the Yugoslav national idea

Two states bearing the name Yugoslavia have now disintegrated during the past fifty years, the first under Nazi attack in 1941, and the second solely by its own hand in 1991. The one requirement essential for any Yugoslav state to survive has always been some form of political agreement between Serbs and Croats. The collapse of such agreement surely lies at the center of the 1991 failure and contributed significantly to the first. Because the socio-cultural profiles of the two ethnic groups have been so close, language included, the way in which the Serbian and Croatian national ideas became politically incompatible deserves precise definition. The further notion that these two nationalisms have been proven incompatible with the real alternative of a multi-ethnic federation, however, is false. Such a federation was never the Yugoslav national idea until well after Tito's Yugoslavia had been formed. Until the 1960s, this idea was instead that a single Yugoslav nationality already existed and could be called forth to support a viable nation state. It appeared periodically from the early nineteenth to the mid twentieth century, and its intersection with the Serbian and Croatian national ideas provides the focus for this paper.

Students' Stereotypic Expectancies of Scholastic Ability for Ethnic Majority vs. Minority Group Students

This study examines the effect of varying sociocultural cues (ethnic majority vs. minority group) on students' expectancies with respect to scholastic ability. It was hypothesized that students' expectancies would mirror common cultural stereotypes based on actual observed differences among sociocultural groups. The study was based on two independent samples of 223 and 259 Israeli elementary and junior high school students, respectively. Subjects were presented with sociocultural profiles of two hypothetical students (Western majority vs. Eastern minority group) immediately following standardized group scholastic ability testing procedures and were asked to rate the expected level of performance of the students on the ability test administered, along a five-point scale. Mean ratings of the two stimuli with respect to ability test performance were significantly discernible in both studies, with the Eastern minority group student stimulus expected to perform signficantly lower than the Western majority student counterpart. Overall, the autostereotypes and heterostereo-types of varying sociocultural groups were highly similar.

Fatal Indian Violence in North Carolina

This paper reports variations in homicide and suicide rates for the two major Indian populations of North Carolina-the Cherokee and the Lumbee. The socio-cultural variations among counties housing the Cherokee population are discussed as well as variations within the Cherokee population itself. In addition, socio-cultural profiles of the Lumbee counties and Lumbee Indian groups are analyzed. Both social structural and cultural explanations of violent behavior are examined. On the basis of these analyses, the authors conclude that differences in cultural patterns between the Cherokee and Lumbee most adequately account for the extent and direction of individual forms of violence. There are two Indian populations in North Carolina, the Eastern Cherokee and the Lumbee. While they both identify themselves as Indians and are both in the southeastern cultural area, they appear to be dissimilar on a number of characteristics. An important difference is found in the homicide and suicide rates for the two groups.