Search

According to the World Migration Report there are 11.6 million migrants in Russian Federation, the majority of which (43%) have come from countries of Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The study aims to evaluate the impact of migration on both migrant and host cultures to establish the changes in native languages and cultures of migrant ethnic groups in the Russian Federation under the influence of a single state language. For the study, the authors used statistical data of the Russian Federal State Statistics Service, findings of the 1920-2010 censuses, and mathematical modeling of cultural changes based on differential equation. The case of Chuvash people living in the Republic of Bashkortostan was explored by the mathematical modeling method to identify the alien cultural influence on the recipient country, with a particular emphasis on changes in the local language. The direct correlation has been found between the extent to which the migrant community preserve their homeland traditions at a new place and the probability of shifts in the host country's culture. The preservation of migrants' native language in everyday living demonstrates a high probability of replacing the host language by the migrant one in their environment (the probability is 5-10% higher than the expected level for 7 districts and 11 to 50% - in 8 districts out of 26 studied). The results may have practical use in evaluating the probability of major cultural shifts across the world as the international mass migration increases in volume and scope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How can minority writers within China assert their own ethnolinguistic distinctiveness whilst also writing in Chinese? Ethnic minority works fall into two groups: writing in standard Chinese, and works in native scripts. Most ethnic minority writing that can go beyond the local level to connect with a national or even global audience is published in Chinese - hence the label 'Sinophone' writing. The Bai people are one such minority nationality within China, who live in and around the city of Dali in ethnically-diverse Yunnan Province. Despite having their own language, they are often cited as one of the most 'Sinicised' of China's ethnic groups. This means that the Bai are caught between two linguistic and cultural worlds: a situation that is reflected in their writing. As they write in Chinese, they translate their own language and culture, inserting non-Chinese words and cultural context, creating a new hybrid written form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Luis Rafael Sánchez's La guaracha del Macho Camacho (1976) criticizes the conservative project of the colonized nation by rescuing marginal voices and by uncovering taboo concerns in order to redefine the Puerto Rican ethos. By utilizing the related notions of carnival, travel, and consumption, the novel offers a renewed project for a postcolonial nation that embraces hybridity, globalization, and the crudeness of carnival as creative values of transgression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colored populations, free or slaves, that inhabited the vast territory of Corrientes at the end of the colonial period, is investigated. Parish registers are the sources for the analysis since they give an idea of the relationships between ethnic groups, such as Indigenes, Spanish and hybrids, within the mechanisms of whitening and hybridism. The study area and the demographic composition of the Corrientes society are characterized, whereas the baptism and marriage records narrate the endogamic or interethnic relationships in the above-mentioned space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares identity-making among ethnic majorities who practice the religious traditions of ethnic minorities, i.e. of white Brazilian practices of Afro-Brazilian religion and ethnic Dane conversions to Islam. This unusual comparison illustrates the various processes, conditions, and consequences of such forms of identity-making. In the context of discussions on identity-making within modernity, globalization, and cultural complexity, the article argues that identity-making that includes taking on the cultural symbols and traditions of others involves certain tensions. Examining the cases of ethnic majority co-optations of the symbols and traditions of ethnic minorities in Brazil and Denmark, the article shows how such spiritual quests and forms of identity-making invoke positioning of difference and power relations connected to the histories and politics of identity and ethnicity. Both cases consequently imply the need for invoking notions of cultural purity and hybridity, both of which are used in different ways for legitimizing identity. In Brazil, hybridity is the point of depar ture and purity is an end, whereas in Denmark purity is the point of departure and hybridity is an end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the imbalance of power thesis by investigating the link between ethnic classroom composition and peer victimization in 94 Turkish-Dutch (minority) and 374 native Dutch (majority) preadolescents (ages 9-13) living in the Netherlands. These children came from the same multi-ethnic classrooms ( N = 31) and were considered as mutual out-group members. Analyses showed that children with more out-group classmates reported more peer victimization but only when those classmates evaluated their own ethnic group more positively than the out-group. This interaction effect was similar for minority and majority children, and no longer significant once children's experiences with ethnic peer discrimination were partialled out. Results indicate that ethnicity is not inevitably used as a criterion to victimize out-group members who are less well represented in the classroom. The findings partly support the imbalance of power thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnicity remains an essential theory for understanding societies in the 21st century. This paper focuses on how well Fredrik Barth's 1969 analyses and insights in Ethnic Groups and Boundaries have 'stood the test of time'. Barth's theoretical framework sets out the subtle and sinuous frontiers of ethnic boundaries, the interconnectedness of ethnic identities and the continuity of ethnic groups. The messianic nature of this work will be explored by closely reviewing some of his less well cited assertions, including those regarding stigmatized identities, increasing structural similarities and the political organisation of ethnic groups. Considering the applicability of his theory in current times necessitates reflecting on what Barth may have omitted, oversimplified or exaggerated, such as the potential for multiple ethnic identities; the importance of the content of cultural practices, symbols and 'traditions'; conflict and power plays within nation-states. 'Looking back' at Barth's work on ethnicity assists in enhancing understandings of current social spheres and reconsidering the world around us. It also contributes to the early stages of the author's current PhD research which includes a focus on Catalan ethnic identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a new reading of early-19th-century modernity by examining India's so-called “ethnographic” paintings, and arguing that rather than participate in a trajectory of speed and acceleration these works produce colonial polyrhythmic temporality. First, the article establishes that many of these images depict action, not ethnicity or occupational group. It then situates these images in economies of circulation, viewing, politics and commercial enterprise. By focusing on the action in the subject matter—do-ing rather than do-er, processes rather than occupations—a layered, polyrhythmic range of temporalities emerges, upturning dualistic, acceleration-driven, and rupture-based understandings of visual culture from this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Faculty of Letters / Edebiyat Fakultesi Dergisi is the property of Hacettepe University Faculty of Letters and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Both forced and voluntary migrations have marked the Caribbean region since the 17th Century. The result has been an amalgam of ethnicities and cultures that continually transform each other, and a growing group of Caribbean diasporic communities that differentiate themselves both from their host population, and increasingly from the core Caribbean identity that attaches to their place of origin. Considering the Caribbean and its diaspora together compels us to revise long-held notions of the role and place of "center" and "periphery" in a post/colonial cultural fusion interrogating and displacing rigid assumptions of identity through the prisms of an ever-evolving modernity, and an incessant cycle of migrant movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theological educators are now fostering dialogues, projects, and practices that are designed to acknowledge the challenges and opportunities resulting from the shifting racial and ethnic demographic climate in the U.S. and Canada. As well-intentioned as these efforts are, most of the scholarship focuses on the contemporary experiences of underrepresented minorities, current institutional concerns, or practical classroom scenarios, leaving Scripture courses, which have long been the backbone of theological education, beyond the scope of critical engagement. In this article I argue that the existing scholarship on teaching and learning in general, and among biblical scholars in particular, does not adequately address the specific challenges that arise when questions about race and ethnicity are exposed in Scripture courses. Therefore, based on my own classroom experiences, I develop a pedagogy of (Emb)Racing the Bible that seeks to bridge the gap between theoretical readings and practical applications of ancient and contemporary discourses about race and ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the international management (IM) literature, 'expatriate' is used as a verb in reference to the transnational movement of employees by multinational corporations (MNCs) and as a noun in reference to the people who are so moved across borders to work. IM's resulting expatriate analyses apply only to a specific minority of relatively privileged people. However, as is clear in other bodies of literature, many others ('migrants') in less privileged class positions move themselves across national boundaries for work. In this majority are often women and men - people of diverse races, ethnicities, economic and social means - who have less education and who work in lower level jobs, also often in or for MNCs. Their invisibility in the IM literature sustains and reinforces gender, race and class-based disparities in globalization processes and work to the detriment of poor women of colour around the world. We call for gendering change that would make visible the invisible in IM scholarship related to expatriation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Papers: Revista de Sociologia is the property of Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract: Where does the concept of cultural capital stand regarding the histories of its creation, uses, debates and the revisions these have provoked? What are its limits? Which are the key aspects holding the best prospects for future research, or most in need of reformation? These are our concerns outlined in this paper setting out the context for our discussion of the seven papers assembled in this special issue. We first set out the concept of cultural capital in Bourdieu''s work noting that it was originally shaped pragmatically in critical interventions into education and cultural policies. We then highlight aspects of the career of the concept of cultural capital in relation to empirical studies of cultural consumption noting some key qualifications and limitations. Limits and prospects are discussed vis-à-vis the papers assembled, under three headings: (1) cultural capital and the logics of capitalism; (2) cultural capital, education and cultural policy, and ‘social exclusion’; and (3) aesthetics and the relationality of the social. In concluding, we note the continuing operation of cultural capital as a mechanism for the reproduction of class advantages pointing to the need to consider further the manners in which it engages elites, uses of new media and hierarchies based on gender and ethnicity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Within transplant medicine in the UK, the relationship between organ donation and ethnicity has been characterized as problematic, with a specific focus on the apparent reluctance of black and Asian people in Britain to act as blood and organ donors. In this article, we show that transplant medicine, in trying to work out a solution to this 'problem', has culturalized the issue by treating it as something that falls outside its own domain of practice, with racialized responsibility being entrenched through the mapping of donor pools to cultural difference. We urge a rethink of what is increasingly becoming a one-sided discussion. A concentration on ethnicity alone fails to take into account the ways in which low donation rates become a problem as a result of the specific ways in which transplant medicine in the UK has been configured and reconfigured over time, constituting different publics along the way. In order to understand the relationship between ethnicity and organ donation, it is important that we as anthropologists examine where and how the problem has in large part been forged (i.e., within transplant medicine), as much as where and in what terms that problem has been fixed in place (i.e., as a problem of black and minority ethnic publics). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revue Française de Gestion is the property of John Libbey Eurotext Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article argues that despite the continuing relevance of ethnicity, the idea of the nation has taken root among Africans. This is due to a combination of factors, including the universal ideology of the nation-state, the impact of the existence of such national borders on the imagination, and the influence of national symbols and icons, which naturalise the idea of the nation. Applying Michael Billig's notion of banal nationalism to Cameroon, the article focuses on linguistic practices as well as on popular appropriations of national symbols as contributing factors to the creation and maintenance of national consciousness. The analysis of a call-in radio program broadcast on Cameroonian national radio during the 1994 FIFA World Cup illustrates that football created a discourse community that reinforced the idea of the nation both explicitly and implicitly. By participating in the debate, journalists and listeners alike - regardless of the tenor of their remarks - reinforced and further contributed to imagining the Cameroonian nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a multi-informant approach, this study examined emotion regulation within the social context of White and Black adolescent peer groups by assessing two aspects of sadness expression management (i.e., inhibition, disinhibition) and their linkages to peer acceptance and social functioning as a function of gender and ethnicity. Seventh- and eighth-grade adolescents (N = 155, 52 percent female, 54.8 percent Black) completed self-reports and peer nominations of sadness management and sociometric ratings of peer acceptance. Parents rated their child's social competence and social problems. Results revealed specific patterns of sadness regulation across informants that were associated with social functioning and varied by gender, but not ethnicity. Boys were more likely than girls to minimize sadness displays; boys who violated this pattern had lower peer acceptance and higher parent-rated social problems. In contrast, although girls were rated as displaying overt sadness more frequently than boys, this was unrelated to peer acceptance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent theoretical and empirical work has facilitated the drawing of sharp conceptual distinctions between shame and guilt. A clear view of these distinctions has permitted development of a research literature aimed at evaluating the differential associations of shame and guilt with depressive symptoms. This study quantitatively summarized the magnitude of associations of shame and guilt with depressive symptoms. Two hundred forty-two effect sizes were obtained from 108 studies employing 22,411 participants. Shame showed significantly stronger associations with depressive symptoms (r = .43) than guilt (r = .28). However, the association of shame and depressive symptoms was statistically indistinguishable from the associations of 2 maladaptive variants of guilt and depressive symptoms (contextual- maladaptive guilt, involving exaggerated responsibility for uncontrollable events, r = .39; generalized guilt, involving "free-floating" guilt divorced from specific contexts, r = .42). Other factors also moderated the effects. External shame, which involves negative views of self as seen through the eyes of others, was associated with larger effect sizes (r = .56) than internal shame (r = .42), which involves negative views of self as seen through one's own eyes. Depressive symptom measures that invoked the term guilt yielded stronger associations between guilt and depressive symptoms (r = .33) than depressive symptom measures that did not (r = .21). Age, sex, and ethnicity (proportion of Whites to Asians) did not moderate the effects. Although these correlational data are ambiguous with respect to their causal interpretation, results suggest that shame should figure more prominently in understandings of the emotional underpinnings of depressive symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate macro-level implications of ethnic/racial intermarriage in one generation on ethnic/racial inequality in the subsequent generation. In our theoretical model, ethnic intermarriage affects ethnic stratification through intergenerational transmissions of socioeconomic status and ethnicity. The effects of ethnic intermarriage depend on the association between ethnic intermarriage and socioeconomic status in the parents' generation, as well as the association between ethnic (self-)identification and socioeconomic status in the offspring generation. The model suggests that under plausible scenarios, intermarriage may increase socioeconomic gaps across ethnic groups. Thus, the model's predictions temper those of assimilation and melting pot theories, which suggest that ethnic intermarriage unequivocally reduces ethnic inequality. We then consider a case study of ethnic inequality in educational attainment among Jews in Israel. Using record-linkage data on young, native-born Jewish adults from two Israeli Censuses, we are able to (1) quantify the effects of ethnic intermarriage on ethnic inequality in the offspring generation, via the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status; (2) consider the implications of various forms of ethnic (self-)identification among the offspring of intermarried couples; and (3) examine a period marking the onset of significant numbers of adult offspring of ethnic intermarriage. We investigate educational gaps that might have arisen in counterfactual scenarios in which ethnic intermarriage in the parents' generation had not occurred. Consistent with the theoretical model, we find that, under plausible assumptions about the ethnic (self-)identification of offspring of intermarried couples, ethnic intermarriage in the parents' generation substantially increases ethnic inequality among young adults in the offspring generation. In particular, if the offspring of ethnically intermarried couples (self-)identify as a function of their socioeconomic status, or, alternatively, as a distinct ethnic group, then ethnic intermarriage is likely to result in greater inequality in the offspring generation than in counterfactual scenarios in which ethnic intermarriage had not occurred. We thus demonstrate that ethnic intermarriage affects ethnic inequality in ways that are significantly more complex than those suggested by assimilation theories, We conclude that ethnic intermarriage should not necessarily be viewed as a vehicle for reducing group differences over time or for reducing the salience of ethnicity among disadvantaged ethnic groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study examined the ethnic identity of White (N = 120), Latino (N = 87), and African-American (N = 65) children and early adolescents (aged = 9-14 years), with an emphasis on whether the specific ethnic label White children used to describe themselves might reflect differences in their inter-group attitudes and whether those differences mirror group differences between White children and children in ethnic minority groups. Results indicated that White children who identified with a minority label (i.e., White biracial, hyphenated American, ethnic/cultural/religious label) had more positive ethnic identities, were more aware of discrimination, and were less likely to show biases in their perceived similarity to in-group and out-group peers than youth who identified as White or American. In many instances, White children who identified with a minority label did not differ from ethnic minority youth. In addition, although all participants were more positive about their ethnic in-group than out-groups, children who identified their ethnicity as American were less positive about out-groups relative to other children. Taken together, the findings indicate that children's self-chosen ethnic identity is as important as their ascribed ethnic or racial identity in predicting their inter-group attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative research aims to investigate the process of how Chinese American women develop their identities while growing up in the United States as daughters of Chinese immigrants. Specifically, the author explores the following questions: How do Chinese American women come to identify themselves as Chinese American, and act this identity in their everyday lives? How does the process of self-identification interact with their interpretations of how they are perceived and recognized? How do they incorporate educational messages from their family and schooling into their own understandings of the social world they live in? How have their understandings of their identity changed along the path with their encountering different social contexts and institutions? Through collecting personal accounts by interviews, the researcher intends to unravel the intersectionality of race, class, gender, and ethnicity, and illustrate how that would affect these Chinese American women’s educational experience and life outcomes accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thirty years after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, nearly 1 million Iranians are estimated to reside in the USA. As a result of this migration, a 'second generation' has been born in exile and has come of age entirely in US institutional spaces such as schools and universities. Yet, very little scholarship addresses this new cohort of young adults as they move beyond their diasporic childhood homes and into adulthood. This paper argues that through an appreciation of pre-Revolution Iranian pop music, second-generation Iranians in the USA actively employ 'inherited nostalgia' to make sense of their identities in university settings in which ethnicity, identity and claims to cultural authenticity are increasingly prominent. Drawing from interviews, focus groups and participant observation with an Iranian-American student group at a public university in Southern California, this paper also extends our understanding of the ways in which cultural products such as ethnic pop music are brought into social practice by second-generation immigrants in diaspora. Pre-Revolution Iranian pop music provides this cohort with a discursive repertoire to share, teach and tame the histories and present circumstances of Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of 'Ethnicity, Inc.' so thoroughly conjoins the ethnic nation with the ethnic corporation that it becomes increasingly difficult to think of one without the other. This article aims to deconstruct this relationship by demonstrating how the ambiguity between nation and corporation affords Bafokeng, Inc. several beneficial statuses. Power brokers play the boundaries, skilfully blending, equivocating, mediating, and otherwise working the spheres of nation and corporation, of bureaucracy and market. The strength of Ethnicity, Inc. organisations lies in significant part in their ability to adopt different statuses in the context of a politics of recognition and representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Representation assumes that those who govern have knowledge of those for whom they govern. It is easy to presume knowledge of the “other”, but as we know this can be based in prejudice, cultural difference, or simply misinformation or simplification. Usually our explorations of this process have focused on populations identified as disadvantaged, disempowered or somehow “non-privileged”. However, the research process outlined here has revealed previously unexplored diversity within a population commonly described as privileged suggesting that good governance requires alertness to presuming to know both the unprivileged and the privileged. The research approach outlined in this paper has used a blend of historical reappraisal and qualitative techniques focusing on a population who have been conceptualized as doubly privileged. This population focus is that of older British; post World War II male migrants in South Australia. These people have been conceptualized as privileged because they are male, and they were part of the preferred ethnic group that Australian politicians and policy makers favoured post WW2. However, review of the historical data and qualitative interviews with some of these men show that the accepted narrative of a homogenous pre-WW2 British origin population is over simplistic. The historical research suggests that the presumption that post WW2 British migrant men were coming into an homogenous, privileging environment in migrating to SA is both ahistorical and crude. Furthermore the belief that post WW2 British migrant men were ethnically homogenous is undermined by the qualitative research, that reveals that their presumed homogeneity is much more fluid and nuanced than dominant conceptualisations have allowed. The impact of core ethnicities that continue to exist and compete in Britain, the social class focus and economic commodification of migrants in the machinations of powerful players in the state of South Australia all confound homogenizing, simplistic knowing of British migrant men in this state. Generically these findings caution social researchers with regard to presuming to know so called “privileged” populations as well as presumed non-privileged groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statistics from the 2001 census of population in England and Wales reveal the extent of ethnic and religious mixing among married and cohabiting couples. Non-marital cohabitation and mixed marriages are infrequent in the South Asian (Hindu, Sikh and Muslim) groups; they are common among the Black and especially the mixed ethnicity subpopulations. Mixed partnerships influence the future ethnic composition of the country, and there are signs that the Black Caribbean group is merging into the general population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, 'diversity' has emerged as a key value in its own right, celebrated through human rights and similar policies promoting identity and providing an additional focus to that of the more traditional equalities agenda and its concern with 'statistical proportionality'. It has been conjectured that classifications rooted in diversity policy will either propel data collection practices into the use of finer-grained distinctions or that these measurement systems will collapse under their own weight. In Britain pressure to increase the number of categories in ethnicity classifications highlights the tension between the validity of granular categories and their utility (in terms of practicality of data collection). Similarly, the interest in identity evokes a trade-off between the selective attribution of such measures and the greater stability of operationally defined ethnicity. In meeting the challenge of the diversity agenda, a number of approaches—innovative for Britain—are now being debated to accommodate greater numbers of categories in census collections. These include multi-ticking across categories (thereby capturing multiplicity) and the shift from classifications framed by colour to those privileging ethnic background (but attended by category proliferation). Conceptually, the measurement of the multiple dimensions of ethnicity has found favour but not so far encompassing ethnic origin/ancestry collected in US and Canadian Censuses. While some have argued that ethnicity classifications are already unwieldy and that retrenchment is needed, validity—increasingly insisted upon by the collectivities themselves and other non-state organisations—is seen as winning out. The demands of inclusiveness and identity visibility indicate that classifications are headed in the direction of greater complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about the development of baseball in Taiwan, and how it has been connected with Taiwan's entangled history of Japanese colonization, the Chinese Nationalist's authoritarian rule, the ethnically stratified social structure, and the emergence of the Taiwanese identity. Baseball was foreign to Taiwan when it was first introduced to the island. The sport then crossed the ethnic and class boundary between the Japanese colonizer and the Taiwanese islander in the 1920s, later the Taiwanese natives and the Chinese mainlanders in the 1970s, and in turn became a symbol of Taiwanese nationalism. This article argues that baseball does not circulate a fixed meaning as it travels to different places. The story of Taiwanese baseball indicates the interpenetration of colonialism, class, ethnicity, and nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examined how witnessing community violence influenced social support networks and how these networks were associated with male-to-female intimate partner violence (IPV) in ethnically diverse male college students. The authors assessed whether male social support members themselves had perpetrated IPV (male network violence) and whether female social support members had been victimized by intimates (female network victimization). The results indicated an association between community violence and male network violence; both factors were significantly associated with higher levels of IPV. Furthermore, the relationship between community violence and IPV was partially mediated by male network violence. Additionally, the results indicated a moderated relationship such that male participants who reported the highest levels of exposure to community violence and male network violence were at highest risk for IPV. However, this relationship did not hold across all ethnicities and races. The findings suggest that the mechanisms associating community violence, networks, and IPV are multifaceted and differ across ethnicity and race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented discussing the history of ethnicity in U.S. and how a sense of "whiteness" among immigrant groups has played an important role in the process of assimilation into American society. It is argued that being considered white was beneficial to immigrant integration over time, but that ethnicity persisted in subconscious or conscious cultural patterns that had an impact on future generations. Several studies investigating the enduring influence of ethnicity are discussed.

In the 2006 census the number of people reporting New Zealander as their ethnic group increased five-fold, making it the third most frequent response behind New Zealand European and Māori. The magnitude of the increase was surprising, but followed similar surges in national naming in the Canadian and Australian censuses. In this paper we ask: Who chooses to ethnically identify in the name of the nation and why? In so doing we emphasise the constructed nature of ethnicity and ethnic groups, and the political context within which ethnic identification decisions are made. Our analysis suggests the New Zealander incline was a phenomenon driven primarily by multi-generational New Zealanders who formerly identified as European. We discuss some reasons for why the national identifier appears to have selective appeal as an ethnic label, and reflect on how this may change in coming years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnicity is often assumed to be a stable construct. However, much research in New Zealand has shown growth in the number of people reporting multiple ethnicities and changes in the ethnic composition of New Zealand, which may reflect social changes as well as changes in the construct of ethnicity. This study uses three years of data from the longitudinal Survey of Family, Income and Employment (SoFIE) to examine changes in self-identified ethnicity. Selfdefined ethnicity is recorded every year and participants may record multiple ethnicities. A change in ethnicity was defined as any change in the reported ethnic group(s) of an individual over the first three waves of SoFIE. Overall, 8% of respondents changed ethnicity at least once during the three waves of the survey. The strongest predictor of changing self-identified ethnicity was Māori, Pacific and Asian ethnicity at wave 1, as well as reporting more than one ethnic group. Individuals who changed ethnicity were also more likely to be younger, to be born overseas, to live in a family with children, to belong to more deprived groups, and to have poorer self-rated health. This exploratory analysis has shown fluidity in the concept of self-identified ethnicity, but more longitudinal research is needed to further clarify the (in)stability of ethnicity over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note reports on research investigating whether the ethnic groups of young adolescent New Zealanders are fully represented when data are prioritised so that only one ethnicity per person is counted. Prioritised data reported from the school sector are compared with non-prioritised reported data from the 2006 census, and also with census data when prioritised. The research clearly indicates that the prioritising of data leads to significant understatements in the reporting of proportions of Pacific and Asian domestic students enrolled in our schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are now as many as one in six Maori living in Australia. Due to census practice and a lack of administrative data in Australia on ethnicity, it has been, and remains, difficult to calculate their number or assess their characteristics. Despite these challenges, important insights for social policy in New Zealand can be gained from endeavouring to do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to psychobiological model of personality proposed by Cloninger, personality traits characterizing enhanced tendency to novel stimuli, impulsivity and sociability are influenced by dopaminergic system functioning. The present study considered both the main effect of two polymorphic loci ( VNTR and 2319G>A) in dopamine transporter gene ( DAT1) and the role of distinct DAT1 gene haplotypes in personality traits variation in 592 healthy individuals belonging to different ethnicities (men and women). The results of the study revealed the involvement of VNTR and 2319G>A polymorphisms in Novelty Seeking variation and the main effect of 2319G>A polymorphism on Reward Dependence (TCI) observed in Russian females. Moreover, DAT1 gene haplotype effect on Novelty Seeking in Russian females and on Persistence (TCI) in Tatar females was demonstrated. Reported in the current study results pointed to the involvement of dopaminergic system ( DAT1 gene in particular) in variation of personality traits characterizing the tendency to novel stimuli, purposefulness, and sociability specifically in women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research suggests that young people use music to express themselves and to make claims about their identities. The current work considered the possible consequences of using music in this way. Using a sample of 80 British young adults, we aimed to replicate and extend previous research on the stereotypes that young people have about fans of various musical genres. It was hypothesized that individuals attribute similar psychological characteristics and social categories to fans of certain styles of music and that those distinct associations are generalizable. Results indicated that judges agreed on both the psychological (personality, personal qualities and values) and social (ethnicity and social class) characteristics of music fans, that the content of the music-genre stereotypes varied between genres, and that the stereotypes are geographically robust. The implications of this work for group processes and intergroup relations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Although ethnicity frequently features in current quantitative social psychology, it is rarely theorised. This paper starts by reviewing how ethnicity has been conceptualised in other social sciences. A working definition of ethnicity is provided, and an argument for moderate constructivism is advanced. Then, it is discussed how ethnicity has been treated in some of the major traditions in quantitative social psychology, and problems arising from this are highlighted. Firstly, the way ethnicity is discussed in much psychological work leads to a terminological confusion. Secondly, an overly strong focus on generic identity processes prevalent among some social identity researchers bears the danger of excluding a range of important phenomena related to ethnicity from scientific observation. Thirdly, the way in which ethnicity is conceptualised in much of quantitative social psychology (as evinced by psychological theorising, writing, and methodological choices) is incompatible with the notion of ethnicity as constructed. Ignoring the constructed nature of ethnicity has negative consequences for our ability to interpret research findings, for the well-being of participants, and it can have negative ethical and political implications. Practical steps that might be taken in order to avoid these perils in future research are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The relationship between ethnicity and biology is of interest to anthropologists, biomedical scientists, and historians in understanding how human groups are constructed. Ethnic self-identification in recently admixed groups such as Hispanics, African Americans, and Native Americans (NA) is likely to be complex due to the heterogeneity in individual admixture proportions and social environments within these groups. This study examines the relationships between self-identified ethnicity, self-estimated admixture proportions, skin pigmentation, and genetic marker estimated admixture proportions. These measures were assessed using questionnaires, skin color measurements, and genotyping of a panel of 76 ancestry informative markers, among 170 Hispanics and NAs from New Mexico, a state known for its complex history of interactions between people of NA and European (EU) ancestry. Results reveal that NAs underestimate their degree of EU admixture, and that Hispanics underestimate their degree of NA admixture. Within Hispanics, genetic-marker estimated admixture is better predicted by forehead skin pigmentation than by self-estimated admixture. We also find that Hispanic individuals self-identified as "half-White, half Hispanic" and "Spanish" have lower levels of NA admixture than those self-identified as "Mexican" and "Mexican American." Such results highlight the interplay between culture and biology in how individuals identify and view themselves, and have implications for how ethnicity and disease risk are assessed in a medical setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay on the transitional cultural condition in Estonia from the perspectives of consumption and the environment is presented. It cites the results of a study on the variation of different socio-demographic groups in terms of their attitudes and practices in such areas. The contextualization of sustainable consumption (SC) in the practices of post-Socialist Estonia is discussed. Also noted are the specificities of consumption related to age and ethnicity.

Two experiments are reported that examine the effect on later recognition of presenting simultaneously several targets of different ethnicity. In experiment 1, a novel target presentation method was used where participants (children, n=65 and young adults, n=62) were shown a stimulus face sheet of four different race faces followed by a sequential larger (target present/absent) multi-ethnic recognition set. In experiment 2 three different sequential presentation methods were compared in young adults (n=225) that consisted of either (i) make decision ('seen before' vs 'not seen before') for each of the faces in the whole sequential recognition set; or (ii) make only 'seen before' decisions for the whole sequential recognition set; or (iii) a separate sequential lineup for each ethnicity where for each lineup the participants saw all the faces in that lineup and then had to make a decision (target present or absent). Own-race faces were more often correctly rejected (and less falsely identified in experiment 2) than other-race faces. For other-race faces, correct recognition decreased when similar foils were presented before targets in the recognition set but this did not occur for own-race faces. The effect of sequential lineup presentation method emerged for other-race faces favouring separate ethnicity lineups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Contemporary Issues / Suvremene Teme is the property of Centar za Politoloska Istrazivanja and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)