Is Islam in Western Europe Like Race in the United States?

Asking whether Islam in Western Europe is like race in the United States is, to a large degree, to ask whether Muslims in Europe share the same fate and face the same barriers as blacks in the United States. The article considers (1) the nature of the hostility to Islam in Western Europe and why it is a greater barrier to inclusion for immigrants and their children than in the United States; (2) the dynamics of color‐coded race in the United States, comparing, on the one hand, the severe barriers confronting individuals and groups with African ancestry in the United States with the barriers facing Muslims (as well as black immigrants) in Western Europe and, on the other hand, considering certain advantages available to immigrants of color in the United States that Muslim and other immigrants lack in Europe; and (3) whether the boundary based on religion will prove more permeable for the descendants of Muslim immigrants in Western Europe than the racial boundary in the United States for those with visible African ancestry.     

Competing Identities? Race,Ethnicity and Panethnicity Among Dominicans in the United States

In this paper we explore the racial and ethnic self-identification of Dominican immigrants in the United States. This issue is central in understanding how immigrants experience the process of incorporation into American society. We argue that as Dominican immigrants incorporate to American life, they adopt a Hispanic or Latino identity. This identity serves both as a form of racial identification within the American racial stratification system and as a form of assertive panethnic identity. This identity, however, does not supersede national identification, which remains the anchoring identity.     

Alienation in the United States: Uniform or Group-Specific Change?

“Alienation,” in the sense of disenchantment with core institutions of society, increased after the mid-1960s. Most accounts hold that the rise in alienation was uniform across all groups. This paper evaluates the hypothesis of uniform change using data from the Harris Polls. We find evidence of both short-term and long-term shifts in patterns of alienation. Blacks and low-income people are less alienated under Democratic than under Republican administrations. Over the long term, increases in alienation have been larger among women and people without a college degree.

Homicide–Suicides in the United States: A Review of the Literature

Homicide–suicides are phenomena where the perpetrator kills one or more victims and subsequently kills himself/herself. The typical classification includes intimate partner homicide–suicides, familial, and extrafamilial homicide–suicides. This review examines research beginning with a 1992 seminal article by Peter Marzuk, Kenneth Tardiff, and Charles Hirsch in the Journal of the American Medical Association in which they suggested that homicide–suicides constituted a distinct domain different from homicides to suicides. This review uses the JAMA article to frame the issues and discuss homicide–suicide research in the United States from the date of that publication. In addition to discussing characteristics of homicide–suicides, this review focuses on homicide–suicides involving intimate partners and compares both to homicides without subsequent suicides and suicides without prior homicides. Suggestions for further research are given as well as research problems available to Sociology.     

Following Zhang Wenjin to the United States

In 1937,Zhang Ying studied at the Lu Xun Art Institute in Yan'an.After graduation she began working in the art world under Zhou Enlai's direction.In 1983, she followed her husband Zhang Wenjin to the United States as wife of the ambassador.During her two-year stay in the U.S., she came into close contact with many American women while working to promote mutual understanding and friendship between the people of the two countries.After her retirement in 1991,she sponsored the production of a 10-episode documentary TV program,"Zhou Enlai and the Arts."She also wrote a book about her experience in the United States,Called,Following Zhang Wenjin to the United States—Notes of an Ambassador's Wife.The following are extracts from the book.     

Is Mothers’ Work Related to Childhood Weight Changes in the United States?

Taking family structure, father’s work intensity, and children’s developmental stages into consideration, this study examined the effect of a mother’s previous and contemporaneous work (employment and weekly work hours) on their children’s weight and their likelihood of having weight problems such as obesity, overweight, and underweight. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999 (ECLS-K), this study adopted a fixed effect model and found that for 3rd to 5th graders, an increase in mothers’ previous work hours among two-parent families below the federal poverty level (FPL) increased the risk of the child being obese, while the current employment of single mothers below the FPL reduced the risk of the child being obese. Surprisingly, the employment of single mothers below the FPL increased the risk of the child being underweight, especially for 1st to 3rd graders.     

Sweden and the United States: is the challenge of an aging society leading to a convergence of policy?

The aging of the population is one of many forces behind a current reconstruction of welfare benefits in both Sweden and the United States. While both countries represent ideological polarities regarding social policy, they are struggling to meet their welfare goals with limited resources, and both are adopting similar strategies, for example, decentralization, targeting, and an increased emphasis on privatization and evaluation. This paper summarizes some of the differences between Sweden and the United States and describes some of the forces at work that are lessening the differences between the two countries in strategies and policy regarding care services for elderly people.     

'Land of the free'? Circulating human rights and narrated lives in the United States

Abstract

In the 50 years during which human rights has gained an international currency, personal narratives have become one of the most potent vehicles for advancing human rights claims. This is particularly true in the United States where personal narratives attesting to human rights violations frequently gain wide exposure through mass publication and publicity, media circulation, and global information flows. This article explores the circulation of human rights narratives in the United States, examining some of the ways that stories enter into public discourse through published life narratives, television talk shows, news reports, campus lectures and publicity tours, websites, and the like, and are taken up by popular and academic audiences, spurring debates within the fields of legal and political theory, international relations, religion, morality and ethics, often far removed from the originating event or site of human rights violation. The article considers the many intended and unintended effects of this circulation on storytellers, their audiences, and the campaigns they represent.     

Is it Race,Immigrant Status,or Both? An Analysis of Wage Disparities among Men in the United States1

The intersection of race and immigrant status forms a unique social space where minority group members and immigrants are afforded or denied the privileges that are routinely accorded to native-born, non-Hispanic whites. Yet recent research on the intersection of race and immigrant status is inconsistent in its findings, limited to a small number of racial groups, and does not account for the geographic distribution of racial/ethnic groups. In this paper, we shed light on the intersection of race and immigrant status by answering two questions: (1) Do racial disparities in socioeconomic outcomes vary by nativity? and (2) Do native-immigrant disparities in socioeconomic outcomes vary by race? Using 2000 Census data linked to metropolitan area and sending country data, we find that racial disparities are similar and significant among natives and immigrants (Question 1). Asians, blacks, and Latinos fare significantly worse than their white counterparts in both the native and immigrant populations. Furthermore, our analysis of native-immigrant wage disparities by race reveals that the immigrant experience is considerably worse for Asians, blacks, and Latinos (Question 2). These groups also receive fewer wage returns to years spent in the U.S. and their wage disparities are magnified by the percentage of immigrants in a metropolitan area – whereas all whites receive a wage premium when living in an area with a larger share of immigrants. The results suggest that race and immigrant status work in concert to uniquely influence the social experience of immigrant minorities in the U.S.     

How Has Bourdieu Been Good to Think With? The Case of the United States

The essay discusses the impact of Bourdieu on modern U.S. sociology. Specifically, I offer five observations about the reception and adoption of Bourdieu by U.S. sociologists from the perspective of someone who was involved in the process I describe as an active but not fully invested participant.     

‘States of change’? One hundred years of the JUC

ABSTRACT

The Joint University Council for Social Studies (JUCSS) was formed 100 years ago at the end of the First World War in 1918. Its expressed aim was to coordinate and develop the work of social study departments across the UK, as part of the larger project of post-war reconstruction. In October 2018, an event entitled ‘States of Change?’ was held in London to celebrate this history and to explore what, if any, kind of future the JUC (as currently constituted) should have. At the event, I gave a short historical presentation that examined social work education’s history in the context of the JUCSS’s origins and development. This paper picks up some of the key ideas from this presentation in more detail. It will be argued that tensions which existed in the formation of the JUCSS in 1918 still exist today, not least because they are emblematic of the ambivalences and complexities that are at the heart of social work and social work education, then and now. Furthermore, it will be suggested that social work as an academic discipline must pay heed to these tensions if it is to survive—and thrive—in the academy today. (192)     

Has Opposition to Immigration Increased in the United States after the Economic Crisis? An Experimental Approach

We employ two population‐level experiments to accurately measure opposition to immigration before and after the economic crisis of 2008. Our design explicitly addresses social desirability bias, which is the tendency to give responses that are seen favorably by others and can lead to substantial underreporting of opposition to immigration. We find that overt opposition to immigration, expressed as support for a closed border, increases slightly after the crisis. However, once we account for social desirability bias, no significant increase remains. We conclude that the observed increase in anti‐immigration sentiment in the post‐crisis United States is attributable to greater expression of opposition rather than any underlying change in attitudes.     

What Explains the Decline in First Marriage in the United States? Evidence from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, 1969 to 2013

Rates of entry into first marriage have declined sharply in the United States during the past half century, and there is evidence of broad gaps in marriage entry by race and education. Although a large literature explores the influences on marriage for single cohorts, there is little research that tests explanations for this decline across multiple cohorts. The authors use individual and contextual measures of employment and incarceration to predict transitions to first marriage in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (1969–2013). They test two prominent theories of why marriage rates have declined: the decreased availability of “marriageable” men and the increased economic standing of women. They find that men's reduced economic prospects and increased risk of incarceration contributed to the decline in first marriage rates during the past 45 years in the United States, although these basic measures of economic and carceral conditions cannot explain the entire decline.     

Testing the acculturation of the 1.5 generation in the United States: Is there a “critical” age of migration?

Review of Economics of the Household - Existing research shows that on average first-generation immigrants earn less than native-born workers in the United States, especially during their first...     

“One should follow the wind”: Individualized filial piety and support exchanges in Indian immigrant families in the United States

Within the context of social and demographic transformation, including trend toward globalization, changing patterns of longevity and immigration, this study examines the informal support exchanges between older parents and their adult children in Indian (South Asian) multi-generational families in the United States. Guided by symbolic interactionist thought and a life course perspective, this paper draws on qualitative data from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 10 older adults in Atlanta, Georgia to study their expectations of and experiences with family support and the principles of Grounded Theory Methods informed our analysis. Filial piety, known as seva in the Indian culture, was used as a framework by the participants to make sense of support exchanges and intergenerational relationships within their own families. Participants' accounts of support exchanges with their parents in India do not always match with the support exchanged with their children in the U.S. The similarities and differences participants speak of as they compare themselves to the traditional practices surrounding seva suggest “individualized” practices of intergenerational relationships/familial support and the influence of and interplay between individual, familial, and wider societal forces. Our findings have implications for policy and practice with older immigrant adults and their families, and shed light on the experiences of growing old in a foreign land.     

Did socioeconomic inequalities in morbidity and mortality change in the United States over the course of the twentieth century?

In this article we present two sets of empirical analyses that consider the extent to which socioeconomic gradients in self-assessed health and child mortality changed since the beginning of the twentieth century in the United States. This empirical issue has important and wide-ranging research and policy implications. In particular, our results speak to the value of considering the role of broader social, economic, and political inequalities in generating and maintaining socioeconomic disparities in morbidity and mortality. Despite dramatic declines in morbidity and mortality rates in the United States across the twentieth century, we find that socioeconomic-status gradients in morbidity and mortality declined only modestly (if at all) during that period.