Latvian Bilingual Education: Towards a new approach

During the transitional period from being part of the Soviet Union, with Russian as the official state language, to an independent state within the European Union, with special language policies supporting minority languages, Latvia has developed reasonable principles of bilingual education. Nevertheless, a lot of work still needs to be done to improve teaching methods, to develop effective programmes, and to assess the multifaceted process of language use at school, including sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic analysis of educational discourse and spontaneous bilingual communication. The quality of bilingual education depends upon different factors, which are subject to various influences. Some of these are not mentioned in the models being proposed by the government, such as the pedagogical relevance of a child-centered approach, the progression in language and cultural competence of participants, mixing/overlapping/avoidance strategies of language use, attitudes of families, children and teachers, etc. The challenge for teachers of both Latvian as a second and Russian as a first language is enormous. In the future, other bilingual situations will present themselves in Latvia as well. Because of this, Latvian society must consider their entire policy towards bilingualism in the educational system.     

Bilingual Education Theater: Behind the scenes of Latvian minority education reform

Focusing on the political nature of education policy making in the post-Soviet context, this paper questions whether, how and to what extent the bilingual education reform under way in Latvia contributes to social integration among different ethnolinguistic groups. The paper begins by tracing the emergence and institutionalization of bilingual education reform in light of long-term education development trends prevalent during the 1990s. Based on press analysis, document review, and in-depth interviews with major education stakeholders in Latvia, it reveals that there exists a growing disjunction between 'policy-talk', 'policy action' and 'policy implementation', resulting in the legitimization of education spaces that once were and continue to be functional, hierarchical and divisive.     

Education and the Quality of Life in Korea and the United States: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

The search reported in this article analyzed two sets of nationalsample survey data recently collected from the United Statesand the Republic of Korea, and sought to compare the influenceof educational attainment on the perception of life qualityin these two countries. Results of this comparison indicatethat education contributes a lot more to the psychological qualityof life in Korea than in America. Two explanations were offeredfor the different roles which educational attainment plays inthe two countries.     

A Korean Gay Man in the United States:

An increasing number of Koreans are immigrating to the U.S. Little information exists for human service professionals to draw from to help Korean gay men adjust to living in America. This discussion provides a historical overview of homosexuality in Korea with insights into contemporary Korean culture. An interview with a young Korean gay man living in the U.S. illustrates the concerns and problems these men experience as they struggle to adapt to gay life in this country. Racism from the gay community and alienation from the Korean American community are salient characteristics of the problems experienced by Korean gay immigrants. To better serve the needs of these men, helping professionals must develop relationships based on trust and friendship, understand Korean attitudes toward homosexuality, and be knowledgeable of how Confucian gender ideology influences same sex relationships involving Korean gay men living in this country.     

Incorporating Multicultural Learning in Clinically-Based Education in the United States

This study attempted to explore and clarify the ambiguity surrounding cultural concepts, broaden and deepen the current understanding of cultural competency, and operationalize its core components in multicultural education in the United States. The research findings presented in this study were organized into three overarching themes: Level I: knowledge development; Level II: integrative processes; and Level III: practice evaluation. The findings contributed to the formulation of levels in multicultural learning and to the specification of core cultural components in clinical practice.     

A Yao Woman in the United States

The Yao ethnicity, numbering 2.13 million, are scattered throughout the mountainous regions of Guangxi, Hunan, Yunnan, Guangdong and Guizhou. Most of them, however, have settled in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.     

Investigating Diversity in Social Work Doctoral Education in the United States

ABSTRACT

Despite its emphasis on social justice, social work in the United States has not always attended to issues of diversity in doctoral education. This article examines the state of the discipline’s research on traditionally underrepresented students in U.S. doctoral social work programs. An analysis of relevant peer-reviewed articles from social work journals revealed that this research has focused on demographic trends, degree motivation, student barriers, existing supports, and career navigation. Diversity in U.S. doctoral social work education is vastly understudied with the majority of scholarship focusing on ethnoracial difference. The limitations of this study are discussed, and future research directions are proposed including the need to examine various kinds of social differences and a wider range of support initiatives.     

A Postmodern Perspective on Black Suicides in the United States

Abstract

This paper offers an alternative explanation to the rationalist perspective of black suicides in the United States. It assumes a deconstructionist approach, offering the proposition that the social construction of reality in the black community is such that suicide among blacks occurs at a far greater number than their quantitative measures reveal.

The postmodern turn is far more interpretive in placing the reality of black suicide in context than the modernist language of Durkheim and others. The postmodern turn suggests that there is more to black suicides in the United States than meets the eye-more, in that the word, suicide, carries “traces” of other words and texts. Social workers, as enablers and facilitators, must grasp the significance of this social reconstruction if they are to have an impact upon the intertextual nature of black suicides.     

Sexuality Education in the United States: Shared Cultural Ideas across a Political Divide

“Sexuality education”– broadly defined as teaching and learning about a range of issues related to puberty, sexuality, and relationships – occurs all day every day, formally and informally, intentionally and unintentionally. Nevertheless, adults organize policy and instruction for young people around a constrained set of concerns: first, that the sexuality education youth receive does not help them navigate an increasingly sexualized and dangerous world and, second, that the lessons are themselves damaging, exacerbating the risks youth and children already face. I discuss sexuality education’s entanglement with these conventional cultural ideas about youth, sexuality, and education. I consider the ways that abstinence‐only and comprehensive school‐based sexuality education rest on a series of a discursive framings, including a commitment to regulating sexuality and youth, a contemporary “moral panic” that renders all talk about youth and sexuality provocative, and normative and instrumental conceptions of teaching and learning about sexuality. I conclude by discussing the implications of these discursive framings for classroom practice and imagining an alternative model in which sexuality education might embrace ambiguity and ambivalence as a necessary and even welcome condition of young people’s sexuality and education.     

Bilingual Education Models in Latvia: A view from Belarus

In this article, we look at several issues relating to bilingual education in Latvia, as prescribed by the Latvian Ministry of Education and Science. We examine these issues from the perspective of the past and present situation in Belarus, Russia and the former Soviet Union. It is clear, in our view, that bilingual offers both advantages, but also various drawbacks if it is not implemented in an appropriate way. This applies to both the societal and the personal (cognitive level). Movement towards the dominant languages (in this case Latvian) needs to be viewed as a gradual process. Although each generation of newcomers might start with a passive knowledge of the dominant (second) language, this changes into a fluent grasp of the second language across generations. The original native language will lose its dominance in this process.     

Education and racial-ethnic differences in types of exercise in the United States

Epidemiological research typically focuses on the intensity, frequency, or duration of physical activity, without consideration of the socially meaningful dimensions of exercise. The authors use data from the 1998 National Health Interview Survey (N = 17,455) and information on participation in 15 exercise behaviors to examine educational differences in exercise among non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic blacks, and Mexican Americans. Factor analysis identifies three types of exercise: team sports (e.g., basketball, football), fitness activities (e.g., running, weight lifting), and activities that require the use of specialized facilities (e.g., golf, tennis). Cultural capital and human capital perspectives offer insight into different dimensions of the relationship between education and exercise. Whites disproportionately undertake facility-based exercise, blacks tend toward team and fitness activities, and Mexican Americans gravitate toward team sports. Our findings offer insight into the social stratification of health and can aid the design of public health interventions.     

Marital Disruption and Higher Education Among Women in the United States*

The general inverse relationship between marital disruption (separation and divorce) and educational status, commonly assumed by family sociologists, is demonstrated for both men and women using the 1/1000 sample of the 1970 United States Census. A minor, but interesting exception to this generally inverse relationship is noted for males with six or more years of college. This paper, however, focuses on a more dramatic and particularly significant deviation from the general pattern. Specifically, highly educated females – those with five or more years of college – have an especially high disruption rate compared to women with only four years of college. In fact, the disruption rate for women with five or more years of college exceeds that for women at every educational level except those who did not finish high school. The objective of this study was to see if those factors which differentiate women with four years of college from those with five or more are the same factors that differentiate between the "never disrupted" and the "ever disrupted" women with five or more years of college. The findings reveal that three variables – race, employment outside the home, and income – are associated with the likelihood that highly educated women will divorce or separate. These same variables also distinguish them from baccalaureate-level women. Four possible explanations, unrelated to the data analysis presented, are suggested for why a woman who enters graduate school significantly increases her probability of marital disruption.     

等待到结婚:美国贞洁教育的内涵、实施与成效

美国的贞洁教育是不同于传统的安全性教育的一种新的性教育．其典型特色在于鼓励青少年等待到结婚才经历性行为。迫于性革命带来的严重后果以及安全性教育的失败，美国逐渐将贞洁教育作为正式的青少争性教育并付诸实施。贞洁教育的实施收到了良好的效果，这是人类性教育史及人类发展史上的一大进步。     

Trends in Sexuality Education in United States and Canadian Medical Schools

Summary

There has been a concern that earlier gains in the teaching of human sexuality in medical schools may have eroded in recent years. An extensive survey of 109 U.S. and 13 Canadian medical schools revealed that a dramatic decrease in the number of curriculum hours devoted to human sexuality has not occurred. In fact, 28% of U.S. and 36% of Canadian schools have actually increased hours, and ninety-two percent of all medical schools responding currently offer core curriculum material in sexuality, averaging approximately 11 hours in U.S. and 18 hours in Canadian schools. Unfortunately, nearly a third of schools in both countries do not specifically address important health issues, such as sex and illness or disability, and some schools even neglect training in the taking of a sexual history. Data on these issues is important for making future decisions regarding the contents of the increasingly overburdened medical curriculum.