Race, ethnicity, and depression in Canadian society

This study examines racial/ethnic differences in mental health using data from the 1996-97 National Population Health Survey. Three hypotheses are tested. First, a socioeconomic hypothesis tests if differences in family income, education, and low income explain racial/ethnic mental health variation. Second, a social resources hypothesis tests if differences in social support explain racial/ethnic mental health variation. Finally, an interaction hypothesis tests if mental health variation stems from specific interactions of race/ethnicity with economic and social factors. Although there are socioeconomic, social resource, and interaction effects, the analysis shows that they do not fully explain racial/ethnic mental health variation. Overall, our results suggest that East and Southeast Asian, Chinese, South Asian, and black Canadians have better mental health than English Canadians. Jewish Canadians have poorer mental health than English Canadians. All other racial/ethnic groupings have similar mental health as English Canadians.     

Grandfather caregivers: race and ethnic differences in poverty

We use data from the 2006 American Community Survey to examine race and ethnic differences in the effects of marital status and co-residence of the middle generation on the likelihood of poverty among grandfathers who have primary responsibility for co-resident grandchildren (N = 3,379). Logistic regression results indicate that race/ethnicity and household composition are significant predictors of poverty for grandfather caregivers: non-Hispanic white grandfathers, those who are married, and those with a co-resident middle generation are the least likely to be poor. The effects of race/ethnicity, marital status, and the presence of a middle generation are, however, contingent upon one another. Specifically, the negative effect of being married is lower among grandfathers who are Hispanic, African American, non-Hispanic, and non-Hispanics of other race/ethnic groups compared to whites. In addition, having a middle generation in the home has a larger negative effect on poverty for race/ethnic minority grandfathers than for non-Hispanic whites. Finally, the combined effects of marriage and a middle generation vary across race/ethnic group and are associated with lower chances of poverty among some groups compared with others. We use the theory of cumulative disadvantage to interpret these findings and suggest that race/ethnicity and household composition are synergistically related to economic resources for grandfather caregivers.     

Races without Racism?: everyday race relations in Singapore

In Singapore, race has a prominent place in the city state’s national policies. Its political ideology of multiracialism proclaims racial equality and protection for minority groups from racial discrimination. However, despite official rhetoric and policies aimed at managing and integrating the different ethnic groups, some scholars have argued that institutional racism does exist in Singapore. While it is public knowledge, with few exceptions, racist provocations and experiences of racism are not publicly discussed. In recent years, the advent of social media has made it possible for Singaporeans oftentimes unwittingly to express racially derogatory remarks. This has highlighted that racism is much more deep rooted. Yet, it still remains the white elephant in the room. This paper examines the sociopolitical context that has contributed to everyday racial discrimination and calls for a public acknowledgement of racism so as to combat racist practices.     

Who becomes an online activist and why: Understanding the publics in politicized consumer activism

This study draws attention to the emerging phenomenon of politicized consumer activism and uses public segmentation to identify the publics involved. The unique characteristics of politicized consumer activism (i.e., consumers acting for political rather than economic reasons and being driven by a political stance rather than morality or identity) render it distinct from other frameworks, such as self-interest-motivated consumer activism, political consumer activism, and consumer nationalism. To shed light on the participants involved in politicized consumer activism, the present study includes a public segmentation analysis of a case in a Chinese context. Building on the situational theory of publics (STP), this study incorporates three objective resources—economic, social, and cultural capital—as segmenting criteria. Data were collected by sending out self-administered questionnaires, resulting in 450 valid and complete questionnaires. A two-step cluster analysis identified three segments: the inactive unprivileged group (cluster 1), the moderate elites (cluster 2), and the active middle class (cluster 3). The degree of activism was lowest in cluster 1 and highest in cluster 3. The sociological significance of segmenting publics and the manifestation of the characteristics of politicized consumer activism through the segments are discussed.     

Political,institutional, and bureaucratic fuel for the arms race

Revolutionary changes in Eastern Europe are fundamentally intertwined with the thawing of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Paradoxically, the arms race between the superpowers continues. This paper examines the paradox by first considering the conventional explanations for improved relations and demonstrating their inadequacies, then turning to the structural factors that appear to help explain the changed relations, and finally examining some of the social forces that cause the arms race to continue despite the thawing of the Cold War. Structural factors cited here as having contributed to the improved relations include: changes in the global economy, the development of a civil society in the Eastern bloc, domestic and international peace initiatives, and cultural changes. Despite these changes, the arms race continues due to the stability of strategic policy and the way it is made, military-industrial institutional operations, political and economic interests, and government operations. In each of these areas, much sociological research is needed to help guide the policy-making process away from continuing the arms race.     

Immigration,Ethnicity, and Conflict: The California Chinese, 1849–1882*

Drawing on Bonacich's split market theory, the work of Hechter and Blalock on ethnic conflict, and the literature on social movements, the authors develop a model of factors producing conflict between native and immigrant workers. The model identifies the relative size of the immigrant group, the growth of the immigrant population, the desirability of jobs held by immigrant workers, economic conditions, the development of racist ideology among native workers, and the organization of native workers as factors possibly explaining the frequency of incidents of overt ethnic conflict and efforts to institutionalize discrimination through government action. The model is assessed by examining the situation of Chinese immigrants in California between 1849 and 1882. The data suggest that poor economic conditions, a well-developed racist ideology, and well-organized native workers best explain incidents of ethnic conflict and successful efforts to obtain discriminatory government action.     

‘Indigenous Rights’ or ‘Racial Privileges’: The Rhetoric of ‘Race’ in New Zealand Politics

The New Zealand parliamentary election campaign of 2005 was marked by a significant break in the consensus between the two major political parties, Labour and National, in the area of Maori affairs: a consensus that had previously been articulated in terms of a shared commitment to ‘biculturalism’ and the Treaty of Waitangi. In January 2004, the National Party launched an attack on government policies, describing them as giving unfair privileges to Maori based purely on ‘race’. The present paper examines the National Party's adoption of the rhetoric of ‘race’ and the conceptual, political and ideological considerations behind it. It also examines attitudinal, social policy and socioeconomic factors to explain the widespread acceptability of this rhetoric among the New Zealand public. These events are considered within the context of a growing academic and political critique of ‘culturalism’ in New Zealand social policy and social science.     

Race,Class, and Support for the Welfare State*

Two competing approaches to the study of African Americans—the race and class perspectives—have dominated attempts to explain their views on contemporary issues. To examine the race versus class debate, this study uses African Americans' views on government spending for five social welfare concerns: (1) improving and protecting the nation's health, (2) solving the problems of big cities, (3) halting rising crime rates, (4) dealing with drug addiction, and (5) improving the nation's education system. Data from the 1972–1990 General Social Surveys are used to compare middle-class blacks with both working-class blacks and whites and middle-class whites in terms of their support for government spending for those five social welfare issues. Examining group means, we found no significant difference between the two black classes but a significant difference between the black middle class and the white middle class on support for government spending in all areas except halting the rising crime rates (where there were no significant differences among the four groups). Similarly, using logistic regression analysis we found that race continued to have a significant effect on support for spending even after controlling for class, year, age, gender, education, income, and occupational prestige. In respect to social welfare spending, the results indicate support for the race, as opposed to the class, perspective; that is, race is better than class for predicting African American attitudes on government spending.     

Neighborhoods, Family, and Substance Use: Comparisons of the Relations across Racial and Ethnic Groups

This study examines how substance use among adolescents is related to several risk and protective factors derived from two ecological contexts: the neighborhood and the family. It explicitly investigates how the relationships between substance use and the factors vary across different racial and ethnic groups. Findings suggest many common correlates and processes of substance use for adolescents, regardless of race or ethnicity, including that neighborhood safety is associated with substance use. There are also some racial and ethnic group differences in relationships, including that low attachment to and lack of social opportunities in neighborhoods more strongly predict substance use among whites than among other racial and ethnic groups and that family management decreases the relationship between neighborhood safety and substance use among African Americans. A better understanding of the associations among factors that influence substance use across racial and ethnic subgroups can help effectively target preventive interventions for different groups.     

The French republican model of integration: the theory of cohesion and the practice of exclusion

What are the explaining factors for the wave of riots in France in November 2005? In providing some answers, this article begins by examining the practical usefulness of the French republican model of integration for social cohesion, highlighting the way its negation of other criteria, such as ethnicity, race, or religion, limit this national conception of citizenship and emphasizing these excluded factors as one of the main causes of frustration and resentment among migrant groups in France.The author compares these riots to the student movements in spring 2006 and shows some similarities as well as important differences between the explaining structural factors of these two youth-based social upheavals. One of the contributing distinctions is the experience of ethnic and racial discrimination as an important source of deep resentment. The author avoids reducing the riots simply to a clash between ethnic groups with specific ethnic interests or a class revolt. Instead, he stresses the relationship between specific social structural factors and spatial effects as the element that created the context for the riots by transforming inequalities into visible and indefensible discrimination. Several factors show that spatial aspects (in the form of segregation) are important alongside the ethnic/racial ones in explaining the riots.     

Institutional contexts and mortality: the case of Peru

Increasingly, attention is being given to institutional contexts to explain differential demographic and health outcomes. Regional inequality in terms of economic development, social institutions, and health services leads to regional disparities in health outcomes, especially infant mortality. The author uses linked data from population and economic censuses, government agencies, and health surveys on 24 Peruvian provinces to explore how differential economic development and institutional contexts influence health outcomes. Regional inequities based on rural population, subsistence activity, women's illiteracy, monthly income, gross domestic product, medical care, and health facilities are compared, with a cluster analysis identifying institutional contexts which have internal similarities. These contexts are able to discriminate differences in infant mortality. The analysis demonstrates that infant mortality in Peru varies systematically with social, economic, and medical contexts. Economic development, income and subsistence levels, women's literacy, and the amount of medical care and public health services influence health outcomes. It is clear that understanding such regional inequities can help explain disparities in health outcomes.     

Effekte der Gruppengröße auf die Arbeitsmarktintegration von Migranten

Some ethnic minorities tend to be less successful in the German labour market compared to the indigenous population even when controlling for relevant resources. The paper uses data from the German Mikrozensus to investigate to what extent the remaining ethnic disadvantages can be explained by relative minority group size. On theoretical grounds, ethnic concentration can have an impact on the members of the own minority as well as on members of other ethnic groups. The paper finds empirical evidence that a strong ethnic concentration impedes structural assimilation of Turkish migrants with a higher level of education, as the ethnic mobility trap model would suggest. However, the share of the Turkish population in a county does not only have an impact on the labour market performance of Turkish migrants (endogenous effect) but also affects the economic success of Italians and Germans (exogenous effects). The empirical results indicate, that controlling for regional concentration can – at least for some minority groups and to some extent – explain remaining ethnic disadvantages.     

政府创新社会管理新方式的对策研究——以上海为例

随着社会经济的发展,政府面临的社会管理形势越来越复杂和严峻,过去＂运动式＂、＂突击式＂的简单化管理方式越来越难以为继,特别在处理一些社会顽疾以及涉及公共利益的具体问题上,这些方式往往还会进一步激化社会矛盾。目前,国内外一些地区在处理社会管理相关问题上,尝试采取政府与民众直接沟通等方式,积极问计于民,取得了一定的经验。因此,如何借鉴国内外相关经验,进一步创新相关体制机制,探索政府管理新方式,是上海面临的重要任务。本文从系统科学的视角出发,共分六个部分,深入研究了政府社会管理职能和边界、梳理总结了国内外政府进行社会管理的有益经验、分析了上海政府在社会管理领域存在的主要问题、提出了政府社会管理的总体思路和可操作的改进对策建议。     

Rising from the Ashes of Cutback,Political Warfare and Degraded Services

Abstract

The economic and social decline of the white middle class over the last 20 years, fueled by intense economic shifts in global capital formation and worldwide market competition, has led to a conservative politics of the 1990s that harbingers a further erosion of the welfare state. This essay defines some of the critical areas which progressives must carefully examine if they are to counter conservative arguments more effectively, including a realistic assessment of the global economy, the role poor communities can play in social transformation, the need to reconfigure social services in today's politicized environment, the use of services as an economic investment in community, and the importance of expanding organizing activities throughout the field.     

A Preliminary Analysis of Associations Among Ethnic–Racial Socialization,Ethnic Discrimination,and Ethnic Identity Among Urban Sixth Graders

Drawing from cultural ecological models of adolescent development, the present research investigates how early adolescents received ethnic–racial socialization from parents as well as how experiences of ethnic and racial discrimination are associated with their ethnic identity (i.e., centrality, private regard, and public regard). Data for this study were drawn from a multimethod study of ethnically and socioeconomically diverse early adolescents in three mid‐ to high‐achieving schools in New York City. After accounting for the influences of race/ethnicity, social class, gender, immigrant status, and self‐esteem, parental ethnic–racial socialization was associated with higher levels of ethnic centrality (i.e., the extent to which youth identify themselves in terms of their group), more positive private regard (i.e., feelings about one's own ethnic group), and public regard (i.e., perceptions of other people's perceptions of their ethnic group). Ethnic discrimination from adults at school and from peers was associated with more negative perceptions of one's ethnic group (i.e., public regard). In addition, the association of ethnic–racial parent socialization and ethnic identity beliefs was stronger for those who reported higher levels of adult discrimination. Results highlight key ways in which ethnic identity may be shaped by the social ecologies in which adolescents are embedded.     

The Social Construction of Race and Minorities in Japan

This article provides an overview of the state of the field of racial and other minorities in Japan – a field that has developed in English mostly since the 1990s. The construction of race in Japan conflates race, ethnicity, language, culture, class, and citizenship. As a result, the majority “Japanese” are constructed against “foreigners,” both categories implying the aforementioned characteristics. Minorities in Japan lack some or all of the aforementioned traits: most are seen as racially different from Japanese but some are marginalized in other ways that support hierarchical social organization. After reviewing scholarship that analyzes the meaning of race in Japan, I briefly describe the major minority groups: Ainu, Okinawans, Burakumin, ethnic Koreans, foreign workers, Japanese Brazilians and mixed race Japanese.     

Inequality as an Explanation for Obesity in the United States

Over the past several decades, there has been a sharp increase in obesity across all population groups in the United States. In fact, the United States has one of the highest rates of obesity compared to other countries throughout the world. Obesity has become a national public health concern because it is related to a number of negative health, social, psychological, and economic outcomes. It is particularly concerning because racial/ethnic minorities and populations with the least education and highest poverty rates bear the largest burden of obesity. In addition, disparities in obesity tend to be gendered, with women experiencing the largest disparities in obesity by income, education, and race/ethnicity. In this review, I describe how social inequality is linked to obesity in the United States. I highlight elements of disadvantage at the individual‐, family‐, school‐, and neighborhood‐level that are linked to energy intake and expenditure, which are directly related to obesity, and draw from evidence and theories from multiple fields of the social and medical sciences. I also highlight the important role stress may play in linking disadvantage to obesity, particularly for women. I argue that understanding the complex mechanisms and processes that link social inequality to obesity requires multidisciplinary and multilevel frameworks.     

Reframing Black Social Work Students' Experiences of Teaching and Learning

This article draws on critical race theory (CRT) to foreground the role of race and racism in the ways in which Black students experience social work teaching and learning. It reviews some of the available literature on Black social work students' experiences of teaching and learning. The article reframes understandings of the perceived failures of this group of students to adapt to the world of higher education. It is argued that race and racism are salient determining factors in the experiences of Black students within social work education. Emphasis is placed on understanding the specificity of this group of students taking into cognisance the social, cultural, economic, and political contexts within which they are located. The article uses CRT as critical lens to reflect on peer support groups as potential counter spaces that can disrupt the negative experiences of black social work students.     

The possible role of the non-profit sector in Hungary

A common feature of most non-profit theories is their concentration on the service-providing role of non-profit organisations, and the neglect of their redistributional role. At the cost of some simplification, there are two possible public policy responses to social inequalities: (1) the welfare state model with welfare redistribution under government control; and (2) the non-profit-based model — a large network of private organisations heavily supported by the government and complemented by government delivery of services. After 40 years of state socialism, Hungary now faces some important questions. What will be the role of the new voluntary sector? What are the possibilities of following the Western European route — a version of the welfare state model — or the American way — a non-profit-based model bolstered by ‘third-party government’? The present Hungarian situation is ambiguous; we can find arguments for and against both. It is also argued that a mixed solution, some cooperation between the public and private sectors, is needed. The Western European, American and Hungarian experiences indicate that only a strong for-profit sector and a developed, harmonious government/non-profit partnership can ensure healthy social and economic development. The present Hungarian situation is far too complex and difficult to promise a fast and conflict-free establishment of this partnership. But both public institutions and government are acting in a way that may result in the development of a government-supported non-profit sector. There may be an opportunity for developing a ‘Hungarian welfare state model’.