Nativity and citizenship status affect Latinos’ health insurance coverage under the ACA

ABSTRACT

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) aimed to increase health insurance access for the over 47 million uninsured people in the U.S.A., among whom ethnoracial minorities had the highest uninsured rates before the ACA. Studies have shown that Latinos have had the greatest improvements in health coverage under the ACA, but many may be at a significant disadvantage, specifically due to their nativity and immigration status, as the ACA explicitly excludes unauthorised immigrants from most of its provisions. Using the 2015 Latino National Health and Immigration Survey, a nationally representative sample of Latinos (n?=?1493), we find that variation in health insurance access among Latinos can be traced to immigration status. This study finds no differences among U.S.-born versus foreign-born Latinos in the likelihood of being uninsured in 2015. However, among foreign-born Latinos, unauthorised immigrants are five times more likely than naturalised citizens to be uninsured and less likely to visit a primary care provider or clinic, even after controlling for other factors including language, income and education.     

Gendering international student migration: an Indian case-study

ABSTRACT

Despite the mainstreaming of gender perspectives into migration research, very few attempts have been made to gender international student migration. This paper poses three questions about Indian students who study abroad. Are there gender differences in their motivations? How do they negotiate their gendered everyday lives when abroad? Is the return to India shaped by gender relations? An online survey of Indian study-abroad students (n?=?157), and in-depth interviews with Indian students in Toronto (n?=?22), returned students in New Delhi (n?=?21), and with parents of students abroad (n?=?22) help to provide answers. Conceptually, the paper draws on a ‘gendered geographies of power’ framework and on student migration as an embodied process subject to ‘matrices of (un)intelligibility’. We find minimal gender-related differences in motivations to study abroad, except that male students are drawn from a wider social background. However, whilst abroad, both male and female Indian students face challenges in performing their gendered identities. The Indian patrifocal family puts greater pressure on males to return; females face greater challenges upon return.     

Gendered Black Exclusion: The Persistence of Racial Stereotypes Among Daters

Employing questionnaires of 381 college students, this study examines the reasons why Latinos, Asians, and whites choose to include or exclude blacks as potential dates. First, we find that past structural explanations for low rates of interracial intimacy explain current disparities less among young people today. Only 10 % of respondents cited a structural explanation, lack of familiarity, or contact, as the reason they excluded blacks as possible dates. Second, the reasons for black exclusion vary across racial–ethnic–gender groups. Among non-blacks, whites were the most open to dating blacks, followed by Latinos and Asians. Asians and Latinos were more likely to exclude blacks because of social disapproval, and whites were more likely to exclude blacks because of physical attraction. Black women were more highly excluded than black men and more excluded because of their perceived aggressive personalities or behavior and physical attraction. Black men were more excluded because of social disapproval. Thus, persistent racial ideology continues to drive the social distance between blacks and non-blacks, particularly toward black females.     

Deconstructing diasporic mobilisation at a time of crisis: perspectives from the Palestinian and Greek diasporas

ABSTRACT

This paper focuses on the difficulties that diasporas face in relation to mobilising around helping the homeland at a time of crisis, using qualitative research on the Greek and Palestinian diasporas. Rather than assume that long-distance nationalism, emotional attachment to the homeland and diasporic obligation will galvanise diasporic populations into assisting, and mobilising around, the homeland, the paper argues that those in diasporas do not necessarily help their homelands in times of crisis, even if they have strong socio-cultural connections to it. At times of crisis these feelings are heightened but not do not always translate into direct action; this may especially be the case at times of prolonged crisis when past efforts to help do not seem to have worked. This paper argues that it is often hard for those in diaspora to find meaningful ways to help at a time of crisis and many question the effectiveness of their actions if they do not see positive outcomes over time. The paper demonstrates that trying to help the homeland can therefore be a frustrating process and can make those in diaspora feel distanced and isolated from the homeland due to their inability to find concrete ways to help.     

Are hafus ‘dirty’ or ‘special’? Negotiating mixed-race identities among Japanese-Indonesian youths in Indonesia

ABSTRACT

This is one of the first papers to examine the experiences of mixed-race individuals who have one Japanese parent, commonly referred to as ‘hafu’, living outside of Japan. Specifically, it analyzes the experiences of Japanese-Indonesians living in Indonesia who have attended an overseas Japanese school and an Indonesian or international school in Indonesia or elsewhere. Japan’s dual positioning – as inferior to the West and superior to the Rest – impacts upon the experiences of mixed-race individuals in varying ways depending on the predominant discourse operating at the school. At the Japanese school, the discourse of Japanese superiority, which draws on both the cultural legacy of Japanese imperialism and contemporary regional socio-economic hierarchy, deemed the hafus as inferior in relation to their Japanese peers for not being ‘pure’ Japanese. At the Indonesian school, the regional hierarchy deemed the hafus as superior in relation to their Indonesian peers. In these cases, mixed-race individuals find themselves on opposite ends of Japan’s dual positioning. Finally, at the English-medium international school, the cosmopolitan discourse that privileges mixedness (and western cultural capital) at times inverted the positionality of those who were of mixed descent in relation to their Japanese peers. The paper discusses the way hafus submit to, negotiate or challenge the prevailing discourses through the use of varying strategies (sometimes depending on gender) such as performing Japaneseness or bicultural competence, constructing social distance, or physically fighting. Furthermore, the paper extends the application of methodological transnationalism to analyze the way multiple regional and global discourses intersect to simultaneously and situationally affect hafu experiences.     

Making discipline relevant: toward a theory of culturally responsive positive schoolwide discipline

Abstract

Implicit in the discourse on school discipline reform is the belief that utilizing positive school discipline practices, as opposed to suspension and classroom removal, will necessarily reduce the racially disproportionate representation of black and brown students in school discipline outcomes. Yet even in schools that utilize positive school discipline approaches, racial disproportionality persists; students of color continue to be disciplined more often and more harshly than their white peers, even when controlling for gender, socioeconomic status, and behavior. Framed by Vavrus and Cole’s concept of the socioculturally contextualized disciplinary moment, this article argues for an approach to positive discipline that incorporates the tenets of culturally relevant education. Implications for policy, research, and practice are discussed.     

Racial and Ethnic Differentials in Idleness,Highest-Risk Idleness,and Dropping Out of High School

This research investigates three different indicators of at-risk socio-demographic conditions including dropping out of high school, being idle, and being in highest-risk idleness among non-immigrant persons aged 19–24. Using data from the 2000 US Census, our results detail the differentials in these characteristics for 30 different racial/ethnic groups that are further broken down by gender. The findings indicate a wide range in the prevalence of these at-risk socio-demographic conditions. Groups that tend to be the most at-risk in terms of these indicators include African Americans, Cambodians, Laotians, Native Americans, other Hispanic whites, and white Mexicans. With the exception of the other Pacific Islander and Thai, young women have lower high school dropout rates than do young men. However, young women are substantially more likely than young men to be idle which we define as not being in school, the labor force, or the military. After defining highest-risk idleness as never-married persons without children who are idle, however, the rates are slightly lower for young women than for young men.     

How Australian Female Muslim Students Interpret Challenges in High School Sports

Abstract

The present study focuses on the experiences of female Muslim students in school sporting activities in Australian public high schools. Specifically, the study examines how the students interpret their engagement in relation to their Islamic background. The study aims to provide deeper understanding and greater awareness of female Muslim students’ participation in sporting activities within the public high school environment and the challenges they may face. The study employed critical race and social identity theories as an analytical framework. In addition, the study utilized qualitative research methods. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 female Muslim students and 4 teachers responsible for sporting activities in school. The findings of the study reveal that despite a variety of sporting activities provided by Australian public high schools, some of these activities were challenging for Muslim girls to participate in. The study also found that there is a strong relationship between students’ Islamic background and their participation in schools sporting activities. The study recommends that educators and teachers who work with youth from different background are provided training on equity issues arising from ethnicity, race, culture, religion and other identity categories.     

Between international student mobility and work migration: experiences of students from EU’s newer member states in Denmark

ABSTRACT

Since 2009, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of students from EU’s newer member states, who enrol as full-degree students at Danish universities. Attracted by the fee-free access to highly ranked universities, these students often arrive with dreams of creating better lives for themselves, and of accumulating Western educational capital. Students from the EU’s newer member states are usually reliant on jobs to sustain themselves in Denmark. However, many find it hard to get regular jobs, and some of them become trapped in semi-legal employment or in low-status, low-paid jobs. Drawing on empirical material collected during a long-term ethnographic fieldwork among full-degree students attending English-medium MA-programmes at a Danish university, this article explores how students from the EU’s newer member states make sense of their lives as students and workers in Denmark, and how they respond to experiences of unequal access to student jobs.     

Conflict, Consensus, and Coalition: Economic and Workforce Development Strategies for African Americans and Latinos

Any work toward racial equity in America will need to include strengthening the black–Latino coalition. While there are political and social tensions between these groups, much of the underlying issue involves real and perceived perceptions of economic competition, particularly the notion that immigrant Latinos undercut African American wages. We note that there is some evidence that immigrants pull down incomes of US-born unskilled workers—both black and Latino. We argue, however, that highly restrictive immigration policy will have minimal effects and erode collective political power; a superior alternative is working together to reduce high school dropout rates, raise the minimum wage, reintegrate ex-offenders, rigorously enforce antidiscrimination law, promote comprehensive immigration reform, and pursue community development. Such an analysis is gaining ground in grassroots efforts to build trust and forge policy coalitions between Latinos and African Americans.     

Exposure to School and Residential Diversity: A New Test of Perpetuation Theory

Perpetuation theorists have recently hypothesized intergenerational consequences associated with participation in racially/ethnically diverse environments; however, few studies have considered possible intergenerational implications when offering empirical tests of perpetuation theory. By linking longitudinal administrative, geographic, and census data from students who attended Jefferson County Public Schools—one of the most racially/ethnically desegregated school districts in the USA—we specifically test whether early exposure to racial/ethnic diversity in neighborhoods and in high schools is associated with students living in more racially/ethnically diverse neighborhoods later in life. Using multilevel models, we find that early exposure to diversity in both neighborhoods and schools is significantly related to neighborhood diversity in both early and mid-adulthood and for both black and white students. However, the strength of these relationships diminished over time.     

New directions in exploring the migration industries: introduction to special issue

ABSTRACT

This Special Issue explores the directions through which we can take research on the migration industries. In this introduction, we review existing research on migration industries to look at how this explores questions on how migration industries foster, assist and constrain migration. In doing so, we argue that these questions have primarily been approached from three different perspectives: structuralist, labour market and mobilities, but these perspectives often speak past rather than to one another. In highlighting how these approaches can work together, the question that the Special Issue explores becomes how do the migration industries function and when/where/how do they intersect with other domains of migration. In highlighting the contributions that each paper in the special issue makes to answering this question, we show how an understanding of the migration industries is not just a research field in itself, but can strengthen our understanding of migration.     

‘No more Turkish music!’ The acculturation strategies of teachers and ethnic minority students in Flemish schools

ABSTRACT

While considerable research has focused on the process and factors affecting acculturation, there is little research that investigates how members of minority and majority groups define acculturation in educational settings. Ethnographic research and qualitative interviews in three secondary schools in Flanders (Belgium) show that teachers and ethnic minority students have different ideas and expectancies regarding the concept ‘integration’, which appears to affect student–teacher relationship. Berry et al.’s [1989. “Acculturation Attitudes in Plural Societies.” Applied Psychology: An International Review 3 (2): 185-206. doi:10.1111/j.1464-0597.1989.tb01208.x.] acculturation orientations are used as a theoretical template to analyse teachers’ and ethnic minority students’ discourses about acculturation. Analyses reveal that students of immigrant descent perceive acculturation mainly in terms of the establishment of intergroup contact. In contrast, teachers find it harder to disconnect cultural maintenance from contact and participation. By suggesting some form of cultural adoption, teachers hope to socialise their ethnic minority students into the culture of the dominant ethnic group and prepare them for their future. These distinct interpretations of ‘integration’ in everyday life (which actually refers to acculturation) often leads to misunderstandings between ethnic minority students and their teachers, even to conflict, as many students feel that their cultural background is disparaged and not fully valued in school.     

Effect of School Racial Composition on Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms from Adolescence Through Early Adulthood

We investigate the effect of high school racial composition, measured as percent of non-Hispanic white students, on trajectories of depressive symptoms from adolescence to early adulthood. We also explore whether the effect of school racial composition varies by respondent race/ethnicity and whether adult socioeconomic status mediates this relationship. We analyzed four waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health using 3-level linear growth models. We restricted our sample to respondents enrolled in grades 9–12 in 1994/5 who were interviewed at a minimum in Waves I and IV. This resulted in 10,350 respondents enrolled in 80 high schools in 1994/5 (5,561 whites, 2,030 blacks, 1,834 Hispanics, 738 Asians, and 187 of other race). As the percentage of white students increased at the high school respondents attended in 1994/5, blacks reported more depressive symptoms. This effect did not vary by age. In comparison, Asian and Hispanic respondents who attended predominantly white high schools had lower levels of depressive symptoms than their counterparts who attended predominantly minority schools, but they also experienced a slower decline in depressive symptoms through early adulthood. Adult SES mediated the relationship between high school racial composition and depressive symptoms for black, but not for Asian or Hispanic respondents. Our results suggest that high school racial composition is associated with trajectories of depressive symptoms through early adulthood, but the effect differs by respondents’ race/ethnicity. Racial/ethnic disparities in depressive symptoms during early adulthood may have their origins in adolescence.     

Moving on or moving back? The temporalities of migrant students’ lived versus imagined school careers

In migration research there has not been much work on temporal dimensions of migration experiences (with the exception of Griffiths in this journal). This article investigates migrant students’ temporal framings of their lived versus imagined school careers, drawing on participant observation and interviews with students in language introduction classes in upper secondary school in Sweden. The findings document student experiences of temporal desynchronies: as seen in reports of slow time and repetition, suspended time, temporal uncertainty and blockage. The analyses highlight the students’ experiences of being temporally out of line (in Ahmed’s words). The narratives of their past and future school lives reveal a discontinuity between the students’ lived school experiences, on the one hand, and imagined school careers on the other, contrasting life as lived with both their own hope and plans and with the school careers of other students. The analyses highlight the importance of including temporal dimensions in the analyses of post-migration school landscapes.     

武陵山片区务工者家庭教育需求——基于湖南湘西州古丈县的调研数据

教育与经济的悖论源于贫困地区人才逆向流动的现实,然而从国家第一个连片开发的武陵山片区外出务工者的调研表明,务工是短期、直接、表面收益,教育是长期、间接、根本收益;优先发展教育甚至是教育第一发展是贫困地区根本改变落后状态的必然选择,现在是,将来也是。教育与经济相互促进,导致理论上出现教育与经济的悖论可能的原因是过分注重短期效益、直接效益、表面效益。     

Hiding within racial hierarchies: how undocumented immigrants make residential decisions in an American city

In the United States, the residential segregation of Latinos from whites has persisted but has fallen between Latinos and blacks. Demographers offer the size of the Latino population that is undocumented as one potential explanation for these patterns. However, little work has examined undocumented immigrants’ first-hand accounts of residential decision-making. Drawing on interviews with undocumented-headed, Latin American-origin families in Dallas, Texas, we explore how lacking legal status relates to residential selection. We find that some undocumented families perceive certain neighbourhoods to be ‘off-limits’, not only because of financial constraints, explicit legal impediments to their tenure, or individual racial preferences, but also because they perceive them as high-risk: Most sample households agree that law enforcement patrols areas with white majorities in order to exclude Latinos and, specifically, the undocumented. As a strategy to minimise the perceived risk law enforcement poses to their families’ stability, some undocumented families in the study report opting into neighbourhoods with Latino majorities in order to ‘blend in’, whereas others describe feeling safe in neighbourhoods with black majorities where they can ‘hide in plain sight’. We demonstrate how undocumented families’ perceptions of law enforcement in neighbourhoods with differing racial compositions may partly underlie trends in residential selection and stratification.     

The U.S. mainstream expands – again

Building on neo-assimilation ideas, we conceptualise the ‘mainstream’ and then find compelling evidence of its expansion in the U.S. in the rising number of individuals who come from mixed minority–majority backgrounds. In terms of the contexts in which they are raised and their social identities and affiliations, on the whole they resemble whites more than they do minorities, and they marry whites at very high rates. Individuals who are partly black are exceptions to some of these patterns. We note an important similarity between this expansion and the one associated with post-World War II assimilation: both are connected with growing diversity of identity and ethnic expression in the mainstream. An equally important difference lies in the more modest magnitude of the current expansion. We close with a series of questions for future research raised by our argument.     

Self-employed migrants from EU Member States in Poland: differentiated professional trajectories and explanations of entrepreneurial success

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the diversified self-employment trajectories of intra-EU migrant entrepreneurs in Poland in the context of the culture hierarchies persistent in Europe. The business ventures are established by intra-EU labour migrants, graduates of Polish universities, but also lifestyle migrants and individuals who migrate to Poland because of a partner or family residing here. Nationals of the post-2004 Member States are more inclined to register their own business entities than are nationals of the EU-15 countries: they are also more susceptible to the risk of failure (closing or suspending an enterprise). Qualitative research reveals that the career trajectories of EU-15 nationals are not necessarily dependent upon integration efforts. Immigrant entrepreneurs from countries like the UK or Spain may attract customer attention by profiting from their cultural background, but many of them exhibit a tendency to live in language and cultural enclaves. Migrant entrepreneurs from the EU-12 typically become successful in their business activities when they are well integrated with the host society - especially if they have a good knowledge of Polish.     

The significance of the racial contract in teachers’ college expectancies for students of color

ABSTRACT

Drawing on the theories of the racial contract and whiteness as property, this one-year qualitative case study explored the ways in which 27 classroom teachers harnessed school structure and classroom curriculum to support the college readiness of students of color in two California school districts. The study discovered that these teacher participants displayed different degrees of race consciousness, prompting contradictory expectancy practices. Negative expectations often reinforced ideologies and material conditions associated with the racial contract and, in effect, perpetuated whiteness as the racial construct of college-going abilities. Conversely, those teachers who operated with a higher degree of race consciousness reported more equitable teaching practices that emphasized self-respect, solidarity, and education as a collective contract for the common good. The study draws conclusions that impact educational policies, particularly those that identify college readiness as the benchmark of equity and high-school success.