Race and opportunity in a public alternative school

This qualitative case-study explores questions about the stratifying role of public alternative schools created for ‘at-risk’ youth by analyzing the school experience of students who attend a single continuation high school and the process of student enrollment and referral to that school. Drawing on the concept of whiteness as property, this article demonstrates how the continuation high school maintained and protected the property functions of whiteness through acts of symbolic violence and the systematic removal of non-white students from the school district’s mainstream high school. Instead, students were placed in a substandard alternative school lacking in material and intellectual resources. Furthermore, teachers, counselors, and administrative staff at the mainstream and continuation high schools alike drew upon the racial ideology of merit to rationalize the overrepresentation of non-white youths at the study school and to ‘deracialize’ the student referral process.     

Emotions and cosmopolitan sociability: Barriers and opportunities for intercultural encounters amongst new Chinese migrants in New Zealand

Emotions matter, particularly in experiences of migration. This article explores how emotions are involved in everyday intercultural encounters and the role of emotions in generating cosmopolitan sociability in the context of migration. The article is based upon qualitative research with 80 Chinese 1st and 1.5 generation migrants in New Zealand. We focus on ‘contact zones’ as social spaces where migrants have uneven opportunities to encounter cultural others and where ‘emotional dissonance’ can emerge through unsuccessful intercultural exchanges. In order to generate a sense of comfort and familiarity in such conflicted spaces, migrants need to invest in ‘emotional labour’ to engage in more cosmopolitan sociability as an attempt to transform ‘contact zone’ to ‘comfort zone’. Through this article we argue that emotions can both promote and encourage, but also undermine and limit the capacity to perform cosmopolitan sociability and build intercultural relations.     

Bullying and Victimization Among Young Elementary School Children: The Role of Child Ethnicity and Ethnic School Composition

School-aged children with an ethnic minority background are relatively often involved in bullying and victimization, but the role of ethnic composition of schools in this context remains unclear. This study examined the relation between ethnic minority background, ethnic school composition, and bullying behaviour around primary school entry in the Netherlands. The study was based on a 2008/2009 school survey in Rotterdam, a Dutch city where about 50 % of children have a non-Dutch background. For 8523 children, teacher reports of bullying behaviour at age 5–6 years were available. Children with a non-Dutch background had higher odds of being a victim (adjusted OR 1.41, 95 % CI 1.11, 1.80), bully (OR 1.38, 95 % CI 1.20, 1.58) or bully-victim (OR 1.38, 95 % CI 1.19, 1.62) than children of Dutch national origin. Ethnic diversity in schools increased children’s risk of bullying behaviour (e.g. OR_victim per 0.1 increase in 0–1 diversity range = 1.06, 95 % CI 1.00, 1.13), with children of both Dutch and non-Dutch national origin relatively more often involved in bullying in ethnically diverse schools. The proportion of same-ethnic peers in school reduced the risk of bullying among children of Dutch national origin (e.g. OR_victim per 10 % more same-ethnic children = 0.90, 95 % CI 0.83, 0.98), but not among non-Dutch children. In conclusion, ethnic minority background and ethnic diversity within schools are risk factors for bullying among 5–6 year olds. Plausibly, reductions in absolute numbers of bullying events may be obtained with tailor-made interventions in ethnically diverse schools. Such interventions should preferably be offered early in the school curriculum.     

Wealth Inequality in Black and White: Cultural and Structural Sources of the Racial Wealth Gap

Using data from the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances, this research examines competing and complementary cultural and structural explanations of the sources of racial differences in wealth. We use OLS regression and quantile regression to identify the major individual-level sources of wealth differences between African Americans and whites. Whites have more favorable wealth characteristics than do African Americans on all of the variables in the analysis: gender of household head, bankruptcies, spending patterns, stock ownership, business ownership, home ownership, inheritance, educational attainment, income, occupation, age, and number of children. Cultural factors, having a female-headed family, spending patterns, and inheritance account for little of the racial wealth gap. Racial differences in income, stock ownership, and business ownership account for much of the explained racial wealth gap. Moreover, compared with whites, African Americans receive significantly lower wealth returns to education, age, income, stock ownership, and business ownership. We discuss the implications of our findings.     

Variations in Citizenship Profiling by Generational Status: Individual and Neighborhood Characteristics of Latina/os Questioned by Law Enforcement About Their Legal Status

Although racial profiling is widely studied, the related issue of citizenship profiling by law enforcement has received little scholarly attention. In this study we begin to address citizenship profiling, which may be highly salient in light of the increasing policing of immigration in the United States through Secure Communities and other federal, state and local efforts to localize the enforcement of immigration laws. Using a sample of 563 Latina/o adults residing in 46 neighborhoods in El Paso County, Texas, USA, we assess the impacts of a variety of individual and neighborhood characteristics on the likelihood of being questioned about citizenship status by law enforcement. Results using hierarchical generalized linear models (HGLMs) show that, at the individual-level, first-generation Latina/o immigrants and second-Latina/os are more likely to be questioned about citizenship status than third- and later-generation Latina/os. At the neighborhood-level, living in a neighborhood with a mid-level of Latina/o immigrant characteristics increased the probability of being questioned. The implications of these findings for citizenship profiling are discussed.     

Living a Deportation Threat: Anticipatory Stressors Confronted by Undocumented Mexican Immigrant Women

Previous sociological research shows that exposure to stress varies by individuals’ social statuses and is a central mechanism in producing mental health disparities. This line of research suggests that ethnoracial groups are more exposed to racial discrimination, thus negatively impacting their mental health. There has also been a growing literature showing how legal status impacts the mental health of immigrants and their families. However, the sociology of mental health and migration literature has largely remained disparate. This paper bridges these literatures to highlight how living a deportation threat manifests itself as an anticipatory stressor that negatively impacts undocumented Mexican migrant women’s access to resources, social relationships, and social roles. Based on 30 semi-structured in-depth interviews with undocumented Mexican immigrant women from Houston, Texas, my findings reveal living a deportation threat is a perpetual anticipatory stressor that intensifies the effects of avoiding authorities, family fragmentation, and economic uncertainty. I argue this anticipatory stressor transforms into a chronic stressor that undocumented Mexican women confront daily. By situating this study within an anti-immigrant social context, it highlights the social processes and mechanisms that exacerbate the stressors undocumented Mexican immigrant women confront.     

Deconstructing Immigrant Illegality: A Mixed-Methods Investigation of Stress and Health Among Undocumented College Students

Research has established that being undocumented is a risk factor for mental and physical health conditions. Much of this work emphasizes undocumented immigrants’ chronic stress, yet key questions about pathways to health remain. The mere state of being undocumented is viewed as a general stressor, without considering actual levels of stress or identifying dimensions of documentation status that contribute to overall stress levels. Drawing on surveys and interviews with undocumented students at the University of California, we uncover the everyday manifestations of four dimensions of immigrant “illegality”: academic concerns, future concerns, financial concerns, and deportation concerns, and their association with reported stress levels and self-rated health. Survey data establish undocumented students’ high levels of stress and poorer health, in comparison to previous research on other national samples. In a structural equation model, we found academic and future concerns to be significantly associated with higher stress, which was in turn, associated with poorer self-rated health. Financial concerns were not associated with higher perceived stress but were directly associated with poorer self-rated health. Notably, deportation concerns did not have any significant independent associations with stress or health. We use our qualitative data to identify specific stressors embedded within these four dimensions. Our findings inform understandings of the health risks arising from documentation status.     

Understanding and Using Mediators and Moderators

Mediation and moderation are two theories for refining and understanding a causal relationship. Empirical investigation of mediators and moderators requires an integrated research design rather than the data analyses driven approach often seen in the literature. This paper described the conceptual foundation, research design, data analysis, as well as inferences involved in a mediation and/or moderation investigation in both experimental and non-experimental (i.e., correlational) contexts. The essential distinctions between the investigation of mediators and moderators were summarized and juxtaposed in an example of a causal relationship between test difficulty and test anxiety. In addition, the more elaborate models, moderated mediation and mediated moderation, the use of structural equation models, and the problems with model misspecification were discussed conceptually.

Is the Study of Happiness a Worthy Scientific Pursuit?

This paper critiques the view that the study of happiness is not a worthy scientific pursuit. The happiness set point and hedonic treadmill theories denote the complexity of increasing happiness levels due to genetic limitations and adaptation, however, there is mounting evidence to suggest that with the use of appropriate measures and specific interventions aimed at fostering strengths and virtues, happiness can be increased. Furthermore, the benefits of investigating methods for increasing happiness include improvements in physical, psychological and social health and well-being. It is concluded that approaching human needs from a top down or holistic standpoint where individuals can use their strengths to overcome life’s challenges, is beneficial to health and well-being. Hence, the study of happiness is a worthy scientific pursuit.     

Education,Happiness and Wellbeing

Answers to the questions ‘Does education influence happiness and if so, how and how much?’ depend on how one defines and operationalizes ‘education’, ‘influences’ and ‘happiness’. A great variety of research scenarios may be constructed from our three essential variables. What public policies one ought to adopt and implement regarding the influence of education on happiness depends minimally on which of the great variety of research scenarios one adopts and maximally on lots of other things as well. My personal preference is for a robust definition of the three terms. Because human beings are complex organisms, an adequate construction of the idea of human wellbeing must also be complex. Therefore, any discipline-driven, reductionist definition that pyschologizes, medicalizes, economizes, geneticizes, socializes or politicizes the idea should be avoided.