Ukrainian and American identities as predictors of marital and parenting attitudes within the acculturating Ukrainian-American community

The Ukrainian-American community represents a unique acculturating community with respect to sociohistorical context, as well as specific demographic and cultural characteristics. The Ukrainian immigrant experience reflects the identity formed in relation to its challenges faced during the twentieth century and its complex relationship with the former Soviet Union. The purpose of this study was to examine the process of acculturation within the Ukrainian community in the United States and to examine how acculturation processes are related to attitudes on childrearing and traditional family formation. The participants for this sample included 188 participants drawn from the Ukrainian diaspora in Central New York. Analyses demonstrated the unique influence of religious beliefs and the simultaneous unique influence of both American identity and Ukrainian identity on attitudes towards traditional marriage formation and parenting. American identity was associated with more liberal attitudes towards divorce while both Ukrainian and American identity were associated with childrearing beliefs. Higher Ukrainian identity predicted more traditional parenting beliefs, while higher American identity predicted more progressive (less traditional) parenting beliefs. These results describe the distinctive features of the Ukrainian-American community in the United States that contribute to attitudes regarding marital behaviour as well as parenting beliefs.     

Predicting 2-year marital satisfaction from partners' discussion of their marriage checkup

This study tested whether the observed marital interactions of partners following a marriage checkup predicted marital satisfaction 2 years later. In addition, this study examined whether recommendations to pursue therapy predicted subsequent treatment seeking and whether changes in marital distress following the checkup remained stable over 2 years. Results suggest that the affective tone of a couple's interaction predicts later marital satisfaction. Further, receiving a treatment recommendation predicted subsequent treatment seeking for wives. Finally, support was found for the hypothesis that changes in marital distress are self-sustaining.     

Inspiration Across Cultures: Reflecting Teams among the Métis in Canada

Métis Community Services on Vancouver Island exists to serve the Métis, one of Canada's three aboriginal peoples. I went there, hoping for an exchange of thoughts and ideas that I could apply to my work back home in Sweden. I was welcome to observe and participate in the work. I was asked to talk about something that I wanted to share with them. The result was a workshop about how to apply the reflecting team mode of working when counselling aboriginal families. The outcome of our exchange was a blend of the ethics and rules of behaviour among aboriginal people and the Scandinavian reflecting team mode of working.     

Exchange rate and wage policies in Central and Eastern Europe

After the eastern enlargement of the European Union (EU) and due to increasing labor market integration, wage determination in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) has become a key issue in European economic policy making. In addition, a controversial discussion concerning the monetary integration of CEE countries into the EMU has emerged. Both issues have earned particular academic and political interest because Eastern and Western Europe are at different stages of economic development and volatile international capital flows seem to require either a higher degree of wage or exchange rate flexibility. Based on the Scandinavian model of wage adjustment by Lindbeck (1979), we analyze the role of exchange rates in the wage determination process of the Central and Eastern European countries to identify which exchange rate strategy contributes to faster wage convergence in Europe. Panel estimations suggest that workers in countries with fixed exchange rates are likely to benefit in the long run from higher wage increases.     

Planning with Preschoolers: City Mapping as a Planning Tool

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child requires that children ‘have the right to be heard in matters affecting them’ (Article 12). Given that planning matters such as housing, transport, services and recreation provision affect children, it is necessary, therefore, for planners to engage with children. While planning has made considerable progress in working with older children, preschool children have been overlooked. Preschoolers are commonly seen as lacking the understanding necessary to comprehend the city scale. This paper presents a tile-based city-mapping method that demonstrates preschool children do understand city-scale features and relationships. Further, this method could be used in planning to advocate for and to engage with very young children in planning conversations.     

Orphans in Africa: parental death,poverty, and school enrollment

We examine the impact of orphanhood on children's school enrollment in 10 sub-Saharan African countries. Although poorer children in Africa are less likely to attend school, the lower enrollment of orphans is not accounted for solely by their poverty. We find that orphans are less likely to be enrolled than are nonorphans with whom they live. Consistent with Hamilton's rule, the theory that the closeness of biological ties governs altruistic behavior, outcomes for orphans depend on the relatedness of orphans to their household heads. The lower enrollment of orphans is largely explained by the greater tendency of orphans to live with distant relatives or unrelated caregivers.     

Index of Authors Volume 56, 2001

Authors Index

Index of Authors Volume 56, 2001