Investigating demographic processes using innovative combinations of remotely sensed and demographic data

Population and Environment -     

ASSESSING THE PRIVATE SAFETY NET: Social Support among Minority Immigrant Parents

Traditional assimilation paradigms argue that immigrants are particularly disadvantaged in feelings of marginality and dislocation. Given these paradigms, we explore how minority and immigrant status are associated with perceptions of social support among parents of young children. We use the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), a nationally representative sample of children in kindergarten in 1998 and 1999. Most groups of minority immigrant parents, compared to their native-born white counterparts, report lower levels of perceived social support, and this gap persists even when demographic and socioeconomic characteristics are held constant. Additionally, English language ability, but not years spent in the United States, attenuates the disadvantages that Hispanic immigrant parents face in their perceptions of social support compared with white immigrant parents. Finally, Hispanic parents report substantial variation in their perceptions of social support by ethnicity. As social support is an important predictor of parents' economic stability and children's well-being, these findings have important implications for children of immigrants, an important and increasing demographic group in the United States.     

Likelihood analysis of joint marginal and conditional models for longitudinal categorical data

The authors develop a Markov model for the analysis of longitudinal categorical data which facilitates modelling both marginal and conditional structures. A likelihood formulation is employed for inference, so the resulting estimators enjoy the optimal properties such as efficiency and consistency, and remain consistent when data are missing at random. Simulation studies demonstrate that the proposed method performs well under a variety of situations. Application to data from a smoking prevention study illustrates the utility of the model and interpretation of covariate effects. The Canadian Journal of Statistics © 2009 Statistical Society of Canada     

Developing a Measure of Community Well-Being Based on Perceptions of Impact in Various Life Domains

A new measure of community well-being is developed based on the notion that community residents perceive the quality-of-life (QOL) impact of community services and conditions in various life domains (e.g., family, social, leisure, health, financial, cultural, consumer, work, spiritual, and environmental domains). These perceptions influence residents’ overall perception of community well-being, their commitment to the community, and their overall life satisfaction. Survey data were collected in the Flint area (Michigan, USA) in four waves (1978, 1990, 2001, and 2006). The data supported the nomological validity of the measure.     

Qualitative examination of rural service provision to persons with concurrent developmental and mental health challenges

Although there has been an international trend away from institutionalization to community-based care, this has not always been successful, particularly for the unique and vulnerable population diagnosed with both mental health and developmental disabilities. The challenge of meeting the needs of this population is increased in rural and remote areas. As a part of a larger study, this paper reports on the voices of service providers for people dually diagnosed as they maneuver through the considerable challenges of meeting complex needs while located in remote northern communities. The complexities of rural service provision for those with a dual diagnosis of mental illness and developmental disability is also highlighted and includes challenges of northern living, difficulties in diagnosis, and system level issues. This paper confronts the inequities in provision of effective community-based services to this population and draws attention to the need to support and develop local, integrated services in order to build inclusive communities for all.     

Identity construction through English language learning in intra-national migration: a study on Uyghur students in China

ABSTRACT

This study explores how a group of Uyghur minority students construct their identities in and through English language learning experiences as they move from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to study in a prestigious East coastal university in China. The research findings show that the processes of English language learning enable the ethnic minority students to develop multiple yet powerful identities, that is, a situated elite identity constructed as opposed to other Uyghur members and a positive heritage identity negotiated within the academic community, and allow them to imagine multilingual and multicultural memberships for themselves. The favourable identities thus forged are found to facilitate their adaptation to the host community. However, these minority elites are confronted with a series of problems in learning English compared to their Han counterparts, which hinder their socialisation into the society and upward social mobility. Finally, implications for policy-makers, the host institution, and ethnic students are discussed.     

Reducing bias through indirect social contact: assessing the impact of student involvement with faculty-led research on unauthorized immigration

This paper explores how working on a faculty-led research project influenced the views of Master of Social Work students concerning unauthorized immigrants. Five graduate assistants worked for one year with two faculty members and one doctoral student to code data from interviews with social workers at immigrant-serving organizations in South Carolina. The master’s students then reflected on what they learned from participating in data analysis tasks, indicating that the experience had further sensitized them to the social justice concerns confronting unauthorized immigrants. Drawing on social contact theory, we argue that student participation in faculty-led research can provide a form of indirect social exposure to other groups, which reduce bias, and suggest that such experiences be included in how educators conceptualize the implicit curriculum in schools of social work.