Young helpline callers and difference: exploring gender, ethnicity and sexuality in helpline access and provision

This article, which has its origin in a feasibility study carried out for three youth telephone helplines, focuses on gender, difference and helpline access by young people. During the research process the writers noted that for the three commissioning helplines, as is the case with the majority of other telephone helplines, approximately two‐thirds of callers are female. A helpline for young Muslims where the gender access ratio was 50/50 stood out as being different in this respect. Until recently, literature on gender and help‐seeking has tended towards making a blanket identification of males as experiencing difficulties in negotiating pathways to help. Although this difficulty of males is evident in relation to both help‐seeking and access to helplines, our study suggests that, at least in relation to helpline usage, when we take culture, ethnicity and sexuality into account, the help‐seeking situation may be more nuanced. This has implications in terms of enabling a cross‐section of young people to access helplines as well as with regard to helpline service development.     

How to do or not do things with words: The case of Koreans in Japan

In this article, I explore the ways in which ethnic identity is expressed by following the formulaic socio-linguistic norm, the very method of which defies the authenticity of identity itself, thereby asserting the identity's multi-facetedness as sustained in performative linguistic practice. I look at multi-sited socio-linguistic interactions among Koreans in Japan, who claim their primary identity to be that of North Korea's overseas citizens even though none of them have North Korean passport or nationality. Their identity, in other words, is based on ideological commitment, which is in reality supported by their ongoing linguistic practice. A close look at their socio-linguistic life reveals their ethnicity's dual or multiple ontology, which challenges among other things the currently dominant assertion of Japanese self in the western academic discourse.     

Border Crossings and Diasporic Identities: Media Use and Leisure Practices of an Ethnic Minority

The diaspora of peoples whose origins were in the Indian subcontinent (South Asia) and who are now living in Western countries (especially the U.S. and UK) provides an interesting example of processes of negotiation of new hybrid cultures and identities, using new technologies, such as the Internet, and older technologies like the video player, cable or satellite television, radio, and telephone. These developments may require a revision of the classic sociological picture of assimilation as a zero sum model of acculturation, in which the acculturation of immigrants and their children involves the gradual replacement of their ethnic culture by that of the culture of the host nation. The electronic media, in the context of policies of multiculturalism, may lead to an accentuation of religio-ethnic differences. Contrary to previous assumptions, middle-class immigrants may be more inclined to resist cultural assimilation than their lower-class counterparts.     

Entering a New Peer Group in Ethnically and Linguistically Diverse Childcare Classrooms

This short‐term longitudinal study examined changes over time in social competence with peers as a function of child and classroom characteristics. One hundred and seventy ethnically diverse low‐income children, all new to their peer groups, entered childcare classrooms with heterogeneous entry policies and ethnic/racial compositions. We observed them with their teachers and peers at entry and again six months later. Observers rated aggressive, anxious/withdrawn, and prosocial behavior with peers and observed complexity of peer play. Children who lacked peers with a shared ethnic heritage and children who spoke a different language at home than the language most often used in the classrooms appeared to be struggling with peer interaction six months after entry into the peer group. Children who had a peer who shared their ethnic heritage and entered the most ethnically diverse classrooms increased their complex peer play more than other children.     

Tibetan minzu market: the intersection of ethnicity and commodity

In downtown Chengdu a pocket of Tibetan culture has sprung up: a Tibetan market where Tibetans and Han Chinese meet to buy and sell ethnic minority products. Pointing to how Tibetan migration to Chengdu has contributed to the growth of a vibrant ‘minzu market’ attracting Tibetan and Han Chinese merchants, customers, Buddhist devotees, and voyeurs, this article presents novel understandings of the ethnic goods market in urban Chengdu. The article first explores the growth of the market, which is the result of a history of political and economic reforms, increased mobility, and religious revival. Second, it maps the market infrastructure according to the ethnicity of the shopkeepers and the commodities that are traded. Although there is still a clear ethnic division in the market, this article also documents the emergence of Han Chinese market participation in forms of trade that have historically been dominated by Tibetans.     

Naturalizing Korean ethnicity and making ‘ethnic’ difference: a comparison of North Korean settlement and foreign bride incorporation policies in South Korea

This article compares North Korean immigrants and foreign bride policies in South Korea. Despite being constructed as distinctive policy target groups, North Korean settlement and foreign bride incorporation policies exhibit striking similarities. The similarities result from the way policy problems are identified and certain solutions are justified; both North Korean immigrants and foreign brides are constructed a burden on welfare and as potential threats to social stability. Policy solutions are justified as they are designed to transform North Korean immigrants and foreign brides into ‘normal’ South Korean citizens. The major difference between two sets of policies lies in assumptions regarding cultural differences. Foreign brides are assumed to carry practices that are foreign and alien to Koreans, while North Korean immigrants are presumed to carry ‘authentic’ and ‘traditional’ Korean culture. Foreign brides’ cultures are visible and alien to South Koreans, and therefore are addressed under the banner of multiculturalism policies. North Korean immigrants are excluded from such policies. This exclusion reflects and reproduces the view of a Korean nation bounded by ethnic and cultural homogeneity.     

Women's participation in self‐help groups as a pathway to women's empowerment: A case of Nepal

Non‐governmental organizations (NGOs) and the government of Nepal have made some effort to reduce poverty in Nepal by creating women's affiliation groups, some of which are micro‐credit organizations. Using capabilities as defined by Amartya Sen (Development as freedom, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2000), which includes employment opportunities, women's ownership in productive resources such as land and/or homes, educational opportunities, and women's participation in decision‐making in the family, this study evaluated the extent to which women's ethnic group or caste affiliation affected a woman's likelihood of being empowered by participation in these groups. We analyzed a sample of 8,973 women which was taken from the 2011 Nepal Demographic and Health Survey. Previous research has demonstrated that participation in gender‐based groups is correlated with higher economic status. This study adds to the literature on women's affiliation groups by investigating the impact of structural factors, such as caste and ethnicity, on women's self‐help group participation (women's groups and credit groups).     

Reproducing the nation: reproduction,citizenship and ethno-demographic survival in post-communist Romania

The steady decline of fertility rates in Europe raises a number of important questions about the demographic and cultural reproduction of national societies. Apart from being confronted with population shrinkage and ageing, most European societies are also becoming more diverse. Demographic changes tend to exacerbate nationalist anxieties about the physical and cultural survival of the nation. This article develops the concept of national reproduction regime in order to analyse strategies and interventions at the biological, formal, and ethno-cultural levels of reproduction through which states seek to ensure the physical and cultural reproduction of the nation. It outlines the national reproduction regime of post-communist Romania by way of mapping and discussing key policies on biological and formal reproduction, as well as public discourses that frame these policies.     

Making foreign women the mother of our nation: the exclusion and assimilation of immigrant women in Taiwan

Citizenship awarding is politicised. Conceiving female marriage migration as a national threat, Taiwan's citizenship legislation is consciously designed and purposefully utilised to achieve exclusion and assimilation. Driven by a nationalistic impetus, it shows how Taiwan imagines itself as a modern, prosperous and homogenous nation and projects upon the immigrant outsiders as a threat to its self-identity. Examined through immigrant women's lived experiences, this citizenship legislation is biased by gender, class and ethnicity. The implementation of the legislation is not only an example of symbolic politics but also banal nationalism realised at grassroots level in the private domain. Immigrant women's lived experiences show that exclusion and assimilation stemmed from banal nationalism is not just an operation of symbolic politics but is also enmeshed with their everyday life.     

西藏小学双语教育研究

文章是基于作者在2003年在西藏几所小学进行社会调查,运用问卷调查、访谈等形式搜集的部分材料的基础上进行分类整理的。主旨是为了揭示:(1)在人类学、教育学领域梳理有关双语教育的普遍性理论;(2)当前西藏的双语教育状况;(3)老师、家长、学生和校长等群体对当前双语教育的观点和立场;(4)联系到学生在学校的学习成绩、个人发展前景、民族文化保存和继承,藏汉语在学校教育中的如何界定和评估问题;(5)分析学生的社会和家庭两个宏、微观社会语言环境。在研究方法上采用了定量和定性两种方法,亦即文字采访记录和数据统计方法。