Why bother with testing? The validity of immigrants’ self-assessed language proficiency

Due to its central role in social integration, immigrants’ language proficiency is a matter of considerable societal concern and scientific interest. This study examines whether commonly applied self-assessments of linguistic skills yield results that are similar to those of competence tests and thus whether these self-assessments are valid measures of language proficiency. Analyses of data for immigrant youth reveal moderate correlations between language test scores and two types of self-assessments (general ability estimates and concrete performance estimates) for the participants’ first and second languages. More importantly, multiple regression models using self-assessments and models using test scores yield different results. This finding holds true for a variety of analyses and for both types of self-assessments. Our findings further suggest that self-assessed language skills are systematically biased in certain groups. Subjective measures thus seem to be inadequate estimates of language skills, and future research should use them with caution when research questions pertain to actual language skills rather than self-perceptions.     

进步时代“美国化”的公民教育与反思

20世纪前后,大量东欧、南欧新移民涌入美国城市,受到本土主义者的强烈排斥。＂新＂、＂旧＂移民团体之间的对立,导致美国社会面临撕裂的态势。社会各界广泛参与,共同确立了公民教育的＂美国化＂目标,有效地促进了新移民子女对城市主流文化的了解、对民主思想观念的认同以及对美国主流生活的融入,保障了美国城市化的快速发展及长治久安。进步时代＂美国化＂公民教育的举措,引发了对目前我国农民工及其子女如何融入城市的反思。     

Psychosocial risk factors and processes impeding adaptive capacities and contributing to psychosocial distress among later-life Egyptian immigrants

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study explores and describes the transactional and cumulative psychosocial stressors that later-life Egyptian immigrants encounter upon coming to the United States, and how they impede their adaptive capacities, hinder their adjustment efforts, and impact their psychosocial well-being. Such stressors are more pronounced among those who immigrated to the United States from Egypt after reaching the retirement age of 60 for two reasons. First, they experience pre-immigration stressors that force or expedite their departure from Egypt under duress, thus incurring numerous financial and symbolic losses. Secondly, in the last developmental stage, when age-related losses are triggered, they are concomitantly exposed to a starkly different lifestyle, language, cultural norms, living and financial arrangements, roles, and relationships. All such circumstances contribute to a sense of confusion, guilt, shame, and being a burden on others, which culminate in withdrawal, isolation, and distress. The findings of this study can be used to inform psychosocial and therapeutic interventions and guide the development of appropriate social work programs, services, and policies for later-life Egyptian immigrants in particular and older Arabic-speaking immigrants in general.     

RIVERINE CROSSINGS: GENDER,IDENTITY AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF NATIONAL MYTHIC NARRATIVE IN THE CRYING GAME

The Crying Game's central, tragic theme of warrior/lovers caught between their love for one another and loyalty to their respective factions has significant roots in early Celtic mythology. The elegaic theme of potential lovers forced into ill-fated combat that frames the film's events also, significantly, bears the weight of the film's most unambiguous political commentary, when Fergus speaks directly to the picture of Jody in Dil's apartment, telling him: ‘You should have stayed at home.’ This sad remonstration, which clearly lays responsibility for the chain of causality that has led to so much suffering not with Jody, but with the British state, is similar in quality to Cu Chulainn's lament as he contemplates his meeting with Ferdia. When we listen carefully for ways in which Celtic mythical themes underlie and nuance the film's events, different rhythms emerge, accenting different beats.     

Eros,eroticism and the pedagogical process

This essay examines the role of authenticity as it appears as a factor in Irish cultural production. Taking examples from Yeats's folklore collections, tourist marketing and beer advertisements, it suggests, using the writings of Adorno, Baudrillard and Jacob Golomb, that the trope of ‘authenticity’ persists, in variant forms, as a marker of how Irish material and textual culture ‘promotes’ itself in a post-colonial context.     

Immigration and Immigrants

Abstract

Public opinion polls conducted from 1964 to 1999 found that Americans' desire to reduce immigration increased dramatically, but there existed a wide variation regarding which nationalities were to be restricted. Furthermore, the majority believed that many immigrants wind up on welfare and raise taxes for Americans and, hence, cause problems for the United States. This article reports on these findings and their implications for current political attitudes toward immigration and recent change and proposed changes inimmigration laws and programs.     

‘Always up for the craic’: young Irish professional migrants narrating ambiguous positioning in contemporary Britain

This paper explores the experiences of recent Irish highly qualified migrants who, having left post-Celtic Tiger Ireland, arrive in post-‘Peace Agreement’ Britain. Our paper contributes to understanding the enduring salience of place and how expressions of identities are framed by specific place-based factors as well as by temporality. We explore how these migrants’ narratives, as ‘successful’ professionals, are framed by complex intersections of historical legacies and changing socio-economic and intra-EU migration patterns. We consider the extent to which residual anti-Irish stereotypes remain, or indeed have re-emerged since the economic recession, and how these negative perceptions may impact on expressions of Irishness. Focusing on accents and other markers of identity, we discuss how Irishness may be constructed through a spectrum of visibilities at different times and in different places. This spatial-temporal perspective may help to go beyond a simplistic, one dimensional ethnic lens by highlighting the contextualities of identities.     

Family matters: the role of the family in immigrants' destination language acquisition

Studies of immigrants' destination language acquisition to date have focused on the individual. In contrast, this paper is concerned with the relationships among family members in the determinants of destination language proficiency among immigrants. A model of immigrant language proficiency is augmented to include dynamics among family members. It is tested using data on a sample of recent immigrants. Children are shown to have a negative effect on their mother's language proficiency, but no effect on their father's. There is a substantial positive correlation between the language skills of spouses. This is due to the correlation between spouses in both the measured and the unmeasured determinants of destination language skills, even when country of origin fixed effects are held constant.

变动和多元的美国社会与文化——解读《移民国家与大众社会》

文章从文化学和社会学的视角,通过追溯美国移民历史,解读了《当代美国——一个超级大国的成长》一书的第五编《移民国家与大众社会》的主要观点,揭示了移民给美国社会造成的变动和多元的大众文化特色。文章认为,多元文化和价值观的碰撞并没有造成美国文化的分裂,相反,它促进了美国文化的内部整合,丰富了美国社会文化的内涵。