Suchergebnisse

'Artikel 13 der Richtlinie der Europäischen Union (EU) zur Anwendung des Gleichbehandlungsgrundsatzes ohne Unterschied der Rasse oder der ethnischen Herkunft fordert für alle Mitgliedsstaaten der EU die Einrichtung einer oder mehrerer Stellen, die sich mit der Gleichbehandlung befassen. Solche Einrichtungen sollen die Opfer von Diskriminierung in unabhängiger Weise unterstützen, Beschwerden gegen Diskriminierung nachgehen sowie unabhängige Berichte zum Thema Diskriminierung erstellen und veröffentlichen. Die Umsetzung der o.g. Richtlinie, die die Einführung eines Antidiskriminierungsgesetzes für Deutschland zur Folge haben wird, könnte ein wichtiger Beitrag dazu sein, den Kampf gegen Diskriminierung hierzulande erheblich voranzutreiben. Fehlt es aber gleichzeitig an einer beratenden Infrastruktur, die den betroffenen Menschen zu ihrem Recht verhilft, wäre jede legislative Maßnahme in ihrer Wirksamkeit eingeschränkt. In der Bundesrepublik haben u.a. die Aktivitäten der EU dazu beigetragen, die Diskussion um die Bedeutung, Aufgaben und Anforderungen an spezialisierte Einrichtungen zu intensivieren. In diesem Zusammenhang werden auch Fragen der Professionalisierung der Antidiskriminierungsarbeit sowie prinzipielle Überlegungen zu konkreten Möglichkeiten der Unterstützung im Einzelfall diskutiert. In diesem Beitrag sollen relevante Erkenntnisse, die durch die Begleitung der mit Landesmitteln geförderten Antidiskriminierungsprojekte in Nordrhein-Westfalen (NRW) gewonnen wurden, kurz vorgestellt werden. Dabei folgt die Darstellung der Prämisse, dass die Implementierung eines Antidiskriminierungsgesetzes der Etablierung von spezialisierten Einrichtungen im Kampf gegen Fremdenfeindlichkeit und Rassismus zwingend bedarf, soll dieser ernsthaft und effektiv sein.' (Autorenreferat)

AbstractRacial and ethnic minority (REM) students are more likely to experience poor mental health than their White peers yet are less likely to seek help from university counseling services. In attempting to explain this puzzle, the role of environmental factors are rarely explored, despite evidence which suggests that the university environment is itself a major factor. Here, I take a qualitative paired comparison approach to examine the influence of the university environment on the mental health and help‐seeking attitudes of REM undergraduate students, evaluating their experiences at a Russell Group university (RGU) with low REM participation and a neighboring non‐Russell Group university with high REM participation. While both universities declared a commitment to widen participation and promote inclusion for REM individuals, semi‐structured interviews with 48 REM students reveal that feelings of isolation and the experience of discrimination were heightened at the RGU. However, students at both universities described having to navigate a "minefield" of racial microaggressions and "othering." Further, these environmental pressures are compounded by personal factors (i.e., prior help‐seeking experiences, cultural norms, and family pressures). Together, these factors largely influence both their mental health and their help‐seeking attitudes. I argue that these factors create a widening participation penalty for REM students and suggest that support for these students must go beyond initial acts of increasing diversity on campus (for example, through Widening Participation schemes). Rather, efforts should focus on addressing and reforming the institutional environments and behaviors that hinder university campuses from becoming truly inclusive and mentally healthy environments.

Background: Research remains mixed on whether racial-ethnic self-designation impacts psychological health and well-being among Americans of African descent. Existing studies mainly use non-representative samples to address this question. Some scholars argue that Black people who express an African-centered identity should experience improved mental health because it enhances one's sense of self. However, what role self-designation may have on depression, one of the most common forms of disability, is largely unknown among African Americans. There is also limited evidence on whether one's self-concept can help us understand the relationship between self-designation and mental health among African Americans. Methods: Using data from a national probability sample of African American adults ( n = 3,329), I examined whether self-designation as African American, Afro-American, Negro, Black American, or some other label versus Black was associated with self-esteem, mastery, and major depressive episodes. Results: Using OLS models, I found that respondents who preferred the terms African American or Afro-American exhibited higher mastery levels compared to individuals who preferred the label Black, the most common term used among respondents. African American identifying respondents also exhibited significantly higher levels of self-esteem compared to Black identifying individuals. Using logistic regression models, I found that only African American identifying respondents were significantly less likely than Black identifying respondents to meet the criteria for major depressive episodes in the past-year. Higher levels of mastery and self-esteem helped to explain such differences. Conclusion: In sum, among Americans of African descent, identification as African American rather than Black may help fight depressive episodes because such self-designation may enhance one's self-concept. Further research is necessary to explore other possible psychological implications of self-designation among the African American/Black population.

"Eliminating health disparities among different segments of the population is one of two overarching goals of both Healthy People 2010 and 2020 (1). Race/ethnicity differences in health care and chronic diseases have been well documented (2,3). Hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and diabetes are all chronic conditions associated with cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the United States. The co-occurrence of these three chronic conditions by race/ethnicity has been less frequently documented. In addition, reliance on only self-reported diagnosis results in an underestimate of the prevalence of these conditions. The objective of this report is to compare the prevalence of diagnosed and undiagnosed hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and diabetes among three racial/ethnic groups and the prevalence of co-morbidity of these conditions for U.S. adults." - p. 1 ; Cheryl D. Fryar, Rosemarie Hirsch, Mark S. Eberhardt, Sung Sug Yoon, Jacqueline D. Wright. ; Caption title. ; "April 2010." ; Also available via the World Wide Web. ; Includes bibliographical references (p. 7).

Rural America has seemingly been "left behind" in an era of massive immigration and growing diversity. The arrival of new immigrants has exposed many rural whites, perhaps for the first time, to racial and ethnic minority populations. Do rural whites increasingly live in racially diverse nonmetropolitan places? Or is white exposure to racially diverse populations expressed in uneven patterns of residential integration from place to place? We link microdata from the Panel Survey of Income Dynamics (1989–to–2009 waves) to place data identified in the 1990–2010 decennial censuses. We estimate multilevel, fixed–effects models of rural white exposure to minority populations that involve linking individual predictors to changing demographic and economic local environments. Using entropy scores, our analyses highlight the extraordinary rise since 1990 in exposure of all rural populations, including whites, to racially diverse communities. Variation in white exposure to rural minorities is driven primarily by changing local demographic and economic conditions. Net of individual background characteristics, whites are significantly less likely to live in racially diverse places than other ethnoracial groups. White population growth is occurring disproportionately in the least racially diverse rural communities. For blacks and other minorities, growth is taking place disproportionately in the most racially diverse places.