Suchergebnisse

The current study examined affective responses to ambiguous interpersonal interactions containing both ambiguous and overtly racist content. Participants included 74 African American males (ages 18-47), half of whom heard a depiction of a negative social interaction with blatantly racist content (BRC). The remaining participants heard a similar scenario containing no racist content (NRC). Negative affect scores were higher for those in the BRC group, yet individuals in the ambiguous (NRC) condition who reported perceptions of racism in the scenario showed greater negative affect reactivity than those who saw no racism in the scenario. Among those in the NRC group, self-reported past experiences with racial discrimination moderated the effect of perceived racism on negative affect. The authors conclude that the perception of racial discrimination, in particular when evaluating ambiguous situations, may have profound affective consequences for Black men.

Using latent variable structural equation modeling, we tested a theoretical model linking financial strain, neighborhood stress, parenting behavior, and adolescent adjustment. The sample consisted of 305 African American families living in inner city neighborhoods. Of the families, 40% were living at or below the U.S. poverty threshold. The primary caregiver and a focal adolescent (mean age 13.5 years) were interviewed separately in each family. The results indicated that the income‐to‐need ratio was significantly related to financial strain and neighborhood stress, both of which were positively associated with psychological distress in parents. Parent psychological distress was positively related to more negative and less positive parent–adolescent relations, which predicted a lower positive and higher negative adjustment in adolescents. The results extend previous findings by demonstrating that neighborhood characteristics are an important mediator between economic hardship and parent and adolescent behaviors.

Purpose.To examine the influence of an environmental intervention to prevent excess weight gain in African-American children.Design.Single-group repeated measures.Setting.The intervention was delivered to a school composed of African-American children.Participants.Approximately 45% (N = 77) of enrolled second through sixth grade students.Intervention.The 18-month intervention was designed to alter the school environment to prevent excess weight gain by making healthier eating choices and physical activity opportunities more available.Measures.Body mass index percentile was the primary outcome variable. Body mass index z score was also calculated, and percent body fat, using bioelectrical impedance, was also measured. Total caloric intake (kilocalories) and percent kilocalories from fat, carbohydrate, and protein were measured by digital photography. Minutes of physical activity and sedentary behavior were self-reported.Analysis.Mixed-models analysis was used with covarying baseline values.Results.Boys maintained, whereas girls increased, percent body fat over 18 months (p = .027). All children decreased percent of kilocalories consumed from total and saturated fat and increased carbohydrate intake and self-reported physical activity during the intervention (p < .025). Body mass index z score, sedentary behavior, and total caloric intake were unchanged.Conclusion.The program may have resulted in maintenance of percent body fat in boys. The percent body fat in girls steadily increased, despite similar behavioral changes as boys. School-based interventions targeting African-American children should investigate strategies that can be effective across gender.

Civic engagement research suggests that youths' involvement in their communities results in a number of positive personal and social attributes. However, among urban populations, there is still a dearth of research on their involvement and the impact of civic participation on their development. More importantly within these populations, there is limited understanding of how Black male youth engage within civic participatory spaces. Increasing but limited research on young Black male youth usually focuses on identity, participation in programs, and socioeconomic levels. Further understanding is needed as to the factors which influence and impact Black male youths' interests and actual participation in community and extracurricular activities. This paper explores data from urban African American high school male youth that include their perceptions and knowledge and attitudes toward being involved in their community through 4-H youth programs. The authors find that opportunities to learn a new skill and building professional portfolios assist these young Black males in their perception of being effective in their communities and making a difference for themselves.

Abstract

Background
Everyday discrimination—experiences of being treated unfairly based on background characteristics like race—is linked to poor physical and mental health throughout the lifespan. Whether more experiences of discrimination are associated with higher odds of being hospitalized in older African Americans has not been explored.


Methods
Community-dwelling participants from 3 longitudinal cohort studies (N = 446, age 65+ years) with discrimination scores and ≥12 months of linked Medicare claims were included. Hospitalizations were identified using Medicare fee-for-service claims, available for an average of 6.2 (SD: 3.7) years of follow-up after baseline.


Results
In mixed-effects ordinal logistic regression models (outcomes of 0, 1, or 2+ hospitalizations per year) adjusted for age, sex, education, and income, higher discrimination was associated with higher odds of total annual hospitalizations (odds ratio [OR] per point higher = 1.09, 95% confidence intervals [95% CI]: 1.02–1.17). Results were similar when accounting for depressive symptoms.


Conclusions
Higher exposure to everyday discrimination is associated with higher odds of hospitalization among older African Americans. Mechanisms underlying associations should be explored further to understand how hospitalizations may be reduced in older African Americans.

In this dissertation I examine how African Americans pioneered leisure in America's "frontier of leisure" through their attempts to create communities and business projects, as Southern California's black population grew during the nation's Jim Crow era. With leisure's reimagining into the center of the American Dream, black Californians worked to make leisure an open, inclusive, reality for all. They made California and American history by challenging racial hierarchies when they occupied recreational sites and public spaces at the core of the state's formative, mid-twentieth century identity. Their struggle over these sites, helped define the practice and meaning of leisure, confronted the emergent power politics of leisure space, and set the stage for them as places for remembrance of invention and public contest. In reconsidering the formation of California's leisure frontier, my research joins and complicates analysis by historians demonstrating how the struggle for leisure and public space also reshaped the long civil rights movement. Val Verde, Santa Monica's Bay Street Beach/Inkwell, Manhattan Beach's Bruce's Beach, Lake Elsinore and the Parkridge Country Club in addition to the Pacific Beach Club in Huntington Beach and other sites. I document the history and public memory of the sites, which includes a heritage conservation component.

Factors that encourage self-employment in certain ethnic minority groups are examined, as are the effects of the establishment of immigrant enclaves in certain US cities on African Americans' propensity toward self-employment. Public Use Microdata Sample data for 1990 are used to create socioeconomic profiles of male workers from nine different ethnic groups. Findings indicate that being married & the presence of children strongly affected an individual's propensity toward self-employment, except among African American workers. The principal finding is that the emergence of immigrant enclaves in certain cities did not obstruct African American workers' shift toward self-employment. The need for future research to consider the issue of self-employment when making policy recommendations aimed at lessening African Americans' economic problems is articulated. 6 Tables, 1 Appendix, 54 References. J. W. Parker