Suchergebnisse

This article presents the findings of a pilot study on natural helping among Mexican Americans conducted in a large urban area of the Southwest. Twelve community-identified natural helpers were interviewed using the "Natural Helper Interview Schedule" utilized in previous studies in other parts of the country with European American subjects. As expansion of the earlier studies, the interview schedule was translated into Spanish and assessed for cultural appropriateness. The similarities found between the findings of the Mexican American sample and previous samples may suggest that natural helping is a cross-cultural phenomenon. At the same time, the unique trends identified among Mexican American respondents may indicate a stronger family connection to natural helping processes in this community. Respondents narrated the helping incidents as if the recipients and providers of help were all family members. A series of common trends emerged from the data gathered on helping incidents. Some of these trends suggest that natural helpers assisting recent immigrants used a doing type of helping style, but a facilitating style of helping was also reported for other recipients. Although these findings cannot be generalized, they provide important information about community-based natural helping networks and provide beginning comparison about natural helping characteristics among different ethnic groups. These findings can be of use by practitioners and policy makers as they attempt to reach the Mexican American community in a culturally competent manner.

This article examines the intertwined roles of gender labels (male/female) and gender identity in predicting drug-use behaviors and experiences of middle school students in a large, ethnically diverse, southwestern city. Three dimensions of gender identity are derived through factor analysis, one relating to femininity and nurturance, another relating to masculinity and self-confidence, and a third relating to masculinity and dominance. In bivariate and multivariate tests the authors find that masculine dominance is associated with higher frequency of recent drug use, particularly for boys' use of marijuana and hard drugs, with more drug offers and a greater variety of drugs used over their lifetimes. Gender identity measures do not supersede gender labels in predicting drug outcomes, but they are shown to be more powerful predictors in combination than separately. Possible relationships between gender identity and early adolescents' relationships with their ethnic groups, families, peers, groups of reference, and school environments are discussed.

This article explores differences in the self‐reported drug use and exposure to drugs of an ethnically diverse group of 408 seventh‐grade students from a large city in the southwest. We contrast the explanatory power of ethnic labels (African American, non‐Hispanic White, Mexican American, and mixed ethnicity) and two dimensions of ethnic identity in predicting drug use. One dimension focuses on perceived ethnically consistent behavior, speech, and looks, while the other gauges a sense of ethnic pride. Ethnic labels were found to be somewhat useful in identifying differences in drug use, but the two ethnic identity measures, by themselves, did not generally help to explain differences in drug use. In conjunction, however, ethnic labels and ethnic identity measures explained far more of the differences in drug use than either did alone. The findings indicate that the two dimensions of ethnic identity predict drug outcomes in opposite ways, and these relations are different for minority students and non‐Hispanic White students. Generally, African American, Mexican American, and mixed‐ethnicity students with a strong sense of ethnic pride reported less drug use and exposure, while ethnically proud White students reported more. Ethnic minority students who viewed their behavior, speech, and looks as consistent with their ethnic group reported more drug use and exposure, while their White counterparts reported less. These findings are discussed, and recommendations for future research are provided.

"Diversity, Oppression and Change is an engaging and well-researched book about a timely and controversial topic. The authors unpack complex theory-based concepts related to oppression and privilege so that readers can identify their historically based impact on certain groups and communities. They use an easy to understand style, which makes cultural diversity concepts come to life through specific examples and notes from the field, often coming from their own practice, policy and research experiences. This book is essential reading for social workers and allied professionals committed to anti-oppressive practice. Diversity, Oppression and Change is also about hope and resiliency, and the miraculous ability of individuals and communities to bounce back from oppressive experiences and historical trauma to produce lasting social change and achieve social justice"--

This study examines neighborhood influences on alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use among a predominantly Latino middle school sample. Drawing on theories of immigrant adaptation and segmented assimilation, the authors test whether neighborhood immigrant, ethnic, and socioeconomic composition, violent crime, residential instability, and family structure have differential effects on substance use among youth from different ethnic and acculturation backgrounds. Data are drawn from self-reports from 3,721 seventh-grade students attending thirty-five Phoenix, Arizona, middle schools. Analysis was restricted to the two largest ethnic groups, Latino students of Mexican heritage and non-Hispanic Whites. After adjusting for individual-level characteristics and school-level random effects, only one neighborhood effect was found for the sample overall, an undesirable impact of neighborhood residential instability on recent cigarette use. Subgroup analyses by individual ethnicity and acculturation showed more patterned neighborhood effects. Living in neighborhoods with high proportions of recent immigrants was protective against alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use for Latino students at different acculturation levels, whereas living in predominantly Mexican heritage neighborhoods (mostly nonimmigrants) was a risk factor for alcohol and marijuana use for less acculturated Latinos. There were scattered effects of neighborhood poverty and crime, which predicted more cigarette and alcohol use, respectively, but only among more acculturated Latinos. Inconsistent effects confined to bilingual and more acculturated Latinos were found for the neighborhood's proportion of single-mother families and its residential instability. No neighborhood effects emerged for non-Hispanic White students. Results suggested that disadvantaged neighborhoods increase substance use among some ethnic minority youth, but immigrant enclaves appear to provide countervailing protections.