Suchergebnisse

The 21st century sees an increasing number of cultural minorities in the United States. Particularly, the rise in multi-cultural or mixed heritage families is on the rise. As with many trends, just as the amount of diversity increases, so does the level of resistance in groups that oppose this diversity. While this problem exists through life for persons from multicultural backgrounds, the tension is particularly acute for children, whose identities and socialization experiences are still in formation. With parents from different cultural backgrounds, as well as school and community experiences giving that might question their diverse heritage, children are likely to experience distressing confusion. How can they come to terms with this conflict, and how can family and community help them to resolve it? Combining case studies and interviews, this work particularly focuses on multi-cultural families as a yet untapped source of information about inter-culture contact. Voices of Diversity: Multiculturalism in America will be both a resource for researchers and practitioners, as well as a practical guide to families dealing with these issues every day.

This paper is an attempt to construct an index of community characteristics of the Chaldean Iraqi-Americans residing in Metropolitan Detroit, Michigan, by suggesting that an ethnic occupation, a high degree of intermarriage within the ethnic group, and geographical proximity, might serve to unite the Chaldean community as effectively as ethnic associations united the communities in Raymond Breton's study. These three variables are found to be intercorrelated and predictive of the general cultural behavior of the Chaldean community as well as of their values, social interaction patterns, and certain phases of general culture. This has several consequences for ethnic research.

Pursuing a research theme similar to the one in the previous article by Russo, this study compares immigrant and non-immigrant retention of the social, but not the cultural characteristics of the ethnic pattern. The findings point in the same direction: some American reared members of the Chaldean ethnic group apparently continue to identify with their ethnic community after they have dropped many other aspects of their socio-cultural life-style. It appears that the pattern exhibited by the Italians in New York City and the Iraqi Chaldeans in Detroit is a common one and it suggests a further line of research into the sociopsychological variables supporting group identification in American society.

Mandatory reporting is the method by which most states deal with the problem of elder abuse. However, the effectiveness of this approach has been the topic of little research. In this study, we report on a series of qualitative interviews with workers involved in the mandatory reporting process in the State of Michigan. The workers were involved either as mandated reporters or as representatives of the state who receive the reports (Adult Protective Services workers). Numerous problems were identified, including inadequate staffing in the state agency responsible for receiving reports of elderly abuse, lack of a standardized mechanism for submitting reports, poor training in a variety of areas for both reporters and APS workers, inadequate communication and coordination among agencies involved in the process, confidentiality concerns at all levels, inability of agencies to identify persons responsible for previous abuse of the elderly, and lack of involvement of knowledgeable workers in the establishment and administration of the law. Workers were also concerned that the needs of the elderly received little attention from officials at all levels (courts, prosecutors, and state government), most of whom were perceived to consider the needs of the children to be primary. On the positive side, workers in both types of agencies appeared highly committed to their clients and went considerably out of their way to be of assistance.