An examination of the relationship between social locations of Chinese immigrants and their ethnic newspaper dependency

This study drew upon media system dependency theory (MSD) and social identity theory to examine the relationship between social locations of Chinese immigrants and their dependency on Chinese ethnic newspapers. Data was obtained from a survey participated by 265 respondents with Chinese origin but currently residing in Australia. Results indicated that among the three indicators of social location, age appeared to be a strong positive predictor of the dependency on ethnic newspapers for information. Respondents who stayed longer in the host country tended to be more frequent readers of ethnic newspapers as well. Education did not appear as a significant predictor of ethnic newspaper dependency. These findings suggested the need for us to further investigate the impact of ethnic print media on ethnic minorities in the age of various information sources offered by new technologies.

A political economy of the ethnic chinese catering industry

The present political climate in which the ideals of entrepreneurship and self-help are strongly encouraged has drawn attention to those ethnic minorities noted for their entrepreneurial activity. Since the Chinese appear to be an exemplary case in point, this thesis focusses upon the historical material conditions which have led to the formation of a Chinese 'business* community in Britain, both past and present As such, it rejects the theories of cultural determinism which characterise most studies of the Chinese. For rather than representing the endurance of cultural norms, the existence of the contemporary Chinese 'niche' of ethnically exclusive firms in the catering industry is due to the conjunction of a number of historical processes. The first is the imperialist expansion into China of Britain's capitalist empire during the nineteenth century which established a relationship of dependency upon the interests of British capital by colonial Chinese labour. The second is the post war development of the catering industry and its demand for cheap labour as administered by the British state together with the contemporaneous development of the agricultural economy of colonial Hong Kong. Far from representing a source of material benefit to all, the ethnic Chinese 'niche' in catering is highly exploitative and merely underlines the racial oppression of Chinese in Britain. Attempts to promote business interests within the ethnic community therefore serve merely to entrench the structures of oppression.

Transnationalism as a force for ethnic minority enterprise? The case of Somalis in Leicester

The extant literature on the phenomenon of transnational entrepreneurship has documented that in an era characterized by ‘superdiversity’, ethnic minorities use their diasporic networks to access an array of valuable resources in order to facilitate entrepreneurial activity. The article examines the connection between the notions of ‘superdiversity’, transnationalism and entrepreneurship by illuminating the dynamics of ‘transnational’ Somali business activity in Leicester. Considering this as a critical case, we attempt to address a gap in the literature on ethnic minority enterprise, which has struggled to address the ‘diversification of diversity’ that attends the arrival of new communities in the UK. Moreover, the article contributes to the discussion on the importance of ‘conditioning factors’ in explaining the ‘integration’ of new arrivals. Although familial and co-ethnic ties influence the availability and interaction of social, financial and human capital, this falls considerably short of neoliberal depictions of globalization. The political-economic context imposes harsh constraints upon Somali business activity which cannot be circumvented by the utilization of diasporic links, and transnational entrepreneurship is likely to be the preserve of a minority of minorities.

A multilevel study of the relationships between diversity training, ethnic discrimination and satisfaction in organizations

The prevalence of diversity training has not been matched by empirical research on its effectiveness. Among the most notable gaps are an absence of attention to its impact on discrimination and limited consideration of organizational-level factors. Results from employee surveys across 395 healthcare organizations reveal an effect of the extent of diversity training in organizations on ethnic minorities' experiences of discrimination. In addition, the results demonstrate that the consequences of ethnic discrimination for individuals' job attitudes are influenced by organizational-level phenomenon. These findings highlight the importance of attending to ethnic discrimination as an outcome of diversity training with implications for employee attitudes. © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Pain management programmes for non-English-speaking black and minority ethnic groups with long-term or chronic pain

Increasing ethnic diversity in the UK means that there is a growing need for National Health Service care to be delivered to non-English-speaking patients. The aims of the present systematic review were to: (1) better understand the outcomes of chronic pain management programmes (PMPs) for ethnic minority and non-English-speaking patients and (2) explore the perspectives on and experiences of chronic pain for these groups. A systematic review identified 26 papers meeting the inclusion criteria; no papers reported on the outcomes of PMPs delivered in the UK. Of the papers obtained, four reported on PMPs conducted outside the UK; eight reported on ethnic differences in patients seeking support from pain management services in America; and the remaining papers included literature reviews, an experimental pain study, a collaborative enquiry, and a survey of patient and clinician ratings of pain. The findings indicate a lack of research into UK-based pain management for ethnic minorities and non-English-speaking patients. The literature suggests that effective PMPs must be tailored to meet cultural experiences of pain and beliefs about pain management. There is a need for further research to explore these cultural beliefs in non-English-speaking groups in the UK. Culturally sensitive evaluations of interpreted PMPs with long-term follow-up are needed to assess the effectiveness of current provision. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The influence of gender and ethnic diversity on team effectiveness

Organizations are becoming increasingly diverse as a growing number of women and ethnic minorities enter the workforce. Understanding the influence of diversity is particularly important for organizations that rely on team-based work structures, where individuals must engage in face-to-face interactions more frequently than in other organizational settings. The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of gender and ethnic diversity on team member interactions when performing a highly interdependent task that is both cognitively and behaviorally challenging. Participants were composed of 264 undergraduate students who enrolled in psychology courses at Florida International University and formed 66, 4-person teams. Teams participated in a low fidelity F-22 flight simulation consisting of two aircraft that had to interact in order to be successful. A 2 x 2 design was utilized in which the gender and ethnicity composition of each team was manipulated to form four experimental conditions (same gender/same ethnicity, same gender/mixed ethnicity, mixed gender/same ethnicity, mixed gender/mixed ethnicity). Both ethnic and gender homogeneity in teams resulted in increased interpersonal cohesion. Moreover, coordination fully mediated the relationship between interpersonal cohesion and team performance. Higher levels of interpersonal cohesion enhanced coordination between team members, which ultimately improved performance. Implications of these findings are discussed, as are limitations of the study and suggestions for future research. ^

Ethnic identification: Impact on HIV/AIDS risk among migrant and seasonal workers in South Florida

Migrant workers are one of the most rapidly growing populations in the United States (U.S.) and have been significantly affected by HIV/AIDS. More than 9 million people in the U.S., primarily concentrated in Texas, Florida, Washington, California, Oregon, and North Carolina, are migrant farm workers. High prevalence rates are also suspected among migrant worker communities where risky health behaviors appear to be common. Constant mobility, isolation, limited education, substandard housing, and poverty are some of the factors that migrant workers experience and in many cases increases their HIV risk. Recent studies have suggested that ethnic identity or the level of attachment with one's ethnic group may influence engagement in HIV risk behaviors, a fact that may be important in the development of interventions among ethnic minorities. This study assesses the relationship between ethnic identity and HIV risk behaviors in two different samples; one assesses this relationship at baseline with a total of 431 African American migrant and seasonal workers in Immokalee, Florida. The second analyzes changes in ethnic identity and HIV behaviors in a sample of 270 Hispanic and African American migrant and seasonal workers in Immokalee, Florida. Data from baseline and 6-month follow-up were used in the analyses presented. The results suggest that individuals with higher levels of ethnic identity report lower levels of engagement in some, but not all, of the risky behaviors examined. These findings point to a potentially protective role for ethnic identity among this sample.

The Political Economy of Ethnic Empowerment in India

This dissertation consists of three papers, which together examine whether policies meant to address inequality, succeed in mitigating the impact of traditional institutions such as caste and enable ethnic minorities to claim their rights. Using experimental and quasi-experimental methods with data from a variety of primary and secondary sources, this dissertation analyzes whether policies meant to empower vulnerable groups in India have succeeded in doing so. The findings suggest that while legislations in the form of mandated political representation or freedom of information laws are necessary in terms of increasing the accountability of government towards citizens, they may not be sufficient in ensuring adequate and uniform delivery of public services, especially to citizens belonging to marginalized groups. Further, empowering citizens – especially those belonging to groups that have faced historic discrimination – to actively participate in civic and political life may require more active and intensive policy and programmatic interventions.

Networking among female ethnic minority entrepreneurs

The labor market in the multicultural society is a major arena where the interrelation of gender and ethnicity is expressed in processes of discrimination, sexism and racism. For women from ethnic minorities, one way to avoid these problems is to work in migrant enterprises. As this may ease tensions related to ethnicity, it does not solve gender-related problems like the subordination of women and the perception of female migrants as ‘just’ daughters, mothers and wives by male co-migrants. Female ethnic minority entrepreneurship may be the way to escape such processes. In the Netherlands, 25% of all ethnic minority entrepreneurs are female. However, little is known about their socio-economic background and the way they perceive their businesses. Moreover, there is a theoretical haphazardness concerning the phenomenon female ethnic minority entrepreneurship. Although recently researchers have opted for an integral theory called the ‘mixed-embeddedness’ approach as to explain ethnic minority entrepreneurship through a combination of personal, sociocultural and structural factors, the role of gender still seems to be underexposed in this theory. Likewise, the literature concerning entrepreneurial networking has hardly interfered with both gender and ethnicity. Therefore, this paper provides a state of affairs concerning the research and literature on ethnic minority entrepreneurship, gender and networks. It argues that a better understanding of female ethnic minority entrepreneurship requires further scientific attention and that a contribution needs to be made to theory development regarding the interrelation of ethnicity and gender in entrepreneurship and in entrepreneurial networks particularly.

Minority type matters : ethnic diversity and tolerance in 29 European democracies

Past research has shown that having a large population of ethnic minorities beyond the neighborhood level arouses intolerance in the majority. However, this paper presents the argument that the effect of minority size on tolerance depends on minority type: the less subject the minority is to negative stereotyping, the more favorable the effect that minority size has on tolerance. In this study, a hierarchical linear model was applied to a dataset on advanced and emerging democracies in Europe. The analysis shows that when the duration and level of democracy are controlled for, ethnic tolerance was associated positively with native minority size and negatively with foreign population size.

Reverse immigration

This book (256 pages, written in Korean) is a critical essay that reviews, questions, and criticises Korean and Eastern immigrants’ thinking and behaviour styles in Australia from their cultural perspectives, and discuss and proposes a creative cultural dimension for their better life in a multicultural context. Multiculturalism is not supportive of Eastern cultures because of individualistic collection of cultures, while transculturalism facilitates nurture of their culture in a community-oriented way within multicultural circumstances. Korean and Eastern immigrants, sharing oriental cultural systems and values, should approach to the Australian multicultural context with transculturalism which allows creating new cultural values in collaboration with and by participation into local communities. ------------------------------------------------------------ Many Eastern immigrants live in their own ethnic communities without or less interacting with Australian (communities). The author defines this phenomenon as “reverse immigration”. Reverse immigration refers to re-immigrating to their ethnic community in Australia or to their birth country despite they did not anticipate that this would happen to them before immigration to Australia. The author argues that Easterners’ collectivistic culture often devalues individuality and vice versa. Cultural clash between West and East often forces the immigrants to choose reverse immigration because of their lack of understanding of Western culture and their cultural characteristics such as low individuality, high power distance, and high uncertainty avoidance. For example, a vague boundary between individualist and collectivist in a collectivistic context (within their ethnic group) often leads to maladjustment to local communities and enhancement of cultural conservatism. The author proposes that the cultural clash can be overcome by cross-cultural activities named “transculturalism”. To Eastern immigrants, transculturalism can be achieved by acculturation of their two predominant cultures, the third-person perspective and generalised others. In a multicultural context, the former refers to the ability to share another person's feelings and emotions as if they were your own, and the latter does the ability to manage community and public expectations. When both cultural values are used for quality interactions between East and West, they allow Eastern immigrants to be more creative and critical and Australian to be more socially inclusive and culturally tolerant. With these discussions, the author discusses cultural differences throughout the book with four topics (chapters) and proposes transculturalism as a solution to the reverse immigration. ------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 1 criticises Koreans’ attitudes and methods towards learning English that is less pragmatic and practical, but more likely to be a scholarly study. The author explains that Koreans’ non-pragmatic towards learning English has been firmly built based on their traditional systems and values that Koreans view English as a discipline and an aim of academic achievements rather than a means of communication. Within their cultural context, English can be perceived as more than a language, but something like vastly superior to their language and culture. Their collectivistic culture regards English as an unreachable and heterogeneous one that may threaten their cultural identity, so that “scholarly studying” is only the way to achieve (not learn) it. This discourages the immigrants to engage and involve in daily dialogues by “using” English as a second language. The author further advises the readers to be aware of Eastern collectivistic culture in communication and interaction that sometimes completely reverses private and public topics in a Western context. This leads them to feel that they have no content to talk to natives. ------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 2 compares between Korea and Australia in terms of their educational systems and values, and proposes how Eastern overseas students can achieve critical and creative thinking within a Western educational setting. Interestingly, this chapter includes an explanation of why Eastern overseas students easily fail assessments including essay writing, oral presentations and discussions. One of the reasons the author explains is that Eastern students are not familiar to criticise others and think creatively, especially when they recognise that their words and ideas may harm the collectivistic harmony. Western educational systems focuses on enhancement of individuality such as self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-expression, while Eastern educational systems foster group-oriented values such as interpersonal relationship, and strong moral and spiritual values. Yet, the author argues that the collectivistic approach to criticism and creativity is often more critical and creative than Western individuals when they know what they are supposed to do for a group (or a community). Therefore, Eastern students need to think their cultural merits and demerits by using an individual perspective rather than generalised others’ perspective. The latter often discourages individual participation in a community, and the generalised others in a Western culture is weaker than Eastern. Furthermore, Western educational systems do not educate students to transform (loose) their individuality to fit into a group or a community. Rather they cultivate individuality for community prosperity. ------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 3 introduces various cases of reverse immigration in workplaces that many immigrants return to their country or their ethnic community after many trials for acculturation. Reverse immigration is unexpected and not planned before immigration, so that its emotional embarrassment increases such severe social loneliness. Most Eastern immigrant workers have tried to adjust themselves in this new cultural environment at the early stages of immigration. However, their cultural features of collectivism, high power distance, high uncertainty avoidance, and long-term oriented cultures suppress individual initiative and eliminate the space for experiments in ways of acculturation. The author argues that returning to their ethnic community (physically and psychologically) leads to two significant problems: their distorted parenting and becoming more conservatives. The former leads the first generation of immigrants to pressure their children to pursue extrinsic or materialist values, such as financial success, fame and physical appearance, rather than on intrinsic values, while the latter refers to their isolated conservative characters because of their remoteness from the changes of their own country. The author also warns that their ethnic and religious groups actively strengthens immigrants’ social loneliness and systematically discourages immigrants’ interests and desire to be involving into local communities. The ethnic communities and leaders have not been interacting with Australian local communities and, as a result, are eager to conserve outdated cultural systems values. Even they have a tendency to weed out those people who wish to settle down within Australian local communities. They believe that those people can threaten their community’s survival and continuity. ------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 4 titled multiculturalism argues that Korean and Eastern immigrants should more precisely understand Australia as a multicultural society in a way of collaboratively creating new cultural values. The author introduces multiculturalism with its definitions and history in Australia and argues the limitations of multiculturalism from an Easterner’s perspective. With well known tragedies of the second generations of U.S. immigrants, Cho Seung-Hui, a university student, massacred 32 people on the Virginia Tech before committing suicide and Hidal Hassan, an Army psychiatrist, killed 13 people at Fort Hood and the responses of ethnic community, the author explains that their mental illness may be derived from their parents’ (or ethnic group) culturally isolated attitude and socially static viewpoint of U.S. (Western system and values). The author insists that multiculturalism may restrict Eastern immigrants’ engagement and involvement in local communities. Multiculturalism has been systematically and historically developed based on Western systems and cultural values. In other words, multiculturalism requires high self-confidence and self-esteem that Eastern immigrants less prioritise them. It has been generally known that Easterners put more weight on human relationship than Westerners, but the author claims that this is not true. Within an individualistic culture, Westerners are more interested in building person-to-person connections and relationships. While Easterners are more interested in how individuals can achieve a sense of belonging within a group and a community. Therefore, multiculturalism is an ideology which forces Eastern immigrants to discard their strong desire to be part of a group and does not give a sense of belonging. In a consequence, the author advises that Eastern immigrants should aim towards “transculturalism” which allows them to actively participate in and contribute to their multicultural community. Transculturalism does not ask Easterners to discard their cultural values, but enables them to be a collectivistic individualist (a community leader) who is capable of developing new cultural values in a more creative and productive way. Furthermore, transculturalism encourages Western Australians in a multicultural context to collaborate with ethnic minorities to build a better community.

Diversity interventions for a socially sustainable construction industry

Major construction sites in Australia have an above average presence of ethnic minorities. These groups and the interfaces between them require effective management in order to meet the social imperatives of sustainable design and construction. A survey of 1155 workers and 204 managers on Sydney construction sites respectively, found a significant level of normalisation of negative forms of cross cultural interaction. Yet it was also found that anti-racism programs are not currently a management priority and that they generally lack sophisticated community relations aspects. This paper presents the results of a desk-top study of leading global companies within and outside the construction sector which have won international awards and recognition for their cultural diversity strategies. A key insight is that the companies profiled see diversity as a key resource and as an opportunity rather than a risk which is best harnessed through long-term and on-going commitment of senior management. These leading companies also recognise that cultural diversity strategies operate at three levels - in terms of its relationship with its own workforce; its relationship with its clients and; its relationships with the communities in which it operates - and if properly managed it can be a source of competitive advantage.

A distributional analysis of the native-immigrant wage gap : the importance of employment discrimination

It is well documented that immigrants earn less than natives in the United States, and various attempts have been made to determine whether these earnings differentials reflect underlying differences in skill or ethnic discrimination in the labor market. The earnings of immigrants and ethnic minorities is an extensively studied area focusing on the economic integration of immigrants (e.g., Chiswick (1978), Lalonde and Topel (1993), Borjas (1995)). Yet, the role of occupational segregation as a mechanism for discrimination is yet to be addressed (to our knowledge). Discrimination can be effective at either of two stages in the earnings process – in the assignment of earnings to people within occupational groups (henceforth referred to as wage discrimination) or in the allocation of people to occupations (henceforth referred to as employment discrimination). While it would be premature to attribute the underlying cause to discriminatory hiring policies of employers, it would be of social-political and economic interest to investigate the possibility.

Root caries patterns and risk factors of middle-aged and elderly people in China

The objectives of this study were to describe root caries patterns of Chinese adults and to analyze the effect of selected demographic and socioeconomic factors on these patterns. A total sample of 1080 residents aged 35-44-years-old and 1080 residents aged 65-74-years-old from three urban and three rural survey sites in Hubei Province participated in both an oral health interview and a clinical oral health examination. Root surface caries prevalence rates were 13.1% in the middle-aged group and 43.9% in the elderly group. The mean number of teeth affected by caries in the middle-aged group was reported at 0.21 and 1.0 in the elderly group. Mean Root Caries Index (RCI) scores of the middle-aged were reported at 6.29 and elderly subjects were reported at 11.95. Elderly people living in rural areas reported a higher RCI score (13.24) than those living in urban areas (10.70). A significantly higher frequency of root surface caries was observed in elderly participants (P < 0.001, OR = 3.80) and ethnic minorities (P < 0.001, OR = 1.93). In addition, smokers, nontea drinkers, and those with an annual household income of 10,000 yuan or less tended to have higher caries prevalence. RCI figures for the different tooth types ranged from 1% to 16%, indicating a wide variation in attack rates. In conclusion, our study suggests that root surface caries occurrence is high among the Chinese adult population, especially older adults. With an increasing number of retained teeth in both middle-aged and elderly people, root caries is a growing disease in the People's Republic of China which deserves more attention in future research.

Public health interventions for increasing physical activity in children, adolescents and adults : an overview of systematic reviews

This is the protocol for a review and there is no abstract. The objectives are as follows: This overview intends to: a) summarise the existing evidence on interventions that aim to increase PA; b) explore whether any effects of the intervention are different within and between populations, and whether these differences form an equity gradient such as an effect that differs according the advantage/disadvantage (e.g. low income and ethnic minorities); c) highlight gaps in the present evidence base that may warrant a Cochrane systematic review to be completed; and c) identify 'up to date' Cochrane reviews. .