Social welfare

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://digital.lib.washington.edu/handle/1773/4967

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The Role of Institutions in the Transition to Adulthood and Their Impact on Pathways to Adulthood and Adult Criminal Outcomes
(2013-02-25) Lee, JoAnn Su Ting; Tajima, Emiko
In today's social and economic context in the U.S., many individuals experience an extended transition to adulthood period during which they are able to delay adopting adult social roles and responsibilities, such as initiating careers, making long-term commitments to a romantic partner, and starting a family. However, many individuals do not have the resources or supports that would enable them to delay adopting one or more of those roles, experiencing an accelerated transition to adulthood. An accelerated transition can pose more challenges in the form of economic or housing hardships and may hinder the ability of individuals to accumulate additional and necessary human capital. This dissertation applies an institutional lens to the study of the transition to adulthood in order to help illuminate the role of social structures in shaping individual lives during childhood, adolescence, and the transition to adulthood, and consists of three analyses. Chapter 2 examines the experiences of a general diverse sample of urban youth, and chapters 3 and 4 focus on foster youth aging out of care. Chapter 2 considers whether the normative socializing institutions of family and school play a role in shaping the transition to adulthood, whether extended or accelerated, and whether the individual's bond to these institutions mediates the relationship. Although the findings indicate that the prosocial socialization process operating in the family and school does not play a role in explaining differences in who experiences an extended or accelerated adulthood, other characteristics of the family play an important role, such as parent school expectations, a family disruption, and immigrant status. Chapter 3 examines the impact of legal system involvement on foster youth in preparation for the transition to adulthood on criminal activities during the transition to adulthood. The findings indicate that legal system involvement is associated with higher levels of criminal activities at age 21. In addition, legal system involvement initiates a process of social exclusion where youth are less likely to graduate from high school by age 19, and this has an impact on their employment status at age 21. Chapter 4 investigates the impact on arrests of extending foster care support during the transition to adulthood; the findings indicate that extended support in the first year after turning 18 reduces the risk of arrest, but this effect declines after the first year. Together, this dissertation research finds that during childhood and adolescence, as well as during the transition to adulthood, institutions play an important role in shaping the transition to adulthood. Improving institutional structures to better support individuals through the transition period, especially for those who experience an accelerated adulthood, can help more individuals successfully transition into adulthood. For example, increasing the high school completion rate of foster youth with legal histories and providing extended care support to former foster youth can reduce the likelihood of social exclusion for these youths.
Political violence, health and resilience
(2013-02-25) Sousa, Cindy A.; Herrenkohl, Todd I
In recent decades, there has been an expanded effort to examine the adverse effects of political violence on the health of civilian populations; substantial evidence now points to the effects of political violence on outcomes like PTSD, anxiety, and a variety of physical health symptoms. Despite the variety of risks inherent within political violence, we know individuals and communities actively cope with the stressors of political violence, exhibiting marked resilience as they function much better than might be expected. Individual and community resilience is generally defined as the successful recovery from or adaptation to stress or adversity through the use of individual or community characteristics, resources, strategies, and processes. While researchers have increasingly focused on political violence in the past few decades, several areas within the field of political violence and global health remain under-explored. To address these areas, this dissertation explores experiences inherent within political violence, their effects on health and well-being, and processes of resilience within the experience of political violence. Each paper within this dissertation sheds light on one shared question: How does political violence affect people's health and how do people and communities endure the stress and trauma it poses? The papers within this dissertation employ distinct guiding questions and associated research methods to: (1) provide an interdisciplinary overview of resilience to clarify what we currently know from scholarly literature about how individuals and communities weather the effects of political violence; (2) explore how political violence affects a variety of health outcomes (including general health, PTSD and distress) and examine how these health effects of political violence might differ along various sources of coping, ranging from self-reliance to use of support from one's family and from religious and political resources; and (3) examine how women describe the specific, particular experiences they endure within political violence and their strategies of resistance within that context.
Community borderlands: Exploring liminal and contradictory experiences of belonging and wellbeing
(2013-02-25) Hudson, Kimberly Dree; Evans-Campbell, Teresa A
Community borderlands are spaces that are shifting, polyvocal, and multidimensional; they embody, transform, and resist systems and cultures of oppression, impacting the material realities and lived lives of their occupants and visitors alike. In this dissertation, I apply a borderlands framework to learn about lived experiences in relationship to three central concepts within social work: community, belonging, and wellbeing. This project integrates elements of transnational feminism, postcolonial studies, and borderland epistemology within a queer framework, employing theoretical pluralism to interpret stories of lived lives, material realities, and perceived wellbeing. Using critical narrative and feminist methodologies, I interviewed 12 adults in the Seattle area who identified in flexible, critical, or ambiguous ways across race, gender, and sexuality; most study participants self-identified as mixed race and queer. I explore articulations and intimations of liminality and belonging used by participants to make meaning of being in community and being well. Emerging from this analysis is a conceptual framework to understand belongingness in community borderlands and corresponding, contradictory experiences that enhance and detract from participants perceived wellbeing. Wellbeing itself, from a borderland perspective, is understood through participant positions on reclaiming healthy bodies, priority-setting within their communities, and critical self-reflection regarding the intentional creation of spaces and the unintentional replication of oppressive practices and discourses. This dissertation challenges the singular assumption that liminal status is a source of chronic stress and social disconnection that deteriorates wellbeing. Instead, I demonstrate that borderland experiences of community may provide a sense of connectedness that actually enhances perceived and actual wellbeing through increased resources, sense of safety, and belonging. However, I also highlight the complexity, ambiguity, and discontinuities of these relationships. This study suggests the application of a borderlands framework in social work scholarship, pedagogy, and practice, namely by informing existing and potential collaborative community efforts to address disparities and promote wellbeing.
Diasporic intersectionalities: Exploring South Asian women's narratives of race, ethnicity, and gender through a community-based performance project
(2013-02-25) Mehrotra, Gita Rani; Walters, Karina L.
Although South Asians constitute one of the largest, fastest growing Asian groups in the country, there is a paucity of U.S.-based social work literature about this community. Further, professional social work organizations and feminist social work scholars have called for the field to build paradigms and practices that address the intersections of oppressions facing individuals and communities, such as race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class, in a global context. Drawing from intersectionality theorizing, transnational feminisms, diaspora studies, and theories of narrative identity, this study explores how a local group of South Asian women construct their experiences of race/ethnicity, gender, class, and diaspora. Thirty-one in-depth interviews were conducted with participants of a culturally-specific, community-based performance project, Yoni Ki Baat (Talk of the Vagina). Thematic analyses, with attention to context and discourse, elucidated important similarities and differences across women's narratives. While all participants communicated a high sense of agency in defining themselves in terms of race/ethnicity, first and second generation women's narratives diverged significantly in the following domains: use of racialized vs. ethnic constructs, nationality, significant life events impacting racial/ethnic identification, and ways women perceive race/ethnicity assigned to them by others. In contrast, despite differences in age, generation, religion, and other life experiences, all participants narrated the centrality of marriage as a "cultural script" that produces ideal, middle-class, South Asian womanhood. Women's narratives illustrate some everyday ways this cultural script is communicated, enforced, and negotiated within families and communities. Overall, this study demonstrates the utility of narratives and cultural scripts for understanding meaning and self-making processes within diverse communities. Research findings herein also challenge traditional social work frameworks that often rely on essentialized representations of social groups, single-oppression analyses of inequality and identity, and/or U.S.-centric approaches to understanding oppression and experience. Analyses of South Asian women's narratives point to the need to expand intersectionality theorizing and social work education to incorporate: context; temporality, age, and lifecourse; transnational experiences; concepts of diaspora; and relationships between experiences of privilege and marginalization. Fostering deeper understandings of intersecting oppressions and processes impacting transnational populations in these ways can contribute to more liberatory social work scholarship and practice.
Wher is "home?" Interpretating Horn of Africa youth discourse and the politics of "displaced youth"
(2013-02-25) Tecle, Aster Solomon; Kemp, Susan
This dissertation is a discursive inquiry into the language Horn of Africa (HOA) youth use as they talk about their experiences. Study participants are 1.5 and second generation HOA youth, mainly from Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia, living in the Pacific Northwest and actively participating in youth programs provided by three agencies serving HOA immigrant populations. Youth in the study participated in three focus groups. Employing postcolonial and poststructuralist frameworks, the study aims to reveal the function of language in representing HOA youth: it assumes language to be a "site of contestation" where youth position and reposition their claims as they characterize themselves and their experiences. The study's thematic findings highlight three aspects of HOA youth experience: their strategic use of the language of difference; the hybridity of their experiences and aesthetics; and their use of this inbetweeness as a space of possibility. The study captures the nuances of HOA youth discourse, moving beyond dichotomous frameworks to more fully acknowledge the complexities for immigrant youth of negotiating inbetween spaces. These complexities reveal that HOA youth can and do displace discourses that represent them. Revealing the complexities of HOA youth language also has the potential to dismantle underlying paradigms that take-for- granted the politics of "displaced youth." The study potentially contributes to social work methodology, theory, and practice, and to youth programming. The study findings challenge theoretical and conceptual frameworks that assume HOA youth have a stable, rational, and unified identity, and assume related ideas about empowerment and change, which can ultimately victimize youth for not fitting into expected norms. From the perspective of this study, liberation from dominant discourses does not require a stable identity; rather, identities are continuously and complexly produced in and through competing discourses. The research points to the need for youth programs to focus on exploring how cultures and languages represent youth, and their populations, while also questioning what it means to talk across borders, as the youth move beyond conventional discourses of multiculturalism. The study also has the potential to inform host society perceptions of HOA youth in particular and African immigrants in general.
Same-Sex Partnerships and the Health of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Older Adults
(2013-02-25) Williams, Mark Edward; Hooyman, Nancy
While extensive research has examined associations between marriage, cohabitation and the health of heterosexual adults, it remains unclear whether similar patterns of health are associated with the same-sex partnerships for older adults. The following papers examine how having a same-sex partner may be related to general self-reported health, mental health, and satisfaction with life for older adults. Analyzing survey data collected from lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) adults 50 years of age and older, the first paper reports findings that those with same-sex partners have significantly better self-reported health, fewer depressive symptoms, less perceived stress, and greater life satisfaction, controlling for gender, age, education, income, sexuality, and relationship duration. Relationship duration did not significantly impact the association between partnership status and health, nor did gender. The importance of culturally sensitive clinical practice and policies that recognize the role that same-sex partnerships may play in older adult health are discussed along with implications for future research. The second paper further examines how identifying as married is associated with significantly fewer depressive symptoms and greater life satisfaction compared to those identifying as unmarried partners, but not significantly less perceived stress. Social integration, as reflected in increasing access to and identification with marriage by LGB older adults, is an important area for future research to examine in order to study how changing social acceptance of sexual minorities may impact older adult health. The final paper reviews the theoretical frameworks that have been employed to study lesbian, gay, and bisexual older adult health. Social determinants of health models are contrasted with social constructionist and post-structural critiques of gender, sexuality, age and health. Future research needs to envision both structural sources of health disparities as well as account for individual agency and the resilient subject as important elements for theorizing the source and meaning of health disparities for lesbian, gay and bisexual older adults.
A Life Course Perspective on the Social Determinants of Multiracial American Health
(2013-02-25) Tabb Dina, Karen Margaret; Takeuchi, David
Few studies provide data on the health of self-identified multiracial (two or more races) Americans. Subsequently, we know little about this population and existing health disparities. Three areas relevant to multiracial health include health status, health care service utilization, and health related to racial stability over the life course. Although some investigations report the health service use of children and adolescents, almost no studies report the health service use of multiracial young adults. Most studies on multiracial groups are cross-sectional and thus focus on a single time point, so it is difficult to establish how health indicators change for multiracial groups over time. This dissertation employs epidemiological methods to investigate the health of self-identified multiracial young adults in a series of three papers. There are three guiding questions in this dissertation. First, "Do multiracial adults have better or worse self-rated health than monoracial groups?" Second, "Do multiracial young adults use health care services at the same rate as monoracial groups?" Third, "How is consistency in racial categories over time related to self-rated health for multiracial young adults in the United States?" I used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 20,774) in-home sample taken during the period 1994-2008 to examine factors related to multiracial health as individuals enter different phases of life. Using multivariate logistic regression I tested a series of hypotheses for three distinct research questions. In the first paper, I found that there are differences in self-rated health for some multiracial groups. In the second paper, I found that there are differences in the rates of health care service utilization when comparing specific multiracial groups to the monoracial majority. In the third paper, I found that there are differences in report of self-rated health when comparing monoracial adults with multiracial adults who switch racial categories over time. These findings contribute to the wider understanding of health disparities for vulnerable populations and assist in identifying salient mechanisms of health disparities over the life course. These results also demonstrate the importance of critically examining changes in racial categories as related to health status over time.
Residents in long-term care: a case-controlled study of individuals in nursing homes and assisted living in Washington State
(1996) Franks, Jeannette Searle
The major purpose of this study was to determine some of the differences in selected variables of cost and quality of life between 86 individuals 65 years old or older, matched on a scale of functional ability, living in nursing homes and in assisted living facilities. Nursing homes are the least preferred and most costly form of long-term care. Although case study and anecdotal evidence suggests that for some nursing-home-eligible individuals, assisted living may be a more desirable and more economical option, little empirical evidence is available. This study randomly selected 10 nursing homes and 10 assisted living facilities in a three-county area; 10 residents from each selected facility who had lived there for three or more months were then randomly selected, and then individuals were matched in pairs with one from each type of facility, according to similar scores (within 2 points, 0 to 100 possible) on the SIP-NH. Individuals who fell within the potential matching range on the functional disability scale were also administered a quality of life instrument, the Ferrans & Powers QLI, as well as a global question regarding their perception of their quality of life. Data on all monthly costs were obtained.Matched pair T-tests performed on the data regarding cost and quality of life from the 43 pairs matched on the Sickness Impact Profile for Nursing Homes (SIP-NH) found the differences in scores on quality of life measures were not statistically significant, and that monthly costs of more than twice as much for nursing home residents compared to assisted living residents were statistically significant.
Trauma and healing: the construction of meaning among survivors of the Cambodian holocaust
(1996) Morelli, Paula Toki Tanemura
The purpose of this study was to examine Cambodian Holocaust survivors' experiences of trauma, suffering and adaptation, and to explore what part these personal constructions based on experience played in their healing. Utilizing constructivist and critical theoretical lenses survivor accounts of trauma and suffering were analyzed within a larger structural context of: historic geo-political events, culture, class, ethnic and gender factors, economic and political structures, ideology and praxis.Cambodian survivors, ranging in age from 30 to 60 were interviewed in three to six, one and a half to two hour sessions, using open-ended and semi-structured questions. The interviews were conducted over a six month period between 1995 and 1996.From a larger sample of an on-going study, a purposeful sample of four survivor-cases was selected for analysis using critical social research and qualitative research methods. The analysis yielded concepts useful for sensitizing social and health services practice as well as health and mental health policy. (1) The survivors in this study suffered from: cultural bereavement, physical illness, pain of unknown etiology, posttraumatic stress disorder, major depression, or combinations of physical and psychological illness. (2) Their suffering was obdurate and continuous, despite years of Western bio-medical and/or traditional Cambodian treatment. They sought help from sources that were respectful of this need for long-term care. (3) Within the biomedical system, some physicians regard the symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder as without medical basis, discredit the sufferer and make unrealistic demands for short-term recovery. (4) A survivor who was able to associate his suffering with the collective pain of his countrymen was able to use this externalizing construction as a source of strength and meaning. (5) The systemic lack of understanding of how the geo-political history of Southeast Asia is related to social structures, such as immigration-refugee policy and the Western biomedical system, operates to isolate the phenomenon of trauma and suffering, and thereby, perpetuates the oppression of refugees.
An examination of neighborhood context and risk for youth violence
(1998) Herrenkohl, Todd Ian
Analyses combined measures from the 1990 census for Seattle with data from the Seattle Social Development Project (SSDP), a developmental longitudinal study of health-risk behaviors among urban youths. In the first set of analyses, multi-level models were constructed using the HLM program of Bryk, Raudenbush, & Congdon (1996). These models addressed the nested structure of individuals within neighborhoods (defined by block groups) and examined relationships between context measures derived from the 1990 census and individual-level outcomes. In the second set of analyses, standard logistic regression models were used to examine relationships between risk factor constructs and violence outcome measures.Results from the multi-level regression models revealed that youths' perceptions of neighborhood disorganization and attachment to neighborhoods varied between block group areas and that variation was associated with levels of neighborhood disadvantage, measured by the 1990 census. Residential stability, a second census measure, was also related to youths' levels of attachment to their neighborhoods. Further, analyses showed that neighborhood disadvantage may be related to gang involvement and violence during adolescence.Logistic regressions were used to estimate the prediction of violence (at ages 15, 16, and 18) using risk factor variables, all from youth-reports, representing the neighborhood, family, school, and peer domains. On the basis of theory, variables were entered hierarchically by blocks according to their domain of influence. An examination of the overall contribution of each domain to the prediction of violence and the unique effect of each risk factor was carried out. Analyses revealed that in all three hierarchical regressions (i.e. for violence at each age) each block contributed significantly to the overall prediction of violence. It was also determined that variables with unique effects were similar for violence at ages 15 and 16. Similarity between models was less apparent for violence at age 18. Generally, relationships between risk factors and violence at ages 16 and 18 remained consistent after controlling for violence at age 15. Implications of these findings for preventive interventions are discussed.
Cognitive factors in sexually aggressive children
(1996) Burton, David L
This project explored a Social Cognitive Model applied to 6-12 year old male sexually aggressive children in Washington state care. The 37 sexually aggressive children's results on cognitive measures (Children's Knowledge of Abuse Questionnaire, Social Problem Solving Measure, Matson's Evaluation of Social Skills for Youth) and behavioral measures (Child Behavior Checklist, Eyeberg's Inventory, Child Sexual Behavior Inventory), were compared to physically aggressive children (17) and non aggressive children (15) also in state care using development and Intelligence Quotient as mediator variables (Vineland Inventory, Inventory of Piaget's Developmental Tasks and Kaufman's Brief Intelligence Test). The sexually aggressive and physically aggressive children have distortions about their aggressive behaviors. The sexually aggressive children have some distortions regarding touching. Cognitive deficiencies were not found.
A State Mental Health Division Office of Consumer Affairs program evaluation: stakeholder views, efficacy and desired directions
(1996) Schantz, David L
This dissertation presents the results of a comprehensive stakeholder survey regarding a consumer staffed, State Mental Health Division (MHD) Office of Consumer Affairs (OCA). Part of a larger comprehensive 3 year program evaluation of the OCA, the investigation collected and analyzed both qualitative and quantitative field data from mental health consumers, family members and service providers about the office. Twelve stakeholder subgroups, represented by 345 individuals, were interviewed utilizing a quantitative-qualitative protocol. The range of stakeholder opinion and level of stakeholder knowledge were established regarding the OCA and its activities. Low levels of state-wide stakeholder knowledge and awareness of the OCA were found as was significant, broad based support regarding the mission of the office. Significant differences were found between the expectations and desires of mental health consumers and providers regarding extent of knowledge of the OCA and opinions concerning, among other issues, advocacy activities on the part of the OCA. Stakeholder observations of the successful OCA sponsored Consumer Ad-Hoc Committee are presented. Information from the wider evaluation provides background and explanation to illustrate survey findings. Lessons drawn are applicable to other similar offices across states and systems. Data based recommendations are made to address significant outcomes and process deficits revealed by the evaluation. The national and historical context of the OCA and other offices of consumer affairs are also briefly described.
Caregiver coping with dementia: relationships among patient characteristics, caregiver coping styles, and consequences of caregiving
(1990) Ramsey, Nina Sharp
Although little is known about how the changes that accompany Alzheimer's disease (DAT) affect caregiver coping, depression, and burden, interventions focused on improving caregiver coping with DAT are strategies widely used by gerontologists. This study reports relationships among DAT patient's need for assistance, supervision, or vigilance, rate of DAT patient decline in cognition, functional health, and physical health, and caregiver coping, depression, and burden. Data were drawn from a 1984 to 1987 longitudinal study of 59 DAT patients and their caregivers. Fourteen subjects were still caregiving and willing to be re-interviewed in 1989 in order to describe caregiver coping qualitatively, with special attention to the effectiveness and stability of their coping responses and religious coping activities. Although findings are descriptive in nature and limited by small sample size, results suggest patients' need for assistance is linked to increases in problem-focused coping (p $<$.01) and burden (p $<$.001) in caregivers. Patients' need for supervision is associated with increases in caregivers' problem-focused coping (p $<$.001) and burden (p $<$.001). Rapid patient functional health decline is associated with increases in caregivers burden (p $<$.01). Results suggest it is the "here and now" DAT patient problems experienced by the caregiver, rather than rates of change in symptoms, that influence caregiver coping and burden, while caregivers' depression is unrelated to DAT patient characteristics. Relationships between coping styles and depression and burden partially support previous caregiver coping studies. Caregivers' emotion-focused coping is associated with more depression (p $<$.01) and subjective burden (p $<$.001). Caregivers' problem-focused coping is related to more subjective burden (p $<$.001) and unrelated to depression. Qualitative results suggest that these caregivers cope in diverse ways. Their most frequently reported coping strategies are religious coping activities. These caregivers judge their coping strategies to be effective and stable over time. Caregivers' comments suggest that acceptance should be conceptualized as an outcome of successful adaptation rather than as a way of coping. Results are related to a suggested model of caregiver stress and coping. Implications for social welfare policy and practice, with suggestions for future study, are discussed.
Identifying risk factors for homelessness among people living with HIV disease
(1996) Keenan, Lynn D
As the HIV virus spreads into America's most economically vulnerable communities, the US faces a low-cost housing shortage that leaves more than 40% of all poor people unable to find affordable housing. It is estimated that up to half of all HIV+ Americans need some form of housing assistance during the duration of their illness. In the midst of this, housing planners and service providers find it necessary to identify those at greatest risk of poor housing outcomes, including homelessness, to direct the largest portion of housing resources toward their situation. The study presented here was undertaken in service to that task.Utilizing survey data from 2,856 people with HIV disease, the study seeks to identify those respondents at greatest risk of homelessness and those characteristics that might inform the development of housing and related services for them. Logistic regression analysis identifies the available variables that significantly increase respondents' odds of homelessness. Of income, gender, race/ethnicity, age, HIV status, household composition, the presence of children, hard drug use, history of incarceration, and sexual orientation, respondents' income, hard drug use, and household composition appear to most increase respondents' odds of homelessness. Very poor respondents who use hard drugs and live alone are the most likely to be homeless.Regression findings and respondents' previous history of homelessness are used to construct a risk-of-homelessness spectrum that classifies each respondent at low, moderate, or high risk of homelessness. Men of color and women are over-represented in the high risk group. Thirty-seven percent of the respondents in the high risk group report using hard drugs. Women in this group are particularly likely to use: 54% use hard drugs, 26% of whom have minor children in the home. Among respondents in the high risk group who were asked if they had traded sex for a place to stay, 42% indicated they had, and 44% of respondents asked about previous incarceration indicated they had been incarcerated in the past. Implications of these findings for social work practice, policy, and research are discussed in the final chapter of the study.
Risk and protective factors of problem behaviors among ethnic minority adolescents
(2001) Choi, Yoonsun
A significant proportion of youth in the United States experience problem behaviors such as interpersonal violence, delinquency, substance use, and risky sexual behavior. These problem behaviors are highly and positively associated with negative mental health and other developmental outcomes. While many studies of youth outcomes have focused on ethnic majority youth, studies that have included ethnic minority youth frequently have neglected ethnic groups other than African- and Latin Americans. Consequently, although Asian Americans and mixed race youth are one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the U.S., they remain as the least studied groups of people. Similarly, a large number of ethnic minority youth are immigrants, yet there is little understanding about how immigrant status affects development.There is a dearth of theoretically guided research upon which to base the development of appropriate interventions to prevent or reduce problem behaviors among minority youth. This dissertation research will elaborate and test factors particularly pertinent to minority youth development upon which later preventive interventions can be based. This study utilizes the Social Development Model, a theory that integrates a risk and protective factor approach to explain behavior problems in youth.The dissertation research seeks to describe and compare rates and patterns of substance use and violent behaviors by race/ethnic groups, immigrant status, and by age, gender, and low income status; investigates whether ethnic identity and/or the subjective experience of racial discrimination are associated with rates and patterns of problem behaviors; test the Social Development Model (SDM) with an emphasis on the model's exogenous variables to explain problem behaviors among youth; and determine whether the SDM explains problem behaviors among youth equally well across different ethnic/racial groups and for immigrant and non-immigrant youth.There is a need to better understand the factors and mechanisms that are contributing to maladaptive developmental processes, as well as to understand those factors and mechanisms that buffer risk. Knowledge from this study can lead to the development of appropriate interventive targets for each race/ethnic group that reduce problem behaviors and enhance resiliency among ethnic minority youth.
Immigrant cultural citizenship: construction of a multi-ethnic Asian American community
(2006) Kang, Hye-Kyung Stella
This dissertation examines the role of cultural citizenship in the construction of immigrant community identity. Immigrant cultural citizenship is the process by which immigrant individuals create a legitimized social space for themselves while contesting and negotiating hegemonic discourses that seek to define and limit their subject positions. This study explores immigrant community identity development by examining discursive constructions of the International District (ID) of Seattle, WA. Applying post-structural and post-colonial theoretical frameworks, this study investigates the particular social, political, and historical contexts within which the discourse of a "multi-ethnic Asian American community" arose through an example that is located in specific geographical and historical positions.This study traces the intertextual chains through which the subject position of the ID was and is produced, deployed, and changed via a critical discourse analysis of mainstream and community newspapers, in-person interviews with community members, community history archives, and government documents. The data illuminate three major challenges that impact the evolving process of community identity development. The population changes, influenced by immigration policy changes, resulted in the influx of new ethnic groups in the ID. The urban development boom in Seattle which swept through many traditionally ethnic communities changed local geographies. Forces of globalization bring increased transnationalism and may alter the ways that capital is invested in the community and used by its members.The analysis of data suggests that the ID as a subject is produced and sustained not through a consistent and stable articulation of a singular identity but through multiple, contested, and contingent articulation of history, contribution, and change. Similarly, the ID is not produced through unilateral regulatory control of the government or other regimes of a civil society; nor is it completely produced by the inventions of the community members 'outside' those controls. Rather, it is constructed through constant processes of engagement, contestation, and negotiation between the community and the various larger social and political structures, as well as among community members themselves. The discursive changes produced by such processes illuminate the possibility that immigrant communities may be able to change the discourses that produce them.
Untold stories: an interpretive study of older women sexually abused as children
(1996) Farris, Martha Lynne
Although nearly five million women over age 55 are estimated to have been sexually abused as children, little is known of their experience. This interpretive study attempts to understand the effects of child sexual abuse for older women and their ways of coping with it. Audio taped life stories were collected from 12 women, ages 57 to 75. Tapes were transcribed and narrative analysis was used to examine the effects of the abuse and women's ways of coping within the lives of three individual women. Inductive analytic coding was used to examine those issues across the total sample.Results from this study indicate that older women experienced the same effects from the abuse as younger women, including negative feelings about the self, guilt, self-blame, sexual problems, and lost opportunities. Gender roles for these older women complicated the abuse, negatively impacting self-esteem, self-development, and feelings of justice. The experience of sexual abuse in childhood resonated across women's lives, complicating developmental tasks of aging such as widowhood, changing sexual relations, and retirement. Many of these women endured the abuse as children and the effects of it as adults. They were acquiescent in relationships and silent about their feelings and thoughts. Several resolved the effects of the abuse and the limitations of gender roles by gaining their voice, making choices and overcoming the past. All of the women exhibited remarkable resourcefulness and some degree of resiliency. Self-in-relation theory is proposed as a theoretical framework to explain women's coping strategies.The organizational structure of the life stories and individual narrative structures reflect how three women coped with the abuse. They told stories of endurance, gaining a voice, and transcendence. Narrative analysis revealed the impact of the abuse throughout their lives. It facilitated an understanding of what the abuse meant to each woman and how she coped with it. How women told their stories was part of their story.

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