This dissertation explores the relationahip of personal narrative and the formation of place-identity in northern New Mexico Hispanic villages. In particular it identifies linguistic and discursive strategies that are emphasized within naturallly occurring and institutional speech-events in the villages, households and schools. These linguistic strategies contribute to a larger trajectory of language socialization that is somewhat particular to the region. some of these linguistic strategies include the use of regional Spanish lexicon and syntax as well as linguistic competence in certain areas of cultural content.

På samma sätt som saker och ting kategoriseras, grupperar sig människor till ”vi” och ”dem”. Tidigare forskning har visat att både en gärningsman och ett vittnes etniska ursprung har avgörande betydelse för hur en gärningsman bedöms vid ett brott. Denna studie undersökte om deltagarnas och gärningsmannens etniska ursprung inverkade på attityden till att vittna vid ett brott. Studien var en kvasiexperimentell enkätundersökning där sammanlagt 166 skolelever i årskurs 9, varav 81 av utländskt ursprung fick besvara påståenden utifrån en fiktiv berättelse då gärningsmannens etnicitet manipulerades. Ingen skillnad kunde påvisas mellan de olika etniska gruppernas attityd till att vittna beroende på gärningsmannens etnicitet. Dock påvisades en skillnad mellan de olika etniska gruppernas attityd till att vittna oberoende gärningsmannens etnicitet. Således gav hypoteserna inget stöd. Resultatet kan bero på att skoleleverna i studien kom från heterogena skolor, och på så vis kunnat utveckla en social samhörighet med varandra.

The Swedish School Board reported in 2007 that students with a foreign background to a larger extent than Swedish students leave school without grades in one or more subjects in the ninth grade. The report also reveals that during the year 2007/2008 17 percent of elementary school pupils had the right to home language instruction. Students with an other mother tongue than Swedish are considered a separate group that doesn’t perform as well in school. My study investigates how eleven Arabic-speaking ninth-graders at age 15-16 perceive the importance of their mother tongue for learning and identity development. To this purpose I have conducted semi-structured interviews – one comprising six students in group and five individual – in a school in one of the suburbs of Stockholms. The theoretic point of departure for this study has been the social constructivist perspective. The result shows unambiguously that the students consider their mother tongue to be important for the learning and development of the second language. It is principally spoken Arabic that is used for attaining knowledge – the written language, which in Arabic is quite different from the spoken language, has its greatest significance in home language instruction. The result of the study also shows two informants identify themselves as arabs since Arabic is their mother tongue, while the rest of the students identify themselves with the Arabic culture, which constitutes a construction of ethnicity and contributes to demarcations between us and them. LyssnaLäs fonetisk Ordbok - Visa detaljerad ordbok

The purpose of this study was to explore how level of cultural identity was related to help-seeking attitudes among Asian students and to compare between Asian and Caucasian students. A total of 367 undergraduate university students participated in this study, of whom 184 (127 female and 57 male) were Asians and 183 (137 female, 44 male and 2 unspecified gender) were Caucasians. A weak positive correlation was found between Asian cultural identity and positive help-seeking attitudes (r = .158, p = .034, n = 181) (2-tailed); no significant correlation existed between cultural identity and negative help-seeking attitudes (r = .077, p = .305, n = 178) (2-tailed); no significant differences were found among: (a) high Caucasian cultural identity, (b) low Caucasian cultural identity Asian groups, and (c) Caucasian group for both positive help-seeking attitudes (F(2, 186) - .612), p = .544). Mixed results were found indicating that there was no easily identifiable trend between cultural identity and positive and negative help-seeking attitudes. Theoretical, clinical, and research implications are discussed.

The goal of this thesis was to use an ecological framework to examine how individual and community characteristics interact and are related to bullying and victimization. Data were collected from over 20 000 students in Grades 6 to 10, living in 436 communities as part of the 2009/2010 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) Survey, from Geographical Information Systems (GIS) data, and from 2006 Canadian Census data. First, we explored the individual and community factors that contributed to the power differential in bullying in electronic and traditional contexts. Bullying and victimization were primarily related to the characteristics of individuals that affected interpersonal power dynamics, but some community factors were also associated with decreased likelihood of victimization. Second, we examined how community ethnicity characteristics affected likelihood of racial bullying and victimization in different youth according to their individual ethnicity. Individuals in the ethnic minority in a community were more likely to be racially victimized than individuals of the same ethnicity in a community in which they were the majority. The findings from both studies help to shed light on power and group dynamics and the relative importance of individual and community characteristics in bullying involvement. / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2012-08-31 14:15:59.827

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Since the end of the Cold War, considerable attention has been paid to "ethnic" or "identitive" conflicts. Some scholars argue that these conflicts tend to draw in 'kin' states who support the belligerent(s) with whom they share identitive affinities. This thesis examines such involvement, based on identitive affinities, in ethnopolitical conflicts. In particular, it analyses the pattern of involvement of one country: Iran. Specifically, it looks at Iran's policy towards five conflicts: Afghanistan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Iraq, South Lebanon and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. / This thesis argues that kinship is only a permissive cause of involvement while the presence and scope of involvement are determined by other factors, in the following order: security threats, non-security interests (influence, economic interests), and ideology. Proximity is of great importance as security threats usually emanate from neighbours and not from far-away enemies.

This thesis reviews the anthropological approaches to the study of the ethnic minorities in Southwest China. It sets out to demonstrate the limitations engendered by studies focusing on the process of ethnicity and the relative absence of 'ordinary local peasants' (villagers not involved in the dialogue of ethnicity) in anthropological research of villages in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan. Furthermore, this paper reveals the need for in-depth local studies in order to understand the impact of ethnic tourism on local identity construction.

This thesis is a study of the gender/sexuality construction in the Winnipeg Beach resort area in the period between 1900 and 1965. I argue that the resort functioned as a venue for the conduct of heterosexual relations in the 20th century and saw the transition between three distinctive systems of courtship during that period. These systems of courtship shaped the social and physical space of the resort area creating three distinctive periods at Winnipeg Beach: the first period lasted from 1900 to approximately 1915; the second from 1915 to the mid 1950s; and the third from the 1950s on. I also argue that the Canadian Pacific Railway company played a distinctive role in the Winnipeg Beach environment by actively promoting the area as a heterosexual contact point. This thesis relies heavily on oral interviews to illustrate how people constructed the Winnipeg Beach environment during the 20th century.

This qualitative study aims to describe and understand the cultural identities of people of "mixed" backgrounds whose mother comes from one racial, ethnic or national background and whose father comes from another background. In-depth, individual interviews were conducted with nine people of "mixed" backgrounds in order to understand the meanings that particular racial, ethnic or national labels have for them and how those meanings are constructed. My analysis is shaped by the works of Hall (1996, 2003), Taylor (1989, 1992) and Bourdieu (1986, 1990) among others. The participants claimed multiple labels in ambivalent ways. They spoke about what they know or do not know about the culture, connections to people and places, languages and customs, physical features and values. They take on various positionings depending on the discourses that are available and the meanings that they negotiate in their daily encounters. I conclude with the implications the findings may have for policymakers, identity politics and educators and with future research directions.