Historically, Liberian immigrants to the United States tended to be wealthy, educated individuals who wanted their children to acquire a Western education. The thirteen-year Liberian Civil War resulted in a new wave of U.S. migration. Many recent Liberian immigrants hold low socio-economic statuses. Some came to this country illiterate or with gaps in their education. This has created a cultural-educational gap amongst newly arrived Liberian immigrants. Many young Liberian immigrants struggle with educational and socialization issues. Studies have been conducted on the acculturation experiences of youths from Europe, Asia, and South and Central America. Yet to date, very little research has been done on the lives of African youth, especially those who emigrated from Liberia after the civil war. Their voices have been missing from the literature. This qualitative study provides narratives of four Liberian immigrant youths, between the ages of 18 and 22 years old, who formerly attended schools in Liberia, have lived in the U.S. less than ten years, and have attended at least three years of high school in the United States. Each youth was interviewed regarding their school, home, and community acculturation experiences. Excerpts of their interviews allow the reader to hear the participants' stories in their own words. Findings of the research from emergent themes indicate that the Liberian immigrant youths had many commonalities in their acculturation experiences such as: accent ridicule, bullying by peers, fights between African Americans and Liberian immigrants, and lack of appreciation for African cultures. The participants also struggled with ethnic identity issues, limited finances, and unjust educational and social systems in the United States. All four Liberian immigrants experienced some type of external and internal conflicts. A relationship was found between the possession of resiliency traits and the Liberian immigrant youths' abilities to handle conflicts and successfully acculturate to the United States. Two participants possessed strong resiliency characteristics such as autonomy, problem solving abilities, abilities to forgive, a sense of purpose and future, and creativity. They had favorable acculturation experiences, successfully graduating from high school. Two other participants lacked resiliency traits and had less favorable acculturation experiences. They succumbed to external and internal conflicts and dropped out of high school.

This study examined the influence of acculturation on disordered eating attitudes and behaviours of Afro-Caribbean women living in Canada. 134 Afro-Caribbean women, aged 18-35 years, completed an online questionnaire evaluating body satisfaction, two indices of acculturation, adaptation and maintenance, and disordered eating attitudes and behaviours. One domain of acculturation, Canadian cultural adaptation, was found to moderate the relation between body satisfaction and disordered eating: Those who most strongly identified with Canadian culture had the strongest relation between body dissatisfaction and disordered eating and attitudes. Disordered eating attitudes and behaviours were reported most often in individuals with high Canadian cultural adaptation and identification with Canadian values. Suggestions for further research and clinical implications are discussed

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

The purpose of this investigation is to trace the relationship between the atomistic personality and the social structures of the Chippewa-Ojibwa cultural-linguistic groups. The selection of this group was determined after an ethnographic survey of the urban Indians of Chicago at the American Indian Center during the summer of 1973. The basic hypothesis of this research is that the atomistic personality, which is a characteristic feature of the Chippewa-Ojibwa, has hindered native development of extensive social structures known historically beyond that of the individual family and that most of the social structures were results of externally initiated forces or influences.In delineating the types of social structures, I have described five temporal levels. In observing each of these levels, I have included the range of social structures (e.g. Family, tribal, inter-tribal) and the external historic factors.

Dans le cadre de ce projet de recherche, le processus d’acculturation a été étudié en l’occurrence du phénomène global du flux de migration des Congolais catholiques dans la region d’Ottawa- Gatineau. Nous avons cherché à comprendre la signification que peuvent donner les participants à la rencontre interculturelle lorsque la chorale congolaise catholique anime en rite zaïrois une messe hebdomadaire dans deux paroisses franco- canadiennes. Dans ce contexte d’interculturalité et d’intégration de nouveaux arrivants au Canada, nous nous sommes intéressés au phénomène culturel de l’animation de la chorale Lisanga de la communauté Congolaise-catholique Bondeko d’Ottawa-Gatineau. C’est ainsi que nous avons examiné cette expérience comme une rencontre dans un contexte d’acculturation et d’un espace de convivialité interculturelle. Pour aborder ce sujet, nous avons recueilli des données quantitatives, des données qualitatives et nous nous sommes attachés à l’analyse des données récoltées à partir de notre observation afin de faire ressortir les points d’influence interrelationnels. Nous nous sommes inspirées du modèle d’acculturation interactif (MAI) de Bourhis et coll. (1997) pour recueillir nos données quantitatives puisque ce modèle « tient compte de la réciprocité dynamique qui se crée lors d’une interaction entre deux cultures » (p. 370). De plus, nous avons présenté la notion de cosmopolitisme d’Appiah (2006) et la perspective culturelle sur la mondialisation d’Appadurai (2005) au modèle non seulement pour le bonifier, mais encore pour tenir compte de la réciprocité des énigmes face à une interaction interculturelle. Par le biais de notre étude, nous avons pu constater que cette rencontre interculturelle déclenche un processus d’acculturation interrelationnel de la chorale vers les communautés paroissiales et des communautés paroissiales vers la chorale. Même si certains maintiennent une certaine distance, et qu’il puisse y avoir des bris dans la communication interculturelle, l’événement a suscité la reconnaissance mutuelle chez plusieurs participants dans le cadre d’une activité de détente au sein de l’Église catholique. Ceci veut dire que notre recherche a pu faire avancer les connaissances dans le processus d’acculturation cosmopolite où chacun peut oser sortir de sa zone de confort et reconnaître la richesse de l’autre.

This study assesses race-ethnic group variations in acculturation experiences by identifying distinct acculturation classes, and investigates the role of these acculturation classes for mental health and group differences in mental health among Latino and Asian immigrants in the United States. Using 2002-2003 the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS), Latent Class Analysis is used to capture variations in immigrant classes (recent arrivals, separated, bicultural and assimilated), and OLS regressions are used to assess the link between acculturation classes and mental health. The findings reveal group differences in acculturation classes, whereby Latino immigrants were more likely to be in the separated class and recent arrivals class relative to Asian immigrants. For both Latinos and Asians, bicultural immigrants reported the best mental health, and separated immigrants and recent arrivals reported the worst mental health. While there was not a significant group difference in mental health at the bivariate level, controlling for acculturation classes revealed that Latinos report better mental health than Asians. Thus, Latino immigrants would actually have better mental health than their Asian counterparts if they were not more likely to be represented in less acculturated classes (separated class and recent arrivals) and/or as likely to be in the bicultural class as their Asian counterparts. Together the findings underscore the nuanced and complex nature of the acculturation process, highlighting the importance of race and ethnic group differences in this process, and demonstrate the role of acculturation classes for race-ethnic group differences in mental health.

The objective of this study was to understand the adaptation challenges and solutions experienced by immigrant coaches relocated to Canada. Ten high performance immigrant coaches were recruited, each completing a demographic questionnaire and partaking in an individual interview, providing insight into their experiences and cultural challenges. Results of the study were presented under two central themes: a) communication (language barriers and coach-athlete negotiations), and b) socialization (Canadian sport backdrop and views of sport in the immigrant coach’s home versus host country). A common adaptation solution was the importance of social support resources, with the immigrant coaches adjusting with less acculturative stress when a reciprocal relationship was developed between themselves and those they worked with. From this preliminary project there is an indication that sport psychology consultants (SPCs) should work with immigrant coaches, and coaches and athletes of the host country to foster this bi-directional learning processes, facilitating the coaches’ transition.

Typescript. / Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1982. / Bibliography: leaves [146]-152. / Photocopy. / xix, 215 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

This thesis has three primary objectives: to deconstruct the genealogical representation of Maori as a physical, unintelligent and savage people, to examine the role that education, and particularly physical education has played in perpetuating these representations by channelling Maori into physical curriculum areas, and to provide a functional kaupapa Maori philosophy of health and physical education. Postmodern theory underpins this theses because it encourages the search for multiple truths. In the colonial context, specifically, it provides an ideal tool by which to deconstruct the supposedly objective and preordained single truths of the colonisers. As I demonstrate, these single truths proved to be politically motivated and false. I also employ a Foucauldian understanding of European history to describe how European bourgeois nationalism and normalisation mutated into biopower, where the normalised Self was able to control, limit, describe and kill the Other. Travellers, missionaries and settlers transposed biopower from Europe to colonial New Zealand. Later, descriptions of the Other - or rather the juxtapositioning of the Self next to depictions of the primitive/anti Other - by anthropologists and historians aided this process. For the benefit of enlightened liberals, colonisation in New Zealand required a specific rhetoric to recast ruthless aspects of the process as mere anomalies on the road to Utopia. The modernist Western world validated colonisation under the guises of humanism and progress: the savage, primitive, pre-philosophical Maori provided the perfect contrast against the civilised, mature, philosophical Self. This genealogical representation formed the basis for Pakeha and Maori relations - and continues to do so. Representations of Maori as intrinsically unintelligent and physical, framed politically motivated educational policy. Initially, racist educational directives channelled Maori into physical vocations to provide labour for untamed rural New Zealand. In the 1960�s and �70�s, racially biased intelligence test were employed to debiltate Maori students by streaming them into non-academic classes. Later, the so-called empowering rhetoric of the neo-colonial era informed curricula by promoting diluted and sanitised versions of tikanga Maori such as Taha Maori, its physical education offshoot Te Reo Kori, and the current New Zealand Health and Physical Education Curriculum. Promoted under the liberal banner of biculturalism, these initiatives primarily benefited Pakeha and further misrepresented Maori culture as simplistic and irrelevent to contemporary society. Deconstructing grand narratives encourages researchers to construct knowledge outside such totalising truths. Thus, the theoretical approach and historical disseminations outlined above provide the foundations for part two of this thesis, which is a contribution towards Maori knowledge. Employing an interpretivist, indepth interviewing and collaborative narrative epistemology, I constructed korero with kaumatua and pakeke. These focus on health and physical education from a Maori position. Subsequent discussion examines certain aspects of each korero, to form a functional Maori philosophy of physical activity delineated by hauora, a Maori notion of holistic health. The discussion also outlines a number of issues surrounding the incorporation of tikanga Maori into mainstream education.

Healthy buyer-seller relationships are seen as a source of buyers’ satisfaction, commitment and loyalty. However, creating fruitful relationships with buyers is not always simple and straightforward for salespersons, especially when they seek to establish relationships with buyers from different cultures. Given the challenging nature of intercultural interaction, it becomes imperative for salespersons to identify the behaviours that will best suit such relationships. There is much evidence that salespersons frequently adopt acculturation behaviours in order to build relationships with buyers from different cultures, however the study of acculturation behaviours, though not unknown to marketing scholars, has not been well explored in relationship marketing domains. Studies on the impact of acculturation behaviours from the viewpoint of salespersons are particularly non-existent. The present study examines the limited available literature on this subject, and attempts to develop a better understanding of the concept of salespersons’ acculturation behaviours by proposing a model that explains the relationship between salespersons’ acculturation behaviours and buyers’ satisfaction as well as commitment in the banking context. The hypotheses are empirically tested in the present study by using appropriate statistical techniques. Results of the study indicate that the hypothesised model of salespersons’ acculturation behaviours fits the data well. The hypotheses focus on four dimensions of salespersons’ acculturation behaviours: assimilation, separation, integration and marginalisation. All of these dimensions, excluding separation, show an inter-relationship among the variables of the model and are confirmed with the right significance. Separation is not examined closely within the study as by its nature it is itself exclusionary of any form of interaction with buyers. Findings from the study indicate however that integration and assimilation positively affect buyers’ satisfaction, whereas marginalisation is negatively associated with buyers’ satisfaction. The results also reveal that buyers’ satisfaction has a mediation effect on the relationships between assimilation, integration, marginalisation and buyers’ commitment. The model also includes the constructs of interaction intensity, which is positively related to buyers’ satisfaction and buyers’ commitment. This study can be considered as an important step in establishing the linkage between salespersons’ acculturation behaviours and buyers’ satisfaction and commitment. It establishes that salespersons’ acculturation is needed to perform better and create sustainable intercultural interaction.