The central problem of this dissertation is the acculturation of Barbadian agriculture laborers who seasonally work in Canada. Several years ago, the author became aware of the squalid conditions in which Barbadian migrants worked. As he formed his opinion of Canada's rural slums or field ghettos he increasingly became concerned with what these rural slums meant to the migrants.This interest lead to a focus on acculturation processes and a very careful study of the Barbadian value system and how those values were related to the life style Barbadians could pursue by continuing to work in Canada. Acculturation was examined within the contexts of culture, social structure, and personality. Social structure refers to patterns of group formation and factors responsible for such patterns. Culture refers to values and ideas held by people, while personality is conceived in terms of the emotional and psychic processes of individual persons. Acculturation is frequently viewed as a process which occurs when two or more previously separated cultures come into a patterned form of contact to a degree sufficient to produce significant changes in either or both societies. In this study acculturation was utilized in a somewhat different sense, since the author looked at a situation where a selected group of Barbadian agriculture workers had sporadic but patterned and ongoing contact as a consequence of seasonal labor migration. With respect to this study acculturation means the acceptance and internalization by the migrant worker of a set of Canadian beliefs and values and thus the modification of the migrants' customary behavior.This customary behavior is based upon five dominant and traditional Barbadian male values which include having and caring for a wife and family, keeping girl friends, owning the land on which his house is situated, owning the house and working. The degree to which Barbadian workers internalize specific Canadian values, primarily the work ethic, was analyzed in relation to these Barbadian values.This was accomplished by conducting intensive interviews in Canada and in Barbados with fifteen Barbadian agriculture workers. Through questionnaires and by participant observation, cultural data and personality data were collected. These data fell into several classes such as biographies, genealogies, household family information, aspiration levels, attitudes towards sexuality, religion, the work ethic, world leaders, entertainers, music, work skills, philosophy of man and conceptions of present and ultimate success.The author demonstrated through two analytical perspectives, namely a systems explanation and an actor oriented explanation that two models of acculturation emerge for Bajan agriculture workers who seasonally are employed in Canada. One group of migrants shows a significant degree of acculturation. These individuals have internalized the Canadian work ethic; rejected the major traditional Bajan values concerning women; have few dependents and these dependents require a minimal demand on resource allocation; become decision makers since they hold a high social position and are culturally and structurally flexible; play a nonkin and universalistic role in life; and develop into entrepreneurs.The other migrants in the author's opinion show little acculturation. These individuals have rejected the Canadian work ethic; adhered to the traditional male value system; have many dependents and these dependents require a maximum demand on resource allocation; are structured since they hold a high social position and are culturally and structurally inflexible; play a kin-oriented and particularistic role in life; and remain employees.

Filipino internationally educated nurses (IENs) constitute a major portion of the IENs in Manitoba and Canada. Acculturating to Canada can be difficult and can affect job satisfaction and retention. The focus of this research is on Filipino IENs’ acculturation to Canada, sources of workplace support and perceived job satisfaction. Berry’s (1997) acculturation framework guided the study. A cross-sectional descriptive-correlational method was used. An on-line survey resulted in a study sample of 124 participants. Quantitative and qualitative analysis techniques were used to determine relationships among the variables and to identify recommendations to assist other IENs. Job satisfaction was positively associated with one dimension of acculturation and informal sources of workplace support by immigrants and Canadian co-workers, administration, and the union. When these independent variables were entered into a multiple regression model, only administration support significantly predicted job satisfaction. Implications for nursing practice, leadership and research are discussed.

Quantitative and qualitative data from the 2002 Latino Adolescent Transition Study were used to explore differences in acculturative stress and gang involvement between foreign-born and U.S.-born Latino middle school students. Regression analyses showed significant interactions between discrimination stress and immigration status as well as adaptation stress and immigration status. U.S.-born youths were significantly more likely to be gang-involved if they experienced discrimination stress. They were also less likely to be gang-involved if they experienced high adaptation stress. A minority of primarily foreign-born youths identified economic inequality and prejudicial attitudes as factors that differentiated them from Americans. Those reporting economic inequality were more likely to be gang-involved than those who did not. These findings suggest that the origins of gang involvement could differ between the two immigrant generations. Whereas U.S.-born Latinos may be more negatively affected by discrimination, foreign-born Latinos may be more sensitive to their comparatively low economic status.

While extensive research has supported the negative impacts of psychological control (i.e., intrusive parenting behaviors that restrain a child’s self-expression) on child adjustment (e.g., Barber et al., 2005), less has systematically investigated predictors of psychological control, especially in the context of immigrant families. Soenens and Vansteenkiste (2010) suggested that parents are more likely to engage in psychological control when their basic psychological needs are frustrated. According to Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 2002), the need for autonomy, relatedness, and competence are essential for well-being. I hypothesized that lower satisfaction of the need for competence and relatedness, each indicated by a number of stressors, would predict increasing psychological control over time. Participants were 182 immigrant Chinese families (2/3 randomly recruited) with adolescent children. Family members were assessed two times, 18 months apart. Results of hierarchical multiple regressions revealed that, despite high stability in psychological control over time, low parent-child agreement, high perceived discrimination, and high language stress predicted increases in psychological control over time for mothers. In addition, low marital satisfaction predicted increasing psychological control for newcomer fathers, and high interpersonal acculturation stress predicted increasing psychological control for fathers who had been in Canada for a longer period. Implications for practice and polity are discussed. / Graduate / 0621

This thesis examines how some American and Burmese forms of Buddhism in the Bible Belt today share common ground through a process of adaptation. Exploring tradition and change, I reveal how change often requires adaptation. Utilizing ethnographic research conducted in south central Kentucky and middle Tennessee, I argue that some Burmese and American forms of Buddhism in the Bible Belt experience change through three aspects of adaptation. These consist of reduction, syncretism, and preservation. I explore these three aspects through interviews and observations of immigrant Burmese Buddhist monks and American Buddhist meditation leaders. In doing so, I also examine the various ways in which the southern American landscapes affect change within traditional Burmese Buddhism through a process of Americanization. As a result of Theravada Buddhism’s relocation, change in Buddhism can also be seen in the American form, which is believed by many to becoming its own unique school of Buddhism. This can be found occurring in the regions of south central Kentucky and middle Tennessee. Preservation of tradition, an element of adaptation to Americanization, is a theme that frequently arose during my time spent at immigrant Burmese Buddhist temples and through interviews conducted with two ethnic Burmese Buddhist monks. The tendency to reduce Buddhism to a tradition of meditation was, on the other hand, a theme that came up in my conversations with two American meditation leaders. Their tendency to syncretize several schools of Buddhism is also explored. Being that the Buddhist subjects interviewed for this ethnography reside in the Bible Belt, their thoughts on Christianity and their interactions with Christians has also been included.

The present study explores the nature of coping mechanisms among South Asian Muslim immigrants living in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) who have been living in Canada between three to five years and experienced acculturation challenges and depression. Thirteen immigrants (seven females and six males) were interviewed to share their stories of personal experiences of settlement and acculturation in Canada. These interviews were analyzed using the grounded theory approach to develop themes and sub-themes to understand and interpret the data. The findings reveal that the research participants experienced a number of acculturation challenges (feeling different, feeling excluded, disruption in the family and material differences) which led to depression. During the course of their depression participants experienced certain events which became turning points in their lives, subsequently motivating them to change the way in which they live. They sought out particular kinds of support and coping mechanisms which helped them to settle, integrate and belong to the Canadian culture. The midlevel grounded theory that has emerged from participants’ responses is discussed. Recommendations are made to inform mental health professionals to incorporate these coping mechanisms in delivering culturally sensitive services to the target population. Study implications for theory, psychotherapy, counselling and other mental health practices and future research in the area of settlement and adaption of newcomers in Canada are discussed.

This dissertation explores Christian-Jewish relations in the decades prior to the watershed of 1391, when Christian mobs throughout Castile and the Crown of Aragon killed or, more often, forcibly converted many Jews. My research indicates that the explosive violence of 1391 was not the predictable, inevitable result of growing interfaith animosity in the Crown of Aragon but was sparked by developments in Castile. Because of the resultant converso problem many historians consider 1391 to be a turning point in Iberian history. Yet historians have not closely explored Jewish-Christian interaction in the crucial later fourteenth century, particularly not in the Crown of Aragon, and have assumed, wrongly I believe, that the period following the Black Death (1348) saw a steady deterioration in the Jews’ relations with Christians. The first three chapters of the dissertation deal with the “crises” that marked late fourteenth-century Catalonia and Aragon. In the first chapter I outline the long-term precedents - the Black Death and successive wars – of the economic crisis that would follow. The second chapter focuses on economic matters – the Jewish contribution to the economy as well as the impact of growing debt and the development of new credit mechanisms. Chapter three, in turn, focuses on the impact of increasing taxation on Jewish communities. The final three chapters explore ways in which Jews and Christians coped with crises: chapter four deals with sources of conflict within Jewish communities, chapter five with conflict between Jews and Christians, while the last chapter looks at conversion as a way of coping with the crises of the fourteenth century. Throughout, my research shows how Jews and their Christian neighbours and rulers developed strategies and means of coping with the effects of epidemic disease, famine, and frequent warfare. I pay particular attention at how the law became a mechanism for coping with the worsening of economic conditions.

Immigration has been a prominent aspect of Canada’s make-up, and the effects of immigration on the nation’s economy and society continue to be debated. Largely ignored in the grand narrative of Canada’s multicultural history is the recognition of a first wave of immigrants of Lebanese descent who settled in Canada at the turn of the twentieth century. Little is known about the adaptation process that these immigrants were compelled to navigate during their settlement experience on the newly developed northern frontier of Ontario. These pioneer immigrants were instrumental in building and supporting the northern Ontario communities that would become the foundation for Canada’s mining industry. This thesis argues that the domains of family, work, and community engagement were significant factors in facilitating the process of adaptation and acculturation of early Lebanese immigrants to Canada. Using a narrative phenomenological approach to research, the emphasis was on understanding the roles that family, work, and community played in facilitating acculturation and adaptation of early immigrants. These roles were evident in the life story testimonies of ten descendants of the pioneer immigrants who immigrated to northern Ontario circa 1900. The last surviving elders, children of the pioneer immigrants, ranged in age between 79 and 93 and were born and raised in the northern Ontario mining communities of Cobalt, New Liskeard, Haileybury, Kirkland Lake, Cochrane, and North Bay. Findings were organized under three analytic categories: a) the role of the traditional family b) early immigrants’ role in peddling and entrepreneurship c) community engagement. A documentary film entitled Finding a Silver Lining is included in Chapter Five of the thesis and serves as an annex to the written text. A form of digital storytelling, the film interweaves historical events from the time period between 1900 and 1930 with video clips from participant interviews, archival images, and recorded audio narration.

Empirical investigations of the prevalence and associated features of mental health issues in immigrant populations, have implicated acculturative stress as a potentially significant factor (Sam & Berry, 2010). Acculturative stress is associated with unemployment and underemployment among immigrant professional workers. The objective of the current investigation is to examine the prevalence and impact of acculturation, acculturative stress and coping in a sample of adult immigrant professionals. To provide a theoretical foundation for the study, the following conceptualizations were used: Berry’s (2006) four pronged definition of acculturation; The Stress and Coping Model; and the Social Cognitive Career Theory. Using a grounded theory, qualitative approach, in- depth interviews were used to examine the experiences of employment and acculturation among 20 professional immigrant workers in Canada. The findings of this study demonstrate that immigrant professional workers experience high levels of acculturative stress and utilize a number of coping strategies in relation to their employment trajectories.

Empirical investigations of the prevalence and associated features of mental health issues in immigrant populations, have implicated acculturative stress as a potentially significant factor (Sam & Berry, 2010). Acculturative stress is associated with unemployment and underemployment among immigrant professional workers. The objective of the current investigation is to examine the prevalence and impact of acculturation, acculturative stress and coping in a sample of adult immigrant professionals. To provide a theoretical foundation for the study, the following conceptualizations were used: Berry’s (2006) four pronged definition of acculturation; The Stress and Coping Model; and the Social Cognitive Career Theory. Using a grounded theory, qualitative approach, in- depth interviews were used to examine the experiences of employment and acculturation among 20 professional immigrant workers in Canada. The findings of this study demonstrate that immigrant professional workers experience high levels of acculturative stress and utilize a number of coping strategies in relation to their employment trajectories.