Living in the United States creates unique challenges in biliteracy and bilingualism for the Arab family. While extant literature provides insight into the literacy interactions and experiences of families from many other cultures now living in the U.S. , there is next to nothing regarding the Arab family literacy experience. Thus, knowledge about the literacy activities Arab families engage in as they gain access to and knowledge of a new culture and language is important. The purpose of this study was to investigate and describe the literacy practices of the Arab families raising bilingual and biliterate children in the U.S. This study , using methodology based on ethnographic approaches, investigated the literacy events, behaviors and interactions which occurred within one Arab family over a 16-week period. A second group of participants were 5 other Arab families living in the U.S. Data sources included video and audio recordings, field notes, observations, journals, informal interviews, and artifacts of children's literacy. The researcher and the participants engaged as co-participants in the research. Findings showed that driving factors behind home literacy practices were religious beliefs and the imminence of return to the home country. Arab mothers were found to yield a heavy influence on the pursuit of literacy, as well as the consistency of literacy learning events in the home. Findings should contribute to helping parents of children with different cultural backgrounds and languages provide the most effective types of support in the home instruction to develop fluency in both the new and the primary language. Information gathered would also help teachers bring together these children with their peers and the subject matter to create a positive synergy wherein all learners can be successful.

No description available.

This thesis sketches out the history of Ottoman-Arab emigration from Greater Syria to the United States and to Argentina from the late nineteenth century up to the end of World War I, relying primarily (but not solely) on the related documents preserved in the Ottoman Archives. It depicts a wide range of this emigration history, including the scale and the number of immigrants, the causes behind emigration, the ways that emigrants managed to reach the Americas, the attitudes of Ottoman governments toward them, and the ways that emigrants adapted to their host societies. The thesis analyses the Ottoman-Arab emigration phenomenon from social and economic perspectives and in the larger context comprising other European population movements to the New World during this period, which has been called 'the Age of Mass Migrations'.

This study investigates the phenomenon of ethnic interest groups as domestic sources of influence on the making of foreign policy on a cross-national basis. The attempt is made first to develop a framework for comparing theoretically the role of ethnic groups in various governmental systems. Once completed, the various conceptual assumptions are applied to the activities of domestic ethnic interest groups in the United States and Canada concerned with policy for the Middle East and the Arab-Israel conflict. The focus is primarily on the American and Canadian pro-Israel lobbies during the period between October 1973 and September 1982. Data for domestic Arab ethnic constituencies are also considered where relevant, but more as logical counter-points to the North American Jewish communities than as bases for full and complete cross-ethnic comparison. The principal objective of this study is to compare the political influence of two interest groups of the same faith and fundamental purpose but of different systems of government and political cultures.

No description available.