The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the correlation between students’ literacy skills in grade three, and their home literacy environment, as well as parents’ socioeconomic and socio-cultural status. I intend to discuss the correlation between literacy skills and students’ home literacy environment, including multimodal text and electronic resources such as tablets and computers. I also intend to discuss students’ literacy skills in relation to their parents’ country of birth, level of education and profession. My method consists of a parent questionnaire and student results from the National Test in Swedish as a Native Language in grade three. Two classes from two different schools participate in the study. I am using Cronbachs alpha to calculate the internal consistency, in other words how well my questions measure the same thing. I utilize the chi-square method to calculate the probability for a certain correlation. To analyze the results, I am using Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and cultural capital. My results show no significant connection between literacy and home literacy environment, socioeconomic background or parents’ country of birth. However, I am able to detect a tendency which argues that children with well educated parents achieve higher scores on the National Test than students with low educated parents. The tendency indicates that children with well educated parents have more developed literacy skills than children with low educated parents.

Background: Latinos are disproportionately affected by diabetes. Studies examining acculturation and diabetes prevalence among Latinos have used diverse operational definitions of acculturation and have reported conflicting results. Objective: To examine the association between two acculturation measures--country of birth and predominant language spoken--with the prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM) in adult U.S. Latinos. Methods: We used data from the 2007-2008 and 2009-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys , including Latinos aged 20-80 years old (n=3,214). We examined the association of country of origin (U.S.-born vs. non-U.S.-born) and predominant language spoken (English vs. Spanish) with diabetes. Covariates included in logistic regression analysis included, age, education, income, marital status, and BMI. Results: After adjusting for age, education, income, and marital status, Latinos born in the United States and those speaking English as their predominant language demonstrated greater odds of having diabetes than their foreign-born and Spanish-speaking counterparts (OR 1.42, 95% CI 1.05-1.93 and OR 1.35, 95% CI 1.06-1.74, respectively). This positive association between acculturation and diabetes prevalence was mediated in part by body mass index. Conclusion: Latinos with high levels of acculturation--defined by country of birth and predominant language spoken--have an increased risk of diabetes compared to those with low levels of acculturation. Further research should explore the complex underlying processes that explain differences in the odds of DM by acculturation status. Our findings may inform clinicians and public health professionals in implementing interventions to prevent diabetes in U.S. Latinos, who are at high-risk for this disease. / Epidemiology

This thesis analyzes the economic performance of recent European immigrants to Canada. The data source for the analysis is the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada, which followed immigrants entering Canada during 2000-2001 for four years. The purpose of this research is to examine the general category of European immigrants by region and country of birth in order to better understand the experience of immigrants in the Canadian labour market during their first years of settlement. Several important differences are observed within the European immigrant population in terms of economic performance. While Southern and Eastern European immigrants appear to have a slow start, their labour market performance improves rapidly, rivalling Western European immigrants after four post-immigration years. Immigrant category, education, and home language have a significant effect on overall labour market performance of recent European immigrants to Canada.

Using a quasi-experimental approach, this study analyses the effects of a specific exogenous shock on ethnic discrimination in Sweden by treating the terror attacks of 2015 in Paris as a natural experiment. Our research is based on cross-sectional survey data published by the European Social Survey (ESS). Slightly deviating from the traditional analytical approach, we observe individuals’ perception of being discriminated against rather than factual discrimination, thus contributing by analysing a common topic from a different perspective. We find that immigrants generally have a higher probability of perceiving themselves as discriminated against compared to natives. Subsequently, the probability increases further for Middle Eastern immigrants, females and for those who have experienced unemployment for at least three months.  When implementing a Difference-in-Difference method we find that average differences in perceived discrimination between immigrants and natives, but also between males and females, had increased after the terror attacks in Paris. Contrary to our expectations, our results indicate that Middle Eastern immigrants did not feel more discriminated after the terror attacks. However, the perception of being discriminated against is indicated to have increased for men. Nonetheless, in absence of statistically significant treatment effects we cannot conclude a relationship between the changes in average differences and the exogenous shock, suggesting that that the changes might be attributed to other factors.

Aim:  The present study aimed to determine if foreign-born women from different countries of birth have a greater risk of GDM compared to Swedish-born women and to what extent income might mediate this relationship. Methods: This cross-sectional type study included 835279 women, of which 151,642 were foreign-born and 683637 were Swedish-born women who gave birth to their first singleton child in Sweden between 1997 to 2016. Register data from the Swedish Medical Birth Register, the Swedish Total Population Register, and the Longitudinal Integrated Database for Health Insurance and Labour Market Studies was used. Multiple Logistic Regression analysis and the Karlson-Holm-Breen methods were used to explore the relationship between GDM and country of birth and to estimate the proportion of the association explained by income. Results:  Foreign-born women demonstrated higher odds ratios for developing GDM than Swedish-born women. South East Asian women showed the highest risk of GDM (OR: 4.40, CI: 4.01-4.81) followed by Africa (OR: 3.42, CI: 3.07-3.81) and Middle East & North Africa (OR: 2.92, CI: 2.67-3.20) respectively. Income partially explained the risk of GDM differences between foreign-born and Swedish-born women, accounting for 26% of the association. However, the proportion explained by income varies from 8.9% to 23.0% by country of birth. Conclusions:  A disparity exists in the risk of GDM based on country of birth, and Foreign-born women are more likely to have GDM and need additional support, including prenatal care and treatment. Since income only partially explains this association, other factors that may explain the association need to be explored.